It is not everyday that I find myself talking back to the writers of the National Review‘s Blog “The Corner“.
But, I saw this entry, and I felt the need to let my feelings be known.
Maggie Gallagher, who, in typical cowardly Republican fashion, does not divulge her e-mail address in her profile; says the following:
Back a while ago, when I was complaining about Republicans who think the GOP has just too darn many religious voters (“funny, so do the Democrats”), I promised I would explain how social conservatives have contributed to this misimpression — and also to their oddly subordinated role within the GOP governing coalition.
It’s simple. Social conservatives have had bad models for political action. We’ve depended on two basic strategies, and neither of them work very well:
1. The Mass-Uprising Model. “The people will rise up and throw off their oppressors spontaneously.” Well, it’s nice when it happens, but it’s hardly a plan, is it?
2. The Secular-Messiah Model: Join with others in the GOP to elect a godly man to office and then expect him to solve all your problems for you. This last model resulted in me fielding calls from reporters about whether or not I thought Bush was responsible for failing to pass a Federal Marriage Amendment — at a time when the poor man was 33 percent in the polls. Gay-rights groups don’t behave like this. They understand it’s their job to make it easy for politicians to do what they ask, not the other way around.
Social conservatives simply have not been in politics. We lack institutions that can defeat our enemies and directly assist our friends.
After a while, threatening to leave the coalition unless the coalition does what you want gets old. And tiring. And ineffective. It makes your allies not like you very much. Social conservatives talk like that because it’s our one lever of power.
Time to get some new levers.
No Megan, what it is time for; is this, it is time for the social Conservatives to leave the Republican Party and make alliances with a new Party, like the “America First” Party or something similar. I am going to be perfectly blunt, the Social Conservatism movement is, essentially a very bad joke. A perfect example would be no other than Sarah Palin. That is correct, Sarah Palin. I mean this woman, who before the 2008 election was a little known Governor outside of the state of Alaska. John McCain selects her, on a whim, and attempts to steal Hillary’s voters away from Barack Obama. We see how well that worked out, did we not? It is quite the buzz kill and sobering dose of reality to point this out. Nevertheless, because I believe in the truth; even when it is not considered popular or even politically correct; I will state the obvious.
Sarah Palin came charging to the forefront of the Republican scene, like an Alaska Buffalo on the prairie farm. She was to come in, riding on the White Horse of Social Conservatism, she was the evangelical Church’s new female Messiah, and she was going to wrangle the victory away from those who were going to try to expand the Government to Anti-Christ-like Levels. Again, as I wrote a minute ago, we all see how that worked out, did we not?
Instead, Sarah Palin became the poster woman of everything that is essentially wrong with the Evangelical Christian movement as a whole. One of the biggest and most grotesque problems with the movement as a whole is just innate and abject hypocrisy. Sarah Palin came into the 2008 election as the beacon of moral pureness. By the time, the people had come to vote, Palin was exposed as someone; who preached moral values, but her own children were not even listening. In fact, her own daughter said that abstinence was unrealistic.
To add insult to injury, instead of Sarah Palin leaving the McCain campaign taking her family back to Alaska and salvaging what little of a political career that she actually had left. Instead she continues to bring a black mark to the campaign of John McCain and allows his campaign to be trounced by one the most unqualified candidates ever. Further, instead of actually owning up to her daughters mistakes and basically admitting that she lied about her daughter and also admitting that her accepting the offer John McCain was a mistake; Palin then spins her daughters sexual promiscuity into this sister souljah moment. Frankly, it was quite sickening to watch.
Meggie, the Religious do-gooders do not need levers. They need to stop trying to pull levers, because every time they do. The secular world sees them for exactly for what they are. You would have thought the Conservative Christian world would have learned this lesson in the 1980’s. I suppose some dogs are not trained as quickly as others are.
Others: Politics Daily and AmSpec Blog