The Holy GOP

Sept 13th, 2011

Image from "The Response" via

In light of last night's astoundingly tasteless GOP "Tea Party Debate," with it's emphasis on ritual over ideas, I found something Andrew Sullivan wrote yesterday to be particularly on the mark. We are no longer dealing with a political party.

We are dealing with a new denomination. Sullivan writes:

"That's how I explain the current GOP. It can only think in doctrines, because the alternative is living in a complicated, global, modern world they both do not understand and also despise. Taxes are therefore always bad. Government is never good. Foreign enemies must be pre-emptively attacked. Islam is not a religion. Climate change is an elite conspiracy to impoverish America. Terror suspects are terrorists. When Americans torture, it is not torture. When Christians murder, they are not Christians. And if you change your mind on any of these issues, you are a liberal, an apostate, and will be attacked." EMPHASES HIS

There is a real danger in continuing to treat this new fundamentalism in the manner we used to treat other political movements. First, it legitimizes their detachment from reality. Second, frankly, it wastes our time. The far left and others disappointed in the current President would be wise to recognize this and turn their attention exclusively to the defeat of this new Holy GOP. This isn't pragmatism. It's survival.

We are not dealing with an opponent in any democratic sense. We are dealing with an enemy who thinks they are on a mission from God. What's more, they are making up their gospels as they go.