How the GOP Became God’s Own Party
Now that the GOP has been transformed by the rise of the South, the trauma of terrorism and George W. Bush’s conviction that God wanted him to be president, a deeper conclusion can be drawn: The Republican Party has become the first religious party in U.S. history.
Now that we have a President who has managed to delude convince himself that God has Chosen him to lead the American sheeple, joyless Fundamentalist Christians from sea to shining sea have also decided that God is on their side, and that righteousness is finally in power. Of course, the reality of the separation of Church and State seems to be lost on these arrogant, self-righteous souls. Too many Republicans, and too many Christians, honestly believe that God has determined that they are best-suited to wield the reigns of political power in this country. What gives these arrogant trolls the sense that God is on their side is beyond me.
For many of these Christian jihadists, the only thing better than the virtual theocracy they have succeed in creating would be an ACTUAL theocracy, a republic governed by Biblical rules (let’s just hope they’re talking about the NEW Testament, and not the OLD….), and Scripture would be the ultimate source of law and justice. This is all well and good- until you begin to think about the reality that a large proportion of the American sheeple are not even Christians. I, f’rinstance, am a Buddhist, and I sure as Hell don’t want Johnny Biblethumper marginalizing me simply because I don’t share his worldview.
We have had small-scale theocracies in North America before — in Puritan New England and later in Mormon Utah. Today, a leading power such as the United States approaches theocracy when it meets the conditions currently on display: an elected leader who believes himself to speak for the Almighty, a ruling political party that represents religious true believers, the certainty of many Republican voters that government should be guided by religion and, on top of it all, a White House that adopts agendas seemingly animated by biblical worldviews.
Indeed, there is a potent change taking place in this country’s domestic and foreign policy, driven by religion’s new political prowess and its role in projecting military power in the Mideast.
The United States has organized much of its military posture since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks around the protection of oil fields, pipelines and sea lanes. But U.S. preoccupation with the Middle East has another dimension. In addition to its concerns with oil and terrorism, the White House is courting end-times theologians and electorates for whom the Holy Lands are a battleground of Christian destiny. Both pursuits — oil and biblical expectations — require a dissimulation in Washington that undercuts the U.S. tradition of commitment to the role of an informed electorate.
Informed electorate? Hell, these folks never met a political talking point that they couldn’t spin to their advantage, usually by making Democrats (i.e.- “non-Christians”) look soft on terror. Informing the electorate has nothing to do wit what is happening. It’s more like propagandizing the public….
WE ARE AT WAR WITH EURASIA…WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WIITH EURASIA….
The political corollary — fascinating but appalling — is the recent transformation of the Republican presidential coalition. Since the election of 2000 and especially that of 2004, three pillars have become central: the oil-national security complex, with its pervasive interests; the religious right, with its doctrinal imperatives and massive electorate; and the debt-driven financial sector, which extends far beyond the old symbolism of Wall Street.
President Bush has promoted these alignments, interest groups and their underpinning values. His family, over multiple generations, has been linked to a politics that conjoined finance, national security and oil. In recent decades, the Bushes have added close ties to evangelical and fundamentalist power brokers of many persuasions.
Over a quarter-century of Bush presidencies and vice presidencies, the Republican Party has slowly become the vehicle of all three interests — a fusion of petroleum-defined national security; a crusading, simplistic Christianity; and a reckless credit-feeding financial complex. The three are increasingly allied in commitment to Republican politics. On the most important front, I am beginning to think that the Southern-dominated, biblically driven Washington GOP represents a rogue coalition, like the Southern, proslavery politics that controlled Washington until Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860.
That these interests have become so intertwined is something that should cause any thinking person to be gravely concerned. Additionally, the reality that these interests have become so symbiotic over the course of two Bush presidencies certainly does not bode well for our democracty. Especially when you consider that the ultimate goal of the Religious Right is to create a theocracy- a system that rewards belivers for being “part of the club”. Membership has it’s rewards, eh??
Land of the free, home of the brave…and bunker of the dishonest, deceitful, and judgementally overtly-religious. Kinda makes you glad to be an American, eh??
