Right-wing evangelical Christians struggle with the emergence of Morman Mitt Romney as the Republican frontrunner.
The Republican Spiritual Crisis
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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you misspelled ‘democrat’
sorry for the double post, but I couldn’t delete the previous one. but seriously with the rampant false accusations of people not voting for Obama because he’s black (what was the reason for not voting for Kerry?), is this cartoon opening the door to allow us to accuse people not voting for Romney because he’s a member of LDS? The cartoon makes more sense if you swap ‘republican’ for ‘democrat’ because if Romney is the nominee, I guarantee a lot more democrats will vote against him than republicans!
Unintent….There was a very real question in 2008 amongst Obama supporters as to whether all the polls were going to be completely wrong and McPalin was going to waltz into the white house without an issue. There was a part of the country, a particular demographic, that oddly surged right whilst the rest of the country surged left, with no apparent explanation. But aside from that….
The discussion of Romney’s faith is a very real discussion that is taking place in fundamentalist (I think using the term ‘evangelical’ by both Ted and the media paints over a very valuable delineation in American theology) communities about whether or not Mormons are even Christians, and very prominant fundamentalist theocrats like Falwell and Robertson, as well as those at Bob Jones “University” (BJ-U, for short), have asserted everything from “Mormonism is a cult” to “Mormons worship the devil.” Like Romney trying to assert his tax return issues came from the Obama Administration (categorically incorrect, they came from his Repug brethren), this issue does not come from the left. It is a conversation within the right wing of the GOP and always has been.
For Ted to comment on it does not mean that the question derived from Ted. It is quite reasonable to assess whether these religious fundamentalists (who more likely didn’t vote for Obama because they thought he was Muslim) would deny Romney the nomination based on his dabbles in LSD….erm….LDS rather. These people proudly wear their faith on their sleeves AND proudly declare that their faith heavily influences their politics.
The scoffing at such an assertion shows the discomfort that these people have with owning their explicit and expressed bigotry in decision-making. You can slice this turd any way you want, but in the end these people ARE extremely prejudice, ill informed, xenophobic, and fearful of the generalized other. To the extent that Romney is not “one of them” they will most definitely shy away.
The best humor I see in this peace is the double play on racial political correctness versus the Otherness of Obama. These people can say they don’t mind blacks all they want, but they ascribe so many stereotypes to blacks that any black person becomes the sum of all that is not like them. thus they recognize that they have to begrudgingly look beyond color, but they simply build other constructs in their minds to justify their still everpresent racial hostility.
If the lady in crisis can stomach (alleged) Catholics, then she can maximize her hate-per-vote by going with that swinger Newtie.
Three words: Al Smith, redux.
Poll numbers have been very consistent across both the 2008 and 2012 primaries – being a Mormon hurts Romney. When 2 or 3 out of 10 Republicans won’t vote for you because of your religion, it makes a huge difference.
Evangelical bigotry is legendary, and in the case of Mormons it runs as hot as ever.
Loved the theme of that sermon : «How intelligent design made our stupid world» ! Some people, however, do seem determined to improve on the divine handiwork by making it even more stupid….
Henri