Don't You Believe It

Steve M. reminds us that the Teabaggers are the GOP, and that the GOP are the Teabaggers.  There's no separating them in 2010, and that means the country club Taxen Cuten Uber Alles crew and the socially responsible What Would Jesus Do? evangelicals are singing from the same hymnal:  if you would turn your pages to "Destroy Obama By Any Means Necessary" we will begin our service...

But many of the best-known supporters of the tea party movement -- Palin, Bachmann, Gingrich -- are also God-botherers. (Yes, Gingrich -- if that surprises you, you may want to get up to speed.) And while tea party lobbyist Dick Armey has expressed disdain for evangelicals, his group Freedomworks did join with the Family Research Council and other religious right groups for a webcast in response to this year's State of the Union address.

Yes, teabaggers are going to try to keep secular issues in the forefront, in the hope of attracting members outside the Bible Belt who aren't with the religious right program. And there is some tension in the rank and file -- Jonathan Raban attended the recent tea party convention in Nashville and noted (in an article for The New York Review of Books) that some attendees were made uncomfortable by the religiosity of the gathering (and the absence of alcohol at meals):

That evening, our prayer was led by Laurie Cardoza-Moore, the founder and president of a Christian Zionist organization called Proclaiming Justice to the Nations. We were asked to join hands with our neighbors while Moore delivered a long, impassioned appeal to God, imploring Him to compel the United States to show unwavering loyalty and devotion to the State of Israel. I felt an increasingly steady pressure on my right hand from the woman holding it, as she sang out her "A-mens!"; but my left hand, lightly held by my new partner in skepticism, registered a quick double-blip from her forefinger and thumb that unambiguously said, "Uh-oh."

As we sat down to our steak-and-jumbo-shrimp dinner, my neighbor said, sotto voce, for my ears only, "You know, I phoned my husband last night. I told him that being here has made me realize that I am a liberal conservative."

But the mere fact that there was this religiosity tells you that, once the dust settles and we have dozens of new teabag-friendly members of Congress, they could be a hell of a lot more Christian-rightist than the secular rhetoric of the movement would lead us to expect.

Raban notes that even Joseph Farah's birther speech at the convention was religion-drenched:

He took us on a quasi-scholarly tour of the first chapter of Saint Matthew's gospel, where Christ's genealogy is traced from the patriarch, Abraham, down through many generations to "Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ," then invited us to compare Jesus' unassailable ancestry with Obama's dubious family tree.

Maybe the emergence of excessive religiosity is going to lead to schisms in the movement -- but my hunch is that that won't happen until after the 2010 elections, because there's too much shared rage and the Christian rightists are keeping their issues mostly on the back burner. After their likely big victories? At that point I think the religious rightists are going to step to the fore and push their agenda in Congress. Secular teabaggers will express disillusionment. But by then it'll be too late.

The only religion these guys believe in is "We should be in charge, and by God we will be."   The secular stuff is a puppet show designed to attract the Paulites.  When the only thing you have in common is Obama Derangement Syndrome, you can't expect them to stay friends for too much longer, and Steve's right, they won't.

But you'd better believe once 2011 rolls around, campaign promises will be broken a plenty.  The Birchers, the Birthers, the Paulites, the Club For Growth crowd, the Country Clubbers and the tinfoil hats...they aren't going to make it once the Village declares the Obama presidency to be over in January (no matter what actually happens.)  And from the ashes, the Christian Dominionists will be the boys to beat.