Before Ronald Reagan’s handlers decided to embrace Jerry Falwell’s doubly-oxymoronic “Moral Majority“, the most conservative American Protestant groups were so aloof from the traditional structures of national politics that some Baptist preachers apparently encouraged their congregants not to vote. Paul Weyrich, a paleo-Catholic, was the co-founder of that ‘Moral Majority’ — and also the founder (with Coors brewery money) of the Heritage Foundation.
The political activism of the Falwell/Weyrich/Terry Dolan/Richard Viguerie/Howard Phillips Moral Majority was based on the concept, or fantasy, that the bulk of real Americans were white Judeo-Christian paternalist-authoritarian Republicans who needed only proper direction to take over (“reclaim”) their rightful control of every important political office. A generation later, President Obama’s re-election has made it obvious even to the most ideologically-fixated (if not to the stubbornest and/or stupidest) that white suburban conservative Republican voters are a decreasing minority — and that their definitions of “morality” are losing political ground even faster. (Even the Mormons, those gutless traitors, quietly shifted post-election from ‘homosexuals are damned’ to ‘same-sex attraction is not a sin, but acting on it is‘.)
Media opinion on Senator Jim DeMint’s announcement he’s decamping for the Heritage Foundation seems to be that DeMint has decided it’s (financially, at least) better for him to be outside the Capitol preaching in, than inside preaching out. Hendrick Hertzberg at the New Yorker diagnoses “Severe DeMintia“:
… DeMint inhabits the outer reaches of movement conservatism pretty much across the board, but his greatest passion seems to be reserved for what are delicately termed “social issues.” On questions of sexual identity and behavior, he is a forthright bigot and a prude… Last year, he indicated that his belief in small government is rooted in the theory that there is a fixed and limited amount of space that can be occupied by the government and the deity combined. The size of the public sector and the size of the Almighty are inversely proportional to each other. It’s an iron law, a zero-sum game:
I’ve said it often and I believe it—the bigger government gets, the smaller God gets.
Retreating, Not Surrendering: Soon-to-Be-Ex-Senator Jim DeMintPost + Comments (92)