The Christianist Candidate

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In case you were unaware, it’s Mitt Romney. As with most Christianists, the idea of allowing different states to try different solutions to the same problem is dispensable when moral absolutes are involved. In other words, the fundamentalists have no interest in federalism. If federalism means that California can have marriage equality and medical marijuana, today’s GOP base wants none of it. Here’s Romney’s discussion of John McCain’s approach:

Romney was less charitable to McCain, who on Sunday told ABC News: ‘I believe that the issue of gay marriage should be decided by the states.’ McCain also said, ‘I believe that gay marriage should not be legal.’ Romney seized on the remarks. ‘That’s his position, and in my opinion, it’s disingenuous,’ he said. ‘Look, if somebody says they’re in favor of gay marriage, I respect that view. If someone says ‚Äî like I do ‚Äî that I oppose same‚Äìsex marriage, I respect that view. But those who try and pretend to have it both ways, I find it to be disingenuous.’

It’s now disingenuous to have a position on a matter but believe it should be decided by indidividual states rather than by federal control? Disingenuous? Of course, Romney knows better. He’s smart, he’s aware of the important principle of federalism – but he’s going for the Christianist wing, the wing that only supports states’ rights when states support Christianist policy prescriptions. And so another conservative principle gets inverted by the allegedly "conservative" candidate.

(Photo: Paul Sancya/AP.)

Bush vs Conservatism

Jeffrey Hart, Dartmouth College legend and one of the architects of the American conservative movement, has long disowned the policies of George W. Bush and the current Republicans. His latest essay is brutal:

Recall the Eisenhower Republican Party. Eisenhower, a thoroughgoing realist, was one of the most successful presidents of the 20th century. So was the prudential Reagan, wary of using military force. Nixon would have been a good secretary of state, but emotionally wounded and suspicious, he was not suited to the presidency. Yet he, too, with Henry Kissinger, was a realist. George W. Bush represents a huge swing away from such traditional conservative Republicanism.

But the conservative movement in America has followed him, evacuating prudence and realism for ideology and folly. Left behind has been the experienced realism of James Burnham. Also vacated, the Burkean realism of Willmoore Kendall, who aspired, as he told Leo Strauss, to be the ‘American Burke.’ That Burkeanism entailed a sense of the complexity of society and the resistance of cultures to change. Gone, too, has been the individualism of Frank Meyer and the commonsense Western libertarianism of Barry Goldwater.

The post-2000 conservative movement has abandoned all that to back Bush and has followed him over the cliff into our calamity in Iraq. On top of all that, the Bush presidency has been fueled by the moral authoritarianism of the current third evangelical awakening.

Hart wrote me recently to say: "Your term ‘Christianists’ is immensely useful." This from the man who was a conservative when Dinesh D’Souza, Laura Ingraham and Jonah Goldberg were in diapers.

A Richards Theory

Maybe we should move on, but this email struck me as interesting:

A possible explanation (not an excuse, there is a difference) for Michael Richards’ rant is one I have often observed. It is that when one person makes another person extremely angry, in this case by interrupting the routine of a washed-up former celebrity, the offended person, in his rage, says not necessarily what he truly believes, but rather what he believes will hurt that person the most. Therefore, it’s possible that Richards was not, in a Freudian slip, revealing his inner racist; but rather was saying that which he felt would most offend the person who offended him. Only the people who know him best know which is the case. The only thing I know is that this episode won’t end his career. "The Michael Richards Show" already took care of that.