Ian Boyne, Contributor
IF THE Democrats fail to make George W. Bush a one-term American President, they might, after emerging from the cloud of defeat, come to understand how their lack of dexterity in handling religious and ethical issues handicapped them.
"The Democrats have a religion problem," says the left-leaning Christian Century Weekly, one of the foremost publications in the United States religious media. The journal quotes a poll, which shows that 59 per cent of those who support President Bush describe themselves as "very religious," while only 35 per cent of those who support Democratic Presidential Candidate Senator John Kerry as being "very religious". Conversely, some 69 per cent of those who support Kerry say they are not religious at all compared to 22 per cent of Bush supporters who say they are not religious.
"Democrats are in danger of becoming the party of the non-religious. In a country where religion is part of the mainstream, this is clearly a political liability."
The Democrats have worked hard to connect with the American people: John Kerry has been emphasising things which matter deeply to ordinary Americans: Medicare and various aspects of social security, jobs, housing and education.
John Kerry cuts to the chase to talk feelingly about jobs being exported from American towns, leaving workers and their families disenfranchised and in debt while big transnationals reap huge profits through outsourcing.
He talks about President Bush giving big tax cuts to the rich while the working and middle classes are left behind. He waxes eloquent about the failure of the Bush administration to create sufficient jobs and to continue the economic push experienced under former Democratic President Bill Clinton. John Kerry is not ideological. He comes across as a pragmatic, commonsensical politician who can speak the language of ordinary Americans even though he is solidly elite. But John Kerry will learn a very bitter lesson about political leadership if he does not make some urgent strategic changes in political communication.
RELIGIOUS FANATICISM
Despite the fact that an official U.S. commission has proven that Bush was misled and acted on inaccurate intelligence in going to war with Iraq, unnecessarily sacrificing more than 1,000 American lives and committing US$200 billion in that ill-advised adventure; despite the failure to plan an intelligent post-war strategy and to even anticipate the level of Iraqi opposition and the overly optimistic, indeed, grossly naive troop commitments by Defence Secretary Rumsfeld; despite the embarrassment of no weapons of mass destruction found, no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda and absolutely no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and September 11, and despite Bush's failure to create impressive economic and job growth and to significantly raise livings standards of the ordinary American, black and white, the Republicans are well ahead of the Democrats today.
Why?
A partial explanation lies in the fact that despite not being the brightest Ivy League graduate, George W. Bush appeals to many ordinary Americans who are intensely religious and conservative. These Americans believe that America has a special place in the world and a mission given by God. No other President has ever evoked as much religious imagery and symbolism to describe his actions and mission.
In July 2003 the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz quotes him as telling the Palestinian Prime Minister that "God told me to strike al Qaeda and I struck them and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam which I did and now I am determined to solve the problem of the Middle East."
Speaking in terms of American Exceptionalism and reinforcing the manifest Destiny doctrine in American mythology, President Bush said last year, "As our nation moves troops and builds alliances to make our world safer, we must also remember our calling as a blessed country is to make this world better." America's mission is a divine calling. America has an appointment with destiny and was called forth by God to be a Shining City on a Hill. This has been a theme in American history which stretches back to the very founding of America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. The Pilgrims came to America to escape religious persecution and totalitarianism and to build a culture of freedom freedom of religion, not freedom from religion as Elizabeth Dole said in her emotionally appealing talk at the Republican Convention.
SENTIMENTS
It is the President's appeal to religious sentiments which facilitated the sleight-of-hand whereby his pre-war propaganda centred on Saddam Hussein's imminent threat to American and Middle East security through his supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction. And yet today, his mission is sold as one of establishing freedom for the oppressed Iraqis. If you cleverly exploit religious symbolism and present yourself as a Christian liberator making way for the true Gospel of Jesus Christ to be preached to the heathens in Iraq those Muslims deceived by Satan and a compassionate Moses leading people away from the bondage of a modern-day Pharaoh, then people will forget that your original justification has nothing to do with that but a matter of a perceived imminent security threat, which proved illusory.
In 2001 President Bush said, "Where there is suffering there is duty." (Remember God's words through Moses to Pharoah: Let my people go!) "When we see the wounded traveller on the road to Jericho, we will not pass on the other side." President Bush talks about "an angel who rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm. Drawing on a well-known foot-stomping and rousing hymn, President Bush said in his State of the Union address in 2002 "There is power-wonder-working power in the goodness and idealism of the American people."
UNDERESTIMATING RELIGION
Because the liberal and largely irreligious Democrats have a disdain for religion and don't understand it as well as they should, they underestimate Bush's appeal and have been rather inept in responding to that appeal.
The democrats, displaying the usual secular obsession with the material and the tangible, believe that Bush can seek to exploit religion as much as he wants, as long as people don't have good jobs, medicare, proper housing, education and social amenities and are convinced that he is wasting money fighting an expensive and unnecessary war they will vote him out. They are taking dare-devil risks they might live to regret. People don't live by bread alone, as Bush's favourite philosopher Jesus Christ said nearly 2000 years ago.
The Bush campaign had hired Mara Vanderslice as its director of religious outreach. After a right-wing Catholic organisation attacked the United Church of Christ activist for her liberal views and said she is better suited to work for Fidel Castro than John Kerry, the Kerry campaign backed away from her rather than defending her. The Bush campaign, according to one US source, has taken the advice of Catholic priest Robert Drinan, professor at Georgetown University to "steer clear talking about religion."
Comments the Christian Century journal, "This is a tactical and substantive mistake. It leaves the mistaken impression that the Republicans have a monopoly on religion."
The highly respected liberal voice of American Christianity also makes the important point that "the deeper problem is that the democrats have failed to articulate how many of their trademark concerns can be rooted in religious convictions. Providing a safety net for the poor, health insurance to the uninsured, a living wage to workers, protection for the environment these are not inherently secular concerns."
But, protests Christian Century: "The Democrats often seem intent on presenting them that way. Candidate and party operatives appear skittish about religion."
At least Michael Manley was wiser. In he 1970s he surrounded himself with some well-known Liberation theologians and made the famous statement that Socialism was "Christianity in action". He grounded his concerns for the poor, and linked the issues of social equity and the oppressed Third World peoples to the God of Exodus who favoured the marginalised. Manley realised that in a Fundamentalist culture to ignore religion was too suicidal. The Democrats need to realise that America is the most religious of all the secular democracies.
THE POLLS TELL IT
The authoritative Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press showed that 81 per cent of Americans said that prayer was an important part of their lives and that 87 per cent said they never doubted the existence of God. More revealingly, in a cover story in Time Magazine (June 21, 2004) and titled 'Faith, God and the Oval Office', it was revealed that of all potential voters 54 per cent describe President Bush as a man of strong religious faith while 67 per cent of Bush supporters agree with that sentiment.
However, when asked the same question of Senator John Kerry whether he was a man of strong religious faith only 10 per cent of his own supporters said yes while only seven per cent of all potential voters said yes.
When asked in the Time poll whether the President's religious faith should guide him in making presidential decisions 54 per cent of the potential voters said yes and 67 per cent of potential Bush voters said yes with only 34 per cent of Kerry supporters saying yes.
POTENTIAL VOTERS
Potential voters were polled on the following statement: "We are a religious nation and religious values should serve as a guide to what our political leaders do in office." Some 56 per cent of all potential voters said yes while 79 per cent of Bush supporters said yes with only 40 per cent of Kerry supporters replying in the affirmative, again highlighting the enormous religious gap between Democrats and Republicans.
In an enlightening article in the July 13, 2004 issue of the Christian Century by Kevin Philips, he points out that the Republican mobilisation of the religious grass roots helped Bush to defeat Gore. The moral failures of Bill Clinton helped to sink Al Gore. Religious conservatives cast an unprecedented 40 per cent of the nationwide GOP presidential vote in 2002.
In the July issue of America's most noted progressive Evangelical publication Sojourners (The Right Stuff), Professor of political science Kenneth Wald is quoted as saying "the Religious Right has been institutionalised within the Republican party." The top seven ranking Republicans in the US Senate has a 100 per cent rating on the Christian Coalition's scorecard. In the House of Representatives the majority Leader Tom Delay also has a 100 per cent rating.
After the landslide defeat of the conservative Barry Goldwater in the presidential race, the conservatives began to regroup. They never regained prominence until Ronald Wilson Reagan. Since then the Religious Right has been embedded with the Republican Party.
That today John Kerry is pro-choice and pro-gay civil union while George Bush is adamantly opposed to both has further alienated the Religious Right and many Evangelicals. The American mainstream media fail to properly analyse the religious gap between the Democrats and the Republicans because they themselves are largely secularised and non-religious (A fascinating article on this theme is the piece in the June issue of the most authoritative journal in journalism, the Columbia Journalism Review titled 'Across the Great Divide: Why don't journalists Get Religion a tenuous bridge to believers').
"Journalists, especially in an election year, frequently wonder what matters to Americans, health care, jobs, family values, war and peace are often cited. But running underneath these concerns, at a steady ace since the country's founding is a deep preoccupation with the ethical moral and existential issues with which religion grapples," says Gal Beckerman in the article. "The toughest societal debates we engage in over abortion, stem-cell research, the pledge of allegiance, gay marriage point us back to scripture."
The Democrats stance on these issues will not be peripheral to the campaign.
Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. You can send your comments to ianboyne1@yahoo.com or infocus@gleanerjm.com.
