Khaki Elephant has an interesting and well-written post describing a claim by Anne Coulter that the religious right does not exist and never has. Without herself being a propagandist she claims (as posted at Khaki's blog):
"Like all propagandists, liberals create mythical enemies to justify their own viciousness and advance their agenda. There is no bogeyman that strikes greater terror in the left than the apocryphal “religious right.” The phrase is a meaningless concept, an inverted construct of the left’s own Marquis de Sade lifestyle. It functions as a talismanic utterance to rally the faithful against anyone who disagrees with the well-organized conspiratorial left."
It is an interesting, non-propaganda style claim, don't you think? The well-organized conspiratorial left has simply created this fictitious "enemy" in which to justify fear and rally their numbers. Indeed. No conspiracy theory or propaganda there!
Can this argument not go both ways? Let's see...
"Like all propagandists, conservatives create mythical enemies to justify their own viciousness and advance their agenda. There is no bogeyman that strikes greater terror in the right than the apocryphal “secular left.” The phrase is a meaningless concept, an inverted construct of the right’s own oppressive lifestyle. It functions as a talismanic utterance to rally the faithful against anyone who disagrees with the well-organized religious right."
So, the religious right doesn't exist. Then I assume that the all powerful "Christian left", "new atheists" and the "secular left" are figments of the far rights imagination too. Oh, and "liberal bloggers". It's funny how she implies that liberals are the only ones capable of conspiracy theories and susceptible to propaganda. Yes, Anne Coulter is definitely not a conspiracy theorist or propagandist. Right. It is simply a conspiracy that there is a large voting bloc of far right Christians whose social stances make up a large part of the Republican base...unless the Republican base doesn't actually exist either and is also just a conspiracy! I may be on to something.
Thanks Khaki for the post! :-)
18 comments:
you ARE awesome
I try. No seriously, I do.
You're right.... wait... nope... At last check Bush won an election based a vote by this sector of the population....
More like 30 years, Regan got elected by mobilizing the religious right.
Makes perfect sense to me!
www.web-privacy.pro.tc
Anne Coulter and her ilk make me think freedom of the "press" might not be such a great idea after all. I know conservative Christians who are disgusted by the politicization of their faith.
I guess the Alliance Defense Fund is a myth too.
http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/main/default.aspx
Is this what they call "Doublethink" ?
The Religious Right exists. I was literally a card-carrying member back in the Moral Majority days.
Ah, DB, you keep me singing.
Certainly you can say there are far right religious voters, just as you can say there are far left ones . . . in fact, every demographic report I've ever seen claims that the country's most regular church goers are African Americans (the majority being Baptist) and it's hard to find a more monolithic voting bloc . . . and they sure ain't right-wing.
So, who is this religious right? Prayer in public school supporters . . . oh wait, that's 80% of Americans and I doubt you'd say they're all RR. Folk who want creationism in schools . . . damn, that's 80% too! Anti-abortionist . . . oh, wait, that's primarily Catholic and they can't stand evangelicals (Remember Bob Jones University?) Anti-gay marriage . . . except we found out that Blue States vote against gay marriage when put to the polls (and African Americans do so overwhelmingly).
So who is this religious right? Who is their leader? You folk used to say Pat Robertson was one of them but, oops, he endorsed pro-choice Rudi.
And please don't make me laugh about the Moral Majority. Falwell got far more credit than he deserved . . . probably because somebody needed a villian. What did they really do? Help Reagan? Please! Check out who actually voted for Reagan. Reagan showed an appeal that crossed virtually every voting bloc. I mean, what did Mondale win, Minnesota, and they're nuts anyway (with apologies to any Jesse "America faked 9/11" Ventura supporters)
Now, I'm not saying that there isn't a republican base. For example, while Obama won the election the majority of small business owners pulled the lever for McCain. In addition, the average Republican voter tends to have a higher education level than the average Democrat. Not sure what that means.
And as far as evangelicals . . . How many people consider themselves that? 4% of the population? They couldn't stop the McCain nomination and lord knows they wanted to. Hell, they couldn't stop Reagan the first time either (and they were Ford suppoters then, not to keen on a Hollywood type from the Left Coast). Evangelicals numbers are so small they're hardly enough for you to worry about.
So sleep well, DB. Don't worry about the religious right, my friend. However, based on actual demographics, you may want to take some action against education . . . that's where you seem to be losing voters.
"Folk who want creationism in schools . . . damn, that's 80% too!"
Source? Creationism isn't real science.
"In addition, the average Republican voter tends to have a higher education level than the average Democrat"
Wrong. Intelligent people overwhelmingly supported Obama in the election.
Anne Coulter is a bigot and a racist.
80% support creationism? Not even 80% of people believe that crap. 80% believe in school prayer? Yet not even 80% of the country identifies as Christian (and I highly doubt non-Christians support Christian prayer in school). Where are you getting your numbers, and where are they getting their responses from? What questions are they asking? This is bs. Ann Coulter is popular because her target audience isn't very intelligent. Then they repeat her claims as fact.
Check out Gallop and Zogby for education levels, and not just for this election but for all presidential elections after JFK. The fact that you are unaware of this politically well known truism that Republicans have a higher average education kinda proves my point. As for the last election with Obama:
Find the population weighting by multiply total by the party percentage. 3%*64% and 3%*35% = .0192 and .0105 for No High School. Repeat for the other levels. You'll notice that the total is only .9842 (rounding?). Totals for Dems and Repubs are .5295 and .4547, using .9842 as the total population, 53.8% and 46.2%
Assign -2 for No High School and add one point for each level up to 2 for Post Graduate with Some College, the average, as zero. Multiply by the population weighting, i.e. 0.0192*-2 and 0.0105*-2, for each education level. Take the totals for dems and repubs and divide by pop totals, 0.1872 divided by .5295 for the Dems and 0.1665 divided by 0.4547 for republicans.
Total weighted education levels for Dems = 0.3535
Total weighted education levels for Reps = 0.3861
Side Note: You may be interested to know that in the Democratic Primary the higher your education level the more likely you were to vote for Clinton over Obama.
The number supporting 80% of Americans supporting Creationism and prayer can be found on Gallup (http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr990830.asp)
or the liberally belove New York Times (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9802E7D91338F932A2575AC0A965948260). But you were right, my numbers were off. It's actually 81%. My bad.
And while you may think that "Not even 80% of people believe that crap." Gallup also reveals that 80% of Americans consider themselves Christian, 90% believe in Creationism in some form or another and 93% celebrate Christian Christmas. (http://www.gallup.com/tag/Religion%2band%2bSocial%2bTrends.aspx)
Wow, hello commenters. Reddit ftw!
I don't know where to start, but I think Che got it right off the bat. This is doublespeak, but let's go a bit more Orwellian shall we? Here is a good definition of Newspeak that fits the bill:
"deliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them."
Sounds about right. I'll get to the rest in a bit, it's been a busy night! Thanks for the comments. Khaki, thanks for putting up the fight lol!
I think Khaki is taking care of us religious folks but let me chime in anyway(as if you thought I wouldn't). I don't care for Ann as she thinks the church I belong to is a cult, I know a lot of people do but people who live in glass houses...you get the point. The demonization of the religious right is true. Hollywood is full of dangerous gun carrying psychotic characters who murder their wives and children for having babies out of wed lock etc. The portrayal of the religious right is always negative in the media as liberals are the kindest, smartest individuals around. Both groups may have claims of demonization but the left clearly has the upper hand as everything blasted in the media wins the propaganda war for the lefty peeps. And yes you are totally awesome in every way! :)N
Wait a second. If there is no religious right, how can there be negative portrayals or demonization of them? Can this mythical beast have its cake and eat it too?
btw, are you saying Hollywood is having babies out of wedlock and are gun carrying psychos? Or are you saying they portraying religious right people as that? I am confused.
And thank you for pointing out my awesomeness. I am awesome. My blog description says so.
Actually, I'm with Nikki when it comes to Anne (I doubt she'd be a big fan of my church either). I think she's hilarious, but I'm not a big fan. I just feel she got it right on this one.
And are you really shocked the Hollywood demonizes things that don't really exist? Just look at what they've done to werewolves, the walking dead and celibate Catholic priests.
P.S., I'll add my voice to the din. You are awesome.
Having been part of the religious right at one time I would have to say Anne Coulter is full of shit as usual.
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