The Second Front

Yesterday, I observed that we will continue to fight the war on Islamofascism, thanks to the Bush victory, but that also, thanks to his "mandate," we must be especially vigilant against attempts to legislate Christian morality.

Today, there is much more data about this, including about why, exactly, the religious wing of the Republican Party sees itself as having this mandate. There are also signs, some encouraging and others discouraging, about how others are reacting to this charge of the Christian cavalry. I'll start with Bill Bennett, because he quotes the same first data that I heard about that gave me pause: "The national exit polling conducted by the Los Angeles Times confirms all these findings, showing that '[M]ore than half of Bush's voters cited moral issues as a principal reason for their support — more than any other issue, including even terrorism.' In fact, morals trumped terrorism by seven percentage points in the Los Angeles Times poll." This directly contradicts what I thought, but, what are the internals of the poll? I haven't the time to research this question myself, but questions of methodology spring to mind. After all, "exit polling" showed a Kerry landslide yesterday, too, did it not? And what questions were asked? Are not terrorism (murder) and how to deal with it (warfare or appeasement) moral issues? This Bush voter regards "morals" as supremely important, but he does not mean the Christian ethical code of altruism. I'd like to know which Bush voters were sampled, what they were asked. The Los Angeles Times (out of paranoia?) and Bill Bennett (out of opportunism) seem to both assume that by "morals," these respondents meant that they want Christian morality imposed on them by the government. Everyone must live by some kind of moral code: just asking whether "morality" is "important" to someone borders on cold reading. Psychics use that method to get the answers they want to hear, too.

But Bill Bennett is not the only cold reader out there. Ann Coulter, whose polemics I love, but whose stated principles are solidly Christian, said the following in her column ("One Last Flip-Flop") today: "As we now know, the most important issue to voters was not terrorism, but moral values. Marriage amendments won by lopsided majorities in all 11 states where they were on the ballot. Even in Oregon, the state targeted by gay marriage advocates as their best shot of defeating a marriage amendment, the amendment passed by 57 percent — a figure noticeable for being larger than the percentage of votes cast for Bush in Oregon. In the great state of Mississippi, the marriage amendment passed with 88 percent of the vote." Here, we at least have hard data: that voters passed socially conservative measures in several states -- including my home state, called "great" for the first time in my recent memory. And, in his defense, Bennett also cites these results, "Alaska, a relatively libertarian state, voted against decriminalizing marijuana — despite the proposition to do so vastly out-funding the movement to keep it criminalized. And the eleven state proposals to ban the redefinition of marriage all succeeded overwhelmingly." But they are still cold-reading. Bush ran on the war. The prime-time speakers at his convention were such social liberals as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani. It appears that Bush himself ran on the war first and on his economic agenda second. (Remember, he dared broach the subject of social security reform -- the "third rail" of American politics -- both in the debates and on the campaign trail.) Yes, he did bring up a Constitutional amendment against gay marriage, but he did not run on it. In his first term, he launched "faith-based" initiatives. He did not run on those, either. He did benefit from religious voter turnout in these states that had these socially conservative referenda, but he did not win in those states alone. So, either the religious right is trying to steal this election or Bush underhandedly is getting ready to smuggle in this agenda. Or maybe the religious right is indulging in a little wishful thinking.

Somewhat encouragingly, aside from gay marriage, Bush did little more than pay lip service to religion when he publicly outlined his second-term agenda today. His focus was much more in line with what I thought it would be, based on what he has said throughout his campaign: the war, making his tax cuts permanent, and reforming social security. As before, he did state that he would seek a ban on gay marriage. "Other items include reforms to the nation's intelligence community, halving the record $413 billion deficit, expanding health care coverage, a constitutional ban on gay marriage and moving 'this goodhearted nation toward a culture of life.'" UPDATE: I have since learned from firsthand accounts that Bush has explicitly promised not to forced religion on anyone and that he even went so far as to state that the decision as to whether to worship at all is a personal one.

More encouragingly, the Democrats are still strong enough to filibuster in the Senate, which will make anything outrageous hard to pass. Also, some secular Republicans are warning Bush to not overstep his mandate. For example, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania warned against the nomination of pro-choice justices to the Supreme Court. "When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely. The president is well aware of what happened, when a bunch of his nominees were sent up, with the filibuster. ... And I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I am mentioning." Some Republicans seem to be girding their loins already to oppose the President on issues of separation of church and state if need be. UPDATE: Arlen Specter has denied reports such as the one I mentioned before, and see update above.

Very discouragingly, the soul-searching that this year's huge defeat has started for the Democrats seems likely to make them want to jump onto the perceived mandate for social conservatism. On Fox News this morning, I heard Tennessee Democratic representative Harold Ford saying that the Democratic Party needed to begin embracing socially conservative values. Indeed, even during the Presidential campaign, John Kerry saw the need to pay lip service to religion. From the DNC web site is this letter from John Kerry, "My faith has always been a guidepost that informs my values and persists as a powerful source of strength in my life. My wife and I are Catholics. John and Elizabeth Edwards come from the Methodist tradition. As a Catholic I was taught the value of service...." And some are indeed advising the Democrats, in terms they might accept, to do just this, as we can see in today's Detroit Free Press. The title is "Democrats get a lesson in morality." The whole article is worth a read, but this line shows that the main danger of the Bush mandate is that even now it is being seen as "really" about the injection of Christian morality into politics: "If the campaign of 2004 masqueraded [emphasis mine]as a campaign on terrorism and the economy, the campaign of 2008 will be about America's heart -- and its values, both moral and spiritual."

I have speculated that, as Zell Miller has in his book, A National Party No More, the Democrats are in danger of going the way of the Whigs. Unless this party returns to its civil libertarian, free speech roots, it will. The alliance between economic and social conservatives that is the Republican Party is a contentious one at best. The next few years will feature, even within a wartime context, a struggle by the religious wing of the Republicans to assert more power. If they are very successful, they may succeed in saving the Democratic Party, especially if that party wakes up to the need for our country to defend itself. More likely, in my opinion, the Democrats will learn nothing constructive and will go down in flames. In the next half-century, I can see the Republicans splitting, pitting the social conservatives against the economic conservatives.

The twentieth century was marked by the long struggle against socialist totalitarianism. This century will be marked by the struggle against religious fundamentalism. The threat from the foreign front is manifest in our physical danger from terrorists. The threat on the home front, to our personal freedom, is already present, but the battle lines on this second front of the war are only now being drawn.

-- CAV