Time to Strike! A Call to Action.

The Christian Right is getting pissed off.  For the most part, members of this nebulous group still regard George W. Bush as the greatest thing since sliced bread.  However, there are indications that some are beginning to suspect what we knew along: they were used for their votes.  Bush & Co. exploited the bigotry, ignorance and blind faith of the Christian Right to "win" "re-election", and those few members of the Christain Right who retain some semblance of independent thought are starting to ask questions.  This is the chink in the armor, and Dems need to move in now and blow this Coalition of the Willfully Ignorant apart.  

More on the flipside...

In today's Bloomberg News, Heidi Przybyla discusses this very phenomenon, and I believe that this could very well be the next prong in the multi-wave attack to re-take Congress in 2006.  The first is what is already happening: Tom DeLay is looking more and more like the poison he used to use to kill roaches.  The next thing working for us right now is the general low approval of Bush and Congress (links here and here).  If the Dems are able to nuture and exploit the growing dissatisfaction Christian Right wackos have for Dear Leader in combination with these recent events, then I really think, or hope, that the Democratic Party can go to win Congress in 2006 and maybe even the WH in 2008.  

The money quote from the Bloomberg News article:

Voters who identify themselves as conservative Christians were a crucial part of the coalition that gave Bush a second term and Republicans a bigger majority in Congress. Some evangelical leaders, though not all, now express dismay with both Bush's priorities and his Social Security proposal, which they say could hurt their predominantly working class constituency.

"We're wising up to the fact that we're very important nine months before an election and we're not very important nine days after that election," said Don Wildmon, 67, an ordained minister who is chairman of the American Family Association in Tupelo, Mississippi.

This is exactly the feelings that we need to be nuturing and causing to spread throughout the Christian Right.  

How do you do this, you may ask.  Well, I propose initiating a campaign to target those raw nerves in the minds of the Christian Right, and prod them and poke them in order to induce that thing we on the left like to call "thought".  Play on the uneasy feelings that some members of the CR are experiencing, to get them to talk to their friends about it, and pretty soon, with a little luck, this could snowball into something good for us.  

Ultimately, I think this is going to happen anyway, but we should just push it a bit to speed it up.  The ultimate goal is to get them so riled up that they will do something really stupid like start their own party with their own candidates.  Or if they stay in the GOP, they may try to really take it over and force the moderates and non-wackos to come to our side.  Anything that results from their anger toward Bush will benefit us.  

So what to do?  I have some ideas.

• Post fliers at Wal-Marts, Church bulletin boards, grocery stores, etc. that ask questions.  Questions to get them thinking.  Questions like: "Why doesn't Bush care about the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) now that he's won re-election?" or  "Does the President still care about the sanctity of marriage?"  This will require us to sort of "think" like one of them for a bit... not the best thing, but the rewards may be worth it.  
  
• Make bumper stickers that have slogans that would lead the reader to believe that you are on their side, but are having doubts about Bush.  Why does Bush care more now about Social Security than protecting our moral values?  Crap like that.  

Doing this may make us feel dirty, but thats how the game is played.  Are we really above dirty tricks?  I am not.  

So what do you think?  Is this a worthwhile plan?  Will it work?  It will be most effective in the reddest of the red states, with high densities of CR'ers.  

Got more ideas for slogans/questions/memes?  List them in the comments.  

I got to get back to work now...

•  Got to work now...

  ...my boss is pissed!

  But I'll be back in a short to see of anyone has commented on this, or would like to organize a campaign.  

  by Billy Shears on Tue Apr 19, 2005 at 08:59:30 AM PDT

•  Need to Play This Both Ways

  Because both are true.

  The Christian Right has been sold out by Bush.
  The moderate Republicans have been sold out to Bush.

  What's crucial to illuminate is that both groups think they have been sold out to the other.
  But no, they've both been sold out to a third group.
  I'd say "billionaires" but that's way to general.
  More like the Carlyle Group.

  by NewDirection on Tue Apr 19, 2005 at 09:02:49 AM PDT

  •  Yes!

    Very good point... The primary objective is to turn the two sides of the GOP against each other... Any way that accomplishes this is worth doing.  

    The groups making up today's GOP should not get along.  They are very loosely held together and many think that it can not last indefinately.  The Dems just need the schism to occur before or during the 2006 election cycle.  

    by Billy Shears on Tue Apr 19, 2005 at 09:17:28 AM PDT

    •  While That's True

      It needs saying that the Democratic Party is much the same. When you see polls showing that Bush's approval ratings were EVER way, way over 50%, and that far more than half of the people initially approved of the Iraq Invasion, then this is stark.

      I am anti-centrist because I think there is power on the left that, if acknowledged by any leading candidate, can pull even so-called centrists, indeed swing voters, into the democratic fold. I think that acknowledging only the power of right wing ideas, or ideas that we allow to be framed as conservative such as fiscal responsibility(!), has set up the reverse effect. The status quo is that many in the party are attracted to the right. The media plays a role, but so does the Democratic Party leadership's persistent policy of making the problem worse in their own words and deeds.

      I respect your point but I think that this year should be spent primarily cleaning up our own house, not campaigning on the other guys' turf.

      by NewDirection on Tue Apr 19, 2005 at 09:37:53 AM PDT

      •  Agreed.

        There are currently a lot of problems with the Democratic Party.  And they need to be fixed, pronto.  I am with you:  fuck the status quo and the move to the right; the real power, the sleeping/apathetic giant, is on the left.  No doubt about it.  

        But it would be nice to foment the schism in the GOP while our problems are being fixed, no?

        by Billy Shears on Tue Apr 19, 2005 at 09:47:36 AM PDT

        •  Yes...

          Especially because the more of a mockery they make out of right wing ideas the easier it is to see how much more sensible our own are.

          by NewDirection on Tue Apr 19, 2005 at 04:25:33 PM PDT

•  'DUH' Line...

  "We're wising up to the fact that we're very important nine months before an election and we're not very important nine days after that election," said Don Wildmon

  No shit, Sherlock!!  That's how it always will be when you back the guy who's all about image, instead of substance.  This excuse doesn't work for me, and I sure as hell don't feel sorry that they allowed themselves to be bamboozled.

  Ideas...
  

  
  BUSH'S MORAL VALUES:
  

  • Raising Veterans' health care costs
    
  • Cuts out beds for veterans in care homes
    
  • Cutting community development funding
    
  • Cut funding for local police agencies, including special drug Task Forces combating meth labs
    
  • Eliminate Safe & Drug-Free school grants
    
  • [INSERT ANY ONE OF BUSH'S DOUCHEBAGGERY ACTION HERE] (I could go on & on...but you get the idea)
    

  Those aren't MY moral values!

  by spyral on Tue Apr 19, 2005 at 09:28:08 AM PDT

•  Work together

  Califiornia's governor Schwarzenegger has a problem. In his campaign, he publicly pledged to reduce government spending, while at the same time floating a set of bonds to cover his first year worth of deficit. He made some cuts, but promised they were temporary.

  For the next year, deeper in debt, he pledged to cut spending even more and really had to cut a lot of it. For each group, he told private stories of how it was only borrowing from their fund, and would be paid back next year. Each group thought it was going to get special treatment the next year, so none of them fought back hard enough to stop him.

  Well, of course they all got screwed. Divided we fall, you know. This year, the unions are sticking together, the teachers won't sell out the firefighters and the cops won't sell out the nurses. A little like some schemer having five different fiancees turn against him at once after finding out about each other.

  This can work for Bush/Frist/DeLay, too. For every interview about the Christian agenda, ask how it reconciles with Indian gaming. When on the topic of gaming, ask why the tribes' success seems to depend on their choice of lobbyist.

  
  Op-Ed 4/17/2005 FRANK RICH
  Get Tom DeLay to the Church on Time
  ...
  This time the plot begins with money. Two K Street fixers, a lobbyist named Jack Abramoff and a flack named Michael Scanlon, managed to snooker six American Indian tribes into handing over $82 million in exchange for furthering their casino interests. According to The Washington Post, some of their tribal takings, cycled through a nonprofit center for "public policy research," helped send Mr. DeLay golfing in Scotland. The pious congressman, a gambling foe, says he had no idea of his trip's sinful provenance. Never mind that Mr. DeLay was joined abroad by Mr. Abramoff, whom he has described as one of his "closest and dearest friends," or that Mr. Scanlon had once been his spokesman. Mr. DeLay was as innocent of the goings-on around him as a piano player in a brothe
  ...

  If every group knew the deals these crooks were making with other groups; the policies that conflict with each other when they're even spelled out at all; the ethics that can most charitably be described as situational: If every group knew, none would risk cooperation.

  by chimpy on Tue Apr 19, 2005 at 09:31:11 AM PDT