The Repug Religion Has No Place in American Politics

h/t Down with Tyranny.

An editorial in the Los Angeles Times brilliantly analyzes the transformation of the republican party into a fanatic religious cult and how that has nearly destroyed American politics.

Unfortunately, author Neal Gabler goes complete off the the rails at the end, inexplicably surrendering to the know-nothing insanity that Americans have been tolerating but eventually marginalizing for 400 years.

Perhaps the single most profound change in our political culture over the last 30 years has been the transformation of conservatism from a political movement, with all the limitations, hedges and forbearances of politics, into a kind of fundamentalist religious movement, with the absolute certainty of religious belief.

I don't mean "religious belief" literally. This transformation is less a function of the alliance between Protestant evangelicals, their fellow travelers and the right (though that alliance has had its effect) than it is a function of a belief in one's own rightness so unshakable that it is not subject to political caveats. In short, what we have in America today is a political fundamentalism, with all the characteristics of religious fundamentalism and very few of the characteristics of politics.

SNIP

That is one reason our founding fathers opted for a separation of church and state. They recognized that religion and politics could coexist only when they occupied different domains. Most denominations, which preach and practice tolerance, have rendered unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Religious groups may have found a community of interest with a political party to further their aims; they have not, by and large, sought to convert the political system into a religious one. Until now.

The tea-baggers who hate President Obama with a fervor that is beyond politics; the fear-mongers who warn that Obama is another Hitler or Stalin; the wannabe storm troopers who brandish their guns and warn darkly of the president's demise; the cable and talk-radio blowhards who make a living out of demonizing Obama and tarring liberals as America-haters -- these people are not just exercising their rights within the political system. They honestly believe that the political system -- a system that elected Obama -- is broken and only can be fixed by substituting their certainty for the uncertainties of American politics.

As we are sadly discovering, this minority cannot be headed off, which is most likely why conservatism transmogrified from politics to a religion in the first place. Conservatives who sincerely believed that theirs is the only true and right path have come to realize that political tolerance is no match for religious vehemence.

Unfortunately, they are right. Having opted out of political discourse, they are not susceptible to any suasion. Rationality won't work because their arguments are faith-based rather than evidence-based. Better message control won't work. Improved strategies won't work. Grass-roots organizing won't work. Nothing will work because you cannot convince religious fanatics of anything other than what they already believe, even if their religion is political dogma.

SNIP

Those who oppose the religification of politics may think all they have to do is change tactics, but they are sadly, tragically mistaken. They can never win, because for the political fundamentalists, this isn't political jousting, this is Armageddon.

With stakes like that, they will not lose, and there is nothing democrats -- small 'd' and capital "D" -- can do about it.

Read the whole thing.

Um. Has Neal Gabler been incommunicado for the past year? Didn't November's election pretty much prove his last paragraph wrong? Doesn't the complete psychotic meltdown of the republican party this summer and the disgust it has engendered in most Americans show that American democracy draws a line against religious insanity and the repugs have crossed it?

Yes, the republican party is now a vicious, violent, paranoid, sociopathic cult incapable of participating positively in American politics.

So stop treating them like a political party. Stop compromising with them. Stop negotiating with them. Stop giving any credence at all to anything they say. Stop pretending they are sentient modern humans.

If President Obama and Congressional Democrats can't bring themselves to ignore repugs completely, they should follow the lead of the one Democrat in Washington who is beating the repugs by calling the motherfuckers out for fucking their mothers.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....