JDN 2455852 EDT 15:14.

AlterNet has a theory about why so many Americans continue to vote for politicians who systematically sap the middle class and destroy the environment.

That this is happening should not be controversial; the Republican Party continues to poll near 50% of the population despite destroying the economy, lying about proven facts like evolution and global warming, raising taxes on the poor while lowering them on the rich, and generally distorting democratic capitalism into a kind of corporate reverse socialism. Their recent attacks on environmental regulation would push us back decades and cost thousands of lives.

And there is a lot to be said for the AlterNet theory. First of all, the US is clearly exceptional in its level of religion, especially fundamentalist religion. In studies of religiosity the United States aligns not with its peers in the free world, but instead with places like Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Secondly, when the GOP votes on a radically far-right abortion bill—the sort of bill even most pro-life people would oppose—instead of the American Jobs Act that most economists agree would dramatically reduce unemployment, there seems to be a clear connection between fundamentalist “wedge issues” (like gay rights and abortion) and far-right economic policies.

But I would like to poke a few holes in this theory. First, there is the fact that these crazy economic policies largely started in the Reagan Administration, and Reagan was Catholic. His predecessor, Jimmy Carter, was far more liberal and was an evangelical Christian. Every US President in the last century has been some variety of Christian (at least as self-identified), many evangelical or fundamentalist; and yet only in the last thirty years have neoliberal far-right economics taken hold in the US.

My own hypothesis is that evangelical Christians actually don’t believe in these crazy economic policies, but economics are not especially important to them. They figure that economics is for high-falutin’ elites, and they don’t want to get involved. Instead, what is important to them are socially-conservative policies like gay marriage, abortion, and immigration. Religious fundamentalists think of these as the most important issues, and so they vote on those positions regardless of everything else.

If this is right, then a socially-conservative but economically-liberal candidate could easily sway the evangelical vote. Unfortunately, this would mean accepting socially-conservative policies, which mainstream liberals like myself would be rather uncomfortable with to say the least. A ban on partial-birth abortions is one thing; a complete rollback of civil rights legislation is something far more terrifying. And there plainly are Americans—in alarmingly large numbers—who actually think that the Civil Rights Act was a bad idea, that illegal immigrants should be shot on sight, that gays should never be allowed to marry, that contraception should be illegal. Liberals seem to be damned if we do, damned if we don’t; either we give upon crucial economic reforms that the majority of Americans need and support, or else we sacrifice our principles and allow gays, minorities and women to be returned to the state of second-class citizens.

Ideally, there simply wouldn’t be religious fundamentalists—and perhaps we should be working toward this goal. But as long as they are here, we’re going to have to work with them (or around them).