Why are so many people on the Religious Right Republicans? You can’t say ALL Evangelical Christians, Catholics, and Mormons are Republicans, because they’re not; just the extreme religious right wing fringe. Not all Jews are Republicans but some are. And this is who the Republican Party is catering to these days.
The Republicans know that the Religious Right is their base. They will do anything and everything they are told to do. They in turn enjoy telling other people what to do. And why is this? Because to the Religious Right, the Republican Party is God and the Religious Right is its child, or children if we split them all up and send them to individual Republican foster homes. But more importantly, the Religious Right being a child of God (the Republican Party), is also His (Its) instrument and what He/It says goes. Think about it. God is all-powerful and exists on high. Republicans like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson and Rupert Murdoch are all-powerful (maybe except for Murdoch anymore) due to their extreme wealth and live high-er on the hog than almost all of us ever will. The Tea Party starts out protesting the banks and TARP until the Republican Party tells it the banks and TARP were good, but that the new black president is bad, so the Tea Party loves the banks and TARP but hates the new black president.
The Religious Right views God as their Holy Father, in fact, they literally call him “Holy Father”. The Religious Right has a primal need to be taken care of; to rejoice in the thought that everything is planned so they don’t have to think for themselves. And since they don’t need to think for themselves, they don’t think others should get to think for themselves either. Look at how the Republican Congress descended on poor Newt Gingrich when he opposed Paul Ryan’s plan to change Medicare to a voucher program in 2011: “I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering.” Gingrich was taken to the woodshed for that one and he was still plucking wood slivers out of his ass when he walked that statement back within a few days.
Even Mitt Romney is having considerable trouble winning the hearts and hypnotized minds of the Religious Right because, 1. He’s a Mormon and “not one of us”. 2. He was for abortion before he was against it. 3. He signed off on the Romneycare mandate tax which became the Obamacare mandate tax.
And the Republican Party encourages this intertwinement between the Party and God. It does want to take care of its flock. God and the Republican Party stand side by side, if not in each other’s skins. Republicans have seen the face of God and he looks like Ronald Reagan—complete with prematurely orange hair.
Just last week, Paul Ryan said in effect that only God can create a health plan. Since there is no way to verify if Ryan was offered the job of God’s press secretary—let alone accepted—none of us will take him at his word except for the Religious Right. And this type of religious/government mindset is key to how the Republicans continue to win the allegiance of the Religious Right who gladly cede control over their lives to the Party, like children bending to the rule of their parents. And here’s how it works: When you hear a Republican politician proclaim something is or against God’s will, substitute the words “Daddy says”.
It is against the will of God to be homosexual. “Daddy says gay people are sinners and shouldn’t marry each other.”
It is against the will of God to prevent pregnancies and to have abortions. “Daddy says women don’t have the right to have any say-so over what happens to their bodies.
It was God’s will to have us overthrow Saddam Hussein. “Daddy says there was WMD hidden all over Iraq.”
It is God’s will that health care not be reformed. “Daddy says only rich people should get cheap health care plans.”
To keep the Religious Right inside the safety of the arms of the Republican Big Daddy In The Sky, they surround their world with fear. Fear of a foreign-born socialist President, fear of hordes of brown people streaming up from the South and from the general middle east/Asian areas and over the unwatched U.S. borders, fear of liberals who put this foreign-born black President into office and now stand at the border gates ushering in the teeming hordes of brown people. Fear of God/the Republican Party being forced to pay higher taxes than He/It can afford and therefore unable to create new jobs. And fear that a new health care law is the largest tax increase in the history of the world and will leave them unable to afford, unable to afford, well they don’t know what they will no longer be able to afford because they don’t really know how much their own taxes will go up since who knows what is the highest tax increase in the history of the world? The Religious Right only knows they have been told that it is and they have faith in their God/the Republican Party that it is true.
What’s surprising is that the Republican Party has never built a church to itself. This is understandable. Because although the Republican Party solicits, perpetuates, and capitalizes on the love and adoration of the Religious Right, who wants to waste a couple of hours in church with them on Sunday mornings. “After all, they’re really not our kind of people.”