Christianity’s Real Enemies

Yesterday an eighth-grade boy in Paramus, New Jersey, came to school dressed as Jesus, and was sent home. Yesterday was Halloween, notice. Today the wingnuts are in full battle cry that the Paramus, New Jersey school system hates Christianity. One wingnut:

Assault on Christianity not just About Christmas, NJ Boy Sent Home Dressed in Halloween Jesus Christ Costume

Halloween is a Christian holiday now? I realize Catholics try to pretend it is with All Saint’s Day. But the truth is that it’s an old pre-Christian Celtic holiday, and the other truth is that we still celebrate it as such. There’s nothing Christian about it.

Having been raised Christian, I’d like to think I still understand Christianity. And I think a Christian argument could be made that dressing as Jesus for Halloween is blasphemy. I believe if some kid had worn a Jesus costume in my old Bible Belt no-teaching-of-Darwin-allowed school system in the Ozarks, he’d not only have been sent home but his entire family would have had to face the wrath of the born-again community.

Paramus, New Jersey is not exactly the Bible Belt, but it’s conservative enough to have blue laws. The malls are closed on Sunday, and what stores are open have stuff roped off that you cannot buy. As I remember it, toys are OK, but you can’t buy nails or paint, for example. It’s annoying. Every now and then the blue laws get put up for a vote, and Christian ministers rally and get them re-approved.

Anyway, I wonder sometimes if the “war on Christianity” people are Christians themselves, or if they just get off on being outraged. Don’t answer that; I already know.

On the Couch

Nate Silver’s data say that if the election were today, the electoral college vote would be something like 350 to 188 in favor of Obama. Still, Dems faint in terror at the least discouraging news; the wingnut faithful (although not the GOP party itself) are only now telling themselves that McCain might lose. Nah, he couldn’t.

Rush Limbaugh’s gut is telling him McCain can win (or is it gas?) and John H of Power Tools tells us,

From Drudge: Zogby’s polling yesterday had John McCain pulling into a one-point lead, 48-47, over Barack Obama. That result is an outlier, I suppose, but Obama has never been able to seal the deal with the voters and quite a few remain undecided, one in seven according to a recent AP poll. Throughout the campaign, McCain has made a series of runs where it looked as though he might catch up, only to fall back again. And the state by state polls continue, for some reason, to look worse for McCain than the national numbers.

Still, I have a feeling that once you get past his core constituencies, Obama’s support is very thin. The fact that he has had to try to cast himself as a tax-cutter is revealing. Does anyone really believe it? True, there’s a sucker born every minute, but still… If there really are voters who have contemplated voting for Obama on what are essentially conservative grounds, it would not be surprising if some of them shift their allegiance between now and Tuesday.

I’m not even going to comment on that.

Y’know what? If the poll numbers were exactly reversed, right now the GOP would be making open preparations for the inauguration — “measuring the drapes,” as it were — and the Dems would have written off the election and be debating how to re-organize for 2012.

If Obama wins narrowly, the Right will console itself in the belief that ACORN stole the election and the majority of the people are still behind the rightie agenda. IMO the deepest, darkest, most terrifying nightmare lurking under the bed for righties is that they aren’t the majority. That’s a reality too terrible for them to face, even if God rubbed their noses in it.

Wingnutism is built on the foundational belief that only righties are the real Americans, and all others are freakizoid elitist not-Americans with deranged ideas. If the wingnuts were to realize that most Americans do not, in fact, think as they do, I’m not sure how they would react. Truly, brains would explode. But I don’t think they would ever admit they aren’t the majority. I don’t think they are capable of it. Obama could win every state in the Union on Tuesday, and they still wouldn’t admit they had truly lost.

Center-Right?

In recent days I’ve heard, over and over again, that America is a “center-right” nation, and Obama had better not forget that, else he push liberalism too far. John Meacham of Newsweek writes,

Should Obama win, he will have to govern a nation that is more instinctively conservative than it is liberal–a perennial reality that past Democratic presidents have ignored at their peril. A party founded by Andrew Jackson on the principle that ‘the majority is to govern’ has long found itself flummoxed by the failure of that majority to see the virtues of the Democrats and the vices of the Republicans.

Which “past Democratic presidents” are we talking about? Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy certainly were not politically imperiled. Harry Truman didn’t lose public support because of liberal policies, but because of Korea. Jimmy Carter was not, in fact, particularly liberal in his domestic policies (any righties reading this who now are choking and sputtering should do some research), and pushing liberalism too far was not what cost him re-election. Bill Clinton wasn’t notably liberal, either.

IMO only Lyndon Johnson fits Meacham’s mold. Lyndon Johnson pushed liberalism (in the form of his Great Society programs) further than the white majority was ready to go at the time. Of course, that little Vietnam War dustup cost him some support, too.

And isn’t it astonishing how well the right-wing narrative has been imprinted in our brains? Meacham warns that Obama had better not take the too-liberal path that has tripped up so many Democratic presidents, even though it didn’t?

Here’s my problem with the “center-right” claim: Wingnuts see themselves as being “center-right,” even though on any global politcal spectrum they’re hanging off the extreme right end by their fingernails, and Obama’s policy proposals as they are would be considered center-right just about everywhere but here. Those of us who really are liberals quickly acknowledge that Obama is less liberal than we are. So where is the center?

Chris Cillizza writes,

If Obama does win next Tuesday, there will be significant excitement and expectation within the Democratic base that a progressive agenda — universal health care, removing the troops from Iraq — will quickly be passed into law.

If that happens, expect Republicans to use such an agenda as fodder in 2010 for the need to have divided government in Washington.

I can see the Republican campaign now. We warned you people that if you elected Democrats you’d get affordable health care and we’d get out of a pointless war in Iraq. You didn’t listen. And how you’re sorry, huh?

If that happens, expect Republicans to use such an agenda as fodder in 2010 for the need to have divided government in Washington. … Governing and campaigning are not the same thing. And, in a country that — if the Post/ABC survey is to be believed — still tilts center-right, Obama must be careful not to drift too far to the left in the heady early days of his administration.

Yeah, he doesn’t dare actually accomplish anything he promised in order to win the election. Americans don’t really want any of that stuff, even though they elected him because of what he promised. Makes sense.

The Post poll Cillizza talks about said that just 22 percent of likely voters called themselves “liberals” while 38 percent called themselves “moderates” and 37 percent claimed to be “conservatives.” The problem with self-identifying polls like this is that hardly anyone know what “liberal” or “conservative” means any more. If you asked people to define liberal, you’d probably get some nonsense about liberals loving to raise taxes, put everyone on welfare and otherwise waste money. By that definition, I’m not a liberal, either. However, that’s not what liberalism is.

To get a real measure, it would be more accurate to give people some sort of typology test, something like the famous Myers-Briggs personality test, to test actual attitudes and opinions on issues. I bet the results would show the nation is a lot more liberal than it thinks it is.

Update: See Thers at Whskey Fire.