The media and many progressives do not understand what motivates conservative Christians and have accepted the narrative put forward by GOP leaders. They have largely ignored this tension and assumed that the Tea Party was just a new version of the old right. But the fiscal conservative/small government/libertarian wing of the conservative movement, which the Tea Party has empowered, share virtually no values in common with the religious right.
The majority of Tea Party members do not consider themselves a part of the religious right and less than a quarter of the Christian right identifies as being in the Tea Party. Add to that the fact that the majority of Tea Party members hold positions Christian conservatives consider "pro-gay and pro-choice," and it shouldn't be hard to see why these tensions that have been simmering just under the surface since the time of Reagan are now coming to a head on the Hill and most prominently this past week at CPAC.
Christian right groups such as Family Research Council, the America Family Association, Concerned Women of America and many more have been joined by the largest conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, in condemning CPAC, largely over the inclusion this year of the GOP gay group, GOProud. The gay issue is clearly important and has gotten most of the attention, but we also shouldn't underestimate the importance of the anti-Muslim sentiment and hatred on the Christian right for Grover Norquist. The headlining blog on Red State yesterday was about the takeover of ACU (the group that runs CPAC) by the Muslim brotherhood, and there have been grumblings for a while by Christian conservatives about Grover Norquist's Muslim money ties (ties made all the more suspect by the fact he's married to a Muslim).
The significance of the CPAC split is not that it is proof of any fall by the religious right. Remember, they still represent between 40 percent to 60 percent of GOP votes each cycle based on an average of '04 to '10 exit polls, and they control a communication empire that spends approximately $1 billion annually on communication and organizing. The story here is schism, and Democrats and progressive cannot sit on our hands and just watch this unfold.
The battle here is between the Corporate wing of the GOP, and the Religious wing. They both hate Democrats, but really that's as far as it goes. The Tea Party is the new brand for the Corporate wing, the "libertarians" who want no government regulation, and no government spending. They want to privatize as much of the day-to-day operations of America as possible, and they want to profit greatly from it personally. They really don't care about anyone other than their net worth and credit scores. They have no problems with gays, Muslims, minorities, or any race or creed, but if you're a net drain on taxpayers, you're on the way out. They want to run government as a business, and that means getting rid of the poor and destitute and want to rewrite the Constitution until they can do it.
The Religious wing on the other hand has a major problem with anyone who isn't a straight, white Christian evangelical. They're actually far more open to social and environmental spending to care for their fellow man (the straight, white Christian evangelical ones, anyway) and don't like to see the poor abused for profit. On the other hand, anyone who doesn't fit into their little clique can literally go to Hell as far as they are concerned. They believe in America being a Christian nation for and run by Christians, and everyone else is a second-class citizen.
Needless to say, Sapp is correct. The groups have very little in common, other than they both want to take over the Government and use it for personal gain. They do intersect at some points, but not at others (look at the split over Egypt, the Corporate wing is more than happy to see Mubarak go and are licking their chops over the business opportunities he's leaving behind, the Religious guys are furious and are warning of a new Caliphate popping up in Cairo full of millions of Muslim terrorists.)
So how does Sapp plan to have Dems use this to their advantage?
We need to be drawing as much attention to this issue as possible to make sure it gets coverage, that the GOP base hears about it and wrestles with the implications, and that reporters will be pushing GOP candidates to pick sides and comment. We need to be pushing for questions of all the GOP hopefuls speaking at CPAC about whether they are concerned their failure to join the religious right boycott could come back to haunt them. Do those candidates agree with statements being made by CPAC sponsors (i.e., GOProud) that all the "real" conservative groups and groups that matter to the conservative movement are still sponsoring CPAC?
Sounds like a plan to me. New tag: Conserva-Schism.
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