Andrew Sullivan may not be the world's perfect political analyst, but when he's on, he's just so damn on.
Let me confess something here. When I examine my conscience, I realize, in fact, that my absolute opposition to the torture of other human beings is, at its root, a religious conviction. It springs from my Catholic faith, which, despite the best efforts of the Catholic hierarchy, endures. The inherent dignity of all human beings is something I believe is a reflection of God's will through the revelation of Jesus Christ. In the end, that is where I stand. But you will notice that my arguments on this matter have very, very rarely depended on my resort to this religious argument. Because I am not addressing fellow members of my church, but others in America, those who are people of faith, and those who are not. So my arguments have been historical, legal, constitutional, moral, strategic, utilitarian. And they have been arguments - about American history, Western civilization, and winning a war. They have not been religious arguments. And I certainly don't believe that opposition to torture depends on a religious base. Many, many atheists and agnostics have been heroes in the long history of outlawing torture. The two most influential on me, over the years, have been Camus and Orwell, two atheists whose sense of morality outshines that of many Christians.This, to me, is the critical distinction between a Christianist and a mere Christian. One wants to infuse politics with religion; the other wants to respect both, separately, and to keep religion private. I should add I do not want to banish the word "God" from the public square. But I do want that invocation to be as thin and as empty and as formal as the Founders intended. The current Republican party has reinvented itself as a force on opposite grounds. The party of Huckabee and Romney, the party of Hewitt and Dobson, the party of Ponnuru and Neuhaus is emphatically not a secular party.
And that is why part of me, I confess, wants Huckabee to win. So he can lose. So the GOP can lose - as spectacularly and humiliatingly as possible. If we are to rid conservatism of this theocratic cancer, we need to start over. Maybe it has to get worse before it can get better. But it is certainly too late for fellow-traveling Christianists like Lowry and Krauthammer to start whining now. This is their party. And they asked for every last bit of it.
Count me in on this one. This dynamic is precisely why I hope Huckabee will win. As I've been telling some of my students this semester, I'm hoping for another 1964. But whereas the Goldwater defeat marked the beginning of the conservative era, a Huckabee loss will mark its end. 1/3 of this country may call itself "evangelical," but I'd guess that only about 20% actually vote that way in any meaningful sense. They speak as if they are an ignored "silent majority," but in truth they are a nothing more than a loud minority that confuses the volume of their crowd for its size.
The language of Bush and Rove has a logical conclusion, and it is Huckabee. Bush may have once called himself a "compassionate conservative," but what he really meant was something closer to "Evangelical Christian Democrat." And its not just that the base believed him. In 2004, they were told that they swung the election his way. They were the group that mattered most. So no wonder they have decided that this moment will be theirs. Why not? The Republican Party used the language of their religion to appeal to them directly. Are we supposed to now be surprised that they actually believed the things they were being told?
This phase of our politics will not end until this movement has its day at the ballot box. And it isn't just that they must lose; they must lose by running a candidate that is unquestionably one of their own. They must lose by running someone like Mike Huckabee. Until then, they will continue to insist that they are what we all know they are not: the nation's most oppressed majority.
UPDATE: For those who still doubt Huckabee can actually win the nomination, I give you this: he just brought Ed Rollins on board his campaign. Wow. Rollins knows how to win him a national race. Of course, he'll get supremely dirty doing it, which raises the very real possibility of blowback. Huck's appeal is that he is a preacher. Can he really afford to go negative? We'll see....
Subscribe to this blog's feed
