I'm not quite as authoritative on the matter of Fundamentalism as I should be given the kinds of claims I am likely to make in the following essay, but I think I know a thing or two. One thing that makes my life a bit easier is understanding something about a promise made by Carl Rove to GWBush in 2000 which I learned about today.
The authority on this matter seems to be David Kirkpatrick who writes for the NYT. What I've learned from this gent is that I've been barking up the wrong tree, probably like a fool to those who know better, when I say that I want to kick Pat Robertson to the curb as an ascendant part of the Old School Republicans. You see, Pat Robertson isn't the man any longer. He has been replaced, by and large by Rev. Dr. James Dobson.
Dobson is the man behind Focus on the Family. Not only that, he's the author of the 'Left Behind' series of Evangelical fantasy books. Yeah I said fantasy, if you have a beef, take it up with the Archbishop of Canterbury. He's also the man on the phone every week with some of the President's people. In short, he's the dude that gives those of us drawing a bright line between Church and State heartburn.
Phyllis Schlafly is more well known for giving all sorts of people heartburn forever and a day. Me, I never paid a moment's notice to her. If you had told me yesterday that she was dead, I probably wouldn't even have Googled the obit. But according to insider Kirkpatrick, Shlafly's Eagle Forum are the parties responsible for strongarming abortion language onto the planks of the RNC's document.
What does this have to do with Carl Rove? Well, apparently Rove promised Bush 4 million more Christian Fundamentalist votes than actually showed up at the polls in 2000. And for this GWBush has been looking over his shoulder, and occasionally bending over backwards to find and keep those lost sheep happy. How so? Well, I guess you can take your pick of gut-wrenching right wing rhetoric and lay it at the feet of social conservatives like Schafly and Dobson. They are the prime sources of influence within the Republican Party.
Example A. Stem cell research policy.
Example B. Federal Marriage Amendment.
Example C. Partial Birth Abortion legislation.
Now none of those three examples above give me gas. I simply don't like Evangelical Fundamentalists. That's a religious beef. With regard to politics I like them blurring the lines between Church and State even less. Just as I dislike crotch holding knuckleheads representing 'Black', I dislike raputure bumpersticker Jesus freaks representing 'Christian'.
That's not fair of course. I've used Focus on the Family's movie reviews to help me decide on many occasions. In fact there's probably a great deal of common ground between my basic values and theirs. But I'm not a Fundamenalist. If you ask me which side won the Culture Wars, I'll say my side. They think they've lost. One day we'll disentangle Angry White Paranoia from all this mess but I'm satisfied not parsing it that close. As Ms. Rice recently said, we need to be a bit more humble considering how long it took us to achieve a multi-ethnic plural democracy. Bottom line is that America is getting better not worse and I'm not taking any cues from embittered pseudo-persecuted prophets of doom. Clear enough? Fundamentalists, find your suburb and get a grip.
(whew)
There are several big things that I take from this knowledge.
1. A hell of a lot can be bought with 4 million votes. GP are ya with me? (If you don't know, you better ask somebody). Seriously, this is a very concrete example of what swing voters can accomplish.
2. A very serious question can be asked as to whether it is via Dobson and/or Schlafly that socially conservative blacks are attracted to the Republican Party. I don't think so, but I want to find out. If so, then are we completely wrong about Sunday morning being the most segregated hour? If not, that means somebody needs to tell Fred Price and Cecil Murray that they're not playing a big enough game.
3. None of these people were anywhere before 1972. Which suggests to me that in 15 years African American influence in the Republican Party can be very substantial.
I think this should also clear up the distinction between what I mean between conservative blacks and black conservatives. I can imagine that there are a goodly number of African Americans who will come to the Republican Party via the Christian Conservative route. But I see a significant difference between them and white Evangelical Fundamentalists that's more than racial. Again, we'll need to disentangle sides of the Culture War when we look closer. Me, I'm sticking to the college-edumacated Talented Tenth elitist position when it comes to the Chu'ch, but I'll get in trouble one way or another. Quite frankly, I hope Ambra or LaShawn sets me straight on this. I think Mike King has sided with Jesse Lee Peterson too (whom I presume to be a sterling example of a black Evangelical Fundamentalist - but I could be wrong).
Finally, I wanto focus for a moment on Zell Miller. I like Zell Miller, who was attractive to me as a Democrat when I lived in Georgia. I don't know if he's changed his position much in the past 7 years but I know he's made a lot of enemies to his left among the Donkeys. I think I would be surprised to find that he has looked at policy and philosophy from Dobson and/or Schlafly to make his decision about switching parties.
Like me, he's just running like hell from the idiocy of the Left, not running to the 'wisdom' of Social Conservative Ideologues.
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