Public Policy Polling recently asked 316 Republicans whether they would support making Christianity the national religion, and a depressing 57% agreed with the notion of doing away with religious freedom in America.
The finding is consistent with the latest wave of so-called ‘anti-Sharia’ bills in GOP-held state legislatures and growing awareness of an Islamophobia problem in the party of the right.
That same PPP poll found that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has taken over as the clear presidential favorite among registered Republicans — and that only 27% of respondents identify with tea parties. For the median GOP voter, matters of public religious piety clearly take precedence over any conservative brand.
In fact, it’s hard to square the ‘new conservatism’ with traditional conservatism. The poll results suggest quite a radical shift, one that’s most visible in current Republican discourse, wherein the very word ‘American’ is now suffused with Dominionist ideas about ignoring or circumventing the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
When Rudy Giuliani questions the president’s patriotism, he has the deluded pulse of the party; when Scott Walker fails to speak up in defense of what used to be a broadly-nonpartisan American principle, he is in thrall to his party’s anthropology. These men are no longer outliers, they are the new normal.
Whereas the religious right was once dominated by fundamentalists who understood America as a pluralist system, that is no longer the case. Thanks in large part to a deliberate strategy of funding and promoting Islamophobia, what I call the ‘Sarah Palin wing’ of the party — the voters who showed up at her rallies during the 2008 campaign, and first expressed the delusion that Barack Obama was some sort of multicultural Manchurian Candidate — are now a majority.
Something Neitzche said…
I did a little math*, and it looks like 85 Million Americans want to institute Sharia Law in the United States.
Oh, wait, they call it something else.
*(Population of U.S. times the percentage of people who voted for Romney in 2012 times percentage of people who said they wanted a “Christian” country.)
Which of the several thousand variations of Christianity are we talking about? The people who play with snakes? Jehovah’s Witnesses? Albanian Orthodox? It should be a real hoot figuring that one out. It is truly frightening to think this many people could be so unenlightened in this day and age.
First, they exclude the obvious Non-Judeo-Christians: Atheists, Muslims, Pagans, Hindis (etc.).
Then they exclude the smaller non standard Christians: Quakers, JWs, and the like.
Then the Jews get thrown under the bus.
Then either the Catholics, the Orthodox, or the Mormons.
When the smoke clears, it will be left to a single sect; but I couldn’t predict which one.
But whichever one ‘wins’, all others lose.
The “True” church will have a single leader; a ‘Pope’ if you will, and a conference of close supporters to carry out the leader’s will (a college of cardinals).
And the day will come when someone will publically point out this ‘Pope’ is corrupt, perhaps by nailing a notice on a church door.
And then the bloodshed will truly start.
I’ve read what the dominionist’s and reconstuctionist’s have to say, and I take them at their word. They are some of the most dangerous religious fanatics on the planet. They want nothing less than the creation of a christian theocracy in America, with the worst parts of the old testament holding sway. The death penalty for all.
Thanks in large part to a deliberate strategy of funding and promoting Islamophobia, what I call the ‘Sarah Palin wing’ of the party
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Sure enough but the news headlines for the last fifteen years have also greatly changed attitudes to Muslims. Hard right Conservatives can be accused of being at war with Islam but it is the United States government that sends drones to kill, that invades Muslim countries, that supports Israel regardless of its theft of Muslim land, that imprison Muslims without due process etc.
The Conservative may not have truth, right or history on their side but they do seem to have the US Government in their team.