The Religious Right, the Republicon Party, and the Law of Unintended Consequences

Heh heh. Could it be that the evangelicals, in lusting for political power, could end up burning their own house down (h/t Dispatches)?

Evangelical Christians in Iowa, dominant in the state's Republican Party, have denied Sen. Charles E. Grassley his request for a place on the state's delegation to this summer's Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Mr. Grassley may attend the party's Sept. 1-4 nominating convention in St. Paul, but not as a voting delegate.

I'm sure all you're seeing here is power. Scary, religious frother power. But let's dig deeper, shall we?

"The Republican Party of Iowa is moving significantly to the right on social issues," the just-ousted Iowa Republican National Committee member Steve Roberts told The Washington Times. "It hurts John McCain's chances to win this state."

Does it now? Evangelicals of Iowa, unite! By all means, accrue all the power you can lay your grubby hands upon.

Other party officials said money for the party is drying up because of past mismanagement and current religious dominance, which has turned traditional Republican politics upside down.

Ooo, this just gets better and better.

Party officials in the state say the takeover is alienating major Republican donors and driving them out of the party.

The takeover by members and leaders of the Iowa Christian Alliance, successor to the Iowa Christian Coalition, was extensive.

Indeed it was. If the Republicon Party of Iowa were a tree, it'd be shot through with rot and ready to fall down in the next high wind.

I think this could be great good news for the Republicons, at least in Iowa. In the short term, they're facing disaster. In the long term, however, I think it's going to end up a gorgeous demonstration of the need for separation of church and state. The fundie frothers are already alienating the elements that keep the Republicon party going. They're turning the whole thing into a theocratic farce. The fundies are bumbling idiots with too much god-rot in the brain: at some point, they're going to fuck up so spectacularly, destroy things so thoroughly, that the old-school conservatives might just be able to stage a comeback. Can anyone say "backlash"?

That would make me happy. I get tired of wielding the Smack-o-Matic against such easy targets. I'd love to have opponents I can actually respect.

But even if respectable, sane conservatives can't rescue their party from the clutches of these god-ridden maniacs, it's still good news - for Democrats. I don't think this country, fucked up as it is, is going to take well to the excesses of a theocracy. When their power gets too great, when the intrusion into personal lives and the fuckery and the sheer delusional disaster of it all finally becomes so egregious that it interferes with the latest edition of American Idol, the masses shall rise up and boot the batbrains out. And to do that, they'll turn to the only party left standing.

Not to mention, exiled conservatives with the political sagacity and deep pockets to make it work might just decide to start their own party. One that will provide a genuine alternative to the two-party hegemony we have now. I am not now and never will be again conservative, but I'm all for conservative folks having a happy home that doesn't reek of the overwhelming stupidity of the current one.

I'm sure this isn't what the evangelical movement had in mind when they started playing politics. That's what they get for mixing God with Government. They should've stuck with rendering unto Caesar and so forth.

Times a' comin' when they're going to find that out the hard way.