They are vehemently against abortion and they quietly but firmly resist progressive woman's rights. They view homosexuality as a crime against nature and God, some advocate the death penalty as an option for it. They insist the nation is founded on the principles of their religion, and they work hard to bring that theocracy about. They deplore strong language, gay characters, and sexual content on TV and the media. And they ignore the Geneva Convention when it suits their ideological purposes, including provisions against torture. They're anti-stem cell research, pro-creationism, and generally distrustful of science. These folks are easily whipped into a state of frenzy with ideological manipulation to the point where they will commit violence, or at least tacitly endorse that violence is acceptable if it advances their Divine agenda. They then take great pains to justify violence including unprovoked attack of civilian areas, under certain conditions, with convoluted theological gymnastics. They are almost to the man pro-death penalty ... Am I railing against the neo-religious right again?
Could be, but my target here is actually fundamentalist Islam; the source of terrorism, the scourge of our planet, the axis of evil. Omit a few details of the religion, keep the name of the faith hidden, and you would not be able to distinguish them from the Neo-religious Right in America, in basic ideology. This is another potential wedge and PR issue that the democrats could exploit with some slick advertising and soundbites. I think they should test it out.
When the neocons say that Liberals or moderate Republicans are against America and for the terrorists, they could not have it more backwards. The religious right is the closest thing to Islamo-fascism we have in our country, and no one is worried that Al Qaeda will be storming ashore on our beaches en masse, invasion style, anytime soon. The biggest, immediate, threat to our way of life comes not from terror camps in Afghanistan, not from nuclear scientists in Pakistan, and not from Islamic Radicals the world over. The biggest threat to our way of life, to our core and most cherished American values, comes from our own home-grown, Neo-Christian Right and their Neocon manipulators, disguising their anti-American agenda under religious cover.
I was once a pretty staunch Republican, although I was always a moderate. But I've always thought the system works best when you have at least two parties to keep check on one another. I never wanted one party to extinguish the other from existence, and I'd like to see three or four robust parties. I was also constantly amazed at the shit the democratic campaign and image gurus allowed their extremist GOP counterparts get away with. It never made a lick of sense to me that they wouldn't address it head on and/or use the same advertising tactics. At times one of the reasons I voted for Republicans was because the Democrats frankly came across as absolute pussies in this light.
Currently I'm now registered as an Independent, and lately I vote democratic on every single issue. I'm under no illusions that Democrats would never try to feather their own nest if they happened to control all three branches of power and could thus rig the game. But the threat is not coming from the democrats, it's coming from the GOP, infested with the neo-Christian Right, who hope to bring freedom and democracy as we know it and enjoy it, to an end.
What makes Democracy work half-ass, most of the time, is that politicians can't get away with too much naughtiness, especially if it hurts the interests of the rank and file voter. Or they'll get voted out of office by a hungry competitor who will expose them to voters who are fed-up.
What the Neocons have done is brilliant, in its antidemocratic way. Aside from hijacking the once Noble Republican Party, making their extremist views of conservatism synonymous with mainstream Republican goals including anything they feel like saying. What really stands out is that for political support they've managed to convince a large segment of Christians in the US that cutting benefits and protection for the working class and poor, extending benefits to the wealthy at their expense, engaging in warfare based on lies and deception, and torture, are more central values to Christianity than mercy, civil rights, help for the poor and sick, and the shunning of wealth and power. It's a stunning achievement considering how backasswards that is to the Gospels and the entire New Testament (And again, not to belabor the point but ... They simply could not have pulled it off unless the dems sat on their asses while they pursue that goal unrestrained).
What really makes this constituency work so well for the Neocons is the fundie electorate's basic premise is that facts don't count, empirical data can be disregarded because it's all an artifact of ones 'world view', and that reality really doesn't matter compared to the supernatural Realm of da Lord-eh. Thus this constituency is shielded from learning the facts, kept whipped up in religious anger and fear, and they have a built in filter, like creationists, which prevents them from making the connections the rest of us keep waiting, and waiting, for them to make: And wake the fuck up from the scam. The Neocons masterfully play all these weaknesses against them and against us all.
And whenever the wheels look they might fall off on a specific bit of deception, and their own rank and file will notice the emperor has no clothes, the Neocons engage in calling their opposition, whomever they may be, unpatriotic, fags and lesbos, cowards, and terrorist sympathizers. The Big Smear. It doesn't matter who or what gets in their way, they'll do it to anyone, for the most trivial of reasons. George Washington could rise from the grave with Thomas Jefferson at his side, and if they disagreed with the agenda du jour of the Neocons, they'd be painted as cowards and traitors and probably as secret gay lovers to Americans. The Neocons smeared John McCain, Max Cleland, John Kerry, and now the AARP and by proxy, the greatest generation. The Neo-Christian right dutifully swallowed it all and spread it like a virus.
But now you have the weaponry you need to reach the swing voters and the moderate Christians. So get on it dems, stop waiting for someone else to do it for you. Get a bunch of potential wedge issues, do some fancy analysis with them nifty hand-held outrage meters to craft the language, test the refined wedge issues and advertising out in real life elections in 2006 (You can do this in places you're unlikely to win without losing a thing and you'll get a better read on what works with the swing voter against an incumbent). Take the best performing wedge issues and go national with them in 2008.
To defeat the neocons you don't need the entire fundie base. You only need to carve off a few percentage points from them.
And my own two-cents; I'll never understand why you guys didn't go with Wesley Clark. That's the kind of candidate you need. Anyway ... You have a plethora of wedge issues being offered up for 2006. DeLay, Schiavo, Iraq, fiscal issues, the economy will probably falter a bit, science/evolution, right wing extremism with lots of juicy and scary quotes from the most flipped out of them ...
Best of all for your campaigns, be crystal clear with expensive, repeating, ads about which party acts and thinks most like the terrorists who attacked us on 9-11, and which does not. It's the Neocon, fundie dominated, GOP that is the mirror image of fanatical Islam; it is they who most threaten the core values of America with the Taliban-in-Neo-Christian-disguise ideology, and no one else.