We note three trends in our political party of choice--the party of Lincoln, TR, Coolidge, Eisenhower, Reagan, the Bushes, yea, even Nixon--that we believe are unnecessarily and unwisely mortgaging its hold on political power in coming years.
The appearance of theocracy. We think that fears of a Christian theocracy are overblown in this country. Fractious American Christians lack the will and the means to take over. Besides, a majority of American Christians aren't very Christian, so over the long term they're unlikely to vote in ways that would compromise their indulgence in things immoral that might be forbidden in such a regime.*
However, as long as many Christians who vote Republican use overtly religious criteria for choosing a candidate, plenty of secular types--and we speak of ordinary folk, not media elites and such--will blanch. They don't want a pastor running the country.
So we think it's a terrible thing for Republicans that many are refusing to consider Romney because he's a Mormon. It's no better that many Republicans become so preoccupied with a single issue, important as it genuinely is, that they won't vote for a candidate like Giuliani who is mildly pro-choice, even though in the last 28 years, 20 years of pro-life presidents haven't moved Roe v. Wade an inch. And we think it's weird that Rs are at the moment psyched about Huckabee, whose positions on economic matters are awful and whose record of executive achievement is short, largely because he is clearly an ideologically and religiously orthodox candidate.
All this feeds the perception that Rs want a theocracy: they'll take the less accomplished, less generally appealing candidate purely because he's religiously one of them. And that perception will marginalize the party with everyone who isn't one of them and with many who are Christians but who worry about either the church being taken over by politics or vice versa.
The appearance of xenophobia. The Republican discussion of immigration is becoming a contest to see who can offer the most draconian measures against illegal immigrants. This is bad in multiple respects.
One is that it obscures the Republican insistence that natural law, or God's law, is greater than laws made by humans. The party began with that notion in its opposition to slavery (the Republic did too, of course, though it was proto-Democrat Jefferson who expressed it so well in the Declaration). The party continues with that notion as it stands against abortion.
For immigration, the natural/divine law issue is this: it is good for a person to work to support himself and his family, so to seek opportunities to do that is good as well. The vast majority of illegal immigrants are obeying that higher law. So for Republicans to insist that illegal immigrants be treated as lawbreakers for doing what is naturally right and good is paradoxical for them in ways that it would not be for Democrats, who in this day and age tend to see right as what the majority says and rights as what the government bestows.
A second problem is purely political: a harsh stance on illegals looks like hatred for Hispanics. Hispanics are now more inclined to vote Democrat than Republican than in 2004. That's going to make it tough to elect a Republican in 2008 and beyond. Hispanics, many of them seriously religious and family oriented, are a natural constituency for Republicans, who simply need to get their moral thinking straight to make the move that will also be politically expedient.
The appearance of racism. Nixon sadly squandered the Republicans' remaining appeal for African-American voters with his so-called Southern Strategy. By appealing tacitly to segregationists, he broke up the Democrats' Solid South but also wasted the legacy of Lincoln, TR, Eisenhower and Everett Dirksen (Republican minority leader in the Senate whose support of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, forming a coalition with progressive Democrats against segregationist Democrats, was decisive in its passage).
Since that time, Republicans with few exceptions have appeared unwilling to make appearances at African-American venues. Once it may have been their desire to keep the segregationist margins in their coalition, even if the candidates themselves had no intention of doing anything to support segregation. More recently it may be because candidates expect a hostile reception at black venues and don't want the negative publicity following them. Whatever the reason, the behavior continues to confirm for many African-Americans (and by many we mean 90-95%) that Lincoln's party would have preferred to send them back where they came from.
This problem is bad not just for Republicans, who could use some black votes in their coalition, but for African-Americans who are merely taken for granted by the party that they overwhelmingly support. As more black leaders sound themes of family, responsibility, education and hard work that naturally belong to the Rs, their agenda, the agenda needed by their community, will be ignored by a party that owes more to public employee unions dependent on dependency than to citizens at large who need the general welfare promoted.
Note that all these are matters of perception. Republicans are right when they say that they hate theocracy and love immigrants and minorities. But in politics, perception is reality.
We call on our party to do something to show what you really believe. We doubt that anyone is listening, but we call nevertheless.
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*Note that the church's obvious agenda to realize God's rule on earth should therefore be evangelism and edification, not politicking as such.
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