Purification and renewal

Values code for Christian-based protofascism mobilized Bush voters


Gay marriage served as the voter wedge for Bush, coded under the rubric of "high moral values"

We really didn't see this coming, not with this much force. Now that it hit us over the head, a general alarm should sound. After this election, it is clear that the population of deluded fundamentalist reactionary Christians is growing and reaching majority status in vast areas of our country. They seek to usher in an era of protofascist purification and renewal. Through the disturbing elections of 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, I never felt things were tipping this way in the sense of an overwhelming mass movement. But now I fear we may be entering such an era.

David Neiwert at Orcinus has a wealth of amazing material on these undercurrents, including an outline of the proper progressive response -- we must reject coded messages suggesting that we now must "heal" from the divisive electoral struggle.

Neiwert quotes the insufferable Bill Bennett, who was quick to issue this call for purification:

I have long advocated a stronger tie between politics and the virtues. Last night it was evident that the American people agree...Having restored decency to the White House, President Bush now has a mandate to affect policy that will promote a more decent society, through both politics and law. His supporters want that, and have given him a mandate in their popular and electoral votes to see to it. Now is the time to begin our long, national cultural renewal ("The Great Relearning," as novelist Tom Wolfe calls it) — no less in legislation than in federal court appointments. It is, after all, the main reason George W. Bush was reelected.

Neiwert goes on to report an email anecdote he received that reveals some very important indications of red-state mood:

My 11 year old daughter in the 6th grade was the ONLY student to wear a Kerry/Edwards button to school, out of 729 students in her middle school. Her classmates ridiculed her, told her to get the hell away from them, and kicked at her desk all day to separate her from them. They even told her she was not a "Christian" because she supported Kerry. They told her that Kerry was gay because he supported gay marriage. Today was even worse. They gloated, jeered and sneered at her from the minute she stepped out of the car to the minute she was picked up from school. They did not have to kick her desk because she intentionally moved it away from them.

Very extensive additional material appears at Orcinus.

See also Under the Same Sun. Zeynep includes this disturbing analysis under the heading "Gays are the New Jews":

Here's what's happening in a nutshell: a proto-fascist administration is whipping up support and clouding the political picture by aggressively targeting an already despised, small minority that is, for the most part, expressing no other wish than to assimilate as who they are. Many members of that minority are already relatively integrated into the existing power structure. Most are not poor or marginal but wish for not much more than being accepted into the existing institutional structures: the very structures that many progressives spend their lives fighting to change (for example, the military). Yes, the obvious analogy is the Jews in pre-WWII Germany.

The anti-gay amendments that have just passed are comparable to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws in their function, if not their scope and final intent. These laws were passed in 1935, stripping Jews of many of their basic civic rights and erecting impassable barriers to the increasing assimilation of the Jewish minority into Germany.

Undoubtedly, supporters of these anti-gay measures do not see themselves as the new Nazis. Of course not. Participants in a pogrom by definition do not see their actions as wrong. Likewise, voters for Bush seemingly were untroubled by the contradiction of his supposed high moral values and torture of Arab/Muslim prisoners under his administration's care. What could be in store for gays and other undesirables if these trends are allowed to continue?