Some Folks Say It's the Beginning of the End for the Christian Right -- Dream On, They're Getting More Powerful | Alternet

In the aftermath of the government shutdown, and the ongoing Republican Party internal civil war that followed, progressive media outlets have embraced the notion that the Christian Right is finally facing its demise. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The autopsy of the 2012 election produced a swarm of op-ed obituaries that either celebrated or foretold the political end times for the Christian Right. Jonathan Merritt, a columnist for the Atlantic, observed that the GOP’s electoral hammering in 2012 marked the end of evangelical dominance in U.S. politics. More recently, Steven Conn, a contributor for the Huffington Post, predicts the rise of Pope Francis will dissolve the glue holding the Christian Right together.

While these observations make for sound logic when examining national politics, they completely overlook the Christian Right’s state-by-state strategy.

The Christian Right is flying mostly under the radar because the media tend to be attracted to bright, shiny things that grab attention at the national level. The nation’s theocrats, however, are waging a battle for America’s soul at the local and state level, and these battles generally do not make their way onto CNN or the front page of the New York Times.

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Sarah Posner, an adept observer of the Christian Right, writes: “The religious right is not a movement with one or even two or three or four leaders. Because it's a political and cultural undertaking that is playing a long game—rather successfully—it has produced many disciples.”

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Chris Hedges, author of American Fascists, writes, “All ideological, theological and political debates with the radical Christian right are useless. It cares nothing for rational thought and discussion. Its adherents are using the space within the open society to destroy the open society itself. Our naive attempts to placate a movement bent on our destruction, to prove to it that we too have 'values,' only strengthen its supposed legitimacy and increase our own weakness.”

 Some Folks Say It's the Beginning of the End for the Christian Right -- Dream On, They're Getting More Powerful | Alternet