This thoughtful article in today's San Jose Mercury News caught my attention:
Let me say at the outset that if you're one of those people ready to scream because American sensibilities seem to be swinging hard to the religious right, your target is not evangelical Christianity, it's evangelical politics. The problem with missing the distinction: If the left keeps attacking and marginalizing the religion, it will only make things worse.
Many overlooked the political power of conservative evangelical churches largely because they could not imagine so many people could have such a different worldview. That kept them from understanding how the culture of evangelical churches -- set up, after all, to convert people -- can be an ideal political mobilizing machine. There's a regular time and place to meet, a sense of mission, small communities accustomed to teamwork, and leaders who are often strong communicators.
Karl Rove got it. He incorporated the agenda laid out by conservative evangelical leaders, and those leaders in turn encouraged their network to support Republican causes and candidates. Other political groups seem to have given up on evangelicals altogether, and some critics have resorted to ridicule, which has worsened feelings of alienation among evangelicals.
I wrote about moral fashion a few days ago, and I still think it's a relevant point. But that is clearly only one side of the story. The majority of evangelicals across this country aren't marching in lockstep behind Rove, Dobson, and Bob Jones. They're mostly ordinary, middle-class folks with the same problems and concerns as most other ordinary, middle-class folks. They also happen to believe that the tenets of their faith are necessary not only just to cope with those problems and concerns but are necessary to solve them as well. That doesn't necessarily mean that they all want to erase the separation between church and state, or overturn Roe v. Wade, or ban gay marriage. They're not stupid, they're not ignorant, they're not ill-informed, and they're not racist bigots. And they don't like being labeled as being any of those things any more than moderate democrats and progressives like being labeled as radical, unpatriotic, immoral, and elitist.
All that alienating them accomplishes is to drive them further into arms of the far right. But because they're not stupid, and they're not fanatics, and they're not ignorant or ill-informed, chances are good they'll realize that the economy is continuing to falter, that the war in Iraq is continuing to not go well, that the costs of medical care and education are continuing to rise, and that in general things aren't improving for them despite the pandering of the administration and the far right.
And when they do, will democrats and progressives treat both their values and concerns with respect, find common ground with them, and start working together on a shared agenda? Or will they continue to dismiss their values and ignore their concerns? Because, if it's the latter, the Democratic party will continue to lose elections just like they lost this last one.
