Republicans: Mind Your Flock

I just finished reading Chris Hedges’ book American Fascists. Hedges is a Harvard Divinity graduate and a deeply religious man, the son of a minister. He’s put off by the Christian Right, and in the book likens their leaders to others with less savory reputations, like Mussolini, Stalin, and Godwin. I found the book interesting, but I think a bit overblown. The right wing Christians are useful to politicians, but are much like Fredo Corleone – that is, even though well connected, out of the loop.

But lately (Vice President Sarah Palin anyone?), they’ve been having close encounters with real power. It is troubling.

Here’s what Hedges has to say (in an interview with Michelle Goldberg) about the persistent question on whether George W. Bush is a true convert or a poseur:

I think he’s a believer, to the extent that this belief system empowers his own arrogant sense of privilege and intellectual shallowness. When you know right and wrong, when you’ve been mandated by God to lead, you don’t have to ask hard questions, you don’t have to listen to anyone else. I think that plays into Bush’s character pretty well.

I think there are probably other aspects or tenets of this belief system that he finds distasteful and doesn’t like. But in a real sense he fits the profile: a washout, not a very good family life – apparently his mother was a horror show – he was a drunk, allegedly used drugs, coasted because of his daddy, reaches middle age, hasn’t done anything with his life, finds Jesus. That fits a lot of people in the movement.

There’s a chapter on this weird Rapture stuff – the idea that true-believing Christians will be taken from the earth, that the rest of us will die horrible prolonged deaths, and then they will come back to rule. (A priest once told my son that they really blew it when they put the Book of Revelations in the Bible – they should have used Star Wars instead.) In another part of the book, Hedges mentions in passing the concept of the “Master Race”. That’s all that their eschatology is about – the penultimate time for them, when they take control of all. They are the Master Race.

They’d be just another cult waiting for a comet if there weren’t so damned many of them. They have untoward effects on us all. They threaten the first amendment, the separation of church and state, and are really bad for the environment – they believe that since the end is near, there’s no sense in preserving the earth’s resources. God will provide in abundance anyway. (Many of us remember James Watt, an end-timer who was Secretary of the Interior under Reagan. He once told Congress “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations.”) They can do real and lasting damage.

I get a bit testy around fundamentalists. You can’t reason with them – they are out of reach. They are so certain they are right that they can be Machiavellian in pursuit of their goals, as when, according to Stephen Spoonamore, a few of them rigged the 2004 presidential election in Ohio (“saving babies”). When you are right, when you know you are right, when you know everyone else is wrong, when God is on your side, any means justifies your ends. Hence, Inquisitions.

This too shall pass, I keep thinking. But it’s lingering. We have people in high office with crazy belief systems, like Rep. Michelle Bachman and Gov. Sarah Palin and U.S. Senator Mark Pryor, who said in Bill Maher’s movie Religulous that you don’t have to pass an IQ test to be a U.S. Senator. But there’s a supreme shallowness with these people that they exhibit before us proudly – they are not interested in complications or nuance. They are simple people with simple answers.

Throughout U.S. history there have been extremes of religious fervor, which we call Great Awakenings. What’s happening now is merely a continuation. The U.S. is off-the-charts religious and fundamentalist. It’s a wonder that we get intelligent pragmatists elected to the presidency. It’s time now for the Republicans to control their base. They are coming too close to the seat of power. Give them minor jobs, keep them busy, but by all means, keep them out of power.