Assigning Blame
By Jamelle Bouie - Nov 20th, 2008 at 2:18 pmOn the debate over which faction is to blame for the GOP’s current electoral woes (intensified somewhat by Kathleen Parker’s recent, kind of inflammatory, column), I’m basically in the same corner as Culture 11’s Conor Friedersdorf, who argues convincingly that it’s the brains and backers behind the Iraq War–and not necessarily religious conservatives–who deserve the lion’s share of culpability for the near-collapse of the Republican Party.
Indeed, it should be obvious to any clear-eyed observer that the main reason for the GOP’s nationwide weakness is the Iraq war, since without the war it is unlikely that Democrats would have made durable gains in conservative and traditionally Republican states like Colorado, Montana, and North Dakota (which was far closer for McCain than it reasonably should have been). What’s more, Conor argues, if we evaluate influence in terms of agenda-setting power, it is very clear that religious conservatives hold–at least relative to, say, business conservatives–little sway over the direction of the Republican Party.
While the whole post is quite good, I think Conor is whitewashing somewhat when he writes this:
One need not be a religious conservative or agree with their agenda to see they’ve gotten precious little of what they want under George W. Bush, and that insofar as they are anti-war, anti-torture and anti-conspicuous consumption, they deserve credit for standing against three of the most damaging catastrophies of the last 8 years.
Though I’m certain that there are conservative evangelicals who have taken a strong stance against the war, and against torture, my impression over the past five years has been that evangelicals are–on the whole–more likely than most to support President Bush’s national security policies, which, of course, include the Iraq War and the use of torture.
That’s what some of the survey data suggests; for instance, even when progress in Iraq looked impossible–2006, roughly–evangelical support for the war rested at 58 percent (which, admittedly, was a marked decrease over the previous year). Moreover, many evangelical leaders were strong supporters of the initial decision to invade–the Southern Baptist Convention released a statement declaring that “the case for using force to bring about disarmament and regime change in Iraq was clearly and convincingly made for anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear.” Even now, there’s plenty to suggest that a good number of evangelical leaders still support the war:
Even those who say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake based on faulty intelligence believe that it would be wrong to now leave, according to the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE)’s February 2008 Evangelical Leaders Survey.
“We should not have gone in,” said one respondent, who was only identified as a denominational CEO by the NAE. “But we are going to need to stay in long enough to prevent chaos and to stabilize the country.”
Other evangelical leaders insisted the war is just, President Bush was right in his decisions, and the United States should stay the course.
“Iraq represents that existential threat we have from global Islamic Jihadists,” responded another unidentified leader. “We must defeat it in Iraq, Afghanistan and then act preemptively to destroy it wherever it emerges.”
Conservative evangelicals haven’t repudiated torture, either. In fact, a Pew poll released earlier this fall found that 57 percent of white Southern evangelicals “believes torture sometimes or often is justified in order to obtain information from suspected terrorists.” Granted, white Southern evangelicals aren’t completely representative of conservative evangelicalism, but I think it is fair to say that they are the largest demographic within conservative evangelicalism, and the fact that a solid majority supports the use of torture is unquestionably significant.
Insofar as the Republican Party is a coalition united by consensus on certain issues, national security is one of those issues, and conservative evangelicals–the largest group of religious conservatives–have been firm supporters of the GOP’s line on the Iraq war and torture. I agree with Conor–religious conservatives do not bear, or bear very little, responsibility for the Iraq War and the torture of detainees–but, that said, it is simply inaccurate for Conor to claim that they have stood against either. They haven’t.
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