GOP insider: Religion destroyed my party

Having observed politics up close and personal for most of my adult lifetime, I have come to the conclusion that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism may have been the key ingredient in the transformation of the Republican Party. Politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes—at least in the minds of its followers—all three of the GOP’s main tenets: wealth worship, war worship, and the permanent culture war.

Religious cranks ceased to be a minor public nuisance in this country beginning in the 1970s and grew into a major element of the Republican rank and file. Pat Robertson’s strong showing in the 1988 Iowa presidential caucus signaled the gradual merger of politics and religion in the party. Unfortunately, at the time I mostly underestimated the implications of what I was seeing.

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/05/republi ... theocracy/

I'd tend to agree.

I fell in love with the GOP for its (apparent) support of free markets.

Although I am a person of (evangelical Christian) faith - I'm a little less than enthusiastic about attempts to institutionalize faith.

After all - as evangelicals themselves would point out -- faith is a personal, individual endeavor.

The new GOP is not free market (frankly, neither is the Obama administration - but at least they're honest about their ambitions).

This isn't the party of William Buckley (his son observed that). Nor is it the party of Reagan (just ask Ron Reagan) . Last I checked, even Patrick Buchanan seems more supportive of Obama than Romney.

It is the big tent philosophy. Without the religious fundamentalists, the Republicans would at best have been an eternal opposistion party. Like they are in California.

So the Republicans can stay true to conservative thought and lose power.

And while the Left hates the TEA Party, I figure it is the Republicans, last best chance to become fiscal conservatives versus the Bush years and the old guard Republicrats who like to hand out pork versus actually cutting spending.

Remember the Republican plan after 2010 to cut spending? It was a joke! The spending would have been cut less than 1%. The old guard thought they could pull the wool over the young Republican Turks.

[youtube:1ouiji5b][/youtube:1ouiji5b]

We were discussion how religion has destroyed the Republican Party and then all of a sudden, look, it's something shiny! Something to take your attention away from what was being discussed.

Now, where have I heard that in a post before??

https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRTElRUa9COX1Ffx_62lUxEC1tsEJDXY6K4Hr6VLK-XVldRqLzk

Raees wrote: We were discussion how religion has destroyed the Republican Party and then all of a sudden, look, it's something shiny! Something to take your attention away from what was being discussed.

Now, where have I heard that in a post before??

https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRTElRUa9COX1Ffx_62lUxEC1tsEJDXY6K4Hr6VLK-XVldRqLzk

I thought about starting another thread titled something like Jewish insider: how Obama is trying to destroy my religion but decided I would post it here as a Raees style Non sequitur.

Hate? Like the hate athiests have for Christians?

Hate, like the Christians have for everybody else that's not like them?

Religious protestants were drawn into the republican party in the 80's- because the lefties were pushing for more liberal policies regarding abortion and other issues through the democratic party.

They had nowhere else to go.

Reagan welcomed their views and their votes but did not make their anti-abortion wishes part of his political platform by declaring it a part of his policy. That did not happen until daddy Bush in 1988.

Like many of the Bushes mistakes- Both father and son not only welcomed their views- but made the protestants desires a part of the republican platform.

This was isolated to the Bush family- and is not indicative of the core platform for the republicans. I don't see Romney pushing these issues like the Bush's did.

While over 90% of Americans claim to believe in god- and a solid majority claim to be christian- I think it was a big mistake to cater to the religious protestant right- conservatives already had their vote.

I warned about this over 20 years ago- that if they didn't back off it would cost us votes. It was one of the reasons that drove me towards being a libertarian.

Well- That and the other blunders that the Bush family made- one of the biggest was the "read my lips" speeches.

It was the Bush family that destroyed the republican party- it was the Bushes who stabbed the Reagan revolution in the back- Right from the start daddy bush voted to raise taxes. The Bush family were always "country club" republicans- they were always big government republicans.

But the Bush's are gone now- and the TEA party formed to flush out the big government "country club" types and restore the core republican platform.

We need to start voting for real conservatives again- won't happen this time because Romney is just another big government republican- but maybe some day soon.