Apocalypse now
Kevin Phillips is the cheerful fellow who helped devise Nixon's "southern strategy" and wrote "The Emerging Republican Majority" nearly 30 years ago. These days he looks on in horror and resignation at what that 30 years of Republican majority hath wrought.
I heard him in a wide-ranging interview with Leonard Lopate on wnyc.org this afternoon. It's worth a listen if they archive the show. Among the many interesting (and depressing) things he had to say was that he believes 50 to 60% of Bush's "base" did not support our invasion of Iraq because of a fervent wish for democracy in the middle east, nor were they disappointed or surprised that no weapons of mass destruction were found there. No, these readers of the 50 or 60 million copies of the Tim LeHaye "Left Behind" books believed that invading Iraq -- the site of so many of the earliest events of the Old Testament -- was the realization of prophecy; that this was the beginning of the long awaited Battle Between Good and Evil (and, despite Bush's fumbling response yesterday* to a question about this very idea, he's no stranger to that notion, either). I question that estimate, seems a bit high. I think that includes a lot of people who reacted to Sept. 11, 2001 with a vague sense that we have to go get evil terrorists, but not that these are the End Times. Nevertheless, it is interesting and scary to consider.
Now, Phillips wondered how evangelicals would react to learning that Bush has bungled this war that they -- and Bush himself -- believed was proclaimed by God. I've also heard analysts wonder if evangelicals would stay home in the next election because "their man" turned out to be such a disappointment. I don't think either really applies. Have you heard a single one of our radical clerics on the right criticize Bush or his administration's handling of the war? No. They take a long view on this.
To them, Bush hasn't bungled anything. Unlike non-religious "pragmatists," like Cheney and Rumsfeld, the hard core prophecists, by their very nature, could not have expected the Battle Between Good and Evil would be a "cakewalk." In the Battle of Armageddon there's going to be, if you will, your good days and your bad, although ultimately God and his evangelical followers will win out, if only by begging out and leaving us poor, pathetic secularists...behind.
You see, John McCain and the former Bush advisors now working for him understand this. That's why McCain has become George W. Bush's new best friend in the past few months, and his even bigger war cheerleader, even as other Republicans have been inching away from Dear Leader and running away from the war. McCain knows he needs that hard core megachurch vote to win the Republican nomination as the successor to George W. Bush. By keeping the fundies close, he can probably win enough of the slightly less wacko wing of the party to win. By embracing their hero and the war they welcome rather than want to end, he may just be able to do that. No other candidate is making such a pitch to the Armageddonists, and if he wasn't, maybe they would stay home, after all.
Now, when he starts expressing the same kind of resentment towards science and preference for dogma over policy, he'll have them wrapped around his little finger.
I heard him in a wide-ranging interview with Leonard Lopate on wnyc.org this afternoon. It's worth a listen if they archive the show. Among the many interesting (and depressing) things he had to say was that he believes 50 to 60% of Bush's "base" did not support our invasion of Iraq because of a fervent wish for democracy in the middle east, nor were they disappointed or surprised that no weapons of mass destruction were found there. No, these readers of the 50 or 60 million copies of the Tim LeHaye "Left Behind" books believed that invading Iraq -- the site of so many of the earliest events of the Old Testament -- was the realization of prophecy; that this was the beginning of the long awaited Battle Between Good and Evil (and, despite Bush's fumbling response yesterday* to a question about this very idea, he's no stranger to that notion, either). I question that estimate, seems a bit high. I think that includes a lot of people who reacted to Sept. 11, 2001 with a vague sense that we have to go get evil terrorists, but not that these are the End Times. Nevertheless, it is interesting and scary to consider.
Now, Phillips wondered how evangelicals would react to learning that Bush has bungled this war that they -- and Bush himself -- believed was proclaimed by God. I've also heard analysts wonder if evangelicals would stay home in the next election because "their man" turned out to be such a disappointment. I don't think either really applies. Have you heard a single one of our radical clerics on the right criticize Bush or his administration's handling of the war? No. They take a long view on this.
To them, Bush hasn't bungled anything. Unlike non-religious "pragmatists," like Cheney and Rumsfeld, the hard core prophecists, by their very nature, could not have expected the Battle Between Good and Evil would be a "cakewalk." In the Battle of Armageddon there's going to be, if you will, your good days and your bad, although ultimately God and his evangelical followers will win out, if only by begging out and leaving us poor, pathetic secularists...behind.
You see, John McCain and the former Bush advisors now working for him understand this. That's why McCain has become George W. Bush's new best friend in the past few months, and his even bigger war cheerleader, even as other Republicans have been inching away from Dear Leader and running away from the war. McCain knows he needs that hard core megachurch vote to win the Republican nomination as the successor to George W. Bush. By keeping the fundies close, he can probably win enough of the slightly less wacko wing of the party to win. By embracing their hero and the war they welcome rather than want to end, he may just be able to do that. No other candidate is making such a pitch to the Armageddonists, and if he wasn't, maybe they would stay home, after all.
Now, when he starts expressing the same kind of resentment towards science and preference for dogma over policy, he'll have them wrapped around his little finger.
* Q Thank you for coming to Cleveland, Mr. President, and to the City Club. My question is that author and former Nixon administration official Kevin Phillips, in his latest book, American Theocracy, discusses what has been called radical Christianity and its growing involvement into government and politics. He makes the point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic Christians who see the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the apocalypse. Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse? And if not, why not?
THE PRESIDENT: The answer is -- I haven't really thought of it that way. (Laughter.) Here's how I think of it. The first I've heard of that, by the way. I guess I'm more of a practical fellow. I vowed after September the 11th, that I would do everything I could to protect the American people. And my attitude, of course, was affected by the attacks. I knew we were at war. I knew that the enemy, obviously, had to be sophisticated and lethal to fly hijacked airplanes into facilities that would be killing thousands of people, innocent people, doing nothing, just sitting there going to work.
posted by John at 2:24 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home