Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech had little to do with the Soviet Union. Delivered to the National Association of Evangelicals, the bulk of Reagan’s address was a feast of red meat for the Republican base’s 1980s fixations: drugs, prayer, sexual promiscuity. The Gipper merely affixed a condemnation of Soviet militarism at the end of an oration meant to please religious conservatives.
This forgotten history resonates in today’s era of abortion restrictions and right-wing judicial activism. Since the 1970s, Republican politicians have drawn from a deep well of political energy on the religious right. Evangelical grievance, while waxing and waning as a force in mainstream culture, has remained a constant in the political calculations of the GOP. Religious conservatism provides a rich trove of supporters to the republican Party, on which they now depend more than ever before.
But, in fact, this history extends further into the past than the era of Jerry Falwell’s alliance with New Right politicians such as Reagan and Jesse Helms. Conservative religious politics originated not with evangelicals, but with fundamentalists, and its first wave crested not in the 1980s but in the Jazz Age. Every time since World War I that social mores have liberalized, a reserve army of right-wing Protestants has asserted itself in opposition to society’s newly established freedoms.
The 1920s were an era of bobbed hair and short skirts, speakeasies and grand soirees. Society had let its hair down, and young people returning from the war were living a libertine lifestyle that horrified provincials. In response, religious fundamentalists tried to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools (including a failed attempt to do so in North Carolina) and generally to combat the rise of a more liberationist culture. A formerly left-wing political figure in William Jennings Bryan reinvented himself as a conservative anti-science crusader. And the violent edge of this backlash were hordes of Klansmen amassed to reign hell on Catholics, Jews, and Blacks.
The next religious backlash excluded the Ku Klux Klan but was equally regressive. Lest one imagine that the rise of the “Moral Majority” imposed traditionalism without loss of life, consider the ghastly toll that the AIDS epidemic took upon LGBTQ people due in part to the malign negligence of politicians such as Jesse Helms. And the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, another key prong of backlash aggression, precluded same-sex couples from the full rights of citizenship. All of this repression seemed to benefit Republican candidates.
Today we’re facing the third wave of aggression by religious conservatives. Empowered by an activist Supreme Court, evangelicals across the country are advancing an aggressive rollback of civil rights. The most politically potent element of their agenda is a genuinely extreme national effort to invalidate the right to obtain an abortion. As destructive and misogynistic as this is, trans youth may bear an equally harsh burden imposed by this right-wing revolt against cultural transformation.
Transgender sports bans are novel–but the virulence behind them is not. Religious conservatives are reenacting a history of backlash that began in the 1920s. In 2023, however, the religious counterrevolution may come up short. The United Stat today is solid in its liberality, reshaped forever by the rights revolution. A religious right feeling imbued with momentum will soon find itself outside the circle of influence.
Wayne, the Bible has been used as a weapon. Half the books attributed to Paul were not written by Paul. The books that were written by Paul support women and do not say anything about homosexuality. The Jesus Seminar has concluded that many of the words attributed to Jesus in the Bible was not spoken by him and are not indicative of his philosophy. The Bible needs a serious edit. The Bible is not the constitution.
Wayne. I fixed it for you….
… perhaps you would like to consider where the REAL problem with cultural transformation is coming from. Clearly, the problem oozes like an infectious pus from your own political party!
Beyond dispute, your President Trump will go down in history as the most corrupt, the most globally disastrous, and the single dumbest President in American history. Judging from the fawning and obsequious plaudits that Republicans routinely lavish on Trump, as well as the slobbering devotion that ALL of the Republican Party apparatchiks in his criminal administration routinely enjoy from the right-wing propaganda media, it is quite clear that the media, as well as Trump’s enablers, intend to prop him up for re-election—assuming they don’t have to pull off a ‘Weekend At Bernie’s’ routine, and trot around a dead, but very cooperative body! Sadly, Trump is mentally incapable of functioning as President, and his weakness is reverberating across the entire world!
If we are to succeed as a constitutional republic, the American people better wake-up and fight for the concepts they claim to cherish – family, freedom and basic human and civil rights – or it will absolutely be gone by the end of this generation! The diminishing, and the dismantling of our constitutional republic, began with Ronald Reagan, and his crowd of Fascist, war-mongers and is viciously determined to carry out their agenda to ‘Fundamentally Transform America’ into a Stalinist authoritarian State. They’ve been remarkably successful thus far, to the detriment of us all. Which brings us back to Donald Trump…
All the republicans seem to want from Trump—let alone any of his millioinaire, blue-haired, jack-booted acolytes—is someone in authority whom they can easily manipulate. Republicans don’t want constitutional governance, and they don’t seem to want a principled morality, either. Instead, they want servile fools whom they can install into office by any means necessary, and who (preferably) have no moral base whatsoever. For Republicans, morality is what THEY say it is, and if that means worshipping at the throne of sexual deviancy and moral perversion—so be it. It begs the question: are ALL Republicnans deranged and self-destructive, or are they merely self-deluded, and incapable of comprehending facts that are quite clearly in front of them? The Republican Party has built an ideological belief system based on alternate realities and distorted, conflicting assertions. Frankly, it is a house of cards which is inherently flawed, and which will eventually destroy itself. It begs the ultimate question: Are Republicans mentally ill, or are they trying to destroy western civilization? Which is it, because Republicans are not the problem—the ideology of the Republican Party is the problem!
Wayne’s got way too much time on his hands; it’s addled his brain.
You may be on to something, he, she, or it is detached from reality and has issues with focusing on the subject. Coupled with his rambling statements and obsession with gender issues does indicate something is not working properly. Incidentally, the last time I checked, that elderly, overweight guy with orange hair and matching pancake makeup is running for president. Therefore, he is fair game.
Does this end up making the evangelical voters who supported Trump so strongly in the past think twice about supporting him again? But then hypocrisy, is the thing of evangelical voters, they overlooked his many transgressions, adultery, running phony charities and lying and supplying employment for sex workers. What to say they will not do it again? Even if he must serve his term in office behind bars. But be assured they will be the best bars money can buy!
On the brighter side we enjoy the benefits of a modified socialism such as Social Security and Medicare. Many personal freedoms such as free speech, freedom of religion and of course the right to own the preferred weapon of mass shooters; the AR15. Now how could anybody be unhappy with low unemployment, a stable economy? I am not an expert on Marxism, but from what little I did learn in Economics 101, it is not going on in this country. Democrats have never advocated for or supported such a concept. (Rebel Yell added for effect)
Democrats seem to have a very curious obsession with Trump. Every single issue, every single problem, every single screw-up that has provably been engineered by Democrat incompetence—is blamed on Trump, no matter that he isn’t in office anymore! Equally curious (and hilariously!) the token White House spokesweenie–Karine Jean-Pierre–never seems able to give a straight explanation regarding Biden or Harris’ mulitiple, and endless, gaffes, misstatements, professional malfeasance, or sheer stupidity. Other Biden administration toadies, such as Mayorkas, Blinken, and Merrick Garland, function the same way, and are little more than fawning bootlickers. How pathetic can one political party get!
The Democrat Party has become utterly lawless. Clearly, Democrats don’t believe in fair justice or equal treatment under the law. In fact, Democrats are so far removed from what originally made this country so great, that we can no longer have partnership with them. Ideologically and culturally, the political parties must remain separate. Bipartisan governance is simply not an option anymore.
God’s own word notes in the Bible that a righteous people must separate themselves from evil, and to come out from amongst that evil. The Democrat Party has become so unhinged, that it is no longer recognizable. Democrats are, quite clearly, morally, politically, and culturally unrighteous and unclean. Now, they hinge the Democrat Party platform on nonsense such as drag queens reading storybooks to kids. Now, it’s mutilating kids and infecting them with gender dysphoria, and using it as an excuse to cut off their breasts or cut off their penis! Have you people LOST your mind…?
Finding common ground is impossible for people that believe men can somehow become women, or that women can magically become men. It is a lie, folks—but Democrats are angrily and aggressively insisting that this sort of bizarre belief is actually a human right! Evangelicals, and Donald Trump, are not your problem. Your own embrace, and normalization, of clearly abnormal perversions is the problem!
Despite your trembling horror over the possibility of an evangelical resurgence in fundamental Western morality, perhaps you would like to consider where the REAL problem with cultural transformation is coming from. Clearly, the problem oozes like an infectious pus from your own political party!
Beyond dispute, your President Biden will go down in history as the most corrupt, the most globally disastrous, and the single dumbest President in American history. Judging from the fawning and obsequious plaudits that Democrats routinely lavish on Biden, as well as the slobbering devotion that ALL of the Democrat Party apparatchiks in his criminal administration routinely enjoy from the Left-wing propaganda media, it is quite clear that the media, as well as Biden’s enablers, intend to prop him up for re-election—assuming they don’t have to pull off a ‘Weekend At Bernie’s’ routine, and trot around a dead, but very cooperative body! Sadly, Biden is mentally incapable of functioning as President, and his weakness is reverberating across the entire world!
If we are to succeed as a constitutional republic, the American people better wake-up and fight for the concepts they claim to cherish – family, freedom and basic human and civil rights – or it will absolutely be gone by the end of this generation! The diminishing, and the dismantling of our constitutional republic, began with Barack Obama, and his crowd of Marxist Leftists is viciously determined to carry out their agenda to ‘Fundamentally Transform America’ into a socialist/Marxist authoritarian State. They’ve been remarkably successful thus far, to the detriment of us all. Which brings us back to Joe Biden…
All the Democrats seem to want from Biden—let alone any of his transgendered, blue-haired, jack-booted acolytes—is someone in authority whom they can easily manipulate. Democrats don’t want constitutional governance, and they don’t seem to want a principled morality, either. Instead, they want servile fools whom they can install into office by any means necessary, and who (preferably) have no moral base whatsoever. For Democrats, morality is what THEY say it is, and if that means worshipping at the throne of sexual deviancy and moral perversion—so be it. It begs the question: are ALL Democrats deranged and self-destructive, or are they merely self-deluded, and incapable of comprehending facts that are quite clearly in front of them? The Democrat Party has built an ideological belief system based on alternate realities and distorted, conflicting assertions. Frankly, it is a house of cards which is inherently flawed, and which will eventually destroy itself. It begs the ultimate question: Are Democrats mentally ill, or are they trying to destroy western civilization? Which is it, because Republicans are not the problem—the ideology of the Democrat Party is the problem!