While watching the Huckabee freak-out on the right, their contempt for the people they were pandering too was well known. Remember David Kuo? A flashback:
In the book, Kuo, who quit the White House in 2003, accuses Karl Rove’s political staff of cynically hijacking the faith-based initiatives idea for electoral gain. It assails Bush for failing to live up to his promises of boosting the role of religious organizations in delivering social services.
White House strategists “knew ‘the nuts’ were politically invaluable, but that was the extent of their usefulness,” Kuo writes, according to the cable channel MSNBC, which obtained an advance copy.
“Sadly, the political affairs folks complained most often and most loudly about how boorish many politically involved Christians were…. National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous’ and ‘out of control.’ ”
The only thing that is new is that the inmates now appear to be running the asylum.
laneman
Maybe a good smacking once people realize that they’ve lost their frickin’ minds. And, no, I could not care less about party affiliation, I just enjoy watching the infighting. On any side.
myiq2xu
Kinda funny ain’t it? After years of pandering to the “religious right” the GOP is worried that a genuine Holy Rolling Jesus Freak might win their nomination.
I guess they forgot to tell their snake-handling brethren that they were only supposed to vote Republican, not try to run the party.
I love Molly Ivins’ (RIP) comment on the fundies – “The problem with our Baptists is we don’t hold ’em under water long enough.”
demimondian
When I read columns like Digby’s, I’m reminded of Neville Chamberlain. European conservatives genuinely thought that _Mein Kampf_ wasn’t serious, too — that Hitler was just “throwing red meat to his base”. Nobody listened to the loonies on the left who kept saying “No, you don’t understand. He really *does* mean it.”
Well, hey, guess what? The Evangelicals really *do* mean it. They’re not like the Denizens of the Village, who’ll tell any lie to gain power; they’re serious, truthful folk who really are working towards a goal.
Now, it’s important to realize that the Evangelical movement is not a rebirth of the Nazis. They don’t want to take over the world for a thousand year Reich, and they don’t want to exterminate the Jews. Instead, they want to bring the Apocalypse, and, failing that, make women slaves, and murder the gays.
Derek
I hate to tell you this, but only person yelling about hilter was Churchill (who was not a leftist). The leftists had orders from moscow not make a big deal about Hitler and even suport him after the allince between the USSR & the Nazi where signed. It’s only after he invaded russia that left went nuts about Nazism and hitler.
jrg
I don’t think when Rove/Santorum/Frist/Delay realized what was at risk when they cuddled up to the fundies. Sure, 70+% of Americans are Christian, but I don’t think most of them like being played for fools (even if a sizable number of Fundie Christians are).
The church is under fire, as the crazies say, but I think a number of them are waking up to who’s doing the shooting. That can’t be good for the Pharisees running the GOP.
If Huck gets the nomination, all the Dems have to do in the general election is paint him as the televangelist he is… Looks like someone’s painted into a corner.
mellowjohn
“they don’t want to exterminate the Jews. Instead, they want to bring the Apocalypse…”
which would eliminate the jews – one way or another!
grumpy realist
Well, if Huckabee gets elected, we can kiss US science and technology goodbye.
I’m sort of surprised that the business Republicans don’t realize that pandering to the anti-intellectual crowd is going to have definite blowback on the economy. Or do they think new technology is delivered by the Engineering Fairy?
I just would like to see one politician with the balls to take on the anti-intellectual crowd (“we don’t want to believe in reality because of Jeezus!”) and point out that they are as harmful in the long run to the US as a group of terrorists who go around blowing up research labs and universities.
Hell, if Huckabee gets elected, I’m moving abroad.
Jake
Aww, izzums don’t wike dey carefully constructed bed of nails?
Suck it up, WATBs, you ain’t seen nothing yet. It was all fun and games when the Moral Majority was keeping tabs on the Dems, but now they’re going to be scrabbling through your garbage and holding God’s Yardstick to your ass to see if you measure up.
And those conventions that used to be so much fun, especially if you could leave the wife at home, are a thing of the past. Sure some of the leaders of the “nuts” might look the other way when you took a political groupie up to your room (they had groupies of their own, after all) but now you’ll get to deal, up close and personal-like with the nuts themselves. You know, the guys who tread on your heels and climb up your back screaming “HAVE YOU ACCEPTED JESUS CHRIST AS YOUR PERSONAL SAVIOR???” and can’t be shaken off with anything less than threats of personal violence.
Enjoy the non-stop prayer sessions shit bag and keep an eye peeled for me. I’ll be the guy with a big tub of popcorn and a huge smile on my face.
Dumb fucks.
demimondian
Um, Derek? You might want to actually, you know, learn about the history of the era. It’s a good deal more complicated than you’d like, I’m sure. Suffice it to say that among the crazies on the left was this guy named “Roosevelt”. At the time, though, everybody else called him “Mr. President”.
Tsulagi
Typical intellectual. Everyone knows that if it isn’t in the Freeper’s abridged History for Dummies coloring book, it didn’t happen. Jesus dittoes that.
jcricket
Yeah, the comedian who made the joke about the evangelicals being choosy about which science is bad (satellite + radio = good; stuff that helps women, proves the earth is older than 6000 years and invalidates racism = bad) was spot on.
But c’mon, businesses have been working with the Republicans to their own benefit for years, gladly accepting a little collateral damage along the way. Maybe they never thought all the immigrant + science bashing would actually come to fruition. Oh, and those pesky healthcare costs. Republicans might benefit businesses there too, but not in the way that helps customers (let’s just make it “fine” for businesses to pay nothing for healthcare).
Zuzu
demimondian, I suspect Derek is applying the typical right-wing reductionism, that is that “leftists = communists.”
The fact is that even the American CP was soundly opposed to Hitler during and after the Spanish Civil War, and when the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed, many American communists lost faith in the Soviet Union completely and the party membership fell off sharply. The Popular Front? Ka-boom.
Even then the official ACP position was not that communists should support Hitler, but that the US should stay neutral. Not that their blind support of Stalin’s gross behavior was especially consistent, but cozying up with Hitler? Nope.
The vast majority of the American left, liberals, Roosevelt New Dealers, etc. ? Also nope.
On the other hand, there were plenty on the right who had absolutely no problem with the idea of a Nazi Germany.
pseudonymous in nc
Kuo’s become a fascinating commentator, because he’s embraced the idea that the separation of church and state actually benefits the religious.
Uh, right. Conservapedia isn’t your friend. Nor is Jonah Goldberg’s book.
Robert Johnston
And the neocon pseudolibertarian authoritarians aren’t inmates? The only thing new in the Republican party is that gang warfare has erupted over which inmates are going to run the asylum.
Zuzu
I read a good part of his book. Didn’t finish it, but found it interesting and at times inspiring…for that reason among others. He actually apologized to Hillary Clinton for participating in the religious/right wing demonization of her.
p.lukasiak
I think a lot of people are missing the point… which is that while the GOP leadership exploited abortion and homosexuality to attract the Xtian base, Christians, including fundamentalists, represent a serious threat to low taxes and are likely to support programs designed to help the poor, and prevent the accumulation of great wealth (all in the name of saving their immortal souls — eye of the needle and all that.)
I mean, when Jesus was asked about taxes, he said “render unto Caesar…” The GOP establishment hates Huckabee not because he’s an apocaplyptic radical, but because he really believes in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ…. and that scares the crap out of them.
myiq2xu
After feeding the poor and healing the sick, Huckleberry might decide to do something about cleaning up the world that God created or ending global warming. We can’t have none of that shit now can we?
Cindrella Ferret
True. And, for that reason alone I can’t really savor this flash of agony on the right. If Huckabee gets the nomination he has a chance to win. We could debate how much of a chance he has, but he would have a chance. That is enough to mitigate this twinkling of schadenfreude.
Wilfred
The whole conservative movement has revolved around the criminally cynical belief that you really could serve God and mammon. Only you can’t. Good for Huckabee
Zuzu
Interestingly, that was precisely what David Kuo criticized about the Christian right wingers (well, among other things). Rather than focus on meeting the needs of the poor and vulnerable, the fundies were focused on politicizing everything.
STEVEinSC
If the inmates are now running the place, does that mean I get to fuck Nurse Ratched?
laneman
We
Cindy rat made one comment on that.
Mine is that the fundie (southern) faction wants to deny science. Not only because it is anti-jebus, but just because.
Keith
The majority of Churchill’s support against appeasement came from the socialists in the Labour party. He had almost no support from the right.
grumpy realist
Which might be another reason that the big-business Republicans are starting to get really worried–“okay, okay, we’ve fed the lion enough red meat, now HOW DO WE GET HIM BACK IN HIS CAGE?!!!’
I think they do realise that if the US doesn’t make up for the ghastliness of the last 8 years when it comes to science funding, it’s going to be Slipping Down the Chute. Enough countries out there like South Korea, Japan, China, and the EU will be gleefully happy to grab the torch of “best science and engineering in the world” and run with it. And given the push the cultures of any of those countries have towards learning, it’s not going to be easy getting our mojo back.
And as soon as the US starts falling behind in area X, there will be an ever-increasing brain drain of top scientists to wherever has the best reputation. EU considered to have great laboratories, a lot of fellow scientists to talk to, and a nice, common-sense culture where we don’t have to keep fighting the fundies off with the stick? Then that’s where we’ll go.
Frankly, I already find myself culturally more akin to a researcher in Japan than with the bulk of Americans who denounce learning and logic, emphasize belief over competency, insist that their religious fairy tales be enshrined as “science” and seem to want to do nothing more than drag the US back to the Dark Ages as quickly as possible. I identify myself as a cosmopolitan; my loyalties are to those who believe in the tradition of law, reason, logic, rationality, and the scientific method. The US Founding Fathers enshrined all of this.
And if the US doesn’t go back to its tradition of law, prudence, civil rights, science and engineering, and justice, it will not be the United States of America that I grew up in and believed in, and in my opinion, will not any more exist.
Bruce Moomaw
I do remember something that moderate-liberal scientist Charles Murtaugh said on his late (and, by me, still lamented blog back in July 2003: “For some time now, I’ve been contending that the ‘irreligious Right’ is in many ways scarier than the religious variety…At least a greedy televangelist can be accused of hypocrisy; try accusing an Ayn Randian of being greedy and he’ll thank you for the kind words.”
Actually, both the Irreligious GOP Right (personified in this campaign by Giuliani and Romney) and the Religious GOP Right (personified now by Huckabee) scare the hell out of me for entirely different reasons. Huckabee may be (or at least one can hope) sincere in his tentative indications that he’s a lot queasier about military torture and leaving the poor to rot than G. and R. are; but he’s also the only one on record as saying that every single word in the Bible is the absolute truth, both morally and factually — including its more bloodcurdling passages regarding the vile evil of homosexuals, unmarried sex, and non-Christians in general. It’s undeniably entertaining to see the potential split between these two branches of the Right — which the GOP had successfully, if precariously, papered over previously — suddenly start gaping earlier than we thought it would; but the fact remains that ONE of these guys is almost certainly going to get nominated, and the prospect that any one of the three could make it into the White House in the general campaign (which they could) should scare the crap out of us. (Nor are McCain, Thompson, and Ron Paul much better. If I had to choose, I’d pick McCain — which, given his military strategies, is rather like saying that genital herpes is preferable to HIV. It is an indication of how bizarre this particular GOP race actually is that the Boston Globe and the Manchester Union-Leader have now endorsed the same guy for the GOP nomination.)
Goseph Gerbils
Know what’s really funny? During the Spanish Civil War, the Nazi’s were backing the Nationalist faction.
Soviet Russia (COMMIEEEEEEEEEEES!!!1!) was backing…
…wait for it…
…the Republicans.
wingnut head asplode
rachel
What, the leftists (Socialists and Communists) in Germany thought Hitler was okey-dokey? Uh… No.
dslak
Like Jesus, Winston Churchill was dyed-in-the-wool Republican. Nevermind that whole a Labour Party MP and switching when he had a shot at being Prime Minister. No, no . . . Republican.
dslak
Err, I mean he was a Liberal, not with Labour. Still a Republican, though.
Bruce Moomaw
He was never, in any way, a Labor Party member. He did start out as a Liberal Party member — during which time he turned that sharp tongue on the Tories (“The Cosnervative loves the working man; that is, he loves to watch him work”); and as a result, to quote George Lichtheim, during that period “the average Tory loathed Churchill with an intensity which has few counterparts in moder British politics”. (When he supported Irish independence in a speech in Belfast, he was nearly lynched on the spot and had to escape the building via the Men’s Room window.) But he was never remotely close to being a Laborite; and the moment the Liberal Party blinked out and the Labor Party rose to replace it, he jumped to the Tories. Kind of a Lieberman type, actually, although (usually) far smarter. Which is why, after Chamberlain quit, the Laborites still said that he was the only Tory they’d be willing to support for Prime Minister in a wartime National Unity government, which is why Britain got him instead of Halifax (thank God).
Bruce Moomaw
As for leftists during the buildup to WW II: a lot of Communists did indeed twirl like weathervanes after Hitler and Stalin signed the non-aggression pact, and then again after Hitler double-crossed Uncle Joe and invaded the USSR — but that is a very far thing from saying that most “leftists” did. In fact, it was one of the main factors that drove the final wedge between Stalinist and non-Stalinist leftists.
It is also a fact that there really were an astonishing number of British leftists who insisted with a straight face that Hitler couldn’t possily be any worse than Neville Chamberlain, and so for that reason there was no point in fighting to keep the Nazis out of Britain. Orwell had to contend with this bunch repeatedly, to the point of finally writing a long satirical poem about them — but then, again there were a lot of British leftists who DIDN’T make that horrendous blunder. Such as, say, Orwell.
Calouste
Churchill is the original flip-flopper. He started out in the Conservative Party, after about 4 years changed parties and moved to the Liberal Party, for which he held a number of cabinet posts. Then after about 20 years with the Liberals, he moved backed to the Conservatives, held a senior cabinet post, and then enventually became Prime Minister.
And he had some nice words about a cetain mr. Musollini.
dslak
Yes, I noted that he was Liberal, not Labour. I was typing faster than my brain.
Bruce Moomaw
Welcome to the club. (As for Derek, I suspect he’s a teenager — in which cse I can only advise him again to be a lot more careful in checking his historical facts. If he’s an adult, I’m damned if I know what to advise him.)
Jake
It wasn’t that long ago that the US was locked in a technological race with Teh Soviets and I’m just old enough to have been in school during the “Ha ha, we beat the reds to the moon!” era. Scientists and science was the greatest thing evar because they and it brought us so much great stuff and made the nasty commies gnash their teeth, so there. Go Science! Go USA!
That was less than 40 years ago. What. The fuck. Happened?
Bruce Moomaw
What happened is that it was clear we had beaten the snot out of the Commies scientifically by the late 1960s (even the Team B Gang were afraid we’d lose just because those Awful Liberals were tricking us into spending far too little on the Pentagon, not for reasons of inferior science) — and so the nation was free to resume its semi-instinctive distrust of intellectuals, scientific and otherwise.
Let’s not exaggerate, though; the anti-science fundies have influence hugely out of proportion to their actual number in this country (something that becomes clear every time they get thrown out of the majority in the Kansas State School Board again), simply because they’re a crucial element in the GOP coalition that has been holding onto power for a long time by the skin of its teeth and so doesn’t dare offend them. (It’s the same reason that the fundamentalist Jewish religious parties in Israel also have such hugely disproportionate political influence.) This gives them much more power than they should rightfully have in the US, but not nearly so much as the more paranoid liberals fear. They’ve stabilized now at the very peak of their power; given the spectacular generational drop in anti-homosexual sentiment alone, from now on it will be downhill for them. (As for the Bush Administration’s fiddling with the scientific evidence for global warming, that has an entirely different origin: good old economic self-interest.)
grumpy realist
Jake, my feeling is that on the whole, the US got bored with science and technology and drifted back to its standard level of stupidity. We’ve always had anti-intellectualism, but used to be able to keep it down to a dull roar because the link between technology/knowledge and economic success was pretty obvious and more people were greedy than religious.
Now, we’ve got too many idiots who treat technology like magic (I never thought I’d see Clarke’s axiom come true in my lifetime) and who probably think it is really just a case of getting Hollywood to slap together the correct special effects. We’ve also got too high a population of parasites who are perfectly happy to get the benefits of technology all the while screaming Science Is Evil or Knowledge is Evil. I’d love to ban anyone who believes in Creationism from anything like upgrades on flu shots, newly-developed anti-biotics due to microbial resistance, or similar. And I’d love to withhold all modern technology from anyone who decides to not develop his brains due to religion.
RSA
I’ve talked about the same thing with my wife, considering the more general case of any of the current Republican field being elected.
Anne Laurie
I’m sort of surprised that the business Republicans don’t realize that pandering to the anti-intellectual crowd is going to have definite blowback on the economy. Or do they think new technology is delivered by the Engineering Fairy?
Many of those Bidniz Repubs, like Willard Romney, believe they’ll be able to outsource their privileged arses to some attractive offshore haven, the same way they’ve outsourced their personal forutnes to the Caymans and their factories’ jobs to China.
Not to get my tinfoil hat in a twist, but Bush *did* just buy 100,000 acres in Paraguay, not far from the Sun Myung Moon holdings.
WE ALL FALL DOWN
No, they expect GOD to do that for them.
Jake
I don’t think it’s a matter of being more or less religious. At one time no one would suggest that all scientists are atheist because they assumed the lab rats went to church like everyone else and didn’t think about it. Whether this was true or not, scientists didn’t have to waste their time reassuring clueless yahoos that they did believe in God. For whatever reason some idiots have picked scientists as the emergency back-up bad guy when they’re tired of picking on everyone else.
But they’re still greedy, they’ve just figured out that they can screech about the evil guys broiling babies in labs and still get their wide screen TVs, cars, health care (maybe), and clean water.
Don’t know if you’ve read C.S. Lewis’ “Screwtape Proposes a Toast.” He address the issue of humans’ desire to keep everyone dumbed down.
demimondian
What do you think created the social metaphor for the rise of novels centered around wizards who can do and see things beyond normal ken? Every mathematician has seen the sudden pull back at the mention of his or her vocation, along with the all-too-frequently-repeated comment “Oh, I was never good at Math. You must be really smart.” It’s just that the rest of you are beginning to see the same thing.
HyperIon
More frequent is the comment I encounter when outed as a chemist: “Oh, I hated chemistry and flunked it twice. Otherwise I’d have done to med school.” A real conversation stopper.
skip
I note Joe Liebermann endorsed John McCain today , in large part because Bibi Netanyahu was ineligible
grumpy realist
Hee. Being female and a physicist, I also get that.
Actually, the reaction I remember the most was the one my roommate and I got when traveling in Paris one summer. Out at Les Tuileries, at a cafe seated under one of the tables with the umbrellas. Early summer rain–pair of clean-cut executive business types (sigh, Americans) dash from their (unprotected) table, come over and ask in very bad French whether they can share our umbrella. We answer in English, start chatting….Oh, you’re on break from college? Where are you from?
The look on their faces when we answered: “MIT” was priceless.
jenniebee
Most of the people who say that though, if truth be told, were never really good at any subject.
I’m a database architect and not only do I get that “ooh you do math” stuff, everybody I meet who isn’t in IT thinks I can tell them why their laptop started acting funny two weeks ago.
Delia
Ya know, the ones in Germany who actually let the pigs in were the old-fashioned, aristocratic conservatives who despised both the socialists and the nazis, who were all riff-raff as far as they were concerned, but they thought they could manipulate the little corporal and all his minions and somehow bring back the good ol’ days of Bismarck and the Second Reich. They allied themselves with militarists and big corporations, who also thought the NSDAP had something in it for them, and before you knew it, it was all over but the fat lady singing, so to speak. Any of this sound familiar?
Delia
Oh, and as for the science thing. You all know, don’t you, that we got our big boost in the science game when Hitler kicked out all the racial undesirables and a few of the others left as well? Not that there weren’t plenty of top people left behind. Heisenberg was never a slouch at physics. But now that we’ve got a bunch of mental cows doing their best to run our science programs into the ground, it won’t take long to drive off the really good people to some place that actually wants them. Spending all the dough on useless wars isn’t really the best way to run a country.