--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> >Joel Schalit:
> >It definitely seems like the Democrats are pimping
> the God card in
> >prep for the fall elections.
>
> I'm wondering if the message they took away from
> What's The Matter
> With Kansas is that they need to ape the Reps on the
> cultural issues
> - not that they should adopt a populist economic
> agenda.
>
> Doug
>
It would not be surprising if what the Dems got from WTMWK was to ape the GOP on cultural issues, including religion. After all, the message they got from the defeat of more or less liberal candidates since 1972 was that they should ape the GOP on economic issues and criminal justice -- not wholly, as Nathan will remind us, but the DCLC and the New Democrats certainly offer Reaganism Lite on both those counts.
AT the same time, it is a bit cynical to say that the Dems can't really be pious; this is a very religious country and probably most Dems, like most Americans, are religious to some extent. Both Clinton and Kerry (though Kerry could not persuade anyone of it) seem to have been genuine believers, and God knows that Carter was (and is).
Maybe what is meant is that the Dems can't honestly compete with the GOP for the evangelical/fundamentalist vote (I know these are not the same thing), but I'm not even sure of that. Carter got a lot of evangelical/fundi voters, including in 1980 (a close election), as did Clinton, though many fewer, but still not an insignificant number. There are 40 million evangelicals/fundis in this country (a scary thought), based on poll self-IDs of people as "born again," and not all of them -- probably not even a majority -- are hard core right wingers. Maybe the organized evangelical/fundi movement is right wing, but I bet evangelicals/fundis are like Jews and Catholics -- well to the left of their self-appointed leaders. I bet a lot of evangelicals/fundis would be open to populist appeals from a candidate whom they felt was Godly, with whom they felt comfortable and accepted and not condescended to.
It seems to be that one lesson of WTMWK is that one key to the GOP's cultural success in turning class war into a matter of resentment of liberal supposed elites rather than poor/working people vs. the super-rich is that right wing propagandists and inept liberals have accidentally conspired together to make a lot of religious working class Americans (not just evangelicals and fundamentalists) believe that liberals are Godless, arrogant, condescending hedonists who have contempt for religious working people. Since issues tend to drive voting a lot less than feelings of trust and identification with candidates -- most voters have no idea what the actual positions of the candidates are -- this is a major problem for Dems. (This is a major source of disagreement I have with Woj, who supposes that most Americans subscribe to the GOP agenda and know what it is.)
So it seems to me that it would be positively advantageous for the Dems to run someone whose claim to piety cannot really be questioned, as long as he was also populist. And I don't see why they can't do this, unless you buy the GOP story about the Dems being a decadent atheistic over-educated "elite."
Two tricky issues for Dems in this scenario are abortion and homosexuality. (Maybe guns, but I think that Dems should just give up on guns and enthusiastically support a 2d Amend. Right To Bear Arms.) Abortion mobilizes the hard Christian right and the Catholics -- a minority, but organized minorities make a big difference. This is so even though the majority of Americans more weakly support a limited right to abortion -- generally if the woman's life or health, including mental health, would be endangered, or in cases of rape or incest; or with various other limitations like waiting periods, parental notification, etc. Dems cannot and should not cave on abortion rights. This is a matter of politics as well as ethics -- Dems cannot afford to lose the big part of their base for whom this is a litmus test.
In addition, the hard Christian right has made a big issue out of gay rights, especially gay marriage -- here the Dems have been very wobbly. It was Clinton who backed DOMA, after all. The gays' best friend lately has been the Justice Anthony Kennedy, the key vote in the two S.Ct decisions that have made naked discrimination against gays unconstitutional because irrational. I don't know how effective opposition to gay rights has been in getting out hard core right wing Christian voters (Doug? anyone?). Here again Dems should not back down from support of gay rights -- certainly not any more than they already have. Politics as well as ethics matter here.
However the combustibility of these issues make it hard to know how a Godly Democratic populist would navigate these waters. But politics is full of hard choices.
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