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WHETHER the Republicans stole this election or won it fair and square, the fact remains that America is currently suffering from its most serious case of Bible Fever since the Televangelical Explosion of the late 1970s. Making matters worse is the conservative power elite's willingness to use religious rhetoric to legitimize their agenda, a sad emulation of the pre-Civil War practice of using scripture to defend the diabolical enterprise of slavery.
While it's true that the Left Behind crowd is only one part of the conservative movement triumvirate -- the other two factions being Free Market Fundamentalists and Imperial Neoconservatives -- it is also true that they make up the biggest voting block of the three. The disciples of Hayek and Friedman weren't the ones who flocked to pass homophobic amendments to their state constitutions, and there is no significant Cult of Wolfowitz just yet. No… it was the crystal meth-head Christians who showed up in force; the spite-fueled Apocalyptic sadists who proclaim their love for Jesus while perversely following in the footsteps of Cain.
Yes, it's true, evangelical fundamentalists won this election for Bush, and they know it. On the chessboard of power politics, those who once were pawns are now the bishops, rooks and knights. And what's more, they are positively giddy at the prospect of implementing their socially conservative agenda, especially in regards to the issues of abortion and homosexuality.
There are some who argue that since Dubya can't run for a third term --- and since the Christian Right remains, however vociferous, a minority -- the GOP won't be willing to risk alienating the few remaining moderates in their midst by swinging too far to the right. The problem with such happy-talk is that the leaders of the born again constituency won't let the GOP get away with ignoring them.
Take the recent education of Senator Arlen "Magic Bullet" Specter. The Pennsylvania Republican is conservative in all respects save one: his pro-choice stance on abortion. After winning a heated re-election race this year, the one-time shoe-in for chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee declared that it would be unwise of Preznit Dubya to nominate Supreme Court judges who would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
Reaction to Specter's warning was fierce and instantaneous. James Dobson, the egotistical Jesus-pimp who heads up the multi-million dollar Focus on the Family empire, hit the mainstream media to issue an ultimatum: "Senator Specter is a big-time problem for us, and he must be derailed. … There are many, many members of that committee that are more qualified and less of a problem than Senator Specter."
Some of you may be wondering how, in a country that wisely built a constitutional wall between church and state, an unelected bible-thumper like Dobson can deign to issue thinly veiled threats against the Senate. Some of you may be wondering how it has come to pass that a Christian radio talk-show host (and author of a series of books on how to beat your child the Christian way) feels empowered to impose his blinkered theology on the rest of us.
Obviously, some of you haven't been paying attention...
The cry has risen from all quarters. From his Moonie-funded "university" in the aptly named town of Lynchburg, Virginia, living punch-line Jerry Falwell is calling for an evangelical revolution. From the equally respectable BJU, located in Greeneville, South Carolina, anti-miscegenation activist Bob Jones III sent Dubya a most interesting note of >congratulations/warning on his re-election. It reads in part:
"Congratulations! In your re-election, God has graciously granted America -- though she doesn't deserve it -- a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. … Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly. Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. … Undoubtedly, you will have opportunity to appoint many conservative judges and exercise forceful leadership with the Congress in passing legislation that is defined by biblical norm regarding the family, sexuality, sanctity of life, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and limited government. … If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them."
It's not just the leaders of evangelical diploma mills offering their wise counsel. Reverend Peter Gomes, a Baptist theologian at prestigious Harvard University, declared: "Evangelicals have been on the cultural defensive. But they have waited in the wilderness. And now in the fullness of time, they have come into possession of what they felt was once rightfully theirs. And so, with the White House, and Tom DeLay, and in the House of Representatives, the Attorney General… talk radio, the conservative Fox News, all that sort of thing, these are parts of the righteous army that has finally come into its own."
Meanwhile, at the Free Republic message boards, where the conservative elite meet to greet and freep, there have been nearly five hundred postings -- on a thread viewed 100,000 times -- desperately seeking photographic evidence of Dick Cheney's enormous penis. So watch your ass, Cate Edwards!
Even Born-again athletes are getting into the act. Former major league pitcher Frank Pastore's op/ed piece for the Los Angeles Times -- entitled "Conservative Christians Must Not Bend" -- one-ups Falwell, Dobson and Jones on the psycho-scale. In it, he wrote:
"Since 1968, the left has taken millions captive, and we must help those Democrats who truly want to be free to actually break free of this evil ideology. In the weeks and months to come, we will hear the voices of well-meaning people beseeching the victor to compromise with the vanquished. This would be a mistake. … The left bewitches with its potions and elixirs, served daily in its strongholds of academe, Hollywood and old media. It vomits upon the morals, values and traditions we hold sacred: God, family and country. As we learned Tuesday, it is clear the left holds the majority of Americans, the majority of us, in contempt. … We are one nation under a God they reject. We remain indivisible despite their attempts to divide Americans through their relentless warfare against class, ethnic and religious unity. … We do not want to become secular. We are exceptional. We are unique. And we are the greatest force for good in the world, despite what the left, the terrorists or the United Nations may claim."
Examples of fundamentalist hubris, the empowered gloating of America's home-grown Christian Taliban, are legion. And for many, like multi-millionaire televangelist/author Tim LaHaye, Dubya's re-election does not merely represent a return to the (mythical) Good Old Days of yore, it signals the Beginning of the End. And boy howdy, is the Rapture-ready crowd ever stoked! In an interview with 60 Minutes, the Left Behind scribe declared: "We believe that God has raised up America to be a tool in these last days, to get the Gospel to the innermost parts of the earth." You don't need a know-it-all porn peddler to explain how the belief that "the end is nigh" has serious implications on both the domestic and foreign policy fronts.
And what of the loyal opposition? What has the Democratic response been to this broad-daylight hijacking of the first republic based on the Enlightenment principles of reason, pragmatism and individual liberty? Yer old pal Jerky is sorry to report that the party leadership has pursued a policy of appeasement, offering little resistance and too much cowardly capitulation in the face of an emerging theocracy.
The recent election has only weakened their resolve. When Senate minority leader Tom Daschle, a conservative red state Democrat, was unceremoniously ousted from his seat, the party rushed to nominate another red state Democrat, Nevada's Harry Reid, to replace him. Reid opposes abortion rights, and has one of the most right-wing voting records of any Senate Democrat.
In a recent appearance on CNN's Moneyline with Lou Dobbs, congressional Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi offered a sour taste of things to come. When Dobbs asked her how her party would compensate for their reduced power in the Congress, she went into a spiel about protecting the environment "which is God's creation" and "ministering to the needs, as it says in the Gospel of Matthew, of the least of our brethren." Dobbs, a relatively respectable conservative, was taken aback by Pelosi's transparent pandering. Through furrowed brow, he asked: "Are we going to hear every politician now, because of exit polls, start couching every issue in moral or religious terms?" Pelosi looked like a guppy that just came face to face with Leviathan. Needless to say, the fundies aren't falling for it.
Because the Republicans are so good at faking piety (and stealing elections), we are now witnessing the triumph of faith over reason, of absolutism over pragmatism, of fundamentalist dogma over the scientific method, of a brute scriptural literalism over transcendent spirituality. With reckless abandon, a coalition of power mad ideologues has ushered in an era in which revelation trumps reality. When reason ceases to matter, all opinions are equally valid, regardless of how ludicrous. Then, for a true theocratic takeover to occur, it suffices that a minority of like-minded activists agree to ego-identify with the meta-fictional narrative provided to them by the Powers that Be. In a democracy as degraded and abused as ours has become, it was only a matter of time.
So you'd better prepare yourself for some changes in the way you live your life.
Get used to your kids' history textbooks being subjected to the scrutiny of quasi-literate, neo-confederate revisionists who believe the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, and that the Underground Railroad was a tunnel with some tracks in it. Get used to borderline schizophrenic pecksniffs policing the rest of their schoolbooks for evidence of socialism, sexual perversion, paganism, Darwinism, anti-Americanism and apostasy.
Get used to medical professionals being intimidated into refusing to perform abortions or prescribe contraceptives. Get used to pharmacists refusing to provide the Pill because it goes against their personal moral values. Get used to having your own moral values trumped because more and more righteous Christians opt for careers that allow them to impose their moral values on everyone else.
Get used to more official government reports like the recent Federal Reserve study that claims "people who believe in a literal Hell" are more prosperous and productive.
Get used to being asked to pray and fast for your Preznit.
Get used to pre-emptive military aggression being marketed to the public as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, insane people trying to sacrifice their children on church altars, and a whole host of other things you never thought you'd have to get used to.
The millennial madness we've all been waiting for -- some of us more eagerly than others -- has finally arrived, and it won't be vacating the premises anytime soon... at least, not willingly. From the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts, o'er purple mountains' majesty and across the fruited plain, it's James Dobson's world, now. We're just living in it.
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