The religious right’s stealth politics

I’d have much more respect -- okay, some respect -- for religious rightists if they would simply start telling the truth about their strategic goals. Ever since their more visible political ascendancy in the 1990s, they have back-doored the public realm. Implicitly through their words and actions they’ve admitted they can’t win fairly and honestly. They know the American public won’t buy what they’re selling, so they get sneaky.

Don’t take my words for it. Take those of their own, the most famous, I suppose, being Ralph Reed’s goofy 1991 comment that "I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night."

Some might object that this was mere self-aggrandizement and nothing so lugubrious is ever played out on the ground. But consider a more down-to-earth example.

In the early 1980s a Californian by the name of Robert Simonds organized something called Citizens for Excellence in Education. Sounds innocuous enough, for sure, and its publicly advertised purpose was positively noble: to improve public education throughout our land. The organization would do this by helping to elect excellent citizens deeply concerned with better education to local school boards. Thirteen years later Simonds’ outfit would claim victory in having assisted more than 12,000 of its citizens onto these boards controlling more than 2000 schools. Nothing wrong with that. That’s the American way.

But it was a stealth campaign run by a stealth organization.

Rather than improving the quality of education in public schools, Simonds’ goal was to fight "socialistic, atheistic, new age and value-free" schools. He only advertised this in his campaign-advice book, "How to Elect Christians to Public Office." More telling was Simonds “election tactic of choice,” which was to “de-emphasize being a Christian [and] emphasize the candidate's status as a conservative parent concerned about the well-being of children” (emphasis added, Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 11, 1996).

Why the subterfuge? There’s nothing wrong with advocating one’s worldview in the pursuit of what one considers to be better public policy, but there’s something a good deal wrong with folks who feel the need to deceive.

The above tale of stealth is but one of many, and a familiar one to the politically cynical; not, however, to those somewhat less versed in deceptive politics. And the following is for them, assuming a scattered few actually read this sort of stuff.

Most Americans willing to ponder history at all think Hitler rose to power ranting and raving much like any other demagogue and never making a secret of his racial beliefs and eventual racial policies, which makes his rise seem even more horrifying by granting it popular democratic sanction. But there’s a problem with that history, and the problem is, it’s untrue.

It is true, of course, that Hitler demagogically ranted and raved and had spelled out his extreme racialism in Mein Kampf. Yet in his pursuit of public office he later downplayed that racialism in public rants for the simple reason that he had realized it would alienate far too many Germans. He waited. He subdued his true agenda. His strategy was a brilliant tutorial in stealth politics.

Now before you call for the butterfly net and thorazine, let me hasten to say I don’t think some fascist theocracy is imminent, nor am I ringing the alarm bell of how it can happen here and all that. The differences in cultures, history and political circumstances are too vast for such a direct comparison. What I am saying is that there is always a substantive, and usually sinister, reason for stealth politics. So anyone reading this who might be inclined to sign on to such politics should stand back and ask himself -- Why all the cleverness, the subterfuge, the stealth?

Comments

[Janil]

The Bush administration and its allies indeed are building a theocracy here in the U.S. Further, Karl Rove is using tactics the Nazi Party used: hiding true agendas, downplaying and cloaking extreme views, affirming most anything the public wants to hear, attacking opponents and accusing them of being extremist, employing stealth tactics, gaining control of the media.... The nauseating list goes on and on.

[big dave]

The fact is that conservatism is snake oil and if sold honestly would never sell. That's our saving grace but only if a) the democratic party strongly stands up to these taliban theocrats and b) articulate the progressive moral values that most americans possess.

[Lily]

Are we compelled to follow laws made by those who deliberately misrepresent their political positions to obtain power? If they represent themselves as one thing, but actually intend to practice another when elected, they are not genuine representatives of the people. Do they forfeit obedience to any laws they make because they have broken the pact? WE are the governors of our country, all of us. We hire lawmakers based on the facts we have about their political beliefs, behaviors, and records. If candidates deliberately lie about the facts; do they invalidate their power?

[Jane White]

This is a most accurate account of what is happening in this country. I maintain that the radical right turned in Mein Kampf for the Bible. But most of their rantings re: homosexuality and abortion do not appear in the Bible. Anyway, about 10 years ago Bill Moyers had a special on the religious right. He interviewed an individual from Jackson, CA, who commented that when they were done with their campaign, the USA would be a Christian country. When Moyers asked what would happen if people didn't want to be a Christian or who had a different view of Christianity, the individual replied, and I will never forget, "Oh, when we get through, they will want to be." My question then as now is, what will they do to people that they will want to be that particular variety of Christianity? Shades of Abu Ghraib.

[Leon Trotsky]

Keep up the good work comrades. Christianity is a false religion with no redeeming virtues and must be relegated to the dustbin of history.

[John]

I was with you all the way until the last paragraph. You say it won't happen here. Really? I think you need to wake up and smell the coffee. It's already happened and far faster than Hitler could have imagined. The Bushistas are masters at this game and given George Jr.'s Grandfather's historical connection to the NAZI's, I'd say this new group are following the same script.

I don't know who first coined those famous words "Never again", but they weren't referring to some Jewish holocaust. They were talking about we-the-people allowing ourselves to be put to sleep by some bunch of fanatical far right religious faschist tyrants.

[Sandra]

It's very telling - whenever the left wants to discredit someone or something, they drag out the Hitler analogy. Got any fresh arguments? This is geting boring.

[Mark S.]

This - from the group that keeps talking about reframing their message so that America will relate to it better, i.e. Dean's recent message regarding reframing the abortion debate. Are you going to disclose this strategy and similar ones to the general public? Or are you held to a lower stndard? Pshaw

[Anne]

It seems to me that I have heard those on the right compare liberals to Hitler in the past few weeks Sandra. Maybe you missed it in the news!!

Check out history. Not mentioned in the article was the fact that Hitler used so-called threatened loss of Christianity as a tool to whip the public into believing his assurances that he would "save" them if they all stood together. Thus he garnered cooperation from many people who believed that lie.

Anything sound familiar - such as the bogus story in the last "selection" that the left would ban the Bible?!

Don't blame the left for the Hitler comparison - read history (and the Patriot Act), believe the admitted truth about "disappeared" prisoners and condoned torture, and you should realize why! One could compare the actions point by point.

Am I now going to be one of the ones they come for?! Maybe.