That is exactly the point Ross. The inherent contradictions to their positions of the modern right wing have always been mind bending. Want government small but have that small government in every bedroom. No abortions but once the kid is born, tough luck. etc etc etc. That there are contradictions in them falling for a huckster like the Donald should come as no surprise. All they want to hear is that the brown people aren't taking going to take over but just in case they do, God please help me, and just in case God cant help, then I have my trusted rifle locked and loaded.
37
Carson is a Seventh day Adventist. If you think the Southern Baptists and other evangelical protestants are going to support a man whose church holds services on Saturday and follows the Jewish dietary laws I think you have another thing coming.
54
Ha ! This is the national politics equivalent of a local news story where a dim-witted owner of a pitbull is bitten by his own dog. Boo hoo hoo hoo...the political right PURPOSEFULLY cultivated this illogical fringe, so please don't bemoan the utter irrationality of their behaviors or preferences Mr Douthat.
95
It’s nice to see that someone of the ‘faith’ is given a column in the NYT.
Agree, a lot of support for Trump does come from working drones, who also happen to have religious beliefs. The good news for Trump is drones exist in both parties.
And the positions on such things as sexual education, gay marriage and so forth are hardly purely the domain of the classic trio of monotheistic religions.
Virtually all countries and cultures put up ethical guidelines on these touchy subjects because they are involved with the most intense and conflicting emotions. People often don’t behave that nice when emotions in these areas take over causing them to view others as either objects and/or obstacles to their desire. That’s what the non religious Freud pointed out, that much of our achievements came about by channeling those drives.
So your analysis is interesting , and your observation that unlike Carson Trump is laying out a broad based perspective.
BTw i was sickened by Hillary’s jumping on Trump over the Muslim faux issue. Like he said it’s not his job to correct everyone with whom he may disagree. He has plenty of time to state his position, let others state theirs. That is what he is about.
Agree, a lot of support for Trump does come from working drones, who also happen to have religious beliefs. The good news for Trump is drones exist in both parties.
And the positions on such things as sexual education, gay marriage and so forth are hardly purely the domain of the classic trio of monotheistic religions.
Virtually all countries and cultures put up ethical guidelines on these touchy subjects because they are involved with the most intense and conflicting emotions. People often don’t behave that nice when emotions in these areas take over causing them to view others as either objects and/or obstacles to their desire. That’s what the non religious Freud pointed out, that much of our achievements came about by channeling those drives.
So your analysis is interesting , and your observation that unlike Carson Trump is laying out a broad based perspective.
BTw i was sickened by Hillary’s jumping on Trump over the Muslim faux issue. Like he said it’s not his job to correct everyone with whom he may disagree. He has plenty of time to state his position, let others state theirs. That is what he is about.
7
don't you just love DOUTHAT'S euphemistic phrase "a traditional position on sexual ETHICS" to refer to opposition to equality for gay people ... i wonder what Dothan's euphemism would be for SLAVERY? "the traditional position on race relations" ? yikes!
134
"How can fiscal conservatives support a single-payer-praising crony capitalist? How can social conservatives support a thrice-married sybarite? How can anyone who mocked the celebrity element in Obama’s 2008 campaign embrace the host of Celebrity Apprentice?"
Isn't it obvious that the sales pitches of fiscal and social conservatism have failed? What really sells to the GOP base is spite. The candidates need to step that up, although their owner/operators will not appreciate that.
Isn't it obvious that the sales pitches of fiscal and social conservatism have failed? What really sells to the GOP base is spite. The candidates need to step that up, although their owner/operators will not appreciate that.
77
Mr. Douthat:
As far As I can tell Ronald Reagan won the last debate. I would assume, therefore, that Republicans are ecstatic about their possibilities. Now, on to picking his running mate: Walt Disney or Ted Williams.
As far As I can tell Ronald Reagan won the last debate. I would assume, therefore, that Republicans are ecstatic about their possibilities. Now, on to picking his running mate: Walt Disney or Ted Williams.
49
An excellent column that should be required reading for the leadership in Democratic Party.
Working class America, in which Christian evangelicals comprise a significant number, has been abandoned by the "elites" in our country.
Aside from what the GOP is doing to recapture this large demographic of voters, what has the Democratic Party done to attract working class voters who were the core of their voters a generation ago?
The simple word is - nothing.
Instead the Democratic Party has pandered to Wall Street in allowing white collar criminals a free pass to loot Main Street.
In addition, the Democratic Party has pandered to big business interests in promoting job-killing free trade pacts like the one that President Obama has enthusiastically supported.
Also, the Democratic Party has pandered to fringe parts of our populace while ignoring, belittling and demonizing a significant demographic of white, male, non-college voters who have had little choice but to shift allegiance to a more welcoming GOP umbrella, even though that "welcome" comprises of pandering to fear and bigotry.
So, we can sit here and act outraged at what the GOP is doing, but at the end of the day much of the blame for this massive demographic shift of voters that this article alludes to is the fault of the Democratic Party which has forgotten its mission to be the "big tent" for ALL voters and not just those who are considered "ascendant" or socially and politically fashionable.
Working class America, in which Christian evangelicals comprise a significant number, has been abandoned by the "elites" in our country.
Aside from what the GOP is doing to recapture this large demographic of voters, what has the Democratic Party done to attract working class voters who were the core of their voters a generation ago?
The simple word is - nothing.
Instead the Democratic Party has pandered to Wall Street in allowing white collar criminals a free pass to loot Main Street.
In addition, the Democratic Party has pandered to big business interests in promoting job-killing free trade pacts like the one that President Obama has enthusiastically supported.
Also, the Democratic Party has pandered to fringe parts of our populace while ignoring, belittling and demonizing a significant demographic of white, male, non-college voters who have had little choice but to shift allegiance to a more welcoming GOP umbrella, even though that "welcome" comprises of pandering to fear and bigotry.
So, we can sit here and act outraged at what the GOP is doing, but at the end of the day much of the blame for this massive demographic shift of voters that this article alludes to is the fault of the Democratic Party which has forgotten its mission to be the "big tent" for ALL voters and not just those who are considered "ascendant" or socially and politically fashionable.
18
Ben Carson is a decent man who made a brilliant career of saving the lives of severely afflicted children. Compared to the Machiavellian Trump or the Cruella-as-Life Hillary, Dr. Carson is a saint. Add in his piety to a higher power and his genuine bedside mannerism and it's no wonder he appeals to those who place such attributes in very high regard.
7
Dr. Carson is an enigma, a brilliant doctor who thinks that the planet is only slightly older than my socks, who believes that humans have no impact on the condition of the planet and that health insurance and slavery are somehow related. A man who believes that freedom of choice and not racism is the cause of the condition of African Americans. He squares these incompatible beliefs the same way the Ayatollahs of Iran do, with a pious "god's will." He decries Sharia law while proposing to establish it in America. In the end.he is a hero to the Evangelicals because he absolves them of not only their sins, but the need to do the hard things to meet the challenges facing our country.
97
Very insightful. Thank you! But I would express this differently in one regard. It's not that Carson lacks a "distinctive platform," beyond the yearning for a godly leader. In the world view of Carson and his ilk, the piety IS the platform and the policy. Many of us are far enough away from that world view that we don't recognize the specific policy /platform that's part of the package. But I think there is one, and it could probably be defined with the same precision with which you defined Trump's platform. I'm not quite interested enough to put this together myself, so I'll leave it to someone else.
7
There are two types of paranoid, conspiracy-minded lunatics let loose on the right by years of GOP and right-wing media orchestrated dog-whistling: overt racists and racists in denial. There you have it: Trump and Carson. With the overt racists a firm plurality.
Douthat is overthinking the issue, because if one doesn't overthink it, the matter is too clearly the shame of the GOP and the nation.
Douthat is overthinking the issue, because if one doesn't overthink it, the matter is too clearly the shame of the GOP and the nation.
46
Trump has been accused of changing his positions.
I wonder how many of his colleagues at Johns Hopkins did Carson tell that the ACA was like slavery, that he didn't believe in evolution, and that he was anti-reproductive and gay rights. I bet if he had, he'd been kicked off the faculty pretty quickly.
He's even more of an opportunist than Trump. If an educated black man came out for progressive programs, no one in the media would have paid attention but if he came out, as Carson has, with far right positions, it's like drawing bees to honey.
I wonder how many of his colleagues at Johns Hopkins did Carson tell that the ACA was like slavery, that he didn't believe in evolution, and that he was anti-reproductive and gay rights. I bet if he had, he'd been kicked off the faculty pretty quickly.
He's even more of an opportunist than Trump. If an educated black man came out for progressive programs, no one in the media would have paid attention but if he came out, as Carson has, with far right positions, it's like drawing bees to honey.
50
One of the central tenets of this kind of religious fervor has to do with the role of Satan. Satan is portrayed as very sly and tricky, The Trickster who makes you believe what is not true and makes the uninformed and innocent prone to corruption. The True Believer fully understands Satan's role in human affairs. He promised wisdom and truth to Adam and Eve but brought Sin and Death into the world, he promised that Man shall be as God only to debase humanity for eternity. In this world view, Obama is an incarnation of Satan, promising wealth and peace but hopes deep down in reality to bring about poverty and depravity. This point of view depends fully on the certainty that they are right and that the Liberals are Satan's minions. This rigid construction has forced them to believe ironically that the Pope himself is Satan's functionary, encouraging as he does the grand lie of global warming and the flaws of Capitalism. It never occurs to these righteous Republicans that the Devil is much smarter than they are and that they themselves are his best assistants.
58
This must be the week of religion.
The Pope is coming and giving his blessings to hundreds of thousands of 15 year old little boys who then will be raped by their pastors who then will suddenly die in the Vatican at age 65.
In this article here we have to look at a torture machine just above Carson's head while he is saying a prayer obviously showing his strong believe in a dead body dying on that torture machine - if only Carson was born 2000 years ago he would have fixed it all.
When will America, from Sea to Shining Sea, learn that all this religion is absolute nonsense and when will we protect our 15 year old kids from getting grabbed by vulgar insanity.
The Pope is coming and giving his blessings to hundreds of thousands of 15 year old little boys who then will be raped by their pastors who then will suddenly die in the Vatican at age 65.
In this article here we have to look at a torture machine just above Carson's head while he is saying a prayer obviously showing his strong believe in a dead body dying on that torture machine - if only Carson was born 2000 years ago he would have fixed it all.
When will America, from Sea to Shining Sea, learn that all this religion is absolute nonsense and when will we protect our 15 year old kids from getting grabbed by vulgar insanity.
39
Thanks for a thoughtful column. The current focus of election watchers seems to be on the GOP candidates. Are they leading on issues, are they uncovering voters' emotions on issues, or some of both? Let's begin to better analyze the group of voters who seem to be supporting these candidates. What type of people endorse the "banning of immigrants" (illegal or not), wanting to take away health insurance from those in need, thinking that God is only speaking to them, wanting to start another war by hawkish comments (after the Iraq debacle), and wanting to expand military when clever hacking can immobilize ships, aircraft, and weapons? And the worse, not opening minds to arguments other than their own?
36
I find it hard to imagine that Republicans in the "Old Confederate South", states like Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, etc., the old Confederates who actually despise and hate President Obama because he is a "black" President------I find it hard to imagine them ever voting for a black man to be President, whether he's a conservative Republican or not.
If Republicans are intent on losing the election, Ben Carson is the man.
If Republicans are intent on losing the election, Ben Carson is the man.
68
My summer fling with the Republican candidates is over. The beach parties and drunken revelry is over. It's autumn and time to get back to serious issues. Enough of the frat boy who drinks too much and tries to attach his beach chair to a surf board. Enough of doing shooters out of someones navel. I'm tanned, hung over and exhausted.
The real issue is how much money is being spent that could feed underprivileged children or buy them books. Money that could be spent to help people keep their homes or find them better jobs; money that is being wasted for this three ring circus while regular people suffer.
I don't care about these people any longer. I no longer care to see them flame out and explode.
Take this flagrantly wasted money and airplay and do something important with it. Giving these bozos continued voice is a disgrace.
The real issue is how much money is being spent that could feed underprivileged children or buy them books. Money that could be spent to help people keep their homes or find them better jobs; money that is being wasted for this three ring circus while regular people suffer.
I don't care about these people any longer. I no longer care to see them flame out and explode.
Take this flagrantly wasted money and airplay and do something important with it. Giving these bozos continued voice is a disgrace.
156
What is good about this article is that it is another one in which a conservative lambasts another conservative. The clear implication here is that the "Republican base" has NEVER been on board with the delusions of the conservative leadership, especially over issues like the importance of maintaining the Social Security system; anger at wealthy plutocrats and the financial manipulators who brought on the 2008 financial collapse; and other issues. This article marks the beginning of a turn by establishment "conservatives" against the base they have counted upon to win elections. Why? Because that base has disappointed them and shown that it mostly wants to punch somebody out for offenses real and imagined; and does not seem to care at all about preserving the carried-interest tax provision that makes hedge-fund managers so fantastically rich. Silly them!
19
Any faithful person will easy understand the following economic principle.
Anybody who participated in exporting the dozen millions US jobs overseas should not be qualified to run for the president. They should not be even qualified to run any corporation here in America.
Why?
They undermined the economic and social stability of our country.
By exporting our manufacturing capabilities and industrial base overseas they made us dependant on the communist China, and they created the chronic trade deficits and directly connected federal budget deficits and colossal national debt.
The enormous trade deficits cannot be sustained without being paired up with the chronic federal budget deficits and the national debt. Try to prove me wrong. Balance the federal budgets and let’s see if the free trade system is sustainable and stable under those conditions.
It’s easy to conclude that as the rule of thumb our trade deficits match our budget deficits.
The hypothesis is that we have accumulated $15 trillion in the trade deficits and increased our national debt by $15 trillion over the last 15 years.
Prove it wrong if you can!
Anybody who participated in exporting the dozen millions US jobs overseas should not be qualified to run for the president. They should not be even qualified to run any corporation here in America.
Why?
They undermined the economic and social stability of our country.
By exporting our manufacturing capabilities and industrial base overseas they made us dependant on the communist China, and they created the chronic trade deficits and directly connected federal budget deficits and colossal national debt.
The enormous trade deficits cannot be sustained without being paired up with the chronic federal budget deficits and the national debt. Try to prove me wrong. Balance the federal budgets and let’s see if the free trade system is sustainable and stable under those conditions.
It’s easy to conclude that as the rule of thumb our trade deficits match our budget deficits.
The hypothesis is that we have accumulated $15 trillion in the trade deficits and increased our national debt by $15 trillion over the last 15 years.
Prove it wrong if you can!
6
Concrete, real-life manifestations of utopian visions, be they spiritual or secular, tend not to last beyond the lifespan of the founding generation as they tend to be narrowly focused, rigid and resistant to change. In the case of a strong hero scenario, the legacy is generally lost within a few years of the "Great One's" passing due to whose interpretation survives the scramble for dominance that follows.
Abraham Lincoln's vision for the reconstructed Union died the day he did, as did Alexander's empire, and, to an extent, any religious movement you can name. What persists, for better or worse, are the institutional constructs, created by the politically motivated, that are subject to misinterpretation, perversion and malediction that remove most traces of the original intent or context of the founder. Ronald Reagan's political legacy, judging by the claims made by the competitors for his mantle, has been confused over time as well.
Don't expect an evangelical Ben Carson post presidency to survive exploitation the establishment elite or zealous torchbearers.
Abraham Lincoln's vision for the reconstructed Union died the day he did, as did Alexander's empire, and, to an extent, any religious movement you can name. What persists, for better or worse, are the institutional constructs, created by the politically motivated, that are subject to misinterpretation, perversion and malediction that remove most traces of the original intent or context of the founder. Ronald Reagan's political legacy, judging by the claims made by the competitors for his mantle, has been confused over time as well.
Don't expect an evangelical Ben Carson post presidency to survive exploitation the establishment elite or zealous torchbearers.
4
The article omits a prominent reason Dr. Carson is not criticized; that he's Black. It's part of a NY Times policy of political correctness, "All the news that's fit to print." The idea is that race is irrelevant and identifying race would merely foster prejudice.
But here Race is an issue. At work here is something akin to the notion of the "magic negro" in movies, a totally kind, inoffensive low income Black person whose compassion is formed in the crucible of centuries prejudice and suffering, but who is nevertheless and thankfully not resentful and angry but brings an uplifting healing humanity to the white characters and audience.
Thus Dr. Carson appears gentle, humble, kindly, only minimally engaged in and therefore the fray. So rather that being seen by evaluating policy as just another candidate who knows nothing, and barely distinguishable from the others parroting the party line, Dr. Carson gets an initial boost in popularity until something will be revealed about him that bursts the hope that he comes bearing gifts of post suffering, peace and reconciliation.
Liberals don't want to criticize a Black candidate, for fear of antagonizing Black voters whom they seeking to attract.
The Media also fosters the illusion that there is something redeeming and sound to be taken seriously to in the personalities of the Republican candidates in order to make it appear like there's a real horse race here.
But here Race is an issue. At work here is something akin to the notion of the "magic negro" in movies, a totally kind, inoffensive low income Black person whose compassion is formed in the crucible of centuries prejudice and suffering, but who is nevertheless and thankfully not resentful and angry but brings an uplifting healing humanity to the white characters and audience.
Thus Dr. Carson appears gentle, humble, kindly, only minimally engaged in and therefore the fray. So rather that being seen by evaluating policy as just another candidate who knows nothing, and barely distinguishable from the others parroting the party line, Dr. Carson gets an initial boost in popularity until something will be revealed about him that bursts the hope that he comes bearing gifts of post suffering, peace and reconciliation.
Liberals don't want to criticize a Black candidate, for fear of antagonizing Black voters whom they seeking to attract.
The Media also fosters the illusion that there is something redeeming and sound to be taken seriously to in the personalities of the Republican candidates in order to make it appear like there's a real horse race here.
18
Since churches in the US enter politics, they are not 100% charitable organizations, so should be taxed. PERIOD
76
This penchant most republicans and specifically Dr. Carson have of conflating religion and law is the most dangerous aspect of this political season. My fear is that a republican president will attempt to change us into a theocracy. Those of us not Christian should be very afraid. This is not the America I want to live in.
53
Ben Carson, while a seemingly educated man, holds beliefs that are anti-science and fact, and belong in the realm of religious fantasy. His followers are seemingly devoid of understanding anything about homosexuality, climate, evolution etc. They are guided by ideas fed to them by disingenuous leaders, of which Carson is one. Thankfully, this group will remain irrelevant in a general election and will never see their candidate elected as President.
48
It's increasingly alarming that the press continues to legitimate the inclusion of religion as a motivator in politics and government. As in this column, the press doesn't seem to find anything wrong with evangelicals, Jews, Catholics, or any other religious group thinking they should be able to direct the making of laws and functions of government to satisfy their religious beliefs.
I, for one, am sick of it. We still have separation of church and state in the US, and I am tired of being told that someone else's religious proscriptions should govern my behavior or entitlements. Instead of discussing the attempts of these conservative religious groups to inject their beliefs into the political process as acceptable, columnists like you, Ross, should be calling them out for their errors and presumptions.
I, for one, am sick of it. We still have separation of church and state in the US, and I am tired of being told that someone else's religious proscriptions should govern my behavior or entitlements. Instead of discussing the attempts of these conservative religious groups to inject their beliefs into the political process as acceptable, columnists like you, Ross, should be calling them out for their errors and presumptions.
67
Evangelicals are not so stupid as Douthat seems to think, They are well aware that Carson, Santorum and Huckabee have no chance. They are supported simply as place-holders for various factions the christian community. These include those mainly concerned with abortion and those mainly concerned with desecration of traditional values, those mainly concerned with Israel and those mainly concerned with non-christian immigration and the loss of scial cohesion. In the final analysis they will throw their support to the viable candidate that offers them the best deal to satisfy their policy choices. Trump has as good a lock on their votes as anyone since the establishment has screwed them and double crossed them so many times. The proletariat will support the elite but only if there is absolute clarity that the vital social and economic standing of the proletariat and the poor, are to make steady progress that is at least as great as that of the elite. So Carson and company are what used to be called "favorite son" candidates, and they know it. They are very interested in Trump if he really has a plan for deportation and a wall they they consider viable.
3
I think a lot of Carson supporters are racist in a roundabout way. They think that Obama got elected mainly because he was black, not on his merits. Carson is their Obama.
10
Mr. Douthat's suggestion that Evangelical Christians are looking for a "hero" that would "protect their religious organizations from losing their grants, accreditations, or tax-exempt status because they maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics" is nonsense and nothing but a continuation of Fox News's continuing canard of the imaginary "war on Christians". No one has ever suggested denying anyone their tax-exempt status because of their views on sexual ethics. What some have suggested, and what they should continue to suggest, is that to the extent these "religious organizations" behave or act in the public sphere as for-profit enterprises, they should be asked to follow the laws of the land, and yes, be taxed accordingly.
The main reason their quest has always fallen short is simply because their so-called "heroes" are way too busy enriching themselves - tax free - at their expense to worry seriously about running for President.
Mr. Carson is no different (nor is Mr. Huckabee). As soon as he builds up his name recognition and graciously exits the race, he will surely start his own "church of perpetual exemption" as Mr. Oliver aptly put it, and enrich himself in the same manner. As other charlatans, he has figured out that there is more money to be made in preaching "fear" than there is in brain surgery.
The main reason their quest has always fallen short is simply because their so-called "heroes" are way too busy enriching themselves - tax free - at their expense to worry seriously about running for President.
Mr. Carson is no different (nor is Mr. Huckabee). As soon as he builds up his name recognition and graciously exits the race, he will surely start his own "church of perpetual exemption" as Mr. Oliver aptly put it, and enrich himself in the same manner. As other charlatans, he has figured out that there is more money to be made in preaching "fear" than there is in brain surgery.
21
So, here we go again: CNN and The New York Times. To help Clinton Inc., CNN calls a food fight, the Right obliges, untethered by common sense or good taste, with Seven-No-Trump bombast matching the grandiloquence of two examples of what ails us, Chris Christie and Huckabee, the svelte section of the party, seeking refuge in obsequious noise and comparative insanity.
And then we have The New York Times born again, Columnist Ross Douthat. This young man knows all. William Safire, move over: Ross wants to make certain that the true believers get a chance to read all about it.
Ben Carson offers a hint of what it's like. Ben knows both sides of the tracks. His abilities swamp the field. The man actually accomplished something in his life. He has had a moral purpose for a good long while. Is he a savant? In truth, he is. He knows how bad off we are. He believes God will ultimately help us find the way. Go figure.
We've tried most everything else. Think Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Inc., Obama. For sheer ambiguity, why not Carson? But get that photograph. Thank Getty Images.
As an orthodox agnostic, I have a keen understanding of those that are uncomfortable with Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr., MD.
Ben is simply too simple. He is a believer. The Son of God is his savior. Ben is old fashioned... and honest. I know the man. He is a decent guy.
Ben Carson cares. He is a father, and a doctor. And he's smart. Our children know.
What do we know about Ross Douthat?
And then we have The New York Times born again, Columnist Ross Douthat. This young man knows all. William Safire, move over: Ross wants to make certain that the true believers get a chance to read all about it.
Ben Carson offers a hint of what it's like. Ben knows both sides of the tracks. His abilities swamp the field. The man actually accomplished something in his life. He has had a moral purpose for a good long while. Is he a savant? In truth, he is. He knows how bad off we are. He believes God will ultimately help us find the way. Go figure.
We've tried most everything else. Think Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Inc., Obama. For sheer ambiguity, why not Carson? But get that photograph. Thank Getty Images.
As an orthodox agnostic, I have a keen understanding of those that are uncomfortable with Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr., MD.
Ben is simply too simple. He is a believer. The Son of God is his savior. Ben is old fashioned... and honest. I know the man. He is a decent guy.
Ben Carson cares. He is a father, and a doctor. And he's smart. Our children know.
What do we know about Ross Douthat?
1
Ross, you buried the lead:
"It’s a class revolt, driven by a sadly-justifiable sense that Republican elites don’t have working-class interests close enough to heart."
"It’s a class revolt, driven by a sadly-justifiable sense that Republican elites don’t have working-class interests close enough to heart."
19
What on Earth are you talking about Ross? Was this the first idea that came in your head this morning, and you forgot to compare it to reality?
TRUMP HAS NO PLATFORM. His campaign website doesnt even have a page for issues/stances/policies/platform. It's totally absent!
Carson does, and it's extensive.
Carson is, to be sure, a joke. But the idea that Trump has a more developed platform is 100% ABSURD and totally, patently false.
TRUMP HAS NO PLATFORM. His campaign website doesnt even have a page for issues/stances/policies/platform. It's totally absent!
Carson does, and it's extensive.
Carson is, to be sure, a joke. But the idea that Trump has a more developed platform is 100% ABSURD and totally, patently false.
11
It's ALL GOP voter folly. What a miserable mob of unqualified demagogues. Barack Obama has driven the Republicans absolutely insane.
30
Ross keeps quiet about the black elephant in the room. It was one thing when right wingers successfully got Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. But it's another to support a black presidential candidate. Can anyone believe the anti-Mexican, anti-Obama republican base with vote for anyone who is black or brown.
9
Ross, I was hauled to church three times a week until I graduated from high school and got my backside out of town. They don't come much more Evangelical than the Church of Christ. A few religions and scholars consider the CoC a cult, a not totally-indefensible position. But some of the peculiarities of this strain of religion are shared across the Evangelical community. A suspicion of and reluctance to associate socially with persons not of their brand of worship is inculcated into the congregation from the pulpit. This isolation separates the CoC from Evangelicalism at large to a degree. But the broader coalition of fundamentalist churches separates itself from the "traditional" religions using the same "everyone is going to hell but us" Church of Christ logic that underlies their fanatical insistence that, because they aren't allowed to run the government by their rules, they are "persecuted" for their beliefs.
Fundamentalists decry Muslims and sharia law, as was seen in the question made to Trump the other night. This, despite its rarity on national TV, is not rare in the Republican base. What the base is blind to is that its own demands for religious influence in the affairs of a secular society and government differ from sharia only in degree. In kind, they are one and the same.
Should someone like Carson or Cruz or Walker or Huckabee or Santorum ever gain the Oval Office, religious freedom and, more to the point, freedom from religion, will cease to exist.
Fundamentalists decry Muslims and sharia law, as was seen in the question made to Trump the other night. This, despite its rarity on national TV, is not rare in the Republican base. What the base is blind to is that its own demands for religious influence in the affairs of a secular society and government differ from sharia only in degree. In kind, they are one and the same.
Should someone like Carson or Cruz or Walker or Huckabee or Santorum ever gain the Oval Office, religious freedom and, more to the point, freedom from religion, will cease to exist.
46
All of the conservative pundits analyses (if one can even call them that) of the Republican candidates shockingly miss something quite obvious. The reason that they all sound so lame is that all the positions held by the right are anachronistic and should have by now been replaced by a new paradigm. The issues of universal health insurance, immigration, taxation of carried interest, people voting against their economic interests in red states, persistent racism, police brutality affecting disproportionately the black population, the totally skewed distribution of incarcerated population across racial lines, positions against homosexuals and transgender population are in some way so obviously non-issues if one applies a modicum of rationality, justice and fairness to them. That being the case, no intelligent, intellectually honest pundit would even discuss characters like Trump, Cruz, Fiorina and Huckabee as serious contenders of the nation's highest office. Let's not waste time with this issues that belong to a very different set of eras way in the past and move on Mr Douthat. The pages of the New York Times should reconsider allocating valuable space to your type of journalism. There is plenty of space in the National Review and the like for that.
25
Please, please, please - stop the inane use of "the Donald" when referring to Donald Trump. It sounds so ridiculous. Who gave him that name, anyway? I'd rather discuss real issues of importance with "the Bernie".
15
His first wife gave him The Donald in the most pejorative way possible.
AACNY wrote: "I might turn it around and ask whether democfrats could tolerate someone who is openly religious in the Oval Office?"
---------------------------------
Yes, and we did, and that "someone" was Jimmy Carter, who framed his presidency on his religious beliefs.
Indeed, Carter has long been sneered and scorned by the religious right for brokering peace, saving energy, and helping the poor and marginalized. Ronald Reagan took credit for successes begun by Carter.
As such, yet again, evangelical hypocrisy is so thick and salient it writes itself.
The GOP is a disgrace.
---------------------------------
Yes, and we did, and that "someone" was Jimmy Carter, who framed his presidency on his religious beliefs.
Indeed, Carter has long been sneered and scorned by the religious right for brokering peace, saving energy, and helping the poor and marginalized. Ronald Reagan took credit for successes begun by Carter.
As such, yet again, evangelical hypocrisy is so thick and salient it writes itself.
The GOP is a disgrace.
60
I'm not sure I've ever agreed with Mr Douthat, but like Rick Perry says, a broken clock is right once a day.
12
Even there, Mr. Perry was wrong...unless the clock is on military time, it would be right twice a day.
The thing is, is that evangelicals are all small community enforcers. They have a particular type of anti-social behavior.....it's called outsiderism. So they support anti-heroes, not heroes. And their goals are to bring America back to small-mindedness.....or is it madness?
21
I'm not understanding your point. Quite a mishmash. What are you saying?
6
Mr. Douthat writes, "He’s decent, modest, soft-spoken, devout, with an astonishing biography and an admirable character." He also happens to be black, attractive, possesses a sense of humor, and a good speaker.
I yam so confused. How can the people who support Ben Carson hate Obama so.
I yam so confused. How can the people who support Ben Carson hate Obama so.
21
How can anyone take Dr. Carson as a serious Presidential candidate? Yes, he's a kind man, no doubt, but too many Americans have fallen for nice words and smiles from Mr. Obama--twice! Speaking comforting words while America sinks lower and lower on so many levels does not a Presidential candidate make.
3
I don't know how any right-wing pundit can write about Trump's appeal to "working class" Republicans without mentioning the racism and bigotry at the heart of Trumps campaign. Failing to note that, every time and all the time, does a disservice to journalism.
21
Exactly. But that's how GOP-orchestrated dog whistling works in the age of Obama, as at every other time. Some do the dirty work of calling to the dogs; the rest resolutely pretend they hear nothing. All are equally responsible for unleashing a blight upon our nation.
3
Populists, nationalists, misogynists, fascists, evangelists, religionists, racists, class snobs, Zionists, libertarians, war mongerers, liars, hetero-sexists, unfettered free market capitalists, cheaters, autocrats, authoritarians, and oligarchs need not apply, as far as I am concerned.
13
God's dream ticket. Trump/Carson. It's all part of the Creator's design to destroy the Republican Party in '16. If you look at it that way, it makes perfect sense. A pestilence is coming to wrought God's vengeance.
15
Ross, I don't think that the Republican evangelicals are looking for a hero. The are looking for a messiah. But don't worry too much, if the ever find one, they'll crucify him too.
35
Mr. Douthat, your party spawned the Trump and Dr. Carson--now deal with it.
23
Gee Ross,
I read through about 100 comments on here. Where are the people who agree with your viewpoint. I didn't find one. That made my day.
I read through about 100 comments on here. Where are the people who agree with your viewpoint. I didn't find one. That made my day.
19
Religion has no place in politics. I will not vote for Bible-thumpers such as Carson, Huckabee, Santorum, Cruz...who have I left out?
25
This should be titled the republican illusions.
13
"People have had enough" - Enough ? Enough of What ? This nation need to Slid even farther Down ? By all Means,elect this man if yo want to see how Really Low we can go.
5
Anyone who was raised in a Protestant, evangelical, or conservative church knows what is thought of Seventh Day Adventist. It is considered a cult, and it's founder Ellen White a heretic.
Ben Carson is a Seventh Day Adventist. Although it isn't getting much attention now, if he pulls ahead, it WILL become a topic of discussion. He should know that he should be the last person to talk about Muslims being unfit. To conservative Christians, Seventh Day Adventist are no better.
Ben Carson is a Seventh Day Adventist. Although it isn't getting much attention now, if he pulls ahead, it WILL become a topic of discussion. He should know that he should be the last person to talk about Muslims being unfit. To conservative Christians, Seventh Day Adventist are no better.
15
"It’s a class revolt, driven by a sadly-justifiable sense that Republican elites don’t have working-class interests close enough to heart."
What? -- a billion or so light-years isn't close enough?
What? -- a billion or so light-years isn't close enough?
14
A Ben Carson presidency will make China and Russia very, very happy, just as the Bush presidency did.
6
Ross, nice job enunciating the dirty little secret of the Republican "social conservatives". It boils down to this: no one is going to force a Christian church to perform gay marriages or whatever other objectional services you can imagine – the Bill of Rights has your back. But businesses - that exist to exchange money for services - CANNOT hide behind what is essentially the "We don't serve their kind here" defense, and thank God for it.. Otherwise, as a brown-skinned, pagan guy with a funny name, I'd never get served anywhere. Social liberals, (oh, that faint sweet tinge of derision) have fought and won battles for the rights of minorities in this country since the very beginning of the United States, and the law of the land reflects that progress. If religious institutions or charities wish to maintain their embrace of "traditional sexual ethics" (one might ask Mr Douthat for absolutely ANY kind of unifying definition of what that even means!) - well, no one is forcing them into taking that damned Federal money - money that comes in great part, from the majority of Americans who are absolutely OK with gay marriage, for example, or not praying in schools, or sex ed for teenagers or (insert your touchstone “traditional ethics” issue here). Go get your money from your co-religionists, and in the interest of religious purity (and presumably, serving the Lord) - stop worshipping Mammon *quite* so hard, and let go of that Federal money!
35
Again, it's all about the money. We can't lose our tax exemptions! The Republican Party is reaping what it has sowed. The disgusting spectacle in New Hampshire the other night: when we get through with the Hispanics we'll take on on the Muslims! ! Who's next? Take a look at that rally versus the one with McCain in 2008 - one interesting thing stands out. In 2008 the crowd was making some negative noises when the crazy old lady was saying that Obama was an Arab. Not so with well dressed crowd in New Hampshire this year. I, for one, am getting tired of the "angry electorate". What the Republican voters should be angry about is not their fixation on foreigners, but the 1percent ideal of their party which shows no signs of changing, after all Jeb Bush wants another tax cut.
27
We are not accustomed to thinking of mental disorders as "catching" but there is a fairly reasonable case to be made that many forms of it in fact are. Not spread through biological organisms but rather by making wacko ideas, respectable and introducing them to susceptible brains with a weakness for for it. We see this clearly in others (ISIS for example) but not so clearly in the various forms of it in those around us. Radical religious people (usually calling them selves fundamentalists) are particularly susceptible. They may be hard working and intelligent in all other respects. People who know them are often astounded to find out that they ran off and joined ISIS or joined some other wacko group. Why is important to under stand this. Because it is a VERY dangerous condition. People that have been "infected" in this ways are willing to kill, and are often enthusiastic about a war to "prove" that their delusion is "right" and everyone else is wrong. Lets not delude ourselves that these people would not return to witch burning and torture (remember torture) if given free reign. Ben is their kind of guy.
22
Republican version..."Love your neighbor as yourself, as long as he is just like you".
26
"Pundits and political professionals," and a lot of others besides, chuckled and chortled as Trump and many others opened the sewers and sent their content at the POTUS and FLOTUS. Now, many of the same myopic hypocrites screech at the SCOTUS. But the RESTOFUS say, as we've said often before, you all carry a heavy burden of guilt for establishing and maintaining a largely-ignorant right-wing electorate.
20
What's not to like in Dr Carson when he says that being gay is an acquired trait by observing that prisoners go in to jail straight and come out gay? He's a doctor, so he should know.
14
"Populist nationalist"? Isn't that exactly what Nazism touted itself?
20
Just because Carson is soft spoken and polite does not mean he is "decent." He is hateful and his ideas are dangerous.
38
Here is where we stand right now, and if Dr. Carson where to read this, he would have no idea what I am talking about, and Evangelicals could care less!
The banks refuse to lend. The Housing Market is about to tank. The Fed has lost control of its ability to use interest rates to POSITIVELY INFLUENCE the stock market. The MONETARY AGGREGATES have DIVERGED for the first time in history from GDP. The weight of two trillion dollars of excess reserve created by QE have mooted monetary policy.
Derivatives Gambling on excess reserve collateral, stock buybacks and mergers and acquisition are the current name of the game. Who cares about the Fed Funds Rate? Why bother to lend?
Naturally, this signals the end of a bull run. First of all to digress, I just can't figure out why Janet Yellen wanted the chair at the Fed. She is going to wear the eggs, and a lot of them. Any day now Wall Street and Washington are going to turn on her, and then hopefully she will have a sense of humor.
Then secondly, Ben Carson when faced with a situation, which he is by education and disposition conditioned to not recognize, he will almost certainly conjure up some cracker barrel wisdom designed to ignore the problems of Capitalism today.
Perhaps the fundamentalists, who have always struck me as latently suicidal, are fishing for just such a President because to their way of thinking it might indicate that the Rapture and Armageddon would almost certainly be right around the corner.
The banks refuse to lend. The Housing Market is about to tank. The Fed has lost control of its ability to use interest rates to POSITIVELY INFLUENCE the stock market. The MONETARY AGGREGATES have DIVERGED for the first time in history from GDP. The weight of two trillion dollars of excess reserve created by QE have mooted monetary policy.
Derivatives Gambling on excess reserve collateral, stock buybacks and mergers and acquisition are the current name of the game. Who cares about the Fed Funds Rate? Why bother to lend?
Naturally, this signals the end of a bull run. First of all to digress, I just can't figure out why Janet Yellen wanted the chair at the Fed. She is going to wear the eggs, and a lot of them. Any day now Wall Street and Washington are going to turn on her, and then hopefully she will have a sense of humor.
Then secondly, Ben Carson when faced with a situation, which he is by education and disposition conditioned to not recognize, he will almost certainly conjure up some cracker barrel wisdom designed to ignore the problems of Capitalism today.
Perhaps the fundamentalists, who have always struck me as latently suicidal, are fishing for just such a President because to their way of thinking it might indicate that the Rapture and Armageddon would almost certainly be right around the corner.
8
Carson is a kind of American pope. He doesn't really need to gon into details. Faith is faith, is faith.
2
Yeah sure, except that Pope Francis is not a virulent homophobe, is concerned about human rights world wide, is concerned and knowledgeable about human impacts upon the natural environment, and is a firm believer in science and the scientific method. Other than those and about 100 other things, yes Carson is a kind of American pope ... sheesh.
3
Trumpen Proletariat (a play on Lumpenproletariat as used by Marx) is a great pun. For more, check out the Wikipedia entry for Lumpenproletariat.
4
"a traditional position on sexual ethics."
And this why Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" is a masterpiece.
And this why Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" is a masterpiece.
18
“You’ve got a set of unintended consequences that weren’t planned for,” said Richard F. Hohlt, a Republican donor and Washington lobbyist. . ."
It is what Republican political functionaries are good at.
It is what Republican political functionaries are good at.
10
Yogi Berra couldn't have said it better!
Might be a good idea for the media to dig a little deeper into Carson's past, including his stepping down as speaker at a Johns Hopkins Medical School Commencement because the students objected to his comments on gays and although a scientist does not accept the theory of evolution: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/03/29/johns-hopkins-med-students-call-...
16
Just because someone is (was) a surgeon, does not mean that they are a scientist.
2
"They need guarantees that the next G.O.P. administration will move proactively...to protect religious schools and charities from losing grants or accreditation or even tax-exempt status because they maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics."
Well, that's one of the many reasons why there won't BE a next GOP administration. Because "maintaining a traditional position on sexual ethics" is "conservative" code for "defending anti-gay bigotry on a 'religious' basis," even after the right-wing SCOTUS ruled that bigoted laws banning gay marriage are unconstitutional. Yet another battle in the "culture war" very decidedly and deservedly lost by the nasty neanderthals calling themselves "social conservatives" - yet another defeat that they refuse to acknowledge, and will keep pushing back against even as decent Americans go the opposite way.
There's a reason "social conservatives" keep losing - BECAUSE THEY'RE WRONG. They're wrong morally for cherishing this petty cherry-picked superstitious bigotry; they're wrong legally in terms of the Constitution; they're against the entire spirit of religious freedom - guaranteed by secularism, NOT ironically - upon which this country was founded. They don't want freedom; they want a theocracy based on their brand. Well, that is NOT America, and it never will be.
Well, that's one of the many reasons why there won't BE a next GOP administration. Because "maintaining a traditional position on sexual ethics" is "conservative" code for "defending anti-gay bigotry on a 'religious' basis," even after the right-wing SCOTUS ruled that bigoted laws banning gay marriage are unconstitutional. Yet another battle in the "culture war" very decidedly and deservedly lost by the nasty neanderthals calling themselves "social conservatives" - yet another defeat that they refuse to acknowledge, and will keep pushing back against even as decent Americans go the opposite way.
There's a reason "social conservatives" keep losing - BECAUSE THEY'RE WRONG. They're wrong morally for cherishing this petty cherry-picked superstitious bigotry; they're wrong legally in terms of the Constitution; they're against the entire spirit of religious freedom - guaranteed by secularism, NOT ironically - upon which this country was founded. They don't want freedom; they want a theocracy based on their brand. Well, that is NOT America, and it never will be.
41
Trump has a "distinctive campaign?"
He is an incoherent, dishonest, narcissistic, inarticulate, offensive, irrational, entitled, offensive, racist, misogynist, buffoonish bully.
Oh, perhaps that's what you meant by "distinctive?"
He is an incoherent, dishonest, narcissistic, inarticulate, offensive, irrational, entitled, offensive, racist, misogynist, buffoonish bully.
Oh, perhaps that's what you meant by "distinctive?"
51
In the Republican Party, that does not make him particularly distinctive.
3
More restrained than some descriptions & it uses less space. No?
What has he said that is in the slightest way disonest. He has told you riht our front what his policy is. Which other candidate has been as clear ablut what they consider to be important. Please, if you claim to value honesty and fairness then be fair and honest woith Trump. Stop just calling him names and talk about immigration. Tell us how a american residency document can be a worth anything thing if we simply allow any fool who infiltrates our border to stay and even reward him with welfare benefits, retirement benefits, free education and other programs we fund for the poor and/or sick. The proletariat know that the illegals are being rewarded just like the Bosses reward strike breakers brought in to replace american workers. The prolateriat know that society cannot stand if we unfairly reward people who have broken the law and give nothing those who followed the law. This is what happens when we allow total fools and incompetents like the Bush father and son, to run our government. Just try to tally up the string on unmitigated disasters they have inflicted on us. Our immigration system is just one of them.
1
When I hear that a man with a medical school education is "retired" at 60 and doesn't believe in evolution, I start to look for some back story - a story of inability to function in the world of science. Is no one looking behind the seemingly mild mannered facade of Dr. Carson? Come on, where are the investigative reporters? Someone knows something....
31
"Carson, on the other hand, is running a more content-free campaign."
In a nutshell (oh, irony) here's the entire Republican problem with running for election and governing.
In a nutshell (oh, irony) here's the entire Republican problem with running for election and governing.
15
There is no greater threat to this country, foreign or domestic, than the evangelical religious movement into politics. Forcing their religious beliefs into our government would change this democracy into a terrible travesty of what our founders envisioned and our constitution requires. Right now this is the Christian Right. The problem would be the same if the majority were Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or whatever. Our government must remain secular to adhere to the constitution and to maintain it's legitimacy to ALL Americans.
49
The political demands of the evangelical movement are perhaps only one step short of being Talibanesque.
1
We have already had God forced upon us unconstitutionally by Congress.
4
Well I thought this was a column, finally, about what Carson's ideas.
Nothing of the kind. No mention of his denial of global warming, no mention of his denial of evolution, no mention, really, of any of his ideas. Does he have any?
Nothing of the kind. No mention of his denial of global warming, no mention of his denial of evolution, no mention, really, of any of his ideas. Does he have any?
37
Of course they have unrealistic expectations; they are evangelical Christians. Who live - literally - in a fantasy world.
37
Ross, you offer a summary description of Trump and the planks that you say are the political touchstones of his campaign: maintaining social security, single payer health insurance, progressive taxation, etc. Unfortunately, you left out "birther", which the Donald put on display again last week to cement his votes with another hard-wired segment of our fellow voters.
15
The Birther thing is just a smack talk and you know it. We like getting under your skin. You know that as well as anyone and you know perfectly well that we could care less where Obama was born. The fact that he lack american values and is a traitor to our proletariat is the important thing. Explain to me why Trump carries more Black support than any other republican candidate. Trump also has just as much Latino support (25%) as supposedly viable candidates like Rubio and Cruz. There are plenty of Latino's who are loyal americans and oppose illegal immigration. After all, this is not a result of bigotry. This is a result of a rational economic calculation on the part of low income workers. The less competition, the less they have to struggle. They know this, you know this. The upshot is that Trump would take 25% of the black vote and totally bury any possible democratic challenger. He is the only sure-fire republican winner. He cannot lose the general if he gets the nomination. No democrat has a chance against him.
I believe too many Rebublicans would have to overcome or be educated out of their racist attitudes to elect Mr. Carson. Sad but true. Many hate black people even more than they hate Hillary, and that's quite something.
Have those entertaining Carson hopes picked up nothing in the last 8 years (the treatment President Obama has received)?
Have those entertaining Carson hopes picked up nothing in the last 8 years (the treatment President Obama has received)?
28
Among the Republican candidates are an Indian, an Hispanic, and an African American. Where are these in the Democratic Party race, the supposed party of diversity?
Ben Carson is a decent man with strong moral values, something which most candidates seeking the office of president cannot claim.
1
The job of president requires a lot more than that!
1
Having "strong moral values" (sez you) apparently doesn't stop Carson from making stupid, thoughtless, hurtful remarks.
2
For all the voters care, the party lines are simply not working anymore. This is the same both on the left and the right, as evident from the rise of Trump and Sanders. While there's some truth in the idiocy in some voters (particularly on the GOP side) who play right into the hands of those who regurgitate lies and never bother to check, fact of the matter is, these same idiots no longer trust the authority (not even main media) in telling them what to do or what to think. In such chaotic and confusing field, only the loudest and outlandish get heard. Middle-of-the-road and moderate candidates fall on the wayside.
Ultimately, what voters want, is an "authentic" candidate, even one that LOOK to be authentic. Somehow, we do know one thing: When you see main media starting to report on Sarah Palin (thrashing the Ahmed kid about his clock) rather than Jeb Bush or Rubio or other real candidates, you know GOP has run out of ideas and fresh faces to offer, that's why Carson and Fiorina (who couldn't even win a CA senate race) become flavor-of-the-month now.
What is more interesting to watch, is how Hillary Clinton would pivot as a result of the Sanders' rise. HC really needs to make a better effort to make her true self and belief known, rather than letting the email-server narrative becomes all that she is, otherwise she's doomed. Don't get me wrong, I don't need a HC that pivot simply along the ACLU line. I want sense from HC rather than pandering all to the liberal left.
Ultimately, what voters want, is an "authentic" candidate, even one that LOOK to be authentic. Somehow, we do know one thing: When you see main media starting to report on Sarah Palin (thrashing the Ahmed kid about his clock) rather than Jeb Bush or Rubio or other real candidates, you know GOP has run out of ideas and fresh faces to offer, that's why Carson and Fiorina (who couldn't even win a CA senate race) become flavor-of-the-month now.
What is more interesting to watch, is how Hillary Clinton would pivot as a result of the Sanders' rise. HC really needs to make a better effort to make her true self and belief known, rather than letting the email-server narrative becomes all that she is, otherwise she's doomed. Don't get me wrong, I don't need a HC that pivot simply along the ACLU line. I want sense from HC rather than pandering all to the liberal left.
1
I knew when the Oklahoma Republican establishment brought Dr. Carson to speak here several months ago that he must be a darling of the evangelicals. Our red dirt GOP has an infatuation with quixotic Pat Robertson types. Christianity is the unapologetic state religion here.
10
"They need guarantees that the next G.O.P. administration will move proactively — through something like Senator Mike Lee’s evolving First Amendment Defense Act — to protect religious schools and charities from losing grants or accreditation or even tax-exempt status because they maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics."
Thank you, Douthat, for exposing exactly what these religious nuts want: Enshrinement of their own antiquated bigotry in our Constitution.
Here's a thought: If "social conservatives" want to be seen as anything other than the troglodyte bigots they currently are, give up the idiotic focus on keeping others in "their place" whilst maintaining their own faux-superiority. Give up all the culture-war garbage and focus on that stuff that's in their own holy book: Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and so forth. I don't recall any instruction there about preventing the marriage or hating thy neighbor.
Thank you, Douthat, for exposing exactly what these religious nuts want: Enshrinement of their own antiquated bigotry in our Constitution.
Here's a thought: If "social conservatives" want to be seen as anything other than the troglodyte bigots they currently are, give up the idiotic focus on keeping others in "their place" whilst maintaining their own faux-superiority. Give up all the culture-war garbage and focus on that stuff that's in their own holy book: Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and so forth. I don't recall any instruction there about preventing the marriage or hating thy neighbor.
21
So, "religious schools and charities" that "maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics" require protection "from losing grants or accreditation or even tax-exempt status." Just so we're clear, that "traditional position on sexual ethics" consists of engaging in homophobia and discrimination. That's what you call "sexual ethics"? How very ethical (and revealing).
16
Ben Carson is so unlikely a candidate - based on his views alone - that one must ask why he has gotten as much support as he has. I think his degree of success thus far is evidence that - for one thing - there are a lot more people who think abortion is wrong than the public and the media would like to admit. Does that mean taking a leap to government control over a woman's body? Does it mean taking a leap to the illogical and restricting access to contraceptives? No. It simply illustrates that there is ample material for discussion of moral philosophy as it pertains to abortion - a discussion that respects the lives of women as much as it respects the lives of the unborn. Perhaps it is time for women-centered politics to take center-stage. The "man's world" politics has become tiring and has taken us to what we are looking at in candidacy for the highest office in the land. A woman's role in the reproductive process is a greater strength than women themselves realize, and yet they continue to take a defensive position. The Ben Carson phenomenon is, in my opinion, pointing the way to a new direction.
This week our American style conservative Conservative Prime Minister and Junior Pastor at the Colorado Springs Church of Jesus of Industry and Commerce uttered the words that most conservatives know to be true but fear to utter. There are two classes of citizen us and them. There are Old Stock first class Canadian and second class New Canadians. My great grandparents arrived in the United States and Canada in the 1880s and we will always be second class citizens. We understood what the Prime Minister meant but the spin doctors are still at work trying to explain what the Prime Minister "really" meant.
Carson and the Evangelicals are simply stating what we all know to be true. Jefferson , John Adams and John Quincy Adams are not real Americans and are not even entitled to a pledge of Allegiance that they can honestly recite.
Carson and the Evangelicals are simply stating what we all know to be true. Jefferson , John Adams and John Quincy Adams are not real Americans and are not even entitled to a pledge of Allegiance that they can honestly recite.
5
What puzzles me in this (and recent) feverish political seasons is the emergence of so many Republican candidates for the presidency from non-etablishment religions or sects: Romney Mormon; Palin Pentecostal; Carson and Cruz Seventh Day Adventist affiliation. Among the Democrats Obama of Muslim and Protestant parentage, who doesn't flaunt his Christianity, and Sanders a Jew. Will a Scientologist appear in 2020? Given the enshrined tradition of religious freedom in America, this is admirable and laudable but I wish a columnist or a cultural historian would explain this phenomenon, as well as the irony that in mainstream European democratic countries such a France and Britain, it is unlikely that such candidates would have surfaced as claimants of the highest political office. An enlightened lesson then to be learned from the USA by these humanistically oriented civilizations.
5
Culture war speechifying has been very good to Republicans over the decades, despite the trainwreck of Buchanan's 1992 convention address (which sounded better in the original German).
Culture war speechifying allows for all kinds of code words to rustle up anger against "those people," where we have seen "those people" mean everything from Reagan's famous "welfare queen" to the '00's constant fear mongering about the "gay agenda."
But the audience for this shameless pandering to anger and fear is dwindling, and will no longer corral enough votes. Additionally, it is starting to really grind on the nerves of most citizens as being what it always was: the mating call of bigotry.
The bigotry parade has mostly run its course for the Republicans -- they are reduced to beating up on poor women who need health clinics. But all they have left is their perennial call for more trickle down economics, more tax cuts for the spectacularly wealthy.
Not much of a sales pitch, at least not at the national level. They are losing the cover that allowed them to pull in enough bitter clingers to win presidential elections. The result is what we see: mayhem and confusion and empty talk.
It needs to be said, this Republican strategy of culture war still works on many local and state levels. But in those growing places where citizens live in peace with all "those people" you have demonized over the decades, your shameful game is over.
Culture war speechifying allows for all kinds of code words to rustle up anger against "those people," where we have seen "those people" mean everything from Reagan's famous "welfare queen" to the '00's constant fear mongering about the "gay agenda."
But the audience for this shameless pandering to anger and fear is dwindling, and will no longer corral enough votes. Additionally, it is starting to really grind on the nerves of most citizens as being what it always was: the mating call of bigotry.
The bigotry parade has mostly run its course for the Republicans -- they are reduced to beating up on poor women who need health clinics. But all they have left is their perennial call for more trickle down economics, more tax cuts for the spectacularly wealthy.
Not much of a sales pitch, at least not at the national level. They are losing the cover that allowed them to pull in enough bitter clingers to win presidential elections. The result is what we see: mayhem and confusion and empty talk.
It needs to be said, this Republican strategy of culture war still works on many local and state levels. But in those growing places where citizens live in peace with all "those people" you have demonized over the decades, your shameful game is over.
18
It is clear to me that the candidates are most inept when it comes to tax reform. The "pundits and political professionals" and debate questioners are even worse.
For more than 20 years the share of family wealth has declined for all except the richest 10%. The estate tax is the main tax that applies in a significant way to all the rich and just the rich. Candidates Bush, Cruz, Gilmore, Huckabee, Jindal, Paul, Rubio and Santarum want the Estate tax to be eliminated. Ironically, the poorer half of the population (62 million families) collectedly have lost about 70% of their family wealth and now share just 1% of the wealth. Young adults from this group can no longer afford to marry or make babies.
As a policy matter many believe that the government does not need the $30 billion a year in estate taxes yet this amount could double the wealth of the poorer half of the population if used to reduce taxes on low income workers ($600 billion over 20 years).
If any candidate wants to reduce or eliminate estate taxes and has no plan to restore half the population to at least a 3 or 4% share of family wealth the candidate is obviously promoting inequality.
Mr. Carson has little training and is understandably clueless on tax reform. He would be better off proposing a biblical 4% flat tax on wealth rather than a contrived 15% flat tax on income (and keeping the additional 15.3% job killing payroll tax).
For more than 20 years the share of family wealth has declined for all except the richest 10%. The estate tax is the main tax that applies in a significant way to all the rich and just the rich. Candidates Bush, Cruz, Gilmore, Huckabee, Jindal, Paul, Rubio and Santarum want the Estate tax to be eliminated. Ironically, the poorer half of the population (62 million families) collectedly have lost about 70% of their family wealth and now share just 1% of the wealth. Young adults from this group can no longer afford to marry or make babies.
As a policy matter many believe that the government does not need the $30 billion a year in estate taxes yet this amount could double the wealth of the poorer half of the population if used to reduce taxes on low income workers ($600 billion over 20 years).
If any candidate wants to reduce or eliminate estate taxes and has no plan to restore half the population to at least a 3 or 4% share of family wealth the candidate is obviously promoting inequality.
Mr. Carson has little training and is understandably clueless on tax reform. He would be better off proposing a biblical 4% flat tax on wealth rather than a contrived 15% flat tax on income (and keeping the additional 15.3% job killing payroll tax).
14
Soft-spoken Ben Carson is definitely anti-Trump in demeanor, but that could be said of almost everyone else running, except for the righteously indignant moralist Rafael Cruz. No doubt Carson's understated quality is unique among most politicians, who love nothing more than to blow their own horns incessantly.
The technical skills Dr. Carson brings to the profession of neurosurgery are one of grace under pressure practicing the scientific method. His story is the American Dream personified. His public persona evokes one of a gentleman whom we'd like the pleasure of meeting and knowing.
What disturbs this liberal Democrat is Ben Carson's political views. When he decided to take off his surgical mask and replace it with that of a candidate he seems to have left his surgeon's empathy and understanding of the human condition replaced with a narrow-minded, myopic view.
This condition has come to dominate and haunt the current Republican Party: I've got mine, you get yours. I did it my way, with no help from anyone. I worked hard, refused to accept government handouts. I owe no one but myself, and the good fortune which comes my way I am entitled to keep it with no qualms of paying back at all. This mindset had led Republican candidates to believe their idea of paying back a generous America is by becoming leader of the Free World.
It's a philosophy that is extremely naive, short-sighted and woefully wrong-headed.
DD
Manhattan
The technical skills Dr. Carson brings to the profession of neurosurgery are one of grace under pressure practicing the scientific method. His story is the American Dream personified. His public persona evokes one of a gentleman whom we'd like the pleasure of meeting and knowing.
What disturbs this liberal Democrat is Ben Carson's political views. When he decided to take off his surgical mask and replace it with that of a candidate he seems to have left his surgeon's empathy and understanding of the human condition replaced with a narrow-minded, myopic view.
This condition has come to dominate and haunt the current Republican Party: I've got mine, you get yours. I did it my way, with no help from anyone. I worked hard, refused to accept government handouts. I owe no one but myself, and the good fortune which comes my way I am entitled to keep it with no qualms of paying back at all. This mindset had led Republican candidates to believe their idea of paying back a generous America is by becoming leader of the Free World.
It's a philosophy that is extremely naive, short-sighted and woefully wrong-headed.
DD
Manhattan
28
Many surgeons emotionally decouple themselves entirely from patients because then it is easier to cut them.
Yes, let's act to defend a 200-year-old amendment--or at least, our interpretation of it.
Not so free-market or anti-government when it comes to collecting for our little prayer caves and madrassas, are we?
Not so free-market or anti-government when it comes to collecting for our little prayer caves and madrassas, are we?
4
If you have been reading David Brooks and Ross Douthat lately, you cannot help but come away with a certain amount of admiration and sympathy even when you disagree with what they say. The current crop of candidates make it hard to write essays describing the positive aspects of the Republican party. It is even hard to complain about the Democratic candidates making outlandish claims and pandering to voters when your guys are champs. It has to be terribly demoralizing. But do Ross and David let that stop them? No they do not! They soldier on as best they can.
David's essay today was a pretty accurate description of the current situation. Of course, commentators who are less closely aligned to the Republican party have been saying for years that Republicans take advantage of people who don't seem to understand that they are voting against their own interests. Many of those same commentators have been arguing for years that the evangelical Republicans seem to take a shining to any candidate who presents the best superficial impression. So while his ideas are not new at all, I respect his willingness to accept reality.
David's essay today was a pretty accurate description of the current situation. Of course, commentators who are less closely aligned to the Republican party have been saying for years that Republicans take advantage of people who don't seem to understand that they are voting against their own interests. Many of those same commentators have been arguing for years that the evangelical Republicans seem to take a shining to any candidate who presents the best superficial impression. So while his ideas are not new at all, I respect his willingness to accept reality.
8
It does not seem to have occurred to anyone that The Donald is the response to Thonas Frank's book/question "What's the Matter with Kansas?" which becomes moot once national health care and progressive taxation are incorporated into the platform.
1
Call it what it is--evangelicals are looking for a Messiah who will solve all their problems, preferably not on this earth, but in any case by magically fixing everything with no necessity for the evangelicals to do anything but flock after him. I once asked a student of mine from the backwoods of North Carolina why people from his neck of the woods [sic] voted as they did. He said, "They are terrified of everything around them--foreign affairs, job loss, technology, social mores--changing in ways they can't understand or control. They'll vote for anyone who has the same religious beliefs as they do, as the only person they can trust. Period."
14
The reason evangelicals have been less successful than "free-marketers" in getting the GOP to force through their agenda has nothing to do with their strategies or attitudes. It has to do with the fact that politicians see them as a means, not an end. The politicians pander to prejudices & fears and a large segment of the religious right lines up at the ballot box. But the politicians' agenda is always going to be transferring public cash into the pockets of the wealthy. That's where the money is.
20
It is all good and well for Republican pundits to blame the voters (Trump or Carson supporters) but they are your own creation. Try taking religion out of politics. That would be a good place to start. Stop trying to defund aid to women, stop the denial bull, look to helping people rather than smothering them with low wages and tax breaks for the already super wealthy.
The angry conservative mood you refer to is a scary thing to observe. The best example of it backfiring is to look at the top ranked candidates in Iowa.
What do those voters hope to accomplish with their choices?
Illusions abound and no one is attempting to tamp them down or restore order to political thinking.
The angry conservative mood you refer to is a scary thing to observe. The best example of it backfiring is to look at the top ranked candidates in Iowa.
What do those voters hope to accomplish with their choices?
Illusions abound and no one is attempting to tamp them down or restore order to political thinking.
15
Ross, it's not too complicated. The GOP really has become the party of the stupid. These dozen or so candidates are slightly different versions of the same thing, from which the "base," battered witless by the GOP's constant denials of reality and exploitation of fear and hatred, are now free to choose. Good luck with all that.
25
Black republicans are priceless to the republican party. They give cover to the party's policies and justifying rhetoric that are often implicitly (or even explicitly) racist. Black republicans give white republicans a sense of redemption, so the present infatuation with Ben Carson isn't surprising. It will pass. Eventually the real GOP bosses, the corporate interests and the very rich, will nominate their man, probably Jeb Bush or maybe John Kasich. The GOP base will again feel betrayed and disrespected, and they will be right. All of this demonstrates the fragility and phoniness of the current GOP coalition. The corporate elite, the religious right and the low brow xenophobes and bigots that make up the base have no business in the same party.
18
For 7 years the GOP has stood for nothing. The platform is to be against Obama at every turn. This has left a leadership void. Into that void has come chaos in the form of Trump and, to a lesser extent, Carson.
16
The beauty of the Carson phenomenon is that, unlike Obama, race never even comes up. But Mr. Douthat hits the nail on the head -- the ugliness of the Carson phenomenon is that, unlike Obama, the meaning of this campaign is narrow and special interest-focused, rather than meaningful national direction and policy focused.
4
How dare you continue to cut at the fabric of our secular democracy, Mr. Douthat. You and your fellow Christians continue to want to have cafeteria style government, which will make our entire system crumble. I disagree with so many of your positions, and you disagree with so many of mine. The only reason we can co-exist is because you and I can practice our beliefs, but the government doesn't get to tell us we have to do one thing or the other, only, that we can if we choose. And you and your fellow Republicans constantly bray about wanting government out of our business.
The minute you allow corporations to pick and choose what they want to do, and a cooperation is purely an entity set up to make money, and the minute you allow government employees to opt out on what offends them, you are going down a slippery slope, which there's no turning back from.
The minute you allow corporations to pick and choose what they want to do, and a cooperation is purely an entity set up to make money, and the minute you allow government employees to opt out on what offends them, you are going down a slippery slope, which there's no turning back from.
20
You have Trump wrong. He believes in nothing but himself and his endless self-promotion. As such, he will say whatever gets him the largest and loudest audience, the most airtime and column inches and Google hits. The term I use for such public figures is 'Mardi Gras parade float' - huge, gaudy, eye-catching, trundling along, occasionally tossing cheap trinkets to the clamouring throngs, going nowhere important - and the morning after, broken down and warehoused when everyone sobers up and gets down to business.
Carson has no chance of being nominated. None. Zip. Zlich, Zero. Bubkes. Not even by the GOP, which admittedly kissed moderation, rationality, and actual governing competence goodbye some time ago. As such, it really doesn't matter what the heck he claims to believe. Evangelicals support him because he isn't any of the others they've seen already. (In that sense, he's like Obama in 2008 to liberals: since they didn't know who he was, they preferred to project all kinds of expectations on him based on his skin colour and personable, articulate manner.) Give it a few weeks and they'll be casting around for somebody, anybody, they haven't seen before, on whom to pin their expectations. (Just as Bernie Sanders is this year's Obama-2008 to the left.)
Carson has no chance of being nominated. None. Zip. Zlich, Zero. Bubkes. Not even by the GOP, which admittedly kissed moderation, rationality, and actual governing competence goodbye some time ago. As such, it really doesn't matter what the heck he claims to believe. Evangelicals support him because he isn't any of the others they've seen already. (In that sense, he's like Obama in 2008 to liberals: since they didn't know who he was, they preferred to project all kinds of expectations on him based on his skin colour and personable, articulate manner.) Give it a few weeks and they'll be casting around for somebody, anybody, they haven't seen before, on whom to pin their expectations. (Just as Bernie Sanders is this year's Obama-2008 to the left.)
7
Let's not confuse surgery with economic conservatiism, the Pope or any other analogy or sign reasoning Let's not confuse Hewett Packard with the United States, it's not even city, let alone a state, region or national government.
The GOP does not have a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, but for Jeb Bush who does not seem to have his wits together -- father time has passed for him. SURRENDER!
The GOP does not have a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, but for Jeb Bush who does not seem to have his wits together -- father time has passed for him. SURRENDER!
6
This discussion, at this early hour when I haven't been to sleep yet kind of makes me wonder if it's all a weird dream.
Of course, not being a Republican maybe makes it seem that way.
Whatever.
Read a great description of Carson the other day. Think it was Richard Cohen in WaPo.
Carson looks like somebody who just woke up and can't find his glasses.
I really need some sleep.
Of course, not being a Republican maybe makes it seem that way.
Whatever.
Read a great description of Carson the other day. Think it was Richard Cohen in WaPo.
Carson looks like somebody who just woke up and can't find his glasses.
I really need some sleep.
8
Carson believes the earth is 6,000 years old. One need look no further - the man is unqualified.
24
The evangelicals want to establish the christian version of Sharia law in the United States. There is no fundamental difference between a christian state and an Islamic state. Christian conservatives would and have lynchedBlacks and Gays, justified slavery and Jim Crow and put women on their backs as baby factories lorded over by men.
Social liberalism is basically the humanity and love preached by Jesus. The modern conservative churches have become hate factories and corporations with tax free status to spread their perverted vision.
Social liberalism is basically the humanity and love preached by Jesus. The modern conservative churches have become hate factories and corporations with tax free status to spread their perverted vision.
27
Ben Carson does not believe in evolution nor climate change. And he's gaining in the polls. I'm not too scared...yet!
14
What are the fruits of the legal establishment of religion into law?
Superstition, Bigotry, and Persecution.
Doesn't matter which religion, Christianity or Islam. We should keep Thomas Jefferson's great Wall of Separation between church and state separate because good fences make good neighbors.
Personal faith based beliefs should not be a license to force those religious dogmas onto others to deny secular civil rights.
Superstition, Bigotry, and Persecution.
Doesn't matter which religion, Christianity or Islam. We should keep Thomas Jefferson's great Wall of Separation between church and state separate because good fences make good neighbors.
Personal faith based beliefs should not be a license to force those religious dogmas onto others to deny secular civil rights.
30
No, Ross, evangelicals don't "have less influence over actual Republican governance than fiscal conservatives or foreign-policy hawks (becuase) They’re always looking for a hero (or heroine), while the party’s other factions focus on staffing decisions and policy commitments."
Evangelicals have less influence over actual governance because the fiscal conservatives and foreign-policy hawks, otherwise known as Wall Street and the military-industrial complex, simply don't care about the issues evangelicals find important. These people are simply using evangelicals to provide them with the votes they need to continue their looting.
As long as Anthony Kennedy voted on the "right" side in Citizens United, it matters not one whit to the fiscal conservatives and foreign-policy hawks that he voted on the "wrong" side in Obergefell.
Evangelicals have less influence over actual governance because the fiscal conservatives and foreign-policy hawks, otherwise known as Wall Street and the military-industrial complex, simply don't care about the issues evangelicals find important. These people are simply using evangelicals to provide them with the votes they need to continue their looting.
As long as Anthony Kennedy voted on the "right" side in Citizens United, it matters not one whit to the fiscal conservatives and foreign-policy hawks that he voted on the "wrong" side in Obergefell.
151
I have heard Ben Carson make at least one policy pronouncement and it was that the Affordable Care Act is "worse than slavery". By implication he would over turn it. I suppose I am asking too much to have Dr. Carson actually explain why the ACA is worse than slavery becuase not ince have a seen or heard a reporter ask him to explain it or what, if anything, he would replace it with. Carson is just the usual fall fling the right has with minority candidates to "prove" they are not really racist as heart. For the most part what we hear from Carson is "Trust me, I'm a doctor." But how is that different from Trump and Fiorina touting their business acumen (or lack thereof)? Frankly only Trump has discussed economic policies that are different from the failed Republican orthodoxy of cutting taxes on the wealthy but even Trump reverts to calling for massive increases in military spending and of course, to a person they are al opposed to women controlling their own reproduction.
15
Excellent, Ross, as usual. I like and admire Ben Carson as a human being, but could he wage a war? Not sure. Of course, God could assist him, advise him, strengthen him, but I don't think a person who's rendered such noble service as being a pediatric neurosurgeon has the temperament to shoot off drones (that may hit children) and bunker-busting bombs. And it looks like more war to me--a continuance, possibly an escalation. Trump is horrendous--take away the illegal immigrant issue, he's got nothing. So who does that leave us? Starting to look at Fiorina. Is she the real deal (real Christian, real conservative), or another head-fake self-dealing opportunist? We need swift, bold action to re-instate law and order, including building a wall and stopping the tsunami of illegals. The middle class is being wiped out. Perhaps a Fiorina/Carson ticket (Fiorina at the top)... and pray pray pray, which is what we need most in the West now. Only a complete re commitment to the Christian faith (by a large block of voters) can save the country at this juncture. Everyone back to church. No more "nones".
People like you scare the hell out of the majority in the US. You absolutely have no idea the concept of separation of Church and State, and why it is so important to our form of government. If you think that more people going to their tribal meetings each week, will cure your perceived national ills, you have forgotten everything history has taught us about why a secular government is essential to survival. Please educate yourself somewhere other than your selected church and it's narrow beliefs of the world and people. A church's education is for personal growth and personal salvation, not for running a country.
2
I can only hope that you are saying all of this with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
1
That there are likely millions of Americans who hold beliefs similar to those articulated so well by Ms. Garver is profoundly depressing. For while I would agree America, especially the middle class, needs to be "saved", I disagree with the implicit prescription guys like Ben Carson offer: more religiosity for all.
The last thing America, or any other nation that wishes to progress economically and socially, needs is political leadership and governance controlled or influenced by religion. Religion is entirely a human construct that was necessitated by humanity's ignorance and fear of the unknown, particularly death. This ignorance and fear seem to have continued unabated, even in a modern society such as ours.
While it continues to sadden and depress me that a large percentage of Americans continue to hold to religious beliefs that are primordial in origin, and therefore are serious about wanting people like Ben Carson to govern us, I can only hope there are more political Christians like Jimmy Carter among them. For like political Islam, political Christianity is potentially just as pernicious a force in the daily lives of us more secular-minded Americans.
The last thing America, or any other nation that wishes to progress economically and socially, needs is political leadership and governance controlled or influenced by religion. Religion is entirely a human construct that was necessitated by humanity's ignorance and fear of the unknown, particularly death. This ignorance and fear seem to have continued unabated, even in a modern society such as ours.
While it continues to sadden and depress me that a large percentage of Americans continue to hold to religious beliefs that are primordial in origin, and therefore are serious about wanting people like Ben Carson to govern us, I can only hope there are more political Christians like Jimmy Carter among them. For like political Islam, political Christianity is potentially just as pernicious a force in the daily lives of us more secular-minded Americans.
3
It’s easy to see why establishment Republicans should worry about Ben Carson, since he dilutes the support which Party leaders expect from evangelical Christians. The hierarchy has become used to having the evangelicals to exploit and manipulate at will.
It’s apparent why candidates like Donald Trump, who improbably wears the mantle of populism, and other outsiders should fear Carson, since he seems to be the genuine article in his religious beliefs and, therefore, has staying power with the evangelicals.
It is not clear, however, why Democrats should be concerned about Ben Carson. The more he gives fits to the Republican Party, the more he ought to help Democrats in the general election. Of course, in an odd way, Carson may help Bernie Sanders the most because of purity of message. Only if national electability is a problem for Sanders, would Carson indirectly harm Democrats.
It’s apparent why candidates like Donald Trump, who improbably wears the mantle of populism, and other outsiders should fear Carson, since he seems to be the genuine article in his religious beliefs and, therefore, has staying power with the evangelicals.
It is not clear, however, why Democrats should be concerned about Ben Carson. The more he gives fits to the Republican Party, the more he ought to help Democrats in the general election. Of course, in an odd way, Carson may help Bernie Sanders the most because of purity of message. Only if national electability is a problem for Sanders, would Carson indirectly harm Democrats.
2
Religiously Hillary Clinton has much more in common with Ben Carson than Donald Trump does, as she comes from a conservative Protestant upbringing championing the sanctity of family, explicit commitment to Christian doctrine, and she explicitly ascribes her positions to principles gleaned from Rheinhold Niebuhr, other theologians, and lifelong consistent church attendance. Trump has recognized no religion except The Market and The Donald, which are doctrinally pretty consistent. Many evangelical Christians currently supporting Ben Carson will feel compelled to choose co-religionist Hillary over the Golden Calf/Golden Donald thing.
There is one common aspect to the appeal of both Trump and Carson. Both of them are promising their supporters things that they can't deliver. Both of them have a view of the world that glosses over inconvenient facts, simplifies complex problems, and confirms everything their supporters want to believe.
They provide them with validation - and with enemies to blame for all the things they don't like about the world. Trump and Carson are two sides of the same coin, authoritarian leaders who tell their followers what they want to hear while taking no responsibility for the consequences.
But, that's the modus operandi of the Republican Party these days and the giant con game that is movement conservatism. Douthat's column is all about the established grifters defending their turf against the outsiders.
They provide them with validation - and with enemies to blame for all the things they don't like about the world. Trump and Carson are two sides of the same coin, authoritarian leaders who tell their followers what they want to hear while taking no responsibility for the consequences.
But, that's the modus operandi of the Republican Party these days and the giant con game that is movement conservatism. Douthat's column is all about the established grifters defending their turf against the outsiders.
15
Just to make sure I understand, Mr. Douthat: Religious conservatives now need an Orwellian "First Amendment Defense Act" to allow their institutions and organizations to circumvent the actual First Amendment and receive grants and accreditations while promoting bigotry?
What shall we call such a program -- "Teaching Intolerance?"
What shall we call such a program -- "Teaching Intolerance?"
20
The actual tragedy is that it is the rest of us who need protection from the evangelical right wing personality cults. We don't need more laws to protect them. Our founding documents were crafted to protect us from religious-based authority not to excuse the personality cults from their societal obligations to get along with others.
20
Ben Carson thinks that religious organizations which discriminate against LGBT people should continue to be tax-exempt. I have been wondering for a while what the logic is for organizations that discriminate against me and my family receiving money from me (my taxes) to continue this discrimination.This is a genuine question I have, and I have not seen it discussed or explained anywhere by those who hold this position. Perhaps Ben Carson can explain (although I doubt he will bother).
16
If, as Douthat says, the "real work of politics" is staffing and policy commitments, then why is he wasting his time fretting about Ben Carson, who doesn't have a birther's chance in a reality based universe for getting the nomination?
I think the answer is that we are seeing the Republican establishment in a panic because they have lost control. They used to be the masters, not of the universe, but of the Southern Strategy and all it entailed. And now they are the tail being wagged by the dragon they resurrected.
The establishment used to be able to deploy Willie Horton commercials and xenophobia and the tax cut voodoo that they do so well.
But now...... no black vote, no latino vote, the evangelicals are running amuck, and wage earning Republicans are hearing the Trumpster stir of taxing hedge fund managers and maintaining their health insurance and social security.
Behold the Great Oz - the Republican Establishment - that knows the real work of politics is staffing. The curtain has been pulled back and they are freaking out because Ben Carson and Donald Trump might be better bamboozlers.
The real work of politics is tearing your opponents to shreds. Go at it Republicans. Eat each others hearts out.
I think the answer is that we are seeing the Republican establishment in a panic because they have lost control. They used to be the masters, not of the universe, but of the Southern Strategy and all it entailed. And now they are the tail being wagged by the dragon they resurrected.
The establishment used to be able to deploy Willie Horton commercials and xenophobia and the tax cut voodoo that they do so well.
But now...... no black vote, no latino vote, the evangelicals are running amuck, and wage earning Republicans are hearing the Trumpster stir of taxing hedge fund managers and maintaining their health insurance and social security.
Behold the Great Oz - the Republican Establishment - that knows the real work of politics is staffing. The curtain has been pulled back and they are freaking out because Ben Carson and Donald Trump might be better bamboozlers.
The real work of politics is tearing your opponents to shreds. Go at it Republicans. Eat each others hearts out.
25
Speaking of birthers, has the Donald actually confirmed the raised seal on the President's birth certificate? Anyway, anyone can forge a birth certificate even with a raised seal- 3d printing y'know.
Trump didn't correct the loon who said Obama is Muslim-- does Trump even believe Obama is the real president, and not some mold planted by Kenya or Al Qaeda (or the two in cahoots)?
Truth is, I wouldn't be uninterested in a poll of Republicans on these questions, and I have a good idea what the numbers might be among a Trump supporters. We live in not just tragic, but sadly laughable times.
Trump didn't correct the loon who said Obama is Muslim-- does Trump even believe Obama is the real president, and not some mold planted by Kenya or Al Qaeda (or the two in cahoots)?
Truth is, I wouldn't be uninterested in a poll of Republicans on these questions, and I have a good idea what the numbers might be among a Trump supporters. We live in not just tragic, but sadly laughable times.
2
The conservative mood may be frustrated & fed up, but that dissatisfaction with the state of America is more the result of republican financial, foreign and social domestic agendas than anything else.
Throw in a measure of republican political pandering to the far right wing to undercut federal governance, and you have a good description of the de facto republican platform.
Any political organization that still supports the faith-based wishful thinking of trickle down economics deserves the scorn of the working and middle class of America.
Any political organization that still supports American wars of ambition advocated by the Israeli government deserves the scorn of the American families who pay for them in terms of both blood and taxes. Toss in the callous multiple tours of duty by the same soldiers so the republicans could avoid the repercussions of a draft.
Any political organization that countenances the rebellion of the right wing and treats the Christian evangelicals as though their religious beliefs should matter more than a secular rule of law deserves our scorn. That little bit of potential theocracy echoes some Islamic nations in the Middle East. Different clergies, same goals of repressing non-believers of the "true" path.
The simple truth is that republican politicians pander to so many dysfunctional electoral segments in order to preserve trickle down economics that they are unqualified to lead this pluralistic and secular country of free people.
Throw in a measure of republican political pandering to the far right wing to undercut federal governance, and you have a good description of the de facto republican platform.
Any political organization that still supports the faith-based wishful thinking of trickle down economics deserves the scorn of the working and middle class of America.
Any political organization that still supports American wars of ambition advocated by the Israeli government deserves the scorn of the American families who pay for them in terms of both blood and taxes. Toss in the callous multiple tours of duty by the same soldiers so the republicans could avoid the repercussions of a draft.
Any political organization that countenances the rebellion of the right wing and treats the Christian evangelicals as though their religious beliefs should matter more than a secular rule of law deserves our scorn. That little bit of potential theocracy echoes some Islamic nations in the Middle East. Different clergies, same goals of repressing non-believers of the "true" path.
The simple truth is that republican politicians pander to so many dysfunctional electoral segments in order to preserve trickle down economics that they are unqualified to lead this pluralistic and secular country of free people.
23
The delusion is on your part
Stop pretending this smallish group is doing anything but promoting a national religion and compromising their values for some big name calling out their less then accurate grievances
Their influence is solely related to their party's process which inflates their role and then destroys that party's national success.
They are narrow minded and out of step with most Americans but cling to their early role of branding the national Republican Party as a minority party and an opposition party even when they hold the majority in congress
Stop pretending this smallish group is doing anything but promoting a national religion and compromising their values for some big name calling out their less then accurate grievances
Their influence is solely related to their party's process which inflates their role and then destroys that party's national success.
They are narrow minded and out of step with most Americans but cling to their early role of branding the national Republican Party as a minority party and an opposition party even when they hold the majority in congress
15
The thesis that evangelical Christians are looking for "the history altering individual" is completely in sync with the notion that fully 40% of evangelicals believe we are currently living during the end times, the apocalyptic views described in the Book of Revelation. A wordly view that looks to the future requiring human based networking, institutions and alliances gets pushed to the side as unnecessary and possibly blasphemous when compared to the second coming and postmillenial world described in the Book of Revelation. A scenario in which a sitting president of the United States would adhere to such doctrine - and govern accordingly - is scary to say the least.
25
The evangelical right is desperate. The rise of Carson is the evidence. He says some very disturbing things, and is unelectable, in my opinion, even more so than Trump--if that is even possible.
The only two candidates that would stand a snowballs chance in a general election, for the GOP, would be Bush or Kasich, but I don't think they play the Jesus card right.
So the evangelicas could be the ones that give momentum to an unelectable only to be absolutely trounced in the general election by someone with real experience, Sanders or Clinton.
The evangelicals might be angry, this may be a class war, but they are playing a losing game by backing an idiosyncratic mellow mood like Carson.
The only two candidates that would stand a snowballs chance in a general election, for the GOP, would be Bush or Kasich, but I don't think they play the Jesus card right.
So the evangelicas could be the ones that give momentum to an unelectable only to be absolutely trounced in the general election by someone with real experience, Sanders or Clinton.
The evangelicals might be angry, this may be a class war, but they are playing a losing game by backing an idiosyncratic mellow mood like Carson.
16
Spare us Bush and Kasich. Both carry way too much baggage.
2
Evangelicals reject evolution. Something that is fact and continues around them today. Wouldn`t it be useful if we some how could look into the future and see where evolution has taken us. Hopefully farther and farther away from the religious fairy tales espoused by the evangelicals.
The US electorate has a long way to go to catch up. eg. 46% Americans Believe In Creationism According To Latest Gallup Poll
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism
"Forty six percent Americans believed in creationism, 32 percent believed in theistic evolution and 15 percent believed in evolution without any divine intervention. As the graph below shows, the percent of Americans who believe in creationism has increased slightly by 2 percent over the last 30 years. The percent of Americans who believe in evolution has also increased by 6 percent over the last 30 years while the percent of Americans who believe in theistic evolution has decreased by 6 percent over the same time period."
The US electorate has a long way to go to catch up. eg. 46% Americans Believe In Creationism According To Latest Gallup Poll
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism
"Forty six percent Americans believed in creationism, 32 percent believed in theistic evolution and 15 percent believed in evolution without any divine intervention. As the graph below shows, the percent of Americans who believe in creationism has increased slightly by 2 percent over the last 30 years. The percent of Americans who believe in evolution has also increased by 6 percent over the last 30 years while the percent of Americans who believe in theistic evolution has decreased by 6 percent over the same time period."
6
I am not familiar with the wording of Sen. Mike Lee's "evolving" First Amendment Defense Act, but I imagine, it is a doocy. Sen. Lee is Sen. Ted Cruz's wingman, and Sen. Cruz has no peer in religious extremism and accomplished lying, he is the master. As far as losing tax exempt status goes, as John Oliver showed us on HBO, obtaining tax exempt status as a church is a snap, television charlatans do so decade after decade. The IRS has been stripped of funding and thus manpower for years, it is effectively neutered and, no doubt, millions, if not billions of taxes are uncollected from the myriad phonies in every strip mall in the country.
26
To better understand the appeal of Trump and Carson I would urge anyone to look up Wilfrid Bion, a British psychoanalyst who distinguished rational from irrational motives in group dynamics. Rationally, people seek leaders who have a strong relationship to reality and a thirst for truth, and therefore are geared towards solving problems. However other people - the evangelicals described by Mr. Douthout, are animated by deeper anxieties: a fear of change;a fear of others. They seek the protection of a strong leader who attracts support by finding and targeting (or promising to) scapegoats.
Our political process has increasingly become distorted in favor of the second, irrational group dynamic, and a slate of Republican candidates who can be defined simply by their scapegoats: Carson/abortion; Trump/immigrants. This is the mechanism by which we elect our demagogues.
Our political process has increasingly become distorted in favor of the second, irrational group dynamic, and a slate of Republican candidates who can be defined simply by their scapegoats: Carson/abortion; Trump/immigrants. This is the mechanism by which we elect our demagogues.
39
The more I watch the Republican candidates the more they seem not to have absorbed basic civics courses, much less the Constitution of the United States.
In their quest for power they apparently will stoop to continuous lies, exposing their contempt for the electorate they propose to "serve." Are they totally ignorant of what the country and its beleaguered citizens need or do they only care to pander to the .0001% and the "religious" fringe?
It is time for those in the press who understand the folly we are witnessing to speak out, exposing the ignorance and propaganda.
In their quest for power they apparently will stoop to continuous lies, exposing their contempt for the electorate they propose to "serve." Are they totally ignorant of what the country and its beleaguered citizens need or do they only care to pander to the .0001% and the "religious" fringe?
It is time for those in the press who understand the folly we are witnessing to speak out, exposing the ignorance and propaganda.
33
Ben Carson just said on Meet The Press that a Muslim should not ever be allowed to be president.
What country does he think he lives in and he wishes to lead? It states clearly in the Constitution that there is no litmus test of religion for elected office and the presidency. These Republicans like to play loosey-goosey with the documents of the Founding Fathers, those they say they revere. Those guys are not only turning over in their graves, they are swirling nonstop!
This Carson guy - scary. One among the many of them that are scary. But he says things so quietly, calmly that it's easy to think he's speaking sense. He's not. He's speaking non-sense. Hope that starts to sink in soon to his followers.
What country does he think he lives in and he wishes to lead? It states clearly in the Constitution that there is no litmus test of religion for elected office and the presidency. These Republicans like to play loosey-goosey with the documents of the Founding Fathers, those they say they revere. Those guys are not only turning over in their graves, they are swirling nonstop!
This Carson guy - scary. One among the many of them that are scary. But he says things so quietly, calmly that it's easy to think he's speaking sense. He's not. He's speaking non-sense. Hope that starts to sink in soon to his followers.
237
Genocide and theology go hand in hand.
22
America needs a President who is "decent, modest, soft-spoken,devout and an admirable character".
Abraham Lincoln had these traits.
Dismissing these traits as unimportant but accepting dishonesty,belligerence, and political scheming is poor judgement.
Abraham Lincoln had these traits.
Dismissing these traits as unimportant but accepting dishonesty,belligerence, and political scheming is poor judgement.
5
Your question is pointless. This is a result of the "southern strategy". For decades now Republicans have been appealing to the values of white Southerners. While Republicans may have thought this was harmless they have handed a lot of power to racist, ignorant, xenophobic evangelicals. Now the country is in danger of being run by one of these dangerous people. I can't put enough emphasis on the danger.They want to destroy the Iran deal, give more money to the rich, wage perpetual war in the middle east, antagonize a nuclear armed country, insult our biggest trading partner, take health insurance away from millions, control women's access to health care, put a guns everywhere, destroy the planet on which we live by burning every scrap of fossil fuel they can find. Yep, the biggest problem we face from the Republican candidates is potentially insincere evangelism.
13
Ross,
Ben Carson is not white. That alone disqualifies him from being the Republicans' nominee for POTUS. What sets Evangelicals apart from other Christians is their anti science, fact free vision of the world. Politicians who pander to this group are liars who will stoop to anything to get votes. That too should disqualify them from running for any office.
Ben Carson is not white. That alone disqualifies him from being the Republicans' nominee for POTUS. What sets Evangelicals apart from other Christians is their anti science, fact free vision of the world. Politicians who pander to this group are liars who will stoop to anything to get votes. That too should disqualify them from running for any office.
13
Every last Republican in the debates is out to cheat us of freedom from religion, even Trump, who thinks he is God.
12
But if you're an atheist, is that really a bad thing?
The GOP platform should be all about LIFE. Here are some ingredients:
Defense of life: oppose abortion; arm against enemies.
Support of life: better, cheaper health care; living wage legislation.
Enhancement of life: smart environmental programs, etc.
Paying for life: progressive taxation(50% max); smaller government.
Life of the soul: Complete guarantee of religious freedom.
Whichever candidate from either party who can believably support the above should be able to win.
Defense of life: oppose abortion; arm against enemies.
Support of life: better, cheaper health care; living wage legislation.
Enhancement of life: smart environmental programs, etc.
Paying for life: progressive taxation(50% max); smaller government.
Life of the soul: Complete guarantee of religious freedom.
Whichever candidate from either party who can believably support the above should be able to win.
1
The evangelical fervor that spawned Mike Huckabee's embarrassing rally for Kim Davis should permanently end whatever small support candidates who pander to that particular group among thinking Americans. Further, this particular group has taken to telling outright falsehoods about how our system of government works. No, you cannot just ignore a Supreme Court ruling you don't like. As for Ben Carson, his run should have been finished the minute he proclaimed that being in prison turns people gay. But sadly, the religious right has been using the "gay as choice" falsehood for so long, I bet some reasonable people actually bought that line.
16
I don't know where Dothan came up with these wild ideas. I've listened to several of Carson's speeches and never heard him mention any of this. What he has said makes sense to me. America is floundering under an asministration that has governed by fiat. Carson says he'll work with Congress and not to attack gay marriage or other recently passed bills but to reform the burgeoning federal government and its over reach. He wants to reform the tax code and make it fair for every American and corporations. He wants the states to have more say in the laws that effect their citizens. I don't see any Evangelical clap trap in these ideas. I think the First Amendment need stop be protected because Obama has walked all over it. The Political corect police are out of control. They want people arrested for speaking out against the Climate Change, but it's okay for people to say Black Lives Matter and kill 10,000 white people and police. The pendulim needs to swing back toward the middle and that is what Carson is talking about. I don't believe in everything he says but he certainly would be a breath of fresh air after the assault on America from team Obama.
2
Quentin Ryan
CT.
Apart from several lies you tell here, Carson is on record as saying
1. Being in prison makes you gay
2. Obama is Hitler
3. Obamacare is worse than 300 years of slavery
These would for reasonably sane people constitute "Wild ideas" but obviously not for you.
CT.
Apart from several lies you tell here, Carson is on record as saying
1. Being in prison makes you gay
2. Obama is Hitler
3. Obamacare is worse than 300 years of slavery
These would for reasonably sane people constitute "Wild ideas" but obviously not for you.
6
Meh. You're just upset because the purported fiat wielder doesn't Look Like You.
And y'know, if your legislators actually legislated, there'd be less of that fiat thing.
And y'know, if your legislators actually legislated, there'd be less of that fiat thing.
1
Carson=NOT FIT TO GOVERN. But, then none of them are fit to govern.
3
An "establishment of religion" is a faith-based belief, not a church. "Establishment of" means how the belief originated. An "establishment of science" is an experimentally verified fact, like the inverse square law of gravitational attraction.
The Congress is forbidden to legislate about any article of faith established by religion, either pro or con, by the first two clauses of the first amendment to the Constitution.
The Congress is forbidden to legislate about any article of faith established by religion, either pro or con, by the first two clauses of the first amendment to the Constitution.
8
The left is showing its true racism when it rejects Ben Carson. It has nothing to do with his being a Republican.
5
Activist Bill
Mount Vernon, NY
Republican intelligence?
Mount Vernon, NY
Republican intelligence?
2
I reject Ben Carson because A) What little policy information I can glean from his statements happens to be the opposite of what I support, B) He's a Republican and I can count on Republicans to actively work against my best interests pretty much 100% of the time and C) I believe religion has no place at all in government. He clearly believes that it does.
How, exactly, does that make me a racist?
How, exactly, does that make me a racist?
11
Not racism. Sorry, Activist Bill. It's separation Of church and state for many Of us
5
As a naturalized citizen from Europe, a continent that Republicans describe as not only god-less, but socialist pure because of its safety nets for the less fortunate, I am utterly dismayed about the completely out of control influence religion has on our body politics.
When the Supreme Court decided the Hobby Lobby case, our oh-so-very religious Republicans were giddy with joy and full of praise. Yet when a county clerk defied a Supreme Court order and her state judge's order, ex-Gov. Huckabee, one of many self proclaimed protectors of religion, described that very court being one of five unelected tyrannical justices using means to suppress religious freedom in this country.
Republicans, especially the ones of the Evangelical kind, only choose - including misinterpreting - parts of their good book, the same way they choose and misinterpret parts their other 'bible', the Constitution, by only picking whatever fits into the pre-Enlightenment world view.
When the Supreme Court decided the Hobby Lobby case, our oh-so-very religious Republicans were giddy with joy and full of praise. Yet when a county clerk defied a Supreme Court order and her state judge's order, ex-Gov. Huckabee, one of many self proclaimed protectors of religion, described that very court being one of five unelected tyrannical justices using means to suppress religious freedom in this country.
Republicans, especially the ones of the Evangelical kind, only choose - including misinterpreting - parts of their good book, the same way they choose and misinterpret parts their other 'bible', the Constitution, by only picking whatever fits into the pre-Enlightenment world view.
22
You have every reason to be dismayed and worried. Make sure you vote for the true good of Anmerica.
2
I do not have much respect for Mr. Carson. He is a disgrace to his profession which requires objectivity and truth. He is a liar, a deceitful man and a pitiful demagogue. I wouldn't trust him as a surgeon and even less as a politician. His religious and scientific beliefs are inconsistent and contradictory. I have a difficult time watching him talk. I just walk away.
25
And I don't have much respect for someone seemingly incapable of even the slightest degree of objectivity. The guy is a world renowned surgeon. Disagree with his politics, but give him his due.
Well stated
2
He's less of a disgrace to his profession than Charles Krauthammer is to his. Krauthammer, a psychiatrist, once "diagnosed" Howard Dean as delusional in his Washington Post column.
The Hebrew Old Testament and the Christian New are profound documents, yet most people have never cracked them. Unfortunately, that leaves the Bible as an uncontested stage prop for the Evangelical. Their chapter-and-verse familiarity can seem impregnable, but it really needs to be stressed that both Testaments are long and consistent on the requirements of the faithful to be generous and compassionate, to support the widow and the orphan, to house the traveler, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked. Both decry the lack of justice for the poor and the abusive privledges of the rich. These are not suggestions, they are demands of the faithful. So the question that needs to be asked of these folk: "What Bible are you reading?"
21
All of that is true--but neither Testament says a thing about entrusting those obligations to a government bureaucracy.
1
A lot of us read History, Science, and Philosophy, instead of the fallacious bible, a 300 year old "memory" by people who never met any of the people about whom they created stories. Just an ancient post office game, written down.
2
"...maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics" sounds so genteel when the traditional response to homosexuality was abuse, imprisonment or worse.
19
Bryan--Housewife=domestic engineer. Trash hauler=sanitary engineer. See, I can do that, too!
1
Following the last debate, I remarked to someone that Trump was the candidate who scared me the least. This is because he clearly doesn't believe what he says. The other Republicans - like Carson, by contrast, believe very deeply what they say -- and what they are saying is really scary...
25
Actually I think that both Trump and Carlson have only been allowed to babble there at all for the purpose of making at least one of the other crowd look like he or she might actually be presidential material, when there is not one of them that even comes close to being such.
2
Spot on!
2
Check out the link in Douthat's column (in the Narional Review) and read up on the First Amendment Defense Act. One of its "modest" provisions would preserve the tax-exempt status of entities that believe and foster the principle that marriage should be limited to a man and a woman.
Fascinating: a proposal emanating from the right (spearheaded by a Senator from Utah, no less) that would preserve a form of discrimination at taxpayer expense. Some religious freedom, that.
Fascinating: a proposal emanating from the right (spearheaded by a Senator from Utah, no less) that would preserve a form of discrimination at taxpayer expense. Some religious freedom, that.
24
Carson also thinks that in some cases the Bible trumps the Constitution. Not only would he overthrow the great liberal/socialist programs, but also the basic human rights guaranteed and partial enumerated by our founders in the Constitution. The evangelical zealots are looking for religious rights which were not part of the fundamental structure of American execptionalism, and various politicians, including Carson and Huckabee for example, are trying to get in front of that parade.
Mixing government and religion invariably corrupts both. History has shown this repeatedly.
Mixing government and religion invariably corrupts both. History has shown this repeatedly.
31
Even the Bible itself forbids mixing the two. "Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's".
2
What a surprise that evangelicals might be looking for a "godly hero!"
Who'd a thunk it?
Well, at least they don't need to hope for Ben Carson to come winging down from "heaven."
Who'd a thunk it?
Well, at least they don't need to hope for Ben Carson to come winging down from "heaven."
2
Failure to enforce the specific constitutional ban on faith based legislation on the body it is directed at, Congress, has undermined the entire understanding of the rationale for our government under the law of contracts and created a mob of enabled sanctimonious body-snatchers like Ben Carson whose agenda is conning people to put off living until after death. What a pathetic spectacle.
19
The Republican Party is awash in cognitive dissonance. There is no way to resolve the views of the 0.1%'ers who run the party's finances and policy-writing with the extremism of evangelicals who believe that their faith is exempt from the doctrine of separation of church and state, with the xenophobes and homophobes and outright racists who want the world to return to a 1950's era straight white male dominated delusion. The only view any of these groups have in common is the "Up with Fetuses, Down with Women" mindset that has been promoted by distorted attacks on Planned Parenthood and outright lies about the nature of Women's Rights.
Now, adding to all of this noise is the "Race to the Bottom of the Gutter" between Donald Trump and the rest of the low information candidates. The Republican Party lives in a bubble of FoxNews, Rush Limbaugh, Tea Party rhetoric, and traditional American racism.
I cannot fathom how anyone can vote Republican with a clean conscience.
Now, adding to all of this noise is the "Race to the Bottom of the Gutter" between Donald Trump and the rest of the low information candidates. The Republican Party lives in a bubble of FoxNews, Rush Limbaugh, Tea Party rhetoric, and traditional American racism.
I cannot fathom how anyone can vote Republican with a clean conscience.
55
When you support "religious freedom" from the Supreme Court remember that that is not synonymous with Christian freedom. You'd better be open to Muslim or any other religion's freedom from the Supreme Court too.
33
I don't want a brain surgeon leading my country, and I don't want a president doing my brain surgery. And I certainly don't want an evangelical making policy based on his religion.
386
Note to NYT--Larry Wilmore should be given credit for the majority of this statement.
I am not familiar with Larry Wilmore, and just looked him up on Google. He seems like a very bright and exceptionally witty guy. Sorry, HLA3452, but my own brain conjured this up all by it's little old self.
Ben Carson has high ratings in recent time, but his rhetoric is strongly at odds with his actions. For example, he spoke on the theme of Planned Parenthood, that it is unacceptable to use fetal tissue from aborted babies, that modern science can do without it, but he used it in his own researches, when he worked as a neurosurgeon. America deserves a president who will be honest with the citizens of his country, Ben Carson will not be able to become such a president.
133
It looks like Ben Carson is rapidly losing his Christianity. A shame as i once thought he was the genuine article.
As a Catholic, it's always struck me as ironic that evangelical Protestants, with their fierce independence and individualism, seek a pope-like figure, "a kind of godly hero" in Douthat's phrasing, while most American Catholics eschew the centralizing authority of the Vatican and even their diocesan bishop. At least until this pope.
12
Yup, until 'this' pope, the one that has been called a Marxist by Rush-the-Pillhead; the one whose address to both houses of Congress is boycotted by Rep. Gosar of Arizona, because Il Papa believes in climate change; and the one who said just recently that all churches should open their doors to the migrants and refugees fleeing the war torn Middle East, or else - gasp - loose their tax exempt status.
This pope really scares the bejesus out of our oh-so-religous and born again Evangelicals unlike anyone before him.
This pope really scares the bejesus out of our oh-so-religous and born again Evangelicals unlike anyone before him.
3
You lost me with the word decent in describing Carson. Is he decent because he was a surgeon or that he smiles a lot? You failed to cite his many snarky comments, none of which portray a decent person.
He has no record of accomplishment within the public arena. Had he turned Baltimore around as a volunteer or civic leader, well, now we're talking. Were he running to unite folks around a better healthcare delivery system, based on his own experience in the medical services realm, him being in the race would be more logical.
That he is snarky and seems bored with the entire process and wants us to accept his evangelical form of an "angry God" religion is what makes him just another Mike Huckabee/Rick Santorum poser.
He has no record of accomplishment within the public arena. Had he turned Baltimore around as a volunteer or civic leader, well, now we're talking. Were he running to unite folks around a better healthcare delivery system, based on his own experience in the medical services realm, him being in the race would be more logical.
That he is snarky and seems bored with the entire process and wants us to accept his evangelical form of an "angry God" religion is what makes him just another Mike Huckabee/Rick Santorum poser.
51
It would have taken you 10 seconds to find his charity, the Carsons Endowment Fund, which strives to improves education and provides scholarships for mostly minority students.
With that massive failure in your analysis, why should we believe anything else you are saying?
With that massive failure in your analysis, why should we believe anything else you are saying?
If you want to see how "decent" Carson is, how "admirable" his character, google Ben Carson + gay issues or look here: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/ben-carson-doesnt-want-talk-about-the-gay-issue
It's true that Carson has mastered the evangelical look--that long-suffering, smug, slightly-constipated facial expression you see in Italian Renaissance images of saints whose eyes are closed against the brilliance of their own halos. But he'd look a lot less saintly in a general election, when he'd eventually have to address his anti-gay bigotry.
He says he wants to talk about "more important" issues than equal human rights for all Americans. This will fly for a while, of course, and will attract a certain kind of voter, like that hillbilly clerk in Kentucky and her cast-of-Hee-Haw supporters who'll latch onto an opportunity to show that their hatred for Obama isn't race-based (that will be a lie).
But this is of course a religious election (see Trump's hilarious spectacle of yesterday; he literally waves a Bible around in an attempt to prove his evangelical bona fides--and because the evangelical mind is by definition incapable of critical thought, some of these rubes will buy it).
Carson is the real deal all right: he says that sexual orientation is a choice, and that straight men turn gay in prison. This is how a black man justifies his desire to have two kinds of Americans: those with all the rights, and those with only some. Where I come from, that's called apartheid.
It's true that Carson has mastered the evangelical look--that long-suffering, smug, slightly-constipated facial expression you see in Italian Renaissance images of saints whose eyes are closed against the brilliance of their own halos. But he'd look a lot less saintly in a general election, when he'd eventually have to address his anti-gay bigotry.
He says he wants to talk about "more important" issues than equal human rights for all Americans. This will fly for a while, of course, and will attract a certain kind of voter, like that hillbilly clerk in Kentucky and her cast-of-Hee-Haw supporters who'll latch onto an opportunity to show that their hatred for Obama isn't race-based (that will be a lie).
But this is of course a religious election (see Trump's hilarious spectacle of yesterday; he literally waves a Bible around in an attempt to prove his evangelical bona fides--and because the evangelical mind is by definition incapable of critical thought, some of these rubes will buy it).
Carson is the real deal all right: he says that sexual orientation is a choice, and that straight men turn gay in prison. This is how a black man justifies his desire to have two kinds of Americans: those with all the rights, and those with only some. Where I come from, that's called apartheid.
37
An excellent commentary. I agree completely.
3
"The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it." Genesis 2:15
Expelled from Eden for disobeying their god, evangelicals like Carson, continue to ignore their god. They choose not to care for the earth; they choose not to believe the science and evidence of climate change. They have blind faith in their maker and they are blind to reality. Evangelicals are marginalizing themselves and their religion as the rest of us become more disturbed at their self-destructive faith.
Expelled from Eden for disobeying their god, evangelicals like Carson, continue to ignore their god. They choose not to care for the earth; they choose not to believe the science and evidence of climate change. They have blind faith in their maker and they are blind to reality. Evangelicals are marginalizing themselves and their religion as the rest of us become more disturbed at their self-destructive faith.
29
You don't understand the story of the Garden of Eden. Only those people who reject knowledge can stay and live peacefully in the Garden. Once you accept knowledge you realize that there are consequence to your actions, that you have to bear the responsibility for what you do. You can no longer live in the Garden if you choose to understand science. Your punishment is your conscience, and you have to go out into the real world and address issues such as climate change.
8
Hence the quest for knowledge is the original sin - just what ISIS, Boco Harem and the Protestant Evangelicals are all saying. Man needs faith - no knowledge.
2
You reap what you sow, Ross. Carson is no more ignorant than new GOP darling Carly Fiorina, who launched an angry rant at the debate about a supposed video of a wriggling baby being sold for parts by the evil forces of Planned Parenthood--a total lie, and she couldn't care less.
In fact, virtually everyone on that stage was a pandering demagogue in one form or another. Dr Carson is the least of your problems. I believe the race will come down to Biden vs Trump, and the GOP will be trounced. As the bible says, ye shall reap the whirlwind.
www.newyorkgritty.net
In fact, virtually everyone on that stage was a pandering demagogue in one form or another. Dr Carson is the least of your problems. I believe the race will come down to Biden vs Trump, and the GOP will be trounced. As the bible says, ye shall reap the whirlwind.
www.newyorkgritty.net
40
It's just to show that they could vote for a black guy.
14
And the governors in Louisiana and South Carolina were purely to show they could vote for other darker skinned candidates? At some point you have to concede the rampant racism argument is a fiction, but doing so would ruin the narrative that Republicans were only against Obama because of his color.
who cares ? The GOP nomination will be decided at the convention, not by the voters.... And then the formidable Bush machine(s) will slowly but relentlessly overwhelm all the others... unless it drafts Mitt...
11
The Reagan coalition of religious fundamentalists, libertarians, rednecks, and businessmen has been shredded to bits. It no longer exists. It boggles the mind that they continually try to rebuild it. Trump has taken the rednecks, Carson has the religious conservatives, the businessmen can't figure out why no one likes Jeb, and Rand Paul has the libertarians (there aren't too many left after the great recession brought on by their philosophy of less government). None of these groups can get elected on their own. Too bad Hillary isn't even just a bit more inspiring - she could run away with this.
45
The people most prone to believing in miracles are the ones always in store for a big disappointment. Or, in today's blame-it-on-somebody environment, a big betrayal. I really wish the evangelicals learned how to separate their faith from public policy.
13
"They need guarantees that the next G.O.P. administration will move proactively — through something like Senator Mike Lee’s evolving First Amendment Defense Act — to protect religious schools and charities from losing grants or accreditation or even tax-exempt status because they maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics."
If we can parse and dismantle the First Amendment to argue in favor of government-sponsored, tax-payer supported schools, then we can certainly do the same with the Second Amendment: parse and dismantle the universal right for irresponsible gun ownership.
If we can parse and dismantle the First Amendment to argue in favor of government-sponsored, tax-payer supported schools, then we can certainly do the same with the Second Amendment: parse and dismantle the universal right for irresponsible gun ownership.
18
A public with no reference foundation in educated reason cannot be governed rationally.
1
Congratulations Ben, you will be appointed in-charge of Medicare.
1
This is what the Republican party has built over the last 35 years. You own it.
47
One does wonder what Mr. Huckabee thinks of Carson taking this large slice of the evangelical Repub voters. I'd say Carson appeals to their Know-Nothing need for as little hard policy concepts coming from their candidate as is possible. And it is arguable he has been even more successful in delivering nothing than Huckabee.
1
"...he's underinformed..." says it all, for carson and just about everyone, left or right, in the bumpersticker culture, including, especially, those who should be most informed (and informing of the public), the once-proud fourth estate, now become, in its television form, a retail dispensary of gossip...ignorance and the lack of curiosity that ensures it will undo us faster than climate change or second amendment paranoia.
21
In 2008 liberals had that singular hero candidate (Obama) who was going to lead the country in a better, more just direction. And how has that worked out? Beautifully, in fact, despite massive organized opposition from Congressional conservatives. However I agree that evangelicals are not going to find an electable hero of the same sort in their midst because much of the rest of the country, including many conservatives, views their religious views as an unhealthy and irrational obsession.
31
REDEANE:If u think that the election of O has worked out "beautifully" for the rest of the country, u r among a dwindling minority, among whites as well as African Americns, who view his double mandate as a disaster,both domestically, as well as in foreign affairs. Would the EU be facing the onslaught of hundreds of thousands of Syrian migrants if O had followed through with his red line ultimatum re ASSAD's Syria? Would we have faced the immigration invasion on our southern border if O were really looking out for the interests of working class Americans, and saying "No mas,every undocumented entering the country means one less job for an American worker?" Would so many computer engineers be laid off at mid career if O were not so willing to hand out H-1B visas to foreign nationals?It is the most profligate First Family in American history:Imagine them taking separate flights to posh vacation spots, costing the tax payers millions, at a time when many in this country lack the wherewithal to put food on the table. MICHELLE OBAMA spends more for a pair of sneakers,$500.00, than my second wife in Senegal,Djennaba can make in several years cleaning other people's houses.Until I came along,she and her family subsisted on a daily diet of rice and carrots. The Obama's dine on Japanese beef at $150.00 a pound. Is that fair? The Obamas lack altruism, among other character flaws. And you call his governance "beautiful!""D'ou vous sortez?" No offense intended.
Evangelicals had the closest thing to a truly, "pure" Christian in President Carter--and they knew him not.
161
To me, President Carter is an excellent example of a person who actually practices the faith he professes. No wonder the R's hate him so.
1
Yes. Ironically, Jimmy Carter opened the floodgates to the charlatans who drove him from office with treason.
1
Aside from all the other craziness fundamentalists contend, it is absolutely impossible, whatever your cultural leanings, if you are a marginally thinking person, to reconcile the idea that someone who is ostensibly a science-educated, practicing neurosurgeon, can believe the earth is 6,000 years old.
If that's not a problem, I don't know what is.
If that's not a problem, I don't know what is.
77
I don't really think that half of the Republican candidates actually believe half of the garbage that comes out of their mouths. Most are simply, very simply by the way, pandering to ill-informed, right-wing voter blocs. That they are stupid enough, in that quest, to say dumb things about the earth being only 6,000 years old is, however, truly a problem, and should disqualify anyone who says it from being president.
1
I read this column and at least the first 30-40 comments. Although it is clear that the NY Times is a left leaning newspaper and so are a significant portion of its readers, I am disgusted by the attempt to discredit Dr. Carson by Mr. Douthat. You and many of your readers have equated your differences with Dr. Carson as the sole basis to disqualify him from the presidency of the USA. What you fail to realize is that there many of us who share his views. Dr. Carson doesn't need your votes. He nor any other Republican candidate was going to get them anyway. You are all left leaning liberals with an agenda that many in this country despise. I also resent all the comments that focus on his race. The dislike for Obama has nothing to do with his race, but with his policies. For the record, I am also a physician, I am hispanic and yes, I believe that this country was founded on Judeo -Christian principles. Your column will resonate only with people who already share your views Mr. Douthat. You will not be able to influence free thinkers, no matter how much you try.
1
My opposition is to his lack of credible experience ,
Shallow solutions and desire to impose religion on others
Our system of gov't is not based on religion even if our people have strong values formed and reenfirced by our faith
The separation of church and state was done to protect the state and you are missing that historical reality
Shallow solutions and desire to impose religion on others
Our system of gov't is not based on religion even if our people have strong values formed and reenfirced by our faith
The separation of church and state was done to protect the state and you are missing that historical reality
2
Carson discredited himself when he initially agreed with Trump on the issue of vaccination. "Initially"--but at no point did he do the right thing and say Trump was just downright wrong.
1
Wait ... did you just label Russ Douthat a 'left leaning liberal'. Oh, that's rich! Hence, Robert Reich's comment that he hasn't moved left; many conservatives have simply moved further to the right.
1
Working for an African-American boss who is an Apostolic Christian [in name only, as she spends her weekends serially preying on married officers of our law enforcement agency as her favorite pastime] I shudder at the prospect of departing from the separation doctrine. I can see from my boss's overbearing pomposity and insistence that she is always, invariably right because You-know-Who told her she is, and does every Sunday while she carries on obscenely in her worship, writhing and screaming uncontrollably in a frenzy after "receiving the Spirit". Her cube in a Federal workplace is adorned with posters admonishing her underlings not to dishonor their souls with hatred. Yet her own reverse racism makes itself palpably felt in all her interactions with those of other backgrounds. And she loeves Ben Carson. Let's not vote for someone who is going to use the White House as a pulpit in such a literal sense.
15
The fantasy of a Carson presidency will not survive the Birther mentality. Ignorance, fake Christianity and bigotry go hand in hand in gloves.
21
Once again, Douthat suffers from political blindness. He seems to think that any of the other Republican candidates besides Trump and Carson stand a realistic chance of winning a general election. He and the Republicans (hard-core believers and apologists like Douthat) are out of touch with what's going on in this country, and I don't think ANY of the current crop of "candidates" stands a chance in the general election.
22
I don't agree that Dothat is out of touch with what is going on in this country, but if Ben Carson truly believes that planet earth is only 6,000 years old, then Carson is out of touch with what's going on in the universe, which makes him far more blind and dangerous than Dothat could ever be.
1
Amen. Few in this nut bowl would have even have received consideration ten or fifteen years ago. Absolute worst group of nominees I have ever seen in my 50 years of political awareness.
2
I sure hope you're right.
Love the euphemism "traditional perspective on sexual ethics"--a desperate attempt to grant dignity to a fundamentally hateful and ugly way of looking at other human beings.
See also Jim Crow as "traditional perspective on cultural integrity."
See also Jim Crow as "traditional perspective on cultural integrity."
63
During an Iowa rally, Trump showed to the public his bible and a picture of his confirmation in an attempt to probe his is "a conservative man of faith." It looked so condescending and like he is auditioning for the "USA President Reality Show." It's scary that the GOP base might buy that.
19
'piety and crankery' Elegant, simple and in 3 words sums Carson up to perfection.
19
Left out "somnolent."
The Donald makes me uncomfortable with his notion of deporting 11 million illegal immigrants. He also can sound like a lunatic if he presses the 'birther' case against Obama. Otherwise, apart from lunacy and xenophobia, he is the most MODERATE Republican in the race by a mile and a half. Progressive taxation, kind words for single payer national health insurance, vows to secure Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, acknowledgement that Planned Parenthood does good work are what he says. No other Republican does these things. Yes ok maybe Sanders is better yet, but AMONG REPUBLICANS.....Donald J. Trump is head and shoulders my choice.
And Ben Carson makes me SICK. I am very tired of candidates who are proud to wear fealty to the Christian God on their sleeves. And try to fight a rear guard action against social change in the form of gay rights and other things. As I read the First Amendment it BLATANTLY guarantees 'freedom of religion' and in every other way our country was founded on a principle promising SEPARATION of church and state. So I do NOT accept any candidate who babbles this or that about his or her particular GOD. Please talk about policy or governance or taxation or America's role in the world or ANYTHING else but NOT what your particular god wants.
And if you would let a woman DIE IN CHILDBIRTH rather than aborting the fetus, go to ....(a place whose name I cannot specify lest the NY Times censor me for profanity).
And Ben Carson makes me SICK. I am very tired of candidates who are proud to wear fealty to the Christian God on their sleeves. And try to fight a rear guard action against social change in the form of gay rights and other things. As I read the First Amendment it BLATANTLY guarantees 'freedom of religion' and in every other way our country was founded on a principle promising SEPARATION of church and state. So I do NOT accept any candidate who babbles this or that about his or her particular GOD. Please talk about policy or governance or taxation or America's role in the world or ANYTHING else but NOT what your particular god wants.
And if you would let a woman DIE IN CHILDBIRTH rather than aborting the fetus, go to ....(a place whose name I cannot specify lest the NY Times censor me for profanity).
40
If i were Dante, I'd have paved the avenues of Hell with the souls of Republicans who would agree that forcing a girl to die while bearing the child of her rapist is following the Will of God. Right along with the souls of ISIS and the Taliban.
1
People who actually know Carson IRL have said he was an awful doctor and is an awful person. There are many black people around who would make good presidents. He is not one of them. Of course Trump is an awful white candidate and would be much worse for the country than Carter would be. Just as Palin and Floina are horrible female candidates. Hillary is good.
11
Very interesting article, putting things in to perspective regarding the leading candidates in the Republican Party and some not so leading. As for Carson, if you listen to the man, and I have heard some of his detailed responses to questions, he is more delusional than Bachman in terms of some of the beliefs he espouses. Whether he is "acting" or for real doesn't matter much, since the basic premise of oppressing others with your beliefs is the intent, and that is scary. Carson is enjoying this year what Santorum had last year, and that is about as far as it will go. It is not clear how religious institutions qualify for tax exempt status, when they clearly do not follow any script that one would thnk would be associated with that status, but if you look at the tax laws governing this, you can see how these have been manipulated over time to make for a thousand exceptions, more or less giving free reign to their grinding of America. Trump is a different thing entirely. The rest of the field, however, is distinguishing itself downwards, for in the end, they really stand for nothing other than what their wealthy backers want. It kind of glares at you in the face. Fiorina is Trump in drag without the populist thinking, and Ratzo Rubio is like a snake hiding in the grass, right now. What a group.
23
Ditto: "Trump is a different thing entirely. The rest of the field, however, is distinguishing itself downwards, for in the end, they really stand for nothing other than what their wealthy backers want. It kind of glares at you in the face."
From one mania to another, what's next? From one hero to another, who's next? The Bible documents human frailty and idiocy so well; yet, even many of today's (allegedly fundamentalist and evangelical) Christians tend to repeat the same sins of idolatry (hero seeking), greed, hatred, prejudice, indifference, and ignorance. The sad state of the human-created world.
10
[' . . . a particular fondness for the idea of the history-altering individual, the hope that “one person can stand at the crossroads and change things for good.”]
Well, of course they're fond of that idea. It's the fundamental story told over and over in the Bible: God works by picking obscure, implausible individuals -- shepherd boys and village carpenters -- then backing them all the way.
Doesn't work in the real world, but evangelicals don't live in the real world. They live in a magical world where Jesus will be back to fix everything real soon.
Well, of course they're fond of that idea. It's the fundamental story told over and over in the Bible: God works by picking obscure, implausible individuals -- shepherd boys and village carpenters -- then backing them all the way.
Doesn't work in the real world, but evangelicals don't live in the real world. They live in a magical world where Jesus will be back to fix everything real soon.
30
The religious fanatics in the right-wing of the GOP harbor and shout unrealistic expectations for the behavior of others.
As with fanatics, they believe they have the one right answer to the ills of society, and good for all.
No doubt if given the power to do so, these fanatics would impose theocratic rule in America.
As with fanatics, they believe they have the one right answer to the ills of society, and good for all.
No doubt if given the power to do so, these fanatics would impose theocratic rule in America.
1
We get nothing but cheating from Republicans in Congress, beginning with the big cheat of the specific Constitutional instruction to Congress to make no law respecting religious fantasy or interfering with religious worship.
The more sanctimonious they are, the more they cheat.
The more sanctimonious they are, the more they cheat.
30
Obama's end runs around Congress make him the all-time, biggest "cheat" on the block.
What do you mean? What Federal laws have Republicans sponsored that violate the 1st amendment? "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . ."
@AANYC
Again, to give credit where due, I believe the "unary executive" [branch] was an autocratic objective embraced by Bush-Cheney, along with an abusive abundance of "signing statements." You catch it, you clean it. You make your bed, and there you lie.
Again, to give credit where due, I believe the "unary executive" [branch] was an autocratic objective embraced by Bush-Cheney, along with an abusive abundance of "signing statements." You catch it, you clean it. You make your bed, and there you lie.
3
If you Google 'Perot' and the '92 election', the top 10 results all say, 'All the historians and analysts got it wrong. Perot did NOT help Clinton win.' There is even a New York Times article among those top 10. Almost everyone who voted for Perot (I was one of them) was a white male, and we all know white males tend to vote for candidates who campaign on a platform of favouring women and minorities. And, when Perot won only half as many votes in '96, Clinton didn't get any more votes than in '92 (a plurality, NOT a majority both in '92 and '96).
So the Donald, who strongly supported Secretary Clinton in '08, called Bill and promised to help make Secretary Clinton the First* Woman President. Best bet: he'll succeed!
And it's very entertaining to watch.
So the Donald, who strongly supported Secretary Clinton in '08, called Bill and promised to help make Secretary Clinton the First* Woman President. Best bet: he'll succeed!
And it's very entertaining to watch.
3
Good point about Perot--I did a spread-sheet of the results, and no rational "what-if" scenario gave the win to Bush. But what did I know?
1
Anyone who would compare Obama to Hitler, or mention the Affordable Care Act in the same way as slavery, is powerfully messed up. That tells you everything you really need to know about Carson. It doesn't matter what he achieved in a different area of life.
68
"They need guarantees that the next G.O.P. administration will move proactively — through something like Senator Mike Lee’s evolving First Amendment Defense Act — to protect religious schools and charities from losing grants or accreditation or even tax-exempt status because they maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics." Besides the obvious questions about what defines a traditional position on sexual ethids (Ashley Madison anyone) why not ask, "Why should religious institutions have tax free status?"
19
Evangelical Christians support Trump because they crave a strong leader for their tribe and he is the silverback male gorilla in the room.
16
Lord Jesus sits atop a kiss up kick down pecking order.
Ben Carson is an immature, intemperate, reckless, fickle, ignorant, arrogant, indecent, judgmental hateful man with a disgusting character. And Carson is all of those things while being a black pediatric neurosurgeon plutocrat conservative Republican.
With the Democratic candidate receiving 90+% of the black vote in every Presidential election since 1964, Carson stands out like a " big black fly in an ocean of white buttermilk." Akin to Alan Keyes, Herman Cain, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele and Walter Williams. They do not speak for nor too most blacks in America.
As claimed by Carson, Obamacare is the worst thing to happen to blacks since slavery only if you are too stupid to know about Reconstruction and Jim Crow. And President Obama is only a psychopath as Carson once said only if you believe that Obama is a Kenyan Luo Arab Muslim socialist usurper. Obama knows both his black African paternal heritage and his white European America maternal nature and nurture. Carson does not know either.
Ben Carson is doing black faced minstrelsy while black. Saying outrageous white supremacist prejudiced racist things acts as a shield of solace for white conservative Republicans who used colored Carson as proof of their own lack of bias. See "The Mis-Education of the Negro" Carter G. Woodson
With the Democratic candidate receiving 90+% of the black vote in every Presidential election since 1964, Carson stands out like a " big black fly in an ocean of white buttermilk." Akin to Alan Keyes, Herman Cain, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele and Walter Williams. They do not speak for nor too most blacks in America.
As claimed by Carson, Obamacare is the worst thing to happen to blacks since slavery only if you are too stupid to know about Reconstruction and Jim Crow. And President Obama is only a psychopath as Carson once said only if you believe that Obama is a Kenyan Luo Arab Muslim socialist usurper. Obama knows both his black African paternal heritage and his white European America maternal nature and nurture. Carson does not know either.
Ben Carson is doing black faced minstrelsy while black. Saying outrageous white supremacist prejudiced racist things acts as a shield of solace for white conservative Republicans who used colored Carson as proof of their own lack of bias. See "The Mis-Education of the Negro" Carter G. Woodson
67
Ross's link to Senator Mike Lee's "First Amendment Defense Act" takes you to the National Review, where there's a loony tunes editorial that might have been written by Kim Davis, or her son, or her cat, all of whom want to protect their religious liberties from The Supreme Court, which the sore losers have all suddenly decided is not a co-equal branch of government.
The only reason Ben Carson is having a moment is that he's soft-spoken, a quiet and gentle bigot. Whether he's devout is none of my business.
But anyway, Ross, thanks for the lovely tour of the Middle Ages.
The only reason Ben Carson is having a moment is that he's soft-spoken, a quiet and gentle bigot. Whether he's devout is none of my business.
But anyway, Ross, thanks for the lovely tour of the Middle Ages.
27
"It’s a class revolt, driven by a sadly-justifiable sense that Republican elites don’t have working-class interests close enough to heart."
Why doesn't Douhat just admit that the Republican party has no interest whatever in working class interests. Never has. It exists as my Grandpa (a staunch Republican minor capitalist) told me at the age of 12 to protect the interests of people like us and big business. They have merely used identity politics to practice a con trick on the Trumpen Proletariat. The phrase in itself an indication of the contempt that Republican elitists like Goldberg have for the conservative middle classes even though he's made a nice living off them for years. We now have a situation where a good two thirds of Republican voters support loony tunes candidates like Trump, Carson, Cruz, Huckabee. It's time people like Douhat started telling the truth about his party instead of indulging in this sort of Jesuitical hair splitting.
Why doesn't Douhat just admit that the Republican party has no interest whatever in working class interests. Never has. It exists as my Grandpa (a staunch Republican minor capitalist) told me at the age of 12 to protect the interests of people like us and big business. They have merely used identity politics to practice a con trick on the Trumpen Proletariat. The phrase in itself an indication of the contempt that Republican elitists like Goldberg have for the conservative middle classes even though he's made a nice living off them for years. We now have a situation where a good two thirds of Republican voters support loony tunes candidates like Trump, Carson, Cruz, Huckabee. It's time people like Douhat started telling the truth about his party instead of indulging in this sort of Jesuitical hair splitting.
66
This primary is already an absolute freak show and we're months and months away from voting.
28
There was a "Non-Sequitur" cartoon showing a man with a gas can looking down a highway which showed the line-up of the Republican candidates. The cartoon was titled, "Endless gas." I might add that it was also incomprehensible gas.
The last time I checked there was a separation of church and state according to the Constitution. I fail to understand what your personal religious beliefs have to do with your ability to be the leader of the United States. I am sick and tired of reading about what the evangelicals want or believe, when did this country become a theocracy?
67
...the first time an elected official in this country placed their hand on a religious book to take an oath of office....
what's up with that....
what's up with that....
1
To answer your question: The day the Pilgrims landed, seeking relief from religious intolerance. Then they promptly set about their own intolerance towards all others. And they're still at it to this day.
1
Among pundits reckoning with the republican field of candidates, the parlor game of choice these days is to play "parse the demographic base of support." Carson draws heavily from evangelical support, as Ross discusses here, but this doesn't address the more interesting question, which gets sidestepped: Why Carson? Meaning why Carson when Huckabee, Santorum and Cruz, field tested candidates who are former or current office holders and known quantities to right wing evangelicals, are on offer? Apparently evangelicals aren't just looking for a hero, but one seemingly unsullied by the taint of establishment politics. How is it evangelicals have played a significant role in politics over the last forty years, yet seem so naïve in taking a practical view of their own political interests?
7
The poor Evangelicals! The poor Christians! They're looking in all the wrong places for a New Saviour! They loved (and still love!) Newt Gingrich, a serial adulterer who professed "Family Values" right up until he had to shut up about it.
Trump shares some of those same qualities, but his loud mouth, irrational behavior and constant lack of Twitter-control is unsettling to many folks, making the low-key Carson much more appealing. Certainly, we can all expect he will trot out his religion and the Bible like stage props as this crazy campaign continues.
Frankly, the wishy-washy, say-anything GOP candidates have totally replaced the Sunday comics as America's Number One Entertainment. The Disorganized Party of No marches on with no shame. Stay tuned...
Trump shares some of those same qualities, but his loud mouth, irrational behavior and constant lack of Twitter-control is unsettling to many folks, making the low-key Carson much more appealing. Certainly, we can all expect he will trot out his religion and the Bible like stage props as this crazy campaign continues.
Frankly, the wishy-washy, say-anything GOP candidates have totally replaced the Sunday comics as America's Number One Entertainment. The Disorganized Party of No marches on with no shame. Stay tuned...
36
As an evangelical, George W. Bush did staff his government with true believers who were completely incompetent. In fact, many members of his government sent to Iraq were evangelicals with rather fanciful, deluded ideas like the US would be seen as liberators.
62
Sometimes I wonder if the Pentagon has installed an acoustical holographic projector in the Oval Office to speak as God to credulous presidents like Bush.
1
If those horrible people he appointed were true believers I'm a monkey's uncle.
The unrelated Bernie Sanders shout outs EVERYWHERE are starting to seem like a mini-cult formation.
Beware. I have more chance of being elected president in 2016 than Senator Sanders. The 6 total electoral votes from Vermont and Washington DC that the senator could possibly assemble just won't do it. Okay, okay, and PERHAPS Rhode Island. That makes 10.
Beware. I have more chance of being elected president in 2016 than Senator Sanders. The 6 total electoral votes from Vermont and Washington DC that the senator could possibly assemble just won't do it. Okay, okay, and PERHAPS Rhode Island. That makes 10.
12
@Will
Bernie burn is actually a manifestation of the same Carson phenomenon in the Democratic party. The search for the savior who is going to magically transform the US political system and bourgeois capitalism. There's about 20% of the Democratic party who are frustrated that Obama has not delivered paradise yet and they see Clinton as a clone which she is of course. In many ways more realistic than he (at least initially) about what she's dealing with in the Republican party. Critiquing idealism is bit like damning mother hood but for these folks nothing is always better than not enough. It's what gave you Nader and GWB. No Bernie is not going to be the nominee admirable fellow though he may be.
Bernie burn is actually a manifestation of the same Carson phenomenon in the Democratic party. The search for the savior who is going to magically transform the US political system and bourgeois capitalism. There's about 20% of the Democratic party who are frustrated that Obama has not delivered paradise yet and they see Clinton as a clone which she is of course. In many ways more realistic than he (at least initially) about what she's dealing with in the Republican party. Critiquing idealism is bit like damning mother hood but for these folks nothing is always better than not enough. It's what gave you Nader and GWB. No Bernie is not going to be the nominee admirable fellow though he may be.
5
Why liberals would put our country through what we've just been through is hard to understand. Once again they are flocking to a "savior" who has never transformed anything of significance in his life. He's a very liberal old white guy (their criticism) from a tiny liberal almost entirely white state. He'd have a republican-controlled Congress. It's deja vu all over again.
When Sanders tells everyone it's time for a "revolution, there's always a footnote. The tiny print says they have to be the ones to actually deliver it. Where have we heard that before? Obama off-loaded his responsibility onto voters just like that. It should have been a warning.
Beware politicians promising "change" that someone else has to actually make happen.
When Sanders tells everyone it's time for a "revolution, there's always a footnote. The tiny print says they have to be the ones to actually deliver it. Where have we heard that before? Obama off-loaded his responsibility onto voters just like that. It should have been a warning.
Beware politicians promising "change" that someone else has to actually make happen.
1
I agree.
1
The issues of the religious fanatics in the right-wing of the GOP have little if anything to do with governance, and everything to do with controlling and regulating the behavior of others to conform to a set of religious standards, all under the watch of a supreme being -- in short, a theocracy for social life, not unlike the Taliban and the Islamic State under the dictates of Islam.
This citizen wholly rejects this theocratic approach to national governance in favor of operating our dear nation in accord with the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Thankfully, DT does not pander or cater to the GOP religious fanatics. As a result, his appeal has spread to Independents and some Democrats who cannot accept a religious rule reaching their daily lives. The GOP should thank DT for expanding the political base of the party. The GOP bosses fumbled this political shift. DT has handed it to them.
This citizen wholly rejects this theocratic approach to national governance in favor of operating our dear nation in accord with the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Thankfully, DT does not pander or cater to the GOP religious fanatics. As a result, his appeal has spread to Independents and some Democrats who cannot accept a religious rule reaching their daily lives. The GOP should thank DT for expanding the political base of the party. The GOP bosses fumbled this political shift. DT has handed it to them.
21
Donald Trump's reaction to the mess at the New Hampshire town hall the other night was that he was protecting Christians from the great unwashed.
"He’s a populist and nationalist, a critic of open immigration and free trade," Douthat writes of Trump, "and a backer of Social Security and progressive taxation, and he’s drawing support from working-class Republicans who tend to share those views." Surely Douthat knows he's speaking in euphemisms and whitewash. Trump is appealing to bigotry, racism, and xenophobia. He's working Nixon's Southern strategy mixed with George Wallace and billionaire bluster. Time to face up what he's saying and what is driving his popularity.
43
That's all true. But the saddest truth is if I HAD to vote for one of the Republican candidates I'd vote for Trump. AT least he wouldn't try to create a theocracy.
1
Here we go again: CNN, The New York Times. To help Clinton Inc., CNN calls a food fight, the right obliges, untethered by common sense or good taste, with Seven No Trump bombast matching the grandiloquence of two examples of what ails us, Chris Christie and Huckabee, the svelte section of the party, seeking refuge in obsequious noise and comparative insanity.
And then we have The New York Times version of a born again, Ross Douthat. This young man knows all. William Safire, move over: Ross wants to make certain that the true believers get a chance to read all about it.
Ben Carson offers a hint of what it's like. Ben knows both sides of the tracks, and his abilities swamp the field. The man actually accomplished something in his life, and he has had a moral purpose of for a good long while. Is he a savant? In truth, he is. He knows how bad off we are, and believes God will ultimately help us find the way. Go figure.
We've tried most everything else. Think Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Clinton, Inc., Obama. For sheer ambiguity, why not Carson? But get that photograph. Thank Getty Images.
As an orthodox agnostic, I have a keen understanding of those that are uncomfortable with Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr., MD. Ben is simply too simple. He is a believer. The Son of God is his savior. Ben is old fashioned... and honest. I know the man. His a decent guy.
Ben Carson cares. He is a father, and a doctor. And he's smart.
The children know. What do we know about Ross Douthat?
And then we have The New York Times version of a born again, Ross Douthat. This young man knows all. William Safire, move over: Ross wants to make certain that the true believers get a chance to read all about it.
Ben Carson offers a hint of what it's like. Ben knows both sides of the tracks, and his abilities swamp the field. The man actually accomplished something in his life, and he has had a moral purpose of for a good long while. Is he a savant? In truth, he is. He knows how bad off we are, and believes God will ultimately help us find the way. Go figure.
We've tried most everything else. Think Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Clinton, Inc., Obama. For sheer ambiguity, why not Carson? But get that photograph. Thank Getty Images.
As an orthodox agnostic, I have a keen understanding of those that are uncomfortable with Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr., MD. Ben is simply too simple. He is a believer. The Son of God is his savior. Ben is old fashioned... and honest. I know the man. His a decent guy.
Ben Carson cares. He is a father, and a doctor. And he's smart.
The children know. What do we know about Ross Douthat?
6
Dr. Carson is a young earth creationist who says evolution is a myth. Think of how much chemistry, physics and biology he must have studied while becoming a world-class surgeon. How he can mentally compartmentalize his knowledge to embrace science while doing his job but disregard it in order to embrace evangelical Christianity in this rather exotic form is frightening. I don't want anyone with such a bifurcated intellect anywhere near nuclear weapons.
2
"He is a believer. The Son of God is his savior. Ben is old fashioned... and honest. I know the man. His a decent guy."
Those are great qualities for a minister or even a next door neighbor (provided they keep their religion to themselves), but not a president. Religious belief is not part of the job description.
BTW, you failed to give credit to Carter as a strong Christian. Why is that? Is it because he just quietly walks and the walk in place of loudly talking the talk?
Those are great qualities for a minister or even a next door neighbor (provided they keep their religion to themselves), but not a president. Religious belief is not part of the job description.
BTW, you failed to give credit to Carter as a strong Christian. Why is that? Is it because he just quietly walks and the walk in place of loudly talking the talk?
1
Ben Carson has faith. He is not insane. He is Conservative, and Liberal, both. He is not Libertarian, but he enjoys discussion of those values, respects all.
Ben Carson is tolerant. He is not intolerant.
Ben Carson is very funny, has a great sense of humor. Again, not at the expense of others.
Ben Carson reasons everything in his life, always has. His faith is a response to the unknown, and I share his logic. We do not know. We have no explanation that gratifies our quest for knowledge about the unknown.
So, Ben has faith... and he's not nuts. Young earth creationist, with a twist: he is open to the ideas of others. Not closed minded.
Does he believe in Darwin or reject Darwin: evolution or seven days? Survival of the fittest, or what?
First of all, I believe this stuff is private. However, the nation was founded by men that were religious and skeptical. The left the door open, and yet they managed to rationalize slavery: the most banal form of human behavior.
Ben forgives all man. He is tolerant, he is good, he is loving, kind, and incredibly intelligent. Ben's beliefs are not typical, but they find support among those that seem to concern you.
I am not worried about his finger anywhere. Nobel James Franck ran The Manhattan Project. A Jew, he believed in nothing. But he did not want the a-bomb dropped, and authored The Franck Report.
Ben loves life and children. He would be firm and tolerant.
He is a good man, with a great brain.
Drop labels. Meet him.
Ben Carson is tolerant. He is not intolerant.
Ben Carson is very funny, has a great sense of humor. Again, not at the expense of others.
Ben Carson reasons everything in his life, always has. His faith is a response to the unknown, and I share his logic. We do not know. We have no explanation that gratifies our quest for knowledge about the unknown.
So, Ben has faith... and he's not nuts. Young earth creationist, with a twist: he is open to the ideas of others. Not closed minded.
Does he believe in Darwin or reject Darwin: evolution or seven days? Survival of the fittest, or what?
First of all, I believe this stuff is private. However, the nation was founded by men that were religious and skeptical. The left the door open, and yet they managed to rationalize slavery: the most banal form of human behavior.
Ben forgives all man. He is tolerant, he is good, he is loving, kind, and incredibly intelligent. Ben's beliefs are not typical, but they find support among those that seem to concern you.
I am not worried about his finger anywhere. Nobel James Franck ran The Manhattan Project. A Jew, he believed in nothing. But he did not want the a-bomb dropped, and authored The Franck Report.
Ben loves life and children. He would be firm and tolerant.
He is a good man, with a great brain.
Drop labels. Meet him.
If Mr. Carson thinks stomping on the poor and ending programs that provide equal access to minorities is doing God's work, I have a holy book to sell him.
36
Just wait for the Pope to visit the U.S. and you'll see Republican candidates falling all over themselves, trying to distance themselves from someone who actually talks sense about climate change and economic reality. American evangelicals are cynically used by the Republican party as foot-soldiers for the dirty work of knocking on doors and getting people to vote. The more prejudiced and gullible one is, the easier it is to motivate to work for the party by pushing hot-button issues like abortion and gay marriage. The real Republican agenda is helping out the one percent, and they could care less about following Jesus. I'm looking forward to the Pope's visit.
52
To avoid any claims of discrimination, tax emptions for all religions should be ended. They are entitlements we can no longer afford. No exceptions.`
All must pay their fair share, except nonreligious corporations who know their way around it and have led us to these drastic measures.
Our multitudinous religions with their sects and cults have requirements that the gov;t is not required to manage; the religion must adapt its customs to the laws that govern its country> which at times, alas, means adaptation.
All must pay their fair share, except nonreligious corporations who know their way around it and have led us to these drastic measures.
Our multitudinous religions with their sects and cults have requirements that the gov;t is not required to manage; the religion must adapt its customs to the laws that govern its country> which at times, alas, means adaptation.
18
Tradition for tradition's sake is simply silly, although it can be cruel, demeaning, and deadly, too. Shirly Jackson's "The Lottery" brilliantly captured that latter fact long ago.
The Founding Fathers, as products of the Enlightenment, didn't set up the US as a beacon of conservative traditions; accordingly, the Constitution won't permit them, either.
Time to get over it.
The Founding Fathers, as products of the Enlightenment, didn't set up the US as a beacon of conservative traditions; accordingly, the Constitution won't permit them, either.
Time to get over it.
23
"Tradition for tradition's sake is simply silly, although it can be cruel, demeaning, and deadly, too"
Or an Emerson quote: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." That one always came to mind when W. was proudly "sticking to his guns" when the situation called for acknowledging responsibility and changing course.
Then we have the famous saying that "religion is the opiate of the masses." Marx was right, again.
Or an Emerson quote: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." That one always came to mind when W. was proudly "sticking to his guns" when the situation called for acknowledging responsibility and changing course.
Then we have the famous saying that "religion is the opiate of the masses." Marx was right, again.
2
I have always maintained that this country is populated by a large proportion of maniacs and crazy people. The current Republican poll results only serve to show how large this proportion is.
25
I think we should put them in camps, where they can be educated in the correct way of thinking. Maybe you could volunteer to be one of the camp guards, Sean?
Even evangelical have SOME standards. They gave Jindal the heave ho, early and often.
7
Mr. Douthat, the opening two sentences of your essay would have been true had they been written at almost any point in time during the past 85 years. To borrow a phrase from Michael Tomasky, for almost a century conservatives have been filled with a seething, boiling, roiling, apoplectic revulsion over every idea advanced by democrats. At the same time, conservatives hold in contempt as "RINO" the presidencies of Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and George H.W. Bush. Only during the administrations of Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush were conservatives somewhat mollified when regulations were rolled back or ignored and huge tax cuts were bestowed on the nation's plutocrats. Even those two presidents, however, came under scathing criticism during their times in office for failing to remain ideologically pure. It is only in hindsight that conservatives have elevated President Regan to near sainthood. So why don't we just agree that anger and frustration represent the natural state of the American conservative. Anger manifests itself when their ideas do not prevail with the electorate; frustration results when conservative ideas are tried out and they either fail to achieve their promised goals or prove to be utterly disastrous.
63
"With same-sex marriage established nationwide and social liberalism ascendant, religious conservatives have a clear policy “ask” they should be pressing every major Republican contender to embrace. They need guarantees that the next G.O.P. administration will move proactively — through something like Senator Mike Lee’s evolving First Amendment Defense Act — to protect religious schools and charities from losing grants or accreditation or even tax-exempt status because they maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics."
I sincerely would like Mr. Douthat to explain why it is that the current "traditional position on sexual ethics" is primarily if not exclusively focused on people being allowed to refuse service to same-sex couples. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus explicitly condemns divorce as adultery, but we don't see Evangelicals or other Christian conservatives refusing service to divorced people. Indeed, Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples has been divorced and remarried multiple times but is nevertheless strongly supported by Evangelicals. And none other than Ronald Reagan, the secular saint of the conservative right was divorced as well. Newt Gingrich, like the apparently deplorable Donald Trump, is on his 3rd marriage, and the conservative mouthpiece Rush Limbaugh is on his 4th. So please, Mr. Douthat, explain to us the nuances of the "traditional position on sexual ethics" because I really want to understand.
I sincerely would like Mr. Douthat to explain why it is that the current "traditional position on sexual ethics" is primarily if not exclusively focused on people being allowed to refuse service to same-sex couples. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus explicitly condemns divorce as adultery, but we don't see Evangelicals or other Christian conservatives refusing service to divorced people. Indeed, Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples has been divorced and remarried multiple times but is nevertheless strongly supported by Evangelicals. And none other than Ronald Reagan, the secular saint of the conservative right was divorced as well. Newt Gingrich, like the apparently deplorable Donald Trump, is on his 3rd marriage, and the conservative mouthpiece Rush Limbaugh is on his 4th. So please, Mr. Douthat, explain to us the nuances of the "traditional position on sexual ethics" because I really want to understand.
45
Hypocrisy reigns supreme.
1
Nor should they.
Get these protections, that is.
For what you are calling for is the establishment of an American cultural conservancy. Something along the lines of a judeochristian shadow government.
A truly non-American idea.
Get these protections, that is.
For what you are calling for is the establishment of an American cultural conservancy. Something along the lines of a judeochristian shadow government.
A truly non-American idea.
43
"I’m sure that a President Ben Carson would deliver these protections." Really? No need for the courts to review them, or the Supreme Court? No need for Congress to pass a law or two? (They're so good at that these days.) No need to consider popular opinion? I just didn't know that future presidents could have so much power. Thanks for the update.
31
Am sorry to see that religion become a business , a political business from Jesus to Obama and we American have gone on different track in this business .
4
It is so disgracefully pathetic that we are even talking seriously about these individuals who could not be elected dogcatcher in any corner of blue America.
The GOP have absolutely minimal respect for competency intellect or humanistic vision.
These GOP candidates represent a low point in American politics!
The ignorant rabble are driving their total agenda!
The GOP have absolutely minimal respect for competency intellect or humanistic vision.
These GOP candidates represent a low point in American politics!
The ignorant rabble are driving their total agenda!
40
"ignorant rabble"indeed.This is our most dangerous element in this country.There is not even one viable Gop candidate in the campaign.the US has become so obsessed with religion that they are worse than the Muslims and their many sects in the Middle East.Hate and bigotry are rampant in this country.Sad.
1
“Over the last month, as Donald Trump expanded his polling lead, prominent conservatives passed from a mild bemusement to a weary patience to a slow-burning fury with the voters …” This is hilarious because in those olden, pre-Trump times these same people were the “cannon fodder” for the endless conservative wars against modernity and human rights. Now that the troops have embraced heretics like Trump and Carson, why it’s fainting couch time. Get a grip all you authoritarians, closet fascists, and one percenters, these two clowns will continue their run through Gooberville, but will not be your presidential candidate. At some point they will be defeated, voluntarily drop out, or be quietly told “it would be in their best interest to leave.”
25
It's really Evangelicals and the Republican illusion...or delusion as it were.
There's nothing particularly Christian or Jesus-like about the Republican party platform, policies or positions.
Republicans pretend they're Christians, but when one's deeds spectacularly contradict one's words, the pretense is exposed as a holy fraud.
You can't fight universal and single-payer healthcare tooth and nail and pretend to be a Christian.
You can't deny the expansion of Medicaid to the working poor in all of the GOP Jesus states and pretend you're a Christian.
Championing the Religious Bigotry Freedom Act while denying basic zoological homosexuality would not get any high fives from Jesus, who may have been gay himself.
Championing the gilded class and fighting against the minimum wage would make Jesus throw up, but there it is as the raison d'etre of the GOP.
God said to 'steward the Earth', and yet Republican Party policy dictates accelerated global toasting of the planet and the human species with it.
Then there's endless GOP support for guns and the inevitable gun deaths, endless war, the death penalty and general misanthropy toward all the non-rich.
Where exactly do evangelicals see Christianity in Republicanism...(aside from the cognitive dissonance, hypocrisy and fantasized views of reality displayed by both groups) ?
Jesus was a raging Democrat eager to help the poor, the weak and the suffering; he would have nothing to with Republican nihilism and economic violence.
There's nothing particularly Christian or Jesus-like about the Republican party platform, policies or positions.
Republicans pretend they're Christians, but when one's deeds spectacularly contradict one's words, the pretense is exposed as a holy fraud.
You can't fight universal and single-payer healthcare tooth and nail and pretend to be a Christian.
You can't deny the expansion of Medicaid to the working poor in all of the GOP Jesus states and pretend you're a Christian.
Championing the Religious Bigotry Freedom Act while denying basic zoological homosexuality would not get any high fives from Jesus, who may have been gay himself.
Championing the gilded class and fighting against the minimum wage would make Jesus throw up, but there it is as the raison d'etre of the GOP.
God said to 'steward the Earth', and yet Republican Party policy dictates accelerated global toasting of the planet and the human species with it.
Then there's endless GOP support for guns and the inevitable gun deaths, endless war, the death penalty and general misanthropy toward all the non-rich.
Where exactly do evangelicals see Christianity in Republicanism...(aside from the cognitive dissonance, hypocrisy and fantasized views of reality displayed by both groups) ?
Jesus was a raging Democrat eager to help the poor, the weak and the suffering; he would have nothing to with Republican nihilism and economic violence.
292
Amen!
5
Wow. You talk about Jesus like you know Him, but your comments show you obviously don't.
Yet, even the evangelical members of my own family cannot be convinced, even persuaded, to look at the evidence, of the duplicity.
They are all one-issue "Abortion BAD" voters, and have shut their minds so firmly to any other issue, peccadillo, or outright lie from the Republicans, that they pull that R lever no matter whom is on the label.
Believe me, I have tried...
They are all one-issue "Abortion BAD" voters, and have shut their minds so firmly to any other issue, peccadillo, or outright lie from the Republicans, that they pull that R lever no matter whom is on the label.
Believe me, I have tried...
6
GOP=Greedy One Percent.
Double the Minimum wage -- it can stimulate the economy, especially since the other way -- lowering interest rates -- can't go any lower.
Double the Minimum wage -- it can stimulate the economy, especially since the other way -- lowering interest rates -- can't go any lower.
27
That's a very long winded way of saying that Evangelicals are minority with a strongly held set of beliefs that are largely and irreconcilably out of sync with the American values and distasteful to the majority of Americans. But, as Trump might say, that's not politically correct thing to say out loud.
39
Mr. Douthat wants the government to "protect religious schools and charities from losing grants or accreditation or even tax-exempt status because they maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics."
Let's see... what exactly would those "traditional sexual ethics" be? A ban on divorce? A commitment to gender equality? Oh, yeah -- it's the right to discriminate against two men or two women who love each other and want to be recognized as a family.
Let's see... what exactly would those "traditional sexual ethics" be? A ban on divorce? A commitment to gender equality? Oh, yeah -- it's the right to discriminate against two men or two women who love each other and want to be recognized as a family.
49
Plus no contraception.
Don't forget a value system that removes the bodily autonomy for all women of reproductive age, no matter how she may have been impregnated, or by whom.
He wants no less to reduce the status of women back to chattel, slaves to their wombs, and the men who decide when, and who's children she bears.
He wants no less to reduce the status of women back to chattel, slaves to their wombs, and the men who decide when, and who's children she bears.
2
Actually, it's the right to maintain the view that two people of the same gender does not constitute marriage in God's eyes, and to try to uphold that.
That's not reenvisioning Jim Crow laws - everyone has rights. Or had them, anyway. Now the new liberalism is you must not only accept same-sex marriage, you must embrace it... or else.
Yet rather than go to another clerk who would sign the license, or another bakery that would make your cake with whatever you want written on it, the enlightened must force the rest of us to conform, through ever more punitive measures.
How long until the penalty for not embracing enlightened progressiveness is death?
That's not reenvisioning Jim Crow laws - everyone has rights. Or had them, anyway. Now the new liberalism is you must not only accept same-sex marriage, you must embrace it... or else.
Yet rather than go to another clerk who would sign the license, or another bakery that would make your cake with whatever you want written on it, the enlightened must force the rest of us to conform, through ever more punitive measures.
How long until the penalty for not embracing enlightened progressiveness is death?
Regarding Carson: His bizarre statement about SOME vaccines being more important than others----and his suggestion that the TIMING of vaccines be widened---betrays an appalling lack of knowledge of Pediatrics. Apparently, his skills as a plumber (i.e., pediatric neurosurgeon) haven't extended into those of a 3rd-Year Medical Student. His 'soft-spokenness' appears to be a sign of ignorance, rather than discretion. One wonders about what REALLY happened in his now-abandoned medical practice.
41
Mr. Douthat may be correct in his analysis of the Republican candidates but he seems to be missing the most important point of the current situation. The citizens of the country are fed up with the one-sidedness of the Republican establishment with its no limit on greed, grossly unbalanced view of wealth distribution, war profiteering, and lack of feeling for the lower end of the economic spectrum. Most citizens have the same criticisms to make of the Obama Administration, as it followed along too much in continuation of the Bush Administration's misjudgments and war adventures. The huge crowds supporting Bernie Sanders are the real indication of the country's strong wish to correct the unbalances of the Bush/Obama misdeeds.
9
"And unfortunately evangelical voters have a weakness for this kind of pitch."
You could just as well have said "And unfortunately evangelical voters have a weakness."
You could just as well have said "And unfortunately evangelical voters have a weakness."
4
Really nice of the grey lady to give all you folks with green cards first shot. Though I've yet to figure out why, since that little check mark is no guarantee of quality, just of the fact you restrain your language so as not to upset those suffering from Victorian morals. As for myself, I calls'em the way I sees'em. If the NYT can't muster the courage to print'em, it's your loss, not mine. Let'em censor me. I refuse, other than to forgo George Carlin's list of forbidden terms, to censor myself. And I still try to sneak one of those by on occasion. I'll figure out a way one of these days.
AAC in Texas means American Airlines Center, a cavern of atrocious acoustics. NY in Texas is meaningless. Combining the two you get a vacuous noise, which will also describes Ben Carson.
Compared to Ms. NY's histrionics, Richard Luettgen (my apologies if the name is misspelled) is a paragon of calm conservative reason. But he hasn't weighed in, yet. Hi, Richard. Ross could use your support here. With Carson as the subject, you have my sympathy as you try to rise to the task.
Sadly, this won't be made available for anyone to respond to.
Despite having ancestors who may have aided those at Jamestown, being born in what was once called Indian Territory, and being an honorably discharged combat veteran, I must still wait for the pat on my head before my thoughts are permitted to be seen. And I'm paying for that privilege. Is this a great country or what?
AAC in Texas means American Airlines Center, a cavern of atrocious acoustics. NY in Texas is meaningless. Combining the two you get a vacuous noise, which will also describes Ben Carson.
Compared to Ms. NY's histrionics, Richard Luettgen (my apologies if the name is misspelled) is a paragon of calm conservative reason. But he hasn't weighed in, yet. Hi, Richard. Ross could use your support here. With Carson as the subject, you have my sympathy as you try to rise to the task.
Sadly, this won't be made available for anyone to respond to.
Despite having ancestors who may have aided those at Jamestown, being born in what was once called Indian Territory, and being an honorably discharged combat veteran, I must still wait for the pat on my head before my thoughts are permitted to be seen. And I'm paying for that privilege. Is this a great country or what?
The green checkmark policy with the inane "a computer algorithm selected these people" explanation is one of the biggest insults to intelligence on this blog. There are all sorts of ways to be insulting without using any ad hominems, and insulting intelligence is feature of every green checkmarked right winger here.
1
Whaaa?
Thank Rush Limbaugh. Thank Sarah Palin. Thank Karl Rove and the rest of the dead-enders who gleefully separated the GOP from anyone with a working set of principles and a brain that understood that we do not live in a theocracy. They were the Kool Kids who laughed at "the Elites", made up their own definitions, got away with baldface lies, and Old Rush actually got his high skool edukated self made an "Honorary Congressman" by adoring GOP politicians.
They have written their own history, concocted a fundamentalist religious mishmash that has a snotty disregard for science, for facts, for truth, for fairness- you name it, they traded it- for shots at Power.
Moderates got soaked, extremists were rewarded. It has been decades in the making and now you have a values-free crowd of religious-style bigots convinced they are channeling God and who love them an authority figure. Trump told some crowd in Ohio, holding his Bible, that he would protect them. Feed the wolf, you get wolves.
They have written their own history, concocted a fundamentalist religious mishmash that has a snotty disregard for science, for facts, for truth, for fairness- you name it, they traded it- for shots at Power.
Moderates got soaked, extremists were rewarded. It has been decades in the making and now you have a values-free crowd of religious-style bigots convinced they are channeling God and who love them an authority figure. Trump told some crowd in Ohio, holding his Bible, that he would protect them. Feed the wolf, you get wolves.
70
"But evangelical culture...has a particular fondness for the idea of the history-altering individual, the hope that 'one person can stand at the crossroads and change things for good.' "
Huh? You mean there's some sort of odd behavior here?
That a large number of people who believe that an invisible God had a son born of a virgin, who walked on water, healed lepers, turned water into wine, and returned from the dead after three days so that believing in this magical person absolves one of the state of sin which we inherited from a man and woman who ate a forbidden fruit six thousand years ago, isn't a strange enough belief.
Huh? You mean there's some sort of odd behavior here?
That a large number of people who believe that an invisible God had a son born of a virgin, who walked on water, healed lepers, turned water into wine, and returned from the dead after three days so that believing in this magical person absolves one of the state of sin which we inherited from a man and woman who ate a forbidden fruit six thousand years ago, isn't a strange enough belief.
56
The United States of America has become a fractured nation. It is clear that we are no longer one nation under God. While some Americans struggle to keep God in the nation's picture, many others struggle just as hard to deny any mention of, or acknowledgement of the existence of, God.
Those seeking to satisfy their own desires refuse to submit to any will other than their own and the herd with which they travel. Those seeking to adhere to the will of God are now shackled by fear and legal decisions which threaten to crush them should they stand for the mandates found in the Holy Bible.
So, our divided country is in more trouble than we realize. Our nation, our heritage, our way of life, our civil society, our faith systems and our very family structures are all at risk of degradation.
It is now clear that, due to interest group gridlock, it is unlikely that a president can be found, or a political party elected, that has the guts and courage to correct our many deficits and heal our land (other than a person that has the guts and courage of a Mrs. Kim Davis of Kentucky).
Worse of all, when the "God solution" is proposed, much of the media and many others will ignore and/or reject the very broaching of the idea.
Can we be helped? God only knows. I think God can help us (but it is unlikely that many of us will allow Him to help us). That notwithstanding, I recommend the "God solution".
Pastor Page www.ltgof.net
Those seeking to satisfy their own desires refuse to submit to any will other than their own and the herd with which they travel. Those seeking to adhere to the will of God are now shackled by fear and legal decisions which threaten to crush them should they stand for the mandates found in the Holy Bible.
So, our divided country is in more trouble than we realize. Our nation, our heritage, our way of life, our civil society, our faith systems and our very family structures are all at risk of degradation.
It is now clear that, due to interest group gridlock, it is unlikely that a president can be found, or a political party elected, that has the guts and courage to correct our many deficits and heal our land (other than a person that has the guts and courage of a Mrs. Kim Davis of Kentucky).
Worse of all, when the "God solution" is proposed, much of the media and many others will ignore and/or reject the very broaching of the idea.
Can we be helped? God only knows. I think God can help us (but it is unlikely that many of us will allow Him to help us). That notwithstanding, I recommend the "God solution".
Pastor Page www.ltgof.net
3
G-D save us from the zealots who want to impose their beliefs on the rest of us who believe otherwise.
2
Clearly Pastor, you'd be happier living in a cloistered theocracy than here in our messy, loud, and diverse democracy.
3
"God" is a word. It exists. But there is no personality of nature at all, so it is really stupid and misleading to name it as if it did have a personality.
1
Of course Carson is insubstantial, but so are all the other GOP candidates. It is a toss up who would be the worse president. Carson has no effective constituency in Congress. He would be incredibly manipulable and lost in the White House. But look at the rest. Their campaigns are built on purposeful lies aimed at the raw accrual of power the better to serve bigots and oligarchs. At some level Carson's supporters know this and see a gentler, perhaps even moral man who fulfils their fantasies off a right-wing conservative who has a soft edge. It's just that Carson's edge is not just soft, it is squishy.
19
Agree re Carson.
How about John Kasich who is a governor and has been a long term congressman.
I don't think he would be lost in the White House and could get along with most -not all- of the congress.
How about John Kasich who is a governor and has been a long term congressman.
I don't think he would be lost in the White House and could get along with most -not all- of the congress.
By giving tax breaks to religious institutions isn't the government aiding in the establishment of religion?
23
I understand your point, but those tax breaks are not just for institutions that are religious in nature.
Also, the Establishment Clause was intended to prevent a state supported church. In the colonial era the established church was integral to local government. They determined tax rates, conducted the census, issued and maintained vital records, and was charged with education and enforcing morality laws. The Establishment Clause was designed to prevent such events on the new national government. Also, with Anglicans in the South, Congregationalists in New England, Catholics in Maryland, Quakers in Pennsylvania, and Dutch in New York, the clause would also prevent discord and disunion, as the religious wars of 17th and 18th century Europe had.
Also, the Establishment Clause was intended to prevent a state supported church. In the colonial era the established church was integral to local government. They determined tax rates, conducted the census, issued and maintained vital records, and was charged with education and enforcing morality laws. The Establishment Clause was designed to prevent such events on the new national government. Also, with Anglicans in the South, Congregationalists in New England, Catholics in Maryland, Quakers in Pennsylvania, and Dutch in New York, the clause would also prevent discord and disunion, as the religious wars of 17th and 18th century Europe had.
1
Yes.
Corporate welfare indeed.
Corporate welfare indeed.
1
According to Ross, the Trump phenomenon is 'a class revolt, driven by a sadly-justifiable sense that Republican elites don’t have working-class interests close enough to heart.' Just when I thought that Ross might concede that the GOP is the party of the 1%, I stumbled over that little word he inserted: enough. Ross can't get himself to admit that Republican elites could not care less about the working class, so he softens what he says by saying that those elites could care a bit more about workers. No, no, no, Ross! The fact of the matter is that the GOP does not care a whit about the working class. Ross seems incapable of making that leap.
41
The liberal mood is angry as well. Why is it that "conservatives" like douthat scream about an angry "mood" and then blast any position that may be simpatico with both the liberal and conservative? Do conservatives have the lock on angry, frustrated feelings? The "conservatives" have done nothing to coalesce and work with "liberals" to accomplish a society that can better the human condition. Why do "conservatives' not truly "conserve" any things?
26
Why can't religious conservatives take care of living their own lives the way they believe they should be lived and leave everyone else to their own judgment and decisions?
I can't help but notice Douthat seems to think tax breaks/tax expenditures/taxpayer subsidies to do so are their prime concern.
'Render unto Caesar' seems to be a pretty direct instruction they seem to have forgotten.
I can't help but notice Douthat seems to think tax breaks/tax expenditures/taxpayer subsidies to do so are their prime concern.
'Render unto Caesar' seems to be a pretty direct instruction they seem to have forgotten.
11
Soft-spoken, lovely Dr. Carson is almost as big a sham as the Donald. Dr. Carson may be a renowned neurosurgeon, but he seems not to be well schooled in science and reproductive biology. In other words, his position on climate change and the environment coupled with his rather strange attitude towards women's health issues will ultimately cost him. He is a reality-denier, someone who refuses to acknowledge the environment must be protected and women have advanced since the 19th century.
Ultimately, sensibility must win on election day, and the candidate who actually addresses domestic issues in clear and concrete terms will win.
Ben Carson's religion will, at the end, have nothing to do with it.
http://wifelyperson.blogspot.com/
Ultimately, sensibility must win on election day, and the candidate who actually addresses domestic issues in clear and concrete terms will win.
Ben Carson's religion will, at the end, have nothing to do with it.
http://wifelyperson.blogspot.com/
27
". . . the candidate who actually addresses domestic issues in clear and concrete terms will win." That candidate is Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton spoke of "a vast right wing conspiracy." I fear that Democrat party leadership has conspired to do everything it can to see that Hillary Clinton is the only Democrat candidate. How undemocratic. Go Bernie!
1
Anyone who keeps the notion that the world was created in six thousand years can not have a correct perspective on government or anything else for that matter. He's a scientist for crying out loud.
The fiscal conservatives who would destroy our safety net, lower taxes on the rich and abolish any regulations on business love candidates like Mr. Carson because they are so easily manipulated by them into policies the candidate doesn't understand and would rather leave to someone else. The social issues that drive so many Christian conservatives become a foil for the true aim of fiscal Conservative Republicans whose only aim is to make as much profits as they can on the backs of the poor and their under paid and laky employees.
The fiscal conservatives who would destroy our safety net, lower taxes on the rich and abolish any regulations on business love candidates like Mr. Carson because they are so easily manipulated by them into policies the candidate doesn't understand and would rather leave to someone else. The social issues that drive so many Christian conservatives become a foil for the true aim of fiscal Conservative Republicans whose only aim is to make as much profits as they can on the backs of the poor and their under paid and laky employees.
28
Many consider Ben Carson moderate because of his low key, soft spoken style. This is a mistake. He is a religious extremism of the most dangerous variety. He epitomizes cognitive dissonance.
He is a scientifically educated man who embraces creationism over evolution, a medical doctor who waffles on vaccinations and a poor child from Detroit who grew up benefiting from government educational opportunities who believes in a flat tax with a national sales tax which would be crippling to anyone not wealthy. We really would need God's help if he were president and he faced a situation where he felt nuclear war would bring about the second coming.
He is a scientifically educated man who embraces creationism over evolution, a medical doctor who waffles on vaccinations and a poor child from Detroit who grew up benefiting from government educational opportunities who believes in a flat tax with a national sales tax which would be crippling to anyone not wealthy. We really would need God's help if he were president and he faced a situation where he felt nuclear war would bring about the second coming.
62
When I read that this man declared that"God told him to run for President"that was enough for me.He is no different than the other religious bigots in this disasterous campaign.Hasnt every GOP candidate for president in the past thirty years made this very same claim?Why would God who is supposed to know all things tell all of these clowns to run for the same job?Wouldnt he already know the outcome of the election?
1
Apparently nothing says Christ for these people like a giant illuminated acrylic cross hovering above a millionaire with megalomania.
1
It can't be fun being an intelligent, conservative columnist nowadays. Faced with a savannah of idiots running for President and a pale populace screaming for status. Perhaps the Pope will offer solace.
21
"Perhaps the Pope will offer solace."
No, he doesn't like the Pope either. Not Catholic enough. Too liberal. Believes all that stuff Jesus said, liberal nonsense.
No, he doesn't like the Pope either. Not Catholic enough. Too liberal. Believes all that stuff Jesus said, liberal nonsense.
35
OK, let me get this straight, Ross. Christians believe that Christ redeemed them by willingly sacrificing his own life and letting himself be tortured to death. Today, however, it is too much to ask of Christian institutions that they sacrifice their purse of federal money in order to follow Christ, when they believe his principles conflict with federal law. Really? And just what would Jesus say?
25
I blelieve That Jesus would treat them as he did the money changers in the Temple. Take a stout club and drive them out.
2
When asked by a potential disciple",what must I do to be saved' Jesus replied",Sell all tht you own and follow me"Which one of these candidates would comply to this requirement?Not even one.
1
Poor, deluded Dr. Ben. Hearing Republicans saying "we could vote for YOU for president", he actually came to believe it.
He just couldn't hear what they were saying, was a cover for their own racism, 'You're the kind of black we could tolerate in the Oval Office.'
Pathetic.
He just couldn't hear what they were saying, was a cover for their own racism, 'You're the kind of black we could tolerate in the Oval Office.'
Pathetic.
30
Please spare us the shopworn evangelicals'-religious-liberties-are-at-stake pablum.
Their god is on the national currency and in the pledge to the flag. People swear on KJV bibles in a variety of contexts. Religious schools are free to exist and typically are tax exempt, as are churches. Taxpayer-funded police are used to direct church traffic. George W. Bush founded a federal faith-based office.
I have to pay taxes to support all of these things and more, yet I don't share these beliefs.
And Christians are the ones whose freedoms are abridged?
Laughable.
Their god is on the national currency and in the pledge to the flag. People swear on KJV bibles in a variety of contexts. Religious schools are free to exist and typically are tax exempt, as are churches. Taxpayer-funded police are used to direct church traffic. George W. Bush founded a federal faith-based office.
I have to pay taxes to support all of these things and more, yet I don't share these beliefs.
And Christians are the ones whose freedoms are abridged?
Laughable.
99
Carson presently is attempting to come across as a thoughtful, calm individual. Some of his previous words show him to be an extreme right wing persona, with outrageous ideas and thoughts, never mind an enormous pompous ego. WAKE UP
36
I might suggest that if Ross had read the September 17 Op-Ed written by Russell Moore President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention titled Have Evangelical Who Support Donald Trump Lost their Values we might have had a better Op-Ed this evening.
Although I was quite pleased with Mr Moore's Op-Ed and Ross as always has me questioning why I would read his work there is one thing that was left out out Mr. Moore's Op-Ed and is always left out of Ross' rants.
Moore talks about the the large chasm that existed between the Christianity of his forebearers and Jefferson and the gratitude he had that Jefferson granted religious liberty to one and all.
The failure to mention the religious liberty that Moore mentions no longer exists. Despite being Christians by virtue of their believing that Jesus was the Messiah Jefferson, John Adams and John Quincy Adams could not recite the current oath of Allegiance. Jefferson, John Adams and John Quincy Adams did not believe in the God of Moore's Christians, Jews or Moslems. They did not believe in a Divine presence here on Earth yet they saw fit to allow those believing in a supernatural entity controlling our lives our fate and our eternity full licence to run our nation. Go figure.
Although I was quite pleased with Mr Moore's Op-Ed and Ross as always has me questioning why I would read his work there is one thing that was left out out Mr. Moore's Op-Ed and is always left out of Ross' rants.
Moore talks about the the large chasm that existed between the Christianity of his forebearers and Jefferson and the gratitude he had that Jefferson granted religious liberty to one and all.
The failure to mention the religious liberty that Moore mentions no longer exists. Despite being Christians by virtue of their believing that Jesus was the Messiah Jefferson, John Adams and John Quincy Adams could not recite the current oath of Allegiance. Jefferson, John Adams and John Quincy Adams did not believe in the God of Moore's Christians, Jews or Moslems. They did not believe in a Divine presence here on Earth yet they saw fit to allow those believing in a supernatural entity controlling our lives our fate and our eternity full licence to run our nation. Go figure.
11
As a Dem, I guess I don't understand working-class Republicans, Reagan Democrats if you will, finding any of the Republicans a reasonable choice. It was reported this week that Walker has an even more extreme anti-union position were he to be elected President than he has shown in Wisconsin. All of the candidates support right-to-work and restricting collective bargaining. Worker advocacy has been the traditional venue for blue-collar workers to better themselves, and the GOP is dead-set against that. While yhese Reagan Democratsmay in the past have found a home in the GOP, i would say not so much anymore, given that you have a CEO in Fiorina that had no qualms ridding HP of thousands of jobs, and Trump would do anything to make a deal. I'd recommend reading Trump's ideas on bringing auto work back to the USA; on the surface it sounds good until you read that he favors states bidding on these jobs, with the work going to the state providing the lowest wages.
For a working-class guy, it is amazing more people, those most affected by the Great Recession that was created by Bush the Younger's policies, and who are still suffering from the long, slow slog back, are even considering a GOP that promises nothing except "repeal and replace" which just isn't going to happen. The GOP, especially Walker, Fiorina and Trump, really has nothing to offer the working class.
For a working-class guy, it is amazing more people, those most affected by the Great Recession that was created by Bush the Younger's policies, and who are still suffering from the long, slow slog back, are even considering a GOP that promises nothing except "repeal and replace" which just isn't going to happen. The GOP, especially Walker, Fiorina and Trump, really has nothing to offer the working class.
36
Saying he's voting for Ben Carson is the low-information Republican voter's way of bragging that he has a black friend. Nothing more, nothing less, Ross.
35
When the Donald turns up at a rally with the Bible tucked under his arm, don't these people realize that he is mocking them and insulting their intelligence at the same time?
15
Obviously not, they are happy to chant and wave like wheat on the prairie to the snake oil huckster in the white pants.
1
I'm confused--so why is it a bad idea for evangelical Christians to support Carson?
1
I actually found myself agreeing with Mr. Douthat on many of his talking points although must disagree that the good doctor, Ben Carson, is any different of a fantasy than Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush Scott Walker, Marco Rubio or any of the other delusional candidates that constitute the Republican party. The only difference is that Ben Carson is a self-made man who embodies the American rags to riches dream, unlike Donald Trump, Jeb Walker or the rest of the pack. In fact, he is the epitome of the pull yourself up by the bootstraps determination that separates a man of character from the empty jargon of most politicians. Ben Carson is obviously a brilliant man as few people are intellectually or emotionally prepared to ever become a pediatric neurosurgeon except in some imaginary role play on Halloween night. He displays a depth of character and emotional courage that can challenge others who constantly make excuses for their shortcomings by blaming their lack of success on the oppression of the dominant culture or tragic post traumatic stress from having been victimized during their childhood. Dr. Ben Carson will never suffer the travails of the fools because as illustrated in Corinthians 11:19: Since many boast according to the flesh, I will boast also. For you, being so wise, tolerate the foolish gladly. For you tolerate it if anyone enslaves you, anyone devours you, takes advantage of you, exalts himself, hits you in the face, for you are wise in Christ's image."
2
All anyone needs to succeed as Dr. Carson did is his high intelligence. In other words, Carson is NOT an example of how a Black can succeed if he just tries. Racism does exist.
I agree Christie, racism exists, as does sexism, ageism, homophobia, animal cruelty, greed, inequality, crime, pollution, ableism, violence, germs, misogyny, climate change, bullying, rape, religious intolerance, etc., etc. While many seem to be constantly viewing everything through a personal victim lens & thus playing the "who's more a victim than the other" game, there are others who refuse to allow self fulfilling prophecies define their lives & thus decide to seek out opportunities for growth & harmony which will elevate their reputation based on character, determination, self discipline & determination rather than constantly blame external circumstances for their own personal failures in all areas of life.
This is just what things look like as a plutocratic party fishes around for anything, anything at all, that can give them an electoral base.
It is pure pandering. If tomorrow they found out that fisherman were angry at the Federal government, their aspirants -- and Ben Carson is one -- would line up to becry how Obama is conducting a war on fishers.
It's the plutocrats electoral strategy. Find, mine, and use disaffected rightward political demographics. This goes back to Falwell and his coupling of US evangelical Christianity to Republican policies. He hoped they would gain power. What have they gained? Continued use as a suckered base.
It is pure pandering. If tomorrow they found out that fisherman were angry at the Federal government, their aspirants -- and Ben Carson is one -- would line up to becry how Obama is conducting a war on fishers.
It's the plutocrats electoral strategy. Find, mine, and use disaffected rightward political demographics. This goes back to Falwell and his coupling of US evangelical Christianity to Republican policies. He hoped they would gain power. What have they gained? Continued use as a suckered base.
24
Evangelicals are not stupid, necessarily, but they are incredibly poorly informed. I know many, and they seem to find glee in refusing to investigate anything whatsoever. They're reactionary, of course, but I can't think of a better example of herd mentality outside the animal kingdom. And I do not hesitate in any way to use harsh terms or even to insult them, because they deserve it: they hold the most hateful positions of any measurable demographic in American society, and they deserve scorn in my opinion. Sorry, but it's true, at least from my perspective. I've been around them all my life, and I've been around all kinds of other people, too, and those "evangelicals" are the worst when it comes to judging and wishing ill of others. I've turned the other cheek, but why? I think they deserve to have it thrown back at them now.
72
The evolution of Homo Erectus & Homo Sapiens did not emphasize development of Critical Thinking. On the contrary ,critical thinking lessened the chance of passing on genes. Being a member of the herd was a more reliable way to procreate. Hence religion has a solid hold on a majority of those raised by the herd. Homeschooling doesn`t help the American electorate from escaping this medieval thinking. eg. 46% of US adults believe the earth is less than 10,000 yrs old and that evolution didn`t happen according to 8 separate Gallup polls over the last 27 yrs.
1
Brooks and all the "religious" people, Christians, Muslims or any other, tend to forget that religious freedom includes also freedom not to be have a particular religion imposed upon one. What happen when religious people insist that their individual and private practice of religion should be allowed to "spill over" into the public sphere? So far all the fight for religious liberty involves expanding the private sphere into the public one -- Christian business owners running their business with Christian values that are not universal therefore has the effect of imposing such values to their non-Christian employees and customers, or individuals who insist that other people who interact with them in pubic sphere have to abide by their religious values.
Freedom, either of speech, gun ownership or religious, cannot be absolute. The absolute freedom of Christian/Islamic/Jewish religious practice means others have to accommodate them and this would become coercion. That is why there is separate of state and church in this country; that is why pluralism of the West is preferable to the authoritarianism of theocracy.
The conservatives seem to be taking this country toward a Christian theocracy. Although the expressed concerns are of moral, such morality is inconsistently applied. There are many acts of charity and compassion in the bible but the conservatives seems to cherry pick only those that suit them.
Freedom, either of speech, gun ownership or religious, cannot be absolute. The absolute freedom of Christian/Islamic/Jewish religious practice means others have to accommodate them and this would become coercion. That is why there is separate of state and church in this country; that is why pluralism of the West is preferable to the authoritarianism of theocracy.
The conservatives seem to be taking this country toward a Christian theocracy. Although the expressed concerns are of moral, such morality is inconsistently applied. There are many acts of charity and compassion in the bible but the conservatives seems to cherry pick only those that suit them.
362
Sharia law, theocratic law is prohibited by the First Amendment. The Kim Davis embarrassment, resides in the failure of her superiors. She should have been fired or she should have resigned. She has a right under the Amendment to believe what she wants. She is prohibited by the First Amendment from using her office to impose her beliefs on anyone else.
Carson? It is just strange that he is among the candidates, at the head of the pack. It reflects on the constituency of the Republican Party that he is on the stage at all and that he is leading, just behind Trump, should be a profound warning to voters of what it means to be a Republican.
Anyone not captivated by the racist theme of Obama hatred, or fetal superiority over women, or science denial, or war frenzy would be hard pressed to describe why they are a Republican. Anyone who is awake will recognize in Carson, a calm, re-assuring religious bigot who has jettisoned his medical education and embraced science/evolution denial for some strange mission from a God who does not resemble anything Jesus preached.
We are all curious to learn what effect the Pope will have on evangelicals. Will they revert to hatred and distrust of Roman Catholicism when they hear his message of mercy?
Carson? It is just strange that he is among the candidates, at the head of the pack. It reflects on the constituency of the Republican Party that he is on the stage at all and that he is leading, just behind Trump, should be a profound warning to voters of what it means to be a Republican.
Anyone not captivated by the racist theme of Obama hatred, or fetal superiority over women, or science denial, or war frenzy would be hard pressed to describe why they are a Republican. Anyone who is awake will recognize in Carson, a calm, re-assuring religious bigot who has jettisoned his medical education and embraced science/evolution denial for some strange mission from a God who does not resemble anything Jesus preached.
We are all curious to learn what effect the Pope will have on evangelicals. Will they revert to hatred and distrust of Roman Catholicism when they hear his message of mercy?
2
The adopted universal religious limitation for the GOP Christians, given their hypnotic focus on only one part of a human, and exclusively on the physicality of the female human, is Evangenitals.
The Christian right does not cherry pick "acts of charity and compassion" to suit them. They ignore those acts outright. They are far more adept at quoting the fire and brimstone of the Old Testament and seem never to have heard about its replacement by the New Testament. Jesus would have driven them from the temple as well.
1
Carson also does not believe in evolution and is famous for debating against it.
19
And what's the deal with his statement that one of his first acts as president would be to close all VA hospitals? The right wing hawks want us to go to war again, but are unwilling to put up the money to care for those brave individuals who are physically and mentally damaged by doing so. Carson, as a physician and a fellow human being, should be ashamed of himself for this position.
2
The Republican Party is the conservative's party? More like Wall Street's party which sees them as de classe relatives who have to be tolerated once a year when their votes are needed and then sent back to the sticks. Of course they are angry. If progressives were rejected by the Democratic Party they would be as disenchanted. But Democrats have learned to live with they farthest points on their political compass in a way the Republican establishment has not, and therein lie the seeds of the rejection of Bush et al.
It is past time for the Republican Party to go away. Quick quiz, what is a Republican? Nobody can say, but most everyone can tell you what a conservative is and believes. So why shouldn't conservatives have a Conservative Party and be done with it? The party establishment can then go back to finding a decent recipe for quiche, making the world safe for the EX-IM Bank, and spending their time productively engaged in finding a decent summer rental in the Hamptons.
The real problem isn't that the Romney wing of the party believes something different than conservatives generally, it's that they don't believe in anything in particular. Their candidates (McCain, Romney, Bush III) are extras from the "Night of the Living Dull" who if they ran a race for dog catcher would lose to the dog. The "Trumpen Proletariate" are one more election loss away from a mass exodus. It is past time.
It is past time for the Republican Party to go away. Quick quiz, what is a Republican? Nobody can say, but most everyone can tell you what a conservative is and believes. So why shouldn't conservatives have a Conservative Party and be done with it? The party establishment can then go back to finding a decent recipe for quiche, making the world safe for the EX-IM Bank, and spending their time productively engaged in finding a decent summer rental in the Hamptons.
The real problem isn't that the Romney wing of the party believes something different than conservatives generally, it's that they don't believe in anything in particular. Their candidates (McCain, Romney, Bush III) are extras from the "Night of the Living Dull" who if they ran a race for dog catcher would lose to the dog. The "Trumpen Proletariate" are one more election loss away from a mass exodus. It is past time.
11
My advice to RD is to stop being a perfectionist, a fussbudget finding fault with every GOP candidate who comes along and seems to have a chance of winning. BC is O but with depth and sincerity, and if he can solidify the evangelical vote behind his candidacy, so much the better. By the way, evangelicals r fine people, and their evangelizing has turned many a hopeless alcoholic or drug addict around, and given those lost in revolting depravity a reason for living. If BC can harvest their support, which, if it is solid and unconditional, could carry him to the Presidency, so much the better.Mr. Douthat: Stop playing the role of GUS LE TENEBREUX, and find something nice to say about a politician, even if he is a Repubican.The most cheerful thing about RD's piece was the picture of CHAMP,the 3 legged dog, juxtaposed alongside.Hope he has gotten a good home. By the way, DT is not a sybarite, but rather ascetic in his personal habits:He neither drinks,nor smokes, and even eschews coffee, hoping that the payoff will be continual good health.
2
Running as a Republican is a convenience for Trump. Given his social platform, were he to soften his stance on immigration, he could have just as easily run as a Democrat. But given that Trump correctly senses the mood of Republican-leaning working-class whites, that they're seeking a Péron or a Mussolini to deliver for them, the Republican side with its weak bench is a greener pasture.
Few would have thought a Trump-Sanders contest possible. but it is, such is the indignation of lower- and middle-class Americans who cannot have their labor taxed as capital gains, who cannot hide their wealth in the Caymans.
Much to the chagrin of the elites in both parties, the contest has become a war of class. Candidates of the left and right who espouse variations on business as usual appear to be out of touch with the nation's temperature. The country is not in a mood for incrementalism; it's in a revolutionary frame of mind.
Few would have thought a Trump-Sanders contest possible. but it is, such is the indignation of lower- and middle-class Americans who cannot have their labor taxed as capital gains, who cannot hide their wealth in the Caymans.
Much to the chagrin of the elites in both parties, the contest has become a war of class. Candidates of the left and right who espouse variations on business as usual appear to be out of touch with the nation's temperature. The country is not in a mood for incrementalism; it's in a revolutionary frame of mind.
6
For a brain surgeon, Ben Carson has some mighty peculiar beliefs. He's a climate-change denier, he doesn't understand why government-mandated childhood vaccines are a good idea, and he thinks "The Flintstones" is a documentary. It just goes to show that doctors can be anti-intellectual, religion-addled fundamentalist boneheads, too.
81
Given the title of this piece, I thought this would discuss Carson's positions and campaign in more detail. But it's disappointingly vague about Carson and why he is any less worthy of evangelicals' support than other Republicans.
3
Carson doesn't have intelligible positions on most issues a President of the U.S. is likely to encounter -- like the conduct of foreign policy. That makes it a little difficult to write about his positions. I think Douthat's point is that Carson is so spectacularly uninformed and inexperienced in the things a President needs to know and do that Carson would never be able to deliver on the hopes evangelicals place in him.
I wish Trump critics would stop pandering to him by referring to him as 'the Donald'. It sounds so lovingly idiosyncratic but is bloody annoying and anoints him in a peculiar way that I am sure is not intended.
4
In this election cycle it is odd to find the religious and extreme right embrace a black candidate when the hatred and resentment of Barack Obama on the right is so plainly rooted in race. How can that be? Then we have a similar instance with Herman Cain.
While these are real candidacies (both men have been lulled into running) the support is all false. The racist base of the republican party continues to want to believe (or have the rest of us believe) that their hatred and fear of Obama is not based on race and so they flirt with a unicorn in each cycle: the black republican who contorts reality to stand out on the right. Will the support for Carson be there when folks go to the ballot? Of course not. But it is a racist's camouflage to feign such support early in the election cycle. They want to defy the wide spread assumption that opposing Obama is in any way connected to racial fear and hostility and so they find a black candidate they can support. Cain never had a chance of course and either does Carson. Why Carson, though? Carson's bizarre and extreme hostility to Obama and Obama Care makes him a show pony for now: supporting him for a while is just another way to hate Obama. That is the real Carson illusion.
While these are real candidacies (both men have been lulled into running) the support is all false. The racist base of the republican party continues to want to believe (or have the rest of us believe) that their hatred and fear of Obama is not based on race and so they flirt with a unicorn in each cycle: the black republican who contorts reality to stand out on the right. Will the support for Carson be there when folks go to the ballot? Of course not. But it is a racist's camouflage to feign such support early in the election cycle. They want to defy the wide spread assumption that opposing Obama is in any way connected to racial fear and hostility and so they find a black candidate they can support. Cain never had a chance of course and either does Carson. Why Carson, though? Carson's bizarre and extreme hostility to Obama and Obama Care makes him a show pony for now: supporting him for a while is just another way to hate Obama. That is the real Carson illusion.
35
"...they maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics." Really?
I'm surprised that the Times copy editors didn't catch this error by Douthat, who is a well-known dyslexic.
Douthat's tried really hard to say, "...they maintain a traditional ethic regarding sexual positions."
I hope to see this fixed in later editions.
I'm surprised that the Times copy editors didn't catch this error by Douthat, who is a well-known dyslexic.
Douthat's tried really hard to say, "...they maintain a traditional ethic regarding sexual positions."
I hope to see this fixed in later editions.
10
Let's see, Carson is an accomplished doctor/scientist but doesn't believe in evolution. He hates Obama and is a doctor against the ACA which has provided affordable insurance coverage for millions who never had it before, many of whom are people of color. He is a climate change denier.
He is basically the politicial equivalent of Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court jurist who has consistently voted against the interests of the poor, disadvantaged and politically powerless based on a radical right wing agenda and not on an honest interpretation of the law as applied to the facts and issues before the court.
If Carson is an illusion, thanks be to God he is.
He is basically the politicial equivalent of Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court jurist who has consistently voted against the interests of the poor, disadvantaged and politically powerless based on a radical right wing agenda and not on an honest interpretation of the law as applied to the facts and issues before the court.
If Carson is an illusion, thanks be to God he is.
38
I am enjoying watching the conservative pundits including Brooks and Douthat squirm. They failed to call out the tea partiers for the weasels that they were and for the obstructionist Republicans in congress for their failure not only to lead but seek bi-partisan agreements. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell have been abject failures. Now the Republican elites like Brooks and Douthat are upset that the evangelicals whose only interests are in preserving their white christian power are gasping their last breaths and in doing so are ripping apart the GOP. Well Ross i think that your party is reaping what it has sown, a giant patch of briars and nettles. Have fun with that.
71
Apparently evangelicals don't or can't or won't separate religion from politics. And that might be the source of their challenge finding a well-rounded well-balanced candidate they can support or turn into a GOP hero. Political choices based solely on someone's religious belief system limits critical thinking. And without critical thinking it's impossible to evaluate the whole person. It's impossible to determine whether or not a particular candidate is sufficiently competent, experienced, and overall has the right stuff for the job they are seeking. Especially if the job is leader of the free world.
12
Well stated!
Douthat's fantasy that churches will be able to carve out exceptions to federal law and civil rights is more silly than any fantasy of the evalengelicals. Hobby Lobby notwithstanding, the times they are a' changing Ross
10
Is Ben Carson just giving a speech in the photograph accompanying the article or is he swaying in ecstasy? I am really scared about what this devout doctor's presidency will mean for America. Hopefully, he will never even get close to the nomination. Christianity has become another tool in the hands of Republicans- a tool to exploit the gullible, a tool to grab power and a tool to advance policies that are actually antithetical to the core beliefs of Christianity.
Many of us are disgusted by the vise-like grip of religion on politics in our country. Is it possible that one day we will have an agnostic or an atheist president? A president who will define morality and compassion not in terms of religious teachings but in terms of our shared humanity. Probably not in the foreseeable future, but one can always hope.
Many of us are disgusted by the vise-like grip of religion on politics in our country. Is it possible that one day we will have an agnostic or an atheist president? A president who will define morality and compassion not in terms of religious teachings but in terms of our shared humanity. Probably not in the foreseeable future, but one can always hope.
27
"Traditional position on sexual ethics." Really, Mr. Douthat. Aren't you unconsciously promoting traditional sexual positions, a facet of human intercourse that has no bearing on "ethics." It might come as a surprise to you, but when one considers the number of divorced evangelicals - all of whom have ignored one very clear statement by Jesus - it seems that sequential polygamy/polyandry is par for the course.
17
Ross, it's unfair that the NYT gives you 1500 or so words to make your point and we get 1500 characters, tops, to slice and dice your column. The challenge makes it fun.
Do you know what a skyhook is? It's a multi-pronged, fishhook-shaped tool with a rope attached that one throws up into the air in hopes it will snag something, anything, allowing one to shinny up the rope to escape a dangerous situation. For evangelical Republicans, that "dangerous situation" is "reality."
Ben Carson is this year's skyhook for the Republican evangelistic right. Carson's faith -on which he is basing his campaign and which is the core of his most ardent support- is, per Article VI of the Constitution, is completely immaterial. Period.
Ben Carson is accustomed to being in complete control, essential in the environs of the surgery suite, especially when the focus of the operation is the brain of small child. Do you think for a moment the House of Representatives and the Senate, consisting of opposing factions bent on philosophically, if not actually physically, dismembering each other will fall into an obedient hush and acquiesce to every whispered "request" of a President Carson?
Ben Carson is a good and kind man. He has saved lives beyond number. He should follow in the path of John Stewart and go out on top. As a politician, which he will have no choice but to be, he will be a failure. On the national and the global stage.
It's a shame he doesn't realize it.
Do you know what a skyhook is? It's a multi-pronged, fishhook-shaped tool with a rope attached that one throws up into the air in hopes it will snag something, anything, allowing one to shinny up the rope to escape a dangerous situation. For evangelical Republicans, that "dangerous situation" is "reality."
Ben Carson is this year's skyhook for the Republican evangelistic right. Carson's faith -on which he is basing his campaign and which is the core of his most ardent support- is, per Article VI of the Constitution, is completely immaterial. Period.
Ben Carson is accustomed to being in complete control, essential in the environs of the surgery suite, especially when the focus of the operation is the brain of small child. Do you think for a moment the House of Representatives and the Senate, consisting of opposing factions bent on philosophically, if not actually physically, dismembering each other will fall into an obedient hush and acquiesce to every whispered "request" of a President Carson?
Ben Carson is a good and kind man. He has saved lives beyond number. He should follow in the path of John Stewart and go out on top. As a politician, which he will have no choice but to be, he will be a failure. On the national and the global stage.
It's a shame he doesn't realize it.
8
Wow! Douthat may be close to a personal breakthrough. If he can tell that Trump and Carson are cranks, he may be on the verge of realizing that the entire Republican Party has become the Home of the Crank. Go, Ross!
47
What seems more inexplicable about Evangelical support for Dr. Carson than any lack of policy specifics is that they would support a Black man. Have we not been told how racist the Religious Right is? Yes, Dr. Carson exemplifies the virtues to which all fair-minded people aspire—graciousness, humility, courage, determination, and kindness, but don’t they know he is Black. Yes, Dr. Carson would bring to the Presidency a record of unparalleled accomplishment among the candidates and a world-class intellect, but don’t they know he is Black. I never even hear them mention his race, in stark contrast to the constant racial drumbeat leading up to the election of President Obama. Of course, the problem with the Religious Right is that they believe to reject racism you should treat people equally regardless of their race or ethnicity, and the Left has now rejects the idea that people should be judged based on the “content of their character.” The Left now believes that racism is any failure to fight or resist the “White Power Structure,” which often involves disparate treatment based on race. As far as I am concerned, if treating people based on the content of their character, as the Evangelicals clearly do with respect to Dr. Carson, is racist, as Patrick Henry said of treason, let us make the most of it.
3
"they believe to reject racism you should treat people equally regardless of their race or ethnicity"
After all that has happened, you truly believe that is an accurate description of our right wingers?
Racist abuse of Obama, racist commentary on the police shooting of unarmed blacks, voting rights rollbacks, and so much more for years now, and it all means that they treat people equally regardless? The only racism is on the left?
After all that has happened, you truly believe that is an accurate description of our right wingers?
Racist abuse of Obama, racist commentary on the police shooting of unarmed blacks, voting rights rollbacks, and so much more for years now, and it all means that they treat people equally regardless? The only racism is on the left?
2
^ your argument exposes it's own fallacy.
you are not discussing why Carson would make a good President.
you are saying "Carson" proves the GOP isn't racist.
But this means that you are using him to 'protest too much'.
ps - the content of President Obama's character is sublime. Doesn't stop the hate though does it?
you are not discussing why Carson would make a good President.
you are saying "Carson" proves the GOP isn't racist.
But this means that you are using him to 'protest too much'.
ps - the content of President Obama's character is sublime. Doesn't stop the hate though does it?
2
The left now believes anyone who doesn't share its views on immigration is "racist", on gay marriage a "homophobe" and on abortion a "sexist". No surprise, every single republican fits neatly into one of the left's boxes.
Of course, evangelicals will believe in a a mythical leader to emerge who will magically reverse the trajectory of our nation's social mores ... they have seen fables similar to that all over the good book that they take literally, apparently because there is no other way to keep the faith.
5
There is one person who will " stand at the crossroads and change things for good" and that is Jesus who, at some time in the future, will rapture His church and then will come again to this world. Christians who believe that this will occur( and most believers do) often become impatient as they look around at our culture and observe what they perceive to be a rapid decline in moral values. Consequently, as voters, they will embrace any candidate who they think will slow down this decline, as they await those divine events.
1
But why would they want to postpone 'those divine events'?
1
The First Amendment needs to defense. it is what it is. "The First Amendment guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition. It forbids Congress from both promoting one religion over others and also restricting an individual’s religious practices. It guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely. It also guarantees the right of citizens to assemble peaceably and to petition their government."
Any Defense Act of the First Amendment is an attempt to make exceptions to the rights promised all Americans.
Any Defense Act of the First Amendment is an attempt to make exceptions to the rights promised all Americans.
8
" It’s a class revolt, driven by a sadly-justifiable sense that Republican elites don’t have working-class interests close enough to heart."
By "working-class interests" you mean xenophobia, race-baiting, bigotry and slashing tax rates for the .1%, right?
Because most regular working folks talking about "working-class interests" would be talking about fair pay for fair day's work, decent schools for their kids, a chance at being able to eat when they retire, and having their government treat them fairly regardless of the race or income bracket.
By "working-class interests" you mean xenophobia, race-baiting, bigotry and slashing tax rates for the .1%, right?
Because most regular working folks talking about "working-class interests" would be talking about fair pay for fair day's work, decent schools for their kids, a chance at being able to eat when they retire, and having their government treat them fairly regardless of the race or income bracket.
26
Ben Carson represents what core conservatives believe - the US is a meritocracy where if you have the talent and work hard you will succeed. But even though he is a brain surgeon, he doesn't have the experience to be president.
On the other hand, what's all this discussion about how Republicans are racist? Based on Dr. Carson (as well as Tim Scott, Clarence Thomas, and many others) it seems Republicans care more about your policies and principles than they do about the color of your skin.
On the other hand, what's all this discussion about how Republicans are racist? Based on Dr. Carson (as well as Tim Scott, Clarence Thomas, and many others) it seems Republicans care more about your policies and principles than they do about the color of your skin.
2
^ the whole idea the the GOP cares about 'values' is a sham - Trump exposes that fact.
Carson's appeal is that he is a black man who called President Obama a psychopath - which therefore means the GOP isn't racist.
Likewise Rubio is a Hispanic who will help them keep the Mexicans out, and so forth.
Carly of course rants and lies in an effort to deny women control over their own bodies.
Keep trying to fool yourself into thinking there is no obvious pattern here.
Carson's appeal is that he is a black man who called President Obama a psychopath - which therefore means the GOP isn't racist.
Likewise Rubio is a Hispanic who will help them keep the Mexicans out, and so forth.
Carly of course rants and lies in an effort to deny women control over their own bodies.
Keep trying to fool yourself into thinking there is no obvious pattern here.
1
Like it or not, the Republican leaders, their think tanks, pundits with stiff upper lips can disdain and demean Trump all they like but the fact is there is a Republican base which is very angry, hungry, feeling hopeless. Their Party has not delivered for them, their needs, their aspirations to a decent life. They are finally waking up. Thrice-married sybarite? Whatever, the base could'nt care less. They are just fed up of the Party Establishment and religious zealots. To them Trump seems to be the antidote to their woes. Bring back American jobs, penalize the off-shoring conglomerates, tax the hedge-fund managers ( not them ), improve infrastructure ( thereby their daily commute ), universal health care, bigotry, racism, misogyny. He is bluntly, unafraid voicing what is really in their hearts. He is no hypocrite hiding behind meaningless words. And religion, Ross? They don't care! As for Ben Carson, I'm sure he is perplexed how he has landed where he has. He is the antitheses of everything Republican. He should stick to his real day job, where his very superior skills are needed, where he has been making a real difference in people's lives. Be contemptuous of Trump all you like, but he will be having the last laugh.
1
Ross, you sound rueful as you conclude that the longer Christian conservatives hold out for a Carson presidency, the less likely they are to realize their agenda. Frankly, this particular platform should not pass for national leadership. Homophobia, anti-choice sentiment, religious schooling are all personal beliefs and personal choices, not the basis for governance. Marriage equality, legal abortion, the ACA, and so on are the law of the land. Dr. Carson should not make it to the White House not only because he has yet to even cut his political teeth, but because what he stands for is inapt for a President.
14
Dr. Carson is a perfectly respectable place for undecided GOP voters to park their preferences until the actual voting begins next year. He's a better black Republican placeholder than Herman Cain was last time, the best since Colin Powell in 1995. Like most Americans, Republicans are biased in favor of blacks. Eventually, the Republicans will nominate a black candidate, probably with a sports or military background (e.g., Russell Wilson in 2040?).
Sorry, Russell Wilson will still be winning Superbowls for the Seahawks in 2040, as long as he hands the football to Marshawn Lynch.
1
As a family doc I have to interact occasionally with neurosurgeons....but try to avoid it when possible. It’s usually to advocate for my patient and the family. As in “Don’t touch this guy! He’s 98 and dying already!”
Neurosurgeons are incredibly ego-centric. And this neurosurgeon is so impressed with himself that he wrote a book made into a movie called “Gifted Hands.” This is the guy in the surgical suite who is talking conspiracy story after conspiracy story and there is NO ONE that can say “Uh no doctor you’re dead wrong.” Instead the nurses and scrub techs roll their eyes and say “Yes doctor..Whatever you say doctor.” And neurosurgery can last up to 16-18 hours.
So Carson hears himself talk without ANY ONE differing. Now he REALLY believes that having a Department of Veterans Affairs is a waste of money. And he talks and talks without interruption how the VA only serves a “small minority of people.”
Small. 22 million Vets In 2013. The VA had 312,841 full-time equivalent employees. 151 medical centers and 827 outpatient clinics. The VA served over six million people in 2013.
Yes there have been delays. But when they DO get seen the patients report a very high rating of their care. They REALLY like their care and if you know the military as I do, that’s pretty remarkable! There wouldn’t have been ANY delays if Shrub had increased the VA’s budget by 50% when he started two wars.
Dr. Carson just babbles on and AGAIN no one says “That’s WRONG doc!”
Neurosurgeons are incredibly ego-centric. And this neurosurgeon is so impressed with himself that he wrote a book made into a movie called “Gifted Hands.” This is the guy in the surgical suite who is talking conspiracy story after conspiracy story and there is NO ONE that can say “Uh no doctor you’re dead wrong.” Instead the nurses and scrub techs roll their eyes and say “Yes doctor..Whatever you say doctor.” And neurosurgery can last up to 16-18 hours.
So Carson hears himself talk without ANY ONE differing. Now he REALLY believes that having a Department of Veterans Affairs is a waste of money. And he talks and talks without interruption how the VA only serves a “small minority of people.”
Small. 22 million Vets In 2013. The VA had 312,841 full-time equivalent employees. 151 medical centers and 827 outpatient clinics. The VA served over six million people in 2013.
Yes there have been delays. But when they DO get seen the patients report a very high rating of their care. They REALLY like their care and if you know the military as I do, that’s pretty remarkable! There wouldn’t have been ANY delays if Shrub had increased the VA’s budget by 50% when he started two wars.
Dr. Carson just babbles on and AGAIN no one says “That’s WRONG doc!”
75
But Mr. Douthat, where is the Carson fantasy, or better stated, what is the Carson fantasy? Is it his positions on religion, women, immigration, jobs creation etc that are so, to be kind oblique, that you don't even mention them? Or is it that you see him acting out his own "fantasy" for us to experience which is how I see his candidacy so far. On the other hand perhaps it's totally other than this.
Ignoring Donald Trump's excitable persona and
his apparent intelligence, can anyone really
picture him as President?
There must be, among the other candidates,
someone equally or more qualified.
his apparent intelligence, can anyone really
picture him as President?
There must be, among the other candidates,
someone equally or more qualified.
"They need guarantees that the next G.O.P. administration will move proactively — through something like Senator Mike Lee’s evolving First Amendment Defense Act — to protect religious schools and charities from losing grants or accreditation or even tax-exempt status because they maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics."
Translation: it's OK to discriminate against gays. Frank Luntz could not have word smithed it better.
This is a dangerous, grave and gathering threat to American freedom. It allows individuals to disobey the law at will with no consequences merely on their say so that it offends so sensibility.
Take the Kim Davis case in Kentucky. No, not the Kim Davis who did not want to personally issue marriage licenses to gay couples. The Kim Davis who is, without lawful authority of the legislature, altering the licenses to remove not only her own name, but the fact that the clerk of the county is issuing the license. Her deputies now cannot sign the licenses as deputy clerks, only as notary publics.
This is creating a two tier system of marriage license in KY and the Kim Davis license, because it is not one approved by the legislature, may not be legally recognized by the other states.
So, Davis's demand for religious freedom is violating the 14th amendment rights of equal protection for gays.
RFRA must be repealed. Religion must be kept in a box on the altar of the house of worship. Guys like Carson and Huckabee must be mocked at every turn.
Translation: it's OK to discriminate against gays. Frank Luntz could not have word smithed it better.
This is a dangerous, grave and gathering threat to American freedom. It allows individuals to disobey the law at will with no consequences merely on their say so that it offends so sensibility.
Take the Kim Davis case in Kentucky. No, not the Kim Davis who did not want to personally issue marriage licenses to gay couples. The Kim Davis who is, without lawful authority of the legislature, altering the licenses to remove not only her own name, but the fact that the clerk of the county is issuing the license. Her deputies now cannot sign the licenses as deputy clerks, only as notary publics.
This is creating a two tier system of marriage license in KY and the Kim Davis license, because it is not one approved by the legislature, may not be legally recognized by the other states.
So, Davis's demand for religious freedom is violating the 14th amendment rights of equal protection for gays.
RFRA must be repealed. Religion must be kept in a box on the altar of the house of worship. Guys like Carson and Huckabee must be mocked at every turn.
34
Doctor Ben Carson doesn't believe in evolution. Is there anything else you need to know that disqualifies him from being the president?
44
Carson is an empty-handed wind bag, just like Donald Trump.
So I won't dignify this article with any other COMMENT.
So I won't dignify this article with any other COMMENT.
10
For two decades, possibly longer, Republican party leaders, with plenty of help from many of the same conservative pundits who now derisively call their based the "Trumpen Proletariat," have fed, watered, and given plenty of air and sunshine to the most extreme, radical, bigoted and xenophobic elements within their party. And now they are shocked -- SHOCKED -- at what their party has become. As the saying goes, "You made your bed . . ."
16
Carson exists purely to absolve white Evangelicals of their racist guilt.
17
I agree, except that evangelicals never experience guilt.
1
What is missing from this piece is that evangelicals act as if somehow they are owed ( by history, by the popular culture, by Their Favorite Deity ) redemption. Like they are somehow entitled. Every time I hear some pious baloney being frothed about in this campaign, all I can see in my mind's eye is that scene from the movie version of Inherit the Wind, where the grandparents of today's evangelicals are marching down the street, singing 'if it's good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me'. I feel for their cultural displacement, but they are not "taking back" anything, much less the country.
19
When asked, Dr. Carson stated he doesn't believe in evolution. That is more than frightening, especially from a physician who certainly had to be exposed and schooled in developmental anatomy...you know, the kind where you learn that the growing fetus has parts that resemble " fins and a tail ". Check out some pictures Doc.
17
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, i.e., everything a well-qualified scientist needs to know!
1
Jonah Goldberg still has a job? I would have thought that "FDR was a fascist" book would have discredited him permanently. Alas, conservatives ...
9
"They need guarantees that the next G.O.P. administration will move proactively ... to protect religious schools and charities from losing grants or accreditation or even tax-exempt status because they maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics. I’m sure that a President Ben Carson would deliver these protections."
Protecting discrimination. What a shameful basis for electing a President or subverting Christianity. I didn't work for George Wallace and Strom Thurman, but who's to say.
Protecting discrimination. What a shameful basis for electing a President or subverting Christianity. I didn't work for George Wallace and Strom Thurman, but who's to say.
16
Tax religion.
1
Carson may be the most dangerous person in America. So calm, so quite, so psychotic. Have you heard what he is actually saying? He's the insane man speaking in a calm tone.
The entire GOPer slate is out to destroy America, and Trump makes them all sound reasonable. Carly seems credible after Donald's attacks, but she makes Madam DeFarge seem reasonable on policy matters.
We are in trouble.
Every American of good conscience, RD included, should be sounding the alarm over this entire slate of GOP malefactors.
The entire GOPer slate is out to destroy America, and Trump makes them all sound reasonable. Carly seems credible after Donald's attacks, but she makes Madam DeFarge seem reasonable on policy matters.
We are in trouble.
Every American of good conscience, RD included, should be sounding the alarm over this entire slate of GOP malefactors.
28
"the evangelical tendency has been to look for a kind of godly hero"
Isn't Jesus Christ a Godly enough hero? He defeats death and cares for the less fortunate, showing love and compassion while distributing undeserved grace despite all the havoc mankind has created and embraced. Why do evangelicals feel a politician is needed?
Isn't Jesus Christ a Godly enough hero? He defeats death and cares for the less fortunate, showing love and compassion while distributing undeserved grace despite all the havoc mankind has created and embraced. Why do evangelicals feel a politician is needed?
13
The very idea that Republicans would nominate someone of color for the Presidency.....or a woman.....Mwahahahaha. Good one.
8
Ben Carson during the first Republican debate said that as President he would do away with the Geneva Conventions. And Ben Carson is a "good" Christian?
33
Yes, indeed, the political season is upon us. One by one we can see the pundits trying to take down the candidates. Left, right and center, they can't seem to pass up the opportunity to dump on every parade. And the candidates on the right seem the worst of all by hitting one another so hard that whoever wins loses because they have been weakened by the barbs of so called fellow conservatives. Democrats seem to possess sufficient self restraint to not kill off their fellow travelers.
4
Quote
Carson is .....decent, modest, soft-spoken, devout, with an astonishing biography and an admirable character.
Unquote
decent...like saying Ocare is the worst thing since the holocaust ?
decent....like being a huckster for a line of fake medicine aka herbal supplements ?
decent...not saying something when Trump lets someone get away with saying the president is a Muslim born outside the US ?
if that is decent.....
Carson is .....decent, modest, soft-spoken, devout, with an astonishing biography and an admirable character.
Unquote
decent...like saying Ocare is the worst thing since the holocaust ?
decent....like being a huckster for a line of fake medicine aka herbal supplements ?
decent...not saying something when Trump lets someone get away with saying the president is a Muslim born outside the US ?
if that is decent.....
17
A brilliant and smashingly great piece by Ross Douthat. Mr. Douthat has his finger on the pulse of the political system in the U.S. better than anyone in the business.
Ben Carson is another character who will fade after the early primaries. His progeny can always say that he ran for president but that will be all.
Ben Carson is another character who will fade after the early primaries. His progeny can always say that he ran for president but that will be all.
1
The Republican Party has lost its frontal lobe. It is now a collection of angry people mad at how the world has changed. The most educated Americans (those with post graduate degrees) are Democratic voters in the majority, and that should tell you something. They have no taste for the know-nothings and the cranks and the barely concealed racism beating within the present day Republican Party. This is not good for democracy. We need both parties to represent a viable alternative to keep a check on each other. The Republicans have not been competitive on a national level for a decade and have won the popular vote only once in the last 28 years. They rely on a shrinking demographic, the elderly and non-college educated Whites.
What needs to happen to break this is for the Republicans to suffer a cathartic defeat in which the avatar of their anger is beaten by 10 points and they lose the Senate and plenty of House seats. Nominating Trump may be the path to that.
If the Dems win in 2016, they will replace Scalia and Kennedy on SCOTUS and ensure 25 years of a liberal court. It will undo all the various abortion restrictions that have been enacted, overturn Citizens United, get rid of voter ID laws (did George Washington have to produce a driver's license to vote?), and perhaps even get rid of partisan gerrymandering at all levels of government as a violation of the 14th Amendment. This is the doom that is staring down at the GOP.
What needs to happen to break this is for the Republicans to suffer a cathartic defeat in which the avatar of their anger is beaten by 10 points and they lose the Senate and plenty of House seats. Nominating Trump may be the path to that.
If the Dems win in 2016, they will replace Scalia and Kennedy on SCOTUS and ensure 25 years of a liberal court. It will undo all the various abortion restrictions that have been enacted, overturn Citizens United, get rid of voter ID laws (did George Washington have to produce a driver's license to vote?), and perhaps even get rid of partisan gerrymandering at all levels of government as a violation of the 14th Amendment. This is the doom that is staring down at the GOP.
413
Maybe, would be good, but don't place any bets against the charlatans.
Your rather firm hypothesis that Democrats are the educated and Republicans essentially old, and white Neanderthals is a clear demonstration not everyone in the Democrat sphere fits your model. These broad generalities about nearly half the country that leans toward one party or the other is nothing short of idiocy. You add nothing to the discussion except stereotypical bias.
1
It's a better alternative than electing the Repubs, starting another fatuous war, and ending up in ruins and foreign occupation like Germany in 1945.
The CheneyBush administration, following the blueprint of the Project for the New American Century (in which many of its principals participated from 1997-2000), exploited 9/11 (and one can argue allowed to happen, using the clueless Condi Rice as National Security Advisor who ignored eight solid months of warnings), shredded the Constitution in favor of the illusion of security, starting a war based on lies to seize Iraqi oil to profit Halliburton. We're lucky that it didn't boomerang yet, as Germany's attack on the USSR did by early 1943 with the surrender at Stalingrad and accelerating with the loss of the tank battle at the Kursk Salient.
It will if any saber-rattling Repub is elected.
The CheneyBush administration, following the blueprint of the Project for the New American Century (in which many of its principals participated from 1997-2000), exploited 9/11 (and one can argue allowed to happen, using the clueless Condi Rice as National Security Advisor who ignored eight solid months of warnings), shredded the Constitution in favor of the illusion of security, starting a war based on lies to seize Iraqi oil to profit Halliburton. We're lucky that it didn't boomerang yet, as Germany's attack on the USSR did by early 1943 with the surrender at Stalingrad and accelerating with the loss of the tank battle at the Kursk Salient.
It will if any saber-rattling Repub is elected.
5
This is dishonest. There has been a lot of research and writing on the Evangelical protestant community linking its fortunes to the GOP. The galvanizing issue wasn't abortion or gay marriage, it was desegregation. That is the one huge loss in the culture wars which binds this grouping of largely Confederate- and border-state-Evangelical-conservatives together. Abortion and gay rights came much later. The South flipped after the Civil Rights Act pushed by Texan Lyndon Johnson. We all know that is what states' rights means -- the ability to maintain segregation, the on-going battle to reduce the voting and economic influence of minorities. That's what birtherism and the fight against granting official status to resident illegal immigrants is all about. That's why Trump appeals. He is running the most nakedly racist campaign since George Wallace.
The schools which are to be protected. Many of those were created and functioned to maintain segregation as 'private' institutions, favored by government, after de jure segregation was prohibited.
Why wouldn't conservative Christians support what you strangely call the 'sybaritic' Trump? Is divorce less common among this group? Out of wedlock births? The three marriages that Trump has? Addiction? Incest? No, those are all more common among this group than among liberals in general. The Evangelical base isn't holier than Trump or than the liberal base. That's just a myth which you want to create.
The schools which are to be protected. Many of those were created and functioned to maintain segregation as 'private' institutions, favored by government, after de jure segregation was prohibited.
Why wouldn't conservative Christians support what you strangely call the 'sybaritic' Trump? Is divorce less common among this group? Out of wedlock births? The three marriages that Trump has? Addiction? Incest? No, those are all more common among this group than among liberals in general. The Evangelical base isn't holier than Trump or than the liberal base. That's just a myth which you want to create.
27
To say that "Carson, on the other hand, is running a more content-free campaign" implies that Trump's musings actually consist of real content. Whenever he is asked to explain how one of his "policies" would actually be implemented he just claims it will be done by superior management. He has no more content than Carson.
9
First Amendment Defense Act....horse feathers! This act will continue to force ME to pay for the expenses of religious fanatics who want to ignore the law while telling the rest of us how to live! Not a surprise that Russ would support this attack on the Constituion and the separation of church and state!
32
And while we are at it, we should pay very close attention to the GOP effort to once again suppress the vote, and diminish voter turnout in key states where they have obtained legislative control over voter laws. That is the Trojan Horse in this upcoming election.
22
I'll take Trump and Carson's "content-free" and "underinformed" campaigns over pollster-vetted talking point serial liars who who've never held a real job and will say and do anything their puppet masters want. Please and thank you.
-moderate millennial
-moderate millennial
3
Here's some sleight of hand by Ross. Religious schools and charities don't lose grants or accreditation because they maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics. They only lose this favored status when they inflict their values on others. It never once crossed my mind to expect others to subscribe to my personal sexual ethics. What reasonable person would?
20
Increasingly, those who express an opinion about voting in a Republican primary look more and more as though they are seeking a date with the new guy in the neighborhood. But as an interactive graphic elsewhere in the Times shows, neither Trump nor Carson have attracted endorsements or the kind of party money that is vital to continuing as candidates and securing a nomination. Trump speaks often about pouring vast sums of his own money into his campaign, but his entire history of success has been parlaying other people's money (OPM in the financial vernacular) into profits for himself. So far, OPM has not become available to him, and I doubt that he ever had any intention of spending big amounts of his own money to run this race. He and Carson both are fighting reality if this doesn't change, if history is a guide.
The same is true for Dr. Carson. He's a great date for a lot evangelicals and political rebels, but he has no institutional foundation to support his candidacy.
As usual, the solution proposed by Ross Douthat continues the trend in the GOP to look away from issues that count to most people who will vote in a general election and make the difference when the tallies become final: the independents. The GOP will remain in the wilderness and be ignored, despite all the cawing about about how persecuted people of faith are, unless it begins to address economic inequality and reform of the tax code so that the wealthy pay a fair share of the burden.
The same is true for Dr. Carson. He's a great date for a lot evangelicals and political rebels, but he has no institutional foundation to support his candidacy.
As usual, the solution proposed by Ross Douthat continues the trend in the GOP to look away from issues that count to most people who will vote in a general election and make the difference when the tallies become final: the independents. The GOP will remain in the wilderness and be ignored, despite all the cawing about about how persecuted people of faith are, unless it begins to address economic inequality and reform of the tax code so that the wealthy pay a fair share of the burden.
15
"Carson, on the other hand, is running a more content-free campaign. "
Understatement of the year, unless you agree with his notion that his mother's image should be on the ten dollar bill.
Understatement of the year, unless you agree with his notion that his mother's image should be on the ten dollar bill.
14
Oh Lord (note: I'm not an Evangelical!). Please spare us Mr. Douthat. Should Carson indeed get the nomination--which is probably more remote than many of the candidates--any alliance he might form with Mike Lee's religion-based 1st amendment protection law adherents, would virtually guarantee a victory for the Democrats.
First of all, the 1st Amendment does not need any protection. Christians, Evangelicals, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and every other sect known to man have total freedom to practice their religion, and believe whatever they want to believe. But you better believe that should any religion try to maintain tax exempt status and go against the secular laws of the land by legislating or implementing bigotry, they would indeed lose those tax exemptions.
Because any injecting any interpretation, implementation, obstruction or promotion of any religious belief regarding existing secular laws and civil statutes is totally contrary to the 1st Amendment they feel needs protection.
It only needs protection in the eyes of those who would flout it when they aren't getting their way. So, while Carson likely won't get the nod, it won't be because of Evangelical zeal for him as a prophet. It will be because he's totally unqualified to bring his nutty ideas (the ACA is slavery!, the president is Hitler!) into the body politic, or the public square.
Some things are indeed more important than religion--like temperament, political chops, and thinking before you speak.
First of all, the 1st Amendment does not need any protection. Christians, Evangelicals, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and every other sect known to man have total freedom to practice their religion, and believe whatever they want to believe. But you better believe that should any religion try to maintain tax exempt status and go against the secular laws of the land by legislating or implementing bigotry, they would indeed lose those tax exemptions.
Because any injecting any interpretation, implementation, obstruction or promotion of any religious belief regarding existing secular laws and civil statutes is totally contrary to the 1st Amendment they feel needs protection.
It only needs protection in the eyes of those who would flout it when they aren't getting their way. So, while Carson likely won't get the nod, it won't be because of Evangelical zeal for him as a prophet. It will be because he's totally unqualified to bring his nutty ideas (the ACA is slavery!, the president is Hitler!) into the body politic, or the public square.
Some things are indeed more important than religion--like temperament, political chops, and thinking before you speak.
26
Ben Carson has attracted a fraction of the scrutiny paid to The Donald because he’s not a buffoon. He’s a very serious man, and his basic decency is manifestly evident whenever he speaks. But Ross makes a valid point that Carson’s campaign is less about ideas than about comfortable platitudes and himself.
So much so that it seems as if Ross’s column should focus on Carson plus one other candidate, because Carson doesn’t fully occupy the real estate all by himself.
But despite the fantasy-like aspect of a Carson candidacy, Ross appears to be very negative about the prospects of religious schools and institutions at least retaining their traditional protections and rights in the teeth of an advancing wave of social progressivism. I suspect that such protections will be dead issues in a century, but I don’t see indications within the enabling conventions, such as legislatures, law, the federal courts, U.S. Supreme Court, or even the willingness of enough Americans, to see it happen any time soon.
That said, what I believe is that any political influence held by evangelicals has peaked in America; and that their power will be greatly attenuated as time passes by a recognition that we remain deadlocked in a Congress that spends less time concerning itself with a hollowed-out military and the unsustainability of our entitlements than it does about whether Planned Parenthood gets a measly $500 million per year of public monies.
So much so that it seems as if Ross’s column should focus on Carson plus one other candidate, because Carson doesn’t fully occupy the real estate all by himself.
But despite the fantasy-like aspect of a Carson candidacy, Ross appears to be very negative about the prospects of religious schools and institutions at least retaining their traditional protections and rights in the teeth of an advancing wave of social progressivism. I suspect that such protections will be dead issues in a century, but I don’t see indications within the enabling conventions, such as legislatures, law, the federal courts, U.S. Supreme Court, or even the willingness of enough Americans, to see it happen any time soon.
That said, what I believe is that any political influence held by evangelicals has peaked in America; and that their power will be greatly attenuated as time passes by a recognition that we remain deadlocked in a Congress that spends less time concerning itself with a hollowed-out military and the unsustainability of our entitlements than it does about whether Planned Parenthood gets a measly $500 million per year of public monies.
6
This week our Conservative Prime Minister told us honestly what I have known since my father informed me 60 years ago it can happen here. I and millions more are second class citizens. The spin machine is working overtime to tell us what the Prime Minister really meant to say.
FDR was President because he was a Roosevelt. Bernie Sanders will not be President because he is Bernie Sanders. Hillary may be President because she is a Rodham. Obama is President because America gave us a second class intellect as President because he was an Old Stock first class citizen and America's first class citizens really needed a brilliant, hardworking problem solver in the White House.
Steve Schmidt told us that we may indeed see a Trump or a Carson in the White House. The American Enterprise Institute and the neo-con movement is filled with second class Americans with first class skills in sophistry. They created a monster to protect themselves. Mr Schmidt this week told them they no longer control the monster. Richard you have a brain engage it.
FDR was President because he was a Roosevelt. Bernie Sanders will not be President because he is Bernie Sanders. Hillary may be President because she is a Rodham. Obama is President because America gave us a second class intellect as President because he was an Old Stock first class citizen and America's first class citizens really needed a brilliant, hardworking problem solver in the White House.
Steve Schmidt told us that we may indeed see a Trump or a Carson in the White House. The American Enterprise Institute and the neo-con movement is filled with second class Americans with first class skills in sophistry. They created a monster to protect themselves. Mr Schmidt this week told them they no longer control the monster. Richard you have a brain engage it.
1
There's a nugget of real wisdom in this editorial, and that's the assertion (finally!) that working class GOP workers, with reason, feel betrayed by the party elite.
Hooray.
Rather than being mad at the voters, Ross, why aren't the party elite considering the fact that Social Security and Medicare - indeed, a single payer health care system! - are good, or would be good, for the majority of American citizens.
There's nothing extravagant or unusual about Bernie Sanders' platform. In Europe, and in many other advanced nations, he'd be pretty middle of the road. The American "left," in other words, isn't really left wing at all. It simply reflects ideas that support society as a whole and free people from the worst barriers to productive, successful lives: poverty and illness.
The American Right doesn't make any sense to me at all. None of your policies work except for a handful of very rich, very powerful and oppressive people and corporations, people and corporations which exert tremendous influence on all aspects of our lives, which are becoming increasingly oppressive, which crush opportunity and competition, and which are actually destructive.
Yes - destructive. The government shutdowns, the refusal to fix our infrastructure, constant attempts to take away access to health care, especially for women and poor people - really abusive policies toward women! are destructive and corrosive to the body politic.
The GOP is hurting us Ross. It's time to evolve.
Hooray.
Rather than being mad at the voters, Ross, why aren't the party elite considering the fact that Social Security and Medicare - indeed, a single payer health care system! - are good, or would be good, for the majority of American citizens.
There's nothing extravagant or unusual about Bernie Sanders' platform. In Europe, and in many other advanced nations, he'd be pretty middle of the road. The American "left," in other words, isn't really left wing at all. It simply reflects ideas that support society as a whole and free people from the worst barriers to productive, successful lives: poverty and illness.
The American Right doesn't make any sense to me at all. None of your policies work except for a handful of very rich, very powerful and oppressive people and corporations, people and corporations which exert tremendous influence on all aspects of our lives, which are becoming increasingly oppressive, which crush opportunity and competition, and which are actually destructive.
Yes - destructive. The government shutdowns, the refusal to fix our infrastructure, constant attempts to take away access to health care, especially for women and poor people - really abusive policies toward women! are destructive and corrosive to the body politic.
The GOP is hurting us Ross. It's time to evolve.
38
Decent, you say. Admirable character you state. Did you look at the link you attached, the one with Carsons most outrageous statements? Do you even think before you write?
12
Carson has Jimmy Carter plastered all over him. A perfectly well-meaning guy who will have to depend on the party to fill in every job down to the parking lot attendants.
But, he evaporates millions of radical leftist dollars spent over the years selling the absurdity that the Republican slavery-enders are the liberals' most favorite and worn-out epithet, Ra-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-acists.
But, he evaporates millions of radical leftist dollars spent over the years selling the absurdity that the Republican slavery-enders are the liberals' most favorite and worn-out epithet, Ra-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-acists.
2
Ross, why do you keep using 'the donald' instead of Trump? Just curious. Does it mean anything? Does it make you trendier than you otherwise would be? Or something?
5
"The conservative mood is angry, frustrated, fed up" and well fed by FOX news. Anyone being fed the constant stream of negativism (about our president, our country and our soul) that has been the currency of FOX news for the last 6 years is bound to be in a foul mood. You are what you eat and a steady diet of FOX news turns the uninformed into the misinformed without any of the nutritional value information provides. There's a great song that ends the movie "Bedazzled" (About a man who is desperate to change his circumstances making a deal with the devil) it states quite simply "If you want to change your life, change your mind.". Bon Apetite.
14
The real answer to your questions, Ross, is that the Republican Party is in crisis and nobody on that stage Wednesday night is capable of winning the presidency this time because it is so far out of touch with the majority of the American people.
There will be headlines about " an Iowa bump" for one candidate or another but that bump comes from a fringe of a relatively low turnout of extremist evangelicals or low information voters.
The general election will be a vastly different story.
There will be headlines about " an Iowa bump" for one candidate or another but that bump comes from a fringe of a relatively low turnout of extremist evangelicals or low information voters.
The general election will be a vastly different story.
15
Mr. Douthat, the evangelical "Christian" gangsta bloc is less interested in ideological purity (is there really such a thing) than it is in merging the state with the church. It's only reason for being is to overturn the Constitution so that it winnows out all differing viewpoints. They're trying to establish a theocracy, or didn't you notice? Freedom to practice one's religion here has never been threatened. Jews and Mormons have not been especially welcome by the Protestant elite and its disparate branches, but no serious campaign has ever been mounted to expel them. After watching Dr. Ben Carson the other night, I'm not certain what anyone, set aside evangelicals, see in him. He's no leader. If elected, he'd be subjected to a takeover by aggressive elements of the Right to cement their agenda. He's be less effective as a president than W., if that poor example may be used. Let's not forget one salient point: Dr. Carson is black. Evangelical doctrine in America rose from a justification of slavery as God's will and a reflection of His divine wisdom. How could a President Carson possibly be reconciled with a governing philosophy of racial hegemony? Evangelicals hate President Obama; can you possibly think they'll embrace Dr. Carson simply because he's a Republican?
17
Alexander the Great changed history. So did Lincoln (and perhaps also his assassination). FDR, JFK, Reagan, and Martin Luther King King changed history, although they all stood on the shoulders of many. Evangelicals are longing for a King (or Reagan) of the right who will find a way to return to traditional values.
3
Evangelicals have such a king in Mike Huckabee, whose defense of Kim Davis' refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay couples is as fine an example of returning to traditional values as one is likely to find.
However, as Mr. Huckabee's fight for oxygen is proving, he is being betrayed by the very Evangelicals he thought were his supporters.
However, as Mr. Huckabee's fight for oxygen is proving, he is being betrayed by the very Evangelicals he thought were his supporters.
2
Part of the traditional position on sexual ethics is that homosexuals did not identify themselves as such in public, so that celebrities or public figures could not be publicly gay and continue their careers. This had the result that young gay people had to grow up without any role models for their sexuality except abstinence and for some the priesthood. This is the current position in Russia, justified by We are almost as far from this former censorship as we are from the former censorship of blacks on TV in leading roles.
Traditionalists have been reduced to fighting to retain a very small part of this tradition. Young gay people now have plenty of role models should they choose to be open about their sexuality, including role models for dealing with those who think God finds them abhorrent.
There was a traditional position on race mixing and intermarriage, too, and now it looks rather stupid. Opponents of same-sex marriage should meditate on this fact.
Traditionalists have been reduced to fighting to retain a very small part of this tradition. Young gay people now have plenty of role models should they choose to be open about their sexuality, including role models for dealing with those who think God finds them abhorrent.
There was a traditional position on race mixing and intermarriage, too, and now it looks rather stupid. Opponents of same-sex marriage should meditate on this fact.
21
While Democrats feel the Bern, the conservative punditariat taste the ashes.
43
Does it ever occur to conservative evangelicals that to practice their bigotry (which they are free to do) might come at the cost of not getting tax supported grants?
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"The traditional position on sexual ethics" is now consistently likened to homophobic discrimination by the left. You'd better believe those religious beliefs need protection.
11
Protecting bigotry under the guise of religious liberty is what you really mean.
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AACNY, with respect, how on earth are heterosexuals OR "traditional" religious people being persecuted or discriminated against?
I don't see it.
What I do see is this: people screaming their religious freedom has been violated because they are told they can't discriminate against everybody else.
Why is this a problem?
I don't see it.
What I do see is this: people screaming their religious freedom has been violated because they are told they can't discriminate against everybody else.
Why is this a problem?
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What?
31
I am alarmed by the increasing intrusion of religion in our political life. The pandering by candidates, mostly Republicans but also including Democrats, fuels the demand for more and more declarations of faith and, in extreme cases, it supports disobedience of the law or demands privileged exclusions from the law. Whatever happened to the internal religion that Protestant reformers sought? Religion is based on absolutes and absolutes are the polar opposite of political life where accommodations are of the essence. Since recognition of the rights of other people is fundamental to civil polity, it follows that we must bend, in some measure, to the needs of others. In seeking to impose the predominance of religious principles over social and legal agreements, we risk destroying the nexus that binds us.
693
Someone asked Salman Rushdie about this the other night...what concerns you most about religion? And he said he has been shocked over the past 30 years to see religion take such a prominent role in world affairs once again, and to the obvious detriment of society and progress. Religion was in the background 50 years ago, just another hump in the cultural fabric, but now it's driving the headlines worldwide every day, not only in the Mid East but in the US and so many other places. And it only seems to grow...
11
Frank, your fear of destroying "the nexus that bind us" presupposes that the nexus is a positive nexus. If the nexus that binds us is unGodly, it (the nexus) is the problem. It appears that you regard "social and legal arrangements" as having greater benefit for us than does God. I disagree.
Pastor Page www.ltgof.net
Pastor Page www.ltgof.net
Fifty or so years ago, Barry Goldwater was concerned about the intrusion of religion into our political lives, as he was similarly concerned about the intrusion of the unions. Yet, Republicans allowed Carly Fiorina to besmirch his legacy by trashing Planned Parenthood (a group that distributes a Barry Goldwater award to worthy Republicans every year) on Wednesday night. Likewise, President Eisenhower was concerned about the intrusion of the industrial/military complex into our political lives.
No wonder Republicans such as Marco Rubio want to turn away the past, as if it offers them nothing. As if there's nothing to be learnt from it. Small "c" conservatism gets in the way of their grandiose plans.
No wonder Republicans such as Marco Rubio want to turn away the past, as if it offers them nothing. As if there's nothing to be learnt from it. Small "c" conservatism gets in the way of their grandiose plans.
5
Well Ross, the Republican base voters don't like you or your fake issues any better than you like them.
They like health insurance.
When Trump mocks you and the things said by the candidates you like, they agree with Trump. They love him for mocking your and your issues.
Ross, the voters have the final say. They are telling you that you are wrong. And they get that final say.
The Republicans still have time to lie to their voters, and try to get this back under control. But right not, it looks like the gig is up.
It will be hard to crawl back to what you guys did to them before in order to do it to them again. Maybe you can, with time and money enough, and willing to say and do anything at all. It will be ugly seeing you try.
They like health insurance.
When Trump mocks you and the things said by the candidates you like, they agree with Trump. They love him for mocking your and your issues.
Ross, the voters have the final say. They are telling you that you are wrong. And they get that final say.
The Republicans still have time to lie to their voters, and try to get this back under control. But right not, it looks like the gig is up.
It will be hard to crawl back to what you guys did to them before in order to do it to them again. Maybe you can, with time and money enough, and willing to say and do anything at all. It will be ugly seeing you try.
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What is this comment about?
1
The Republican "base" (such as you definite it) doesn't like Ross or David Brooks, because they are fake conservatives. Oh, they have a few soft conservative viewpoints, but they are not tough on immigration and they folded like a house of cards over gay marriage. They are not even consistent on abortion. They are only given columns here BECAUSE they are fake conservatives. Real conservatives laugh at Ross and David.
Basing how Americans feel or will vote on Ross and David is foolish. They are here precisely to be "whipping boys" for the regular posters, who delight in calling them names. But it has zero affect on the American voter, 99% of whom never read these columns or letter forums.
Basing how Americans feel or will vote on Ross and David is foolish. They are here precisely to be "whipping boys" for the regular posters, who delight in calling them names. But it has zero affect on the American voter, 99% of whom never read these columns or letter forums.
1
It is about the first part, the the “Trumpen Proletariat.” "How can fiscal conservatives support a single-payer-praising crony capitalist? How can social conservatives support a thrice-married sybarite?"
I realize others focused on Carson, but I thought this more relevant. Douthat doesn't like his own base. He thinks they are stupid.
As for Carson, I can't take him seriously because Republicans won't ever actually elect a black man. They've made that abundantly clear in all they've said about Obama and his wife, and unarmed black kids and their neighborhoods, and so much more. So I was interested by the part where Douthat attacks his own base for being stupid.
I realize others focused on Carson, but I thought this more relevant. Douthat doesn't like his own base. He thinks they are stupid.
As for Carson, I can't take him seriously because Republicans won't ever actually elect a black man. They've made that abundantly clear in all they've said about Obama and his wife, and unarmed black kids and their neighborhoods, and so much more. So I was interested by the part where Douthat attacks his own base for being stupid.
6
"Donald, for all his proud ignorance about policy detail, is actually running an ideologically distinctive campaign: He’s a populist and nationalist, a critic of open immigration and free trade"
And the euphemism of the week award goes to Mr Dothan, again! Donald is a fabulist, or in old-fashioned parlance, a liar. He is also a racist, unprincipled braggart who is allowed to continue dirtying up the presidential campaign by GOP-supporting journalists such as Mr Douthat who have yet to find the backbone necessary to call out Mr Trump for what he is.
I don't care what your party affiliation is, Trump's non-response this week to the lies about the Presidents' origins and religion should be front and center. Shame on you Mr Dothat!
And the euphemism of the week award goes to Mr Dothan, again! Donald is a fabulist, or in old-fashioned parlance, a liar. He is also a racist, unprincipled braggart who is allowed to continue dirtying up the presidential campaign by GOP-supporting journalists such as Mr Douthat who have yet to find the backbone necessary to call out Mr Trump for what he is.
I don't care what your party affiliation is, Trump's non-response this week to the lies about the Presidents' origins and religion should be front and center. Shame on you Mr Dothat!
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But he is for protecting US jobs and ending preferential taxation og carried interest. I favor both of these goals.
11
@NB - So does Bernie Sanders and he's not a racist. There's a choice available.
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Because Trump throws you bone on taxation doesn't make him a qualified candidate for president.
9
So working class Republicans are attracted to Trump because he supports social security, once supported single payer insurance, and attacks one, of many, outrageous tax benefit of the wealthy.
If working class Republicans would shed some of their racism, they should have supported President Obama. They should also be embracing Sen. Sanders, but I have little hope of that.
If working class Republicans would shed some of their racism, they should have supported President Obama. They should also be embracing Sen. Sanders, but I have little hope of that.
433
Excellent observation. Clearly, the support Trump currently has isn't about policy positions, with the exception of immigration. His policy positions appear to be made up on the spot, and don't seem to matter much to his base support. I think what appeals to them is his attitude.
10
This comments gets to the core problem. People who are attracted to these aspects of the Trump message are really democrats who are unwilling to admit it. They side with the party of the Koch Bros., the oligarchs, the corporate interests, those with the money to sway the tax code. Why? Probably a misguided tribalism that sees Barack Obama as 'the other' and are therefore obliged to ignore his message,
2
Exactly.
2
What a peculiar notion of religious liberty is held by so many conservative Christians! The right to discriminate against others who do not share their beliefs, even in their official capacity as representatives of a secular government. The right of corporations--mindless, soulless legal entities--to impose the religious beliefs of owners on their employees. To speak and act with intolerance while pleading that they be given every consideration themselves.
1178
Liberals have a peculiar notion that inability to get a baker to participate in a wedding is a civil rights violation. It is unimaginable to even come up with such a ridiculous proposition.
Liberals also seem to think that they should be able to force others to pay for things that they support. Isn't that imposing a secular religion on others? Liberals operate in an alternate universe, where disagreeing with them constitutes intolerance. Liberals have an inability to recognize their own intolerance of anyone else's opinions.
Liberals also seem to think that they should be able to force others to pay for things that they support. Isn't that imposing a secular religion on others? Liberals operate in an alternate universe, where disagreeing with them constitutes intolerance. Liberals have an inability to recognize their own intolerance of anyone else's opinions.
Excellent, Michael, excellent.
6
Using theupside down logic that permeates the conservative view of the Constitution, Donald Trump bizarrely said that his failure to correct a supporter who said Obama is a Muslim and not a U.S. citizen was better than how John McCain handled a similar questioner. Trump went on to explain that he was protecting the man's First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
2
What a choice Republicans of any description have this year, as presented by Douthat -- Trump the Sybarite or Carson the Narcissistic Crank? The GOP may ride either one to eight years of the next Democratic Presidency.
115
What a horrible thought. The other voters must stop this.
And on the Democratic side we have "Bullets over Bosnia" and "with a cloth" Clinton or Bernie who apparently knows nothing about economics. What horrible choices!
"to protect religious schools and charities from losing grants or accreditation or even tax-exempt status because they maintain a traditional position on sexual ethics."
The "traditional position" on sexual ethics included such things as no sex before marriage, certainly no living together before marriage, shame heaped on a woman who bore a child out of wedlock and shame also heaped on that child, no divorce, and no remarriage if you did shamefully divorce. I don't know of any evangelicals, or anyone else for that matter (except perhaps some newly-arrived Muslims), who have the stomach for such a program. The Pope certainly doesn't either. He wants re-married Catholics back at communion.
So let's get real and call ":traditional sexual ethics" what you really mean--a prohibition on openly-gay relationships, especially marriage for gays. That's all that's left of the "traditional position."
The "traditional position" on sexual ethics included such things as no sex before marriage, certainly no living together before marriage, shame heaped on a woman who bore a child out of wedlock and shame also heaped on that child, no divorce, and no remarriage if you did shamefully divorce. I don't know of any evangelicals, or anyone else for that matter (except perhaps some newly-arrived Muslims), who have the stomach for such a program. The Pope certainly doesn't either. He wants re-married Catholics back at communion.
So let's get real and call ":traditional sexual ethics" what you really mean--a prohibition on openly-gay relationships, especially marriage for gays. That's all that's left of the "traditional position."
546
Let us not forget the other core and indissoluble element in the "traditional position on sexual ethics": the systematic subjugation of women to men both sexually and socially. "Traditional sexual ethics", at least as understood across Europe over the past centuries, included as a legal principle that a husband could not rape his wife no matter what he did: she had consented at the altar, and nothing mattered. Husbands could and did routinely beat their wives, and as long as the beating didn't cause 'scandal', they were in order. A woman's property in marriage belonged to her husband, who could drink it away if he wanted: she had no right - moral, social, or legal - to protest. Women could not provide evidence in lawsuits, or if they could, their testimony weighed less than men's. Single women required legal tutelage: a man had to act on their behalf if a widow or spinster wished to file a suit to defend her interests.
That's traditional sexual morality, and it is one of the great and beneficial revolutions of the last 2 centuries that we have been slowly -- every so slowly -- inching away from it.
That's traditional sexual morality, and it is one of the great and beneficial revolutions of the last 2 centuries that we have been slowly -- every so slowly -- inching away from it.
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@Evelyn Elwell Uyemura: The evangelicals didn't "heap shame" on the pregnant, unwed teenage daughter Sarah Palin paraded across the stage at the Republican convention. (Imagine what they would have done if the girl's last name had been Obama.) In Louisiana, they've kept re-electing chronic prostitute customer David Vitter to the US Senate. In South Carolina, they rewarded former governor Mark Sanford for destroying his family by "hiking the Appalachian Trail" with a mistress by electing him to Congress. They're always quick to forgive their own sins while condemning anyone different from themselves. Bigotry, including anti-gay bigotry, is what these people are really all about.
76
Traditional sexual ethics are the basis of a stable society.
Evangelicals seem to have forgotten the things that Jesus stood for. If they were serious about their religious beliefs they'd consider Bernie Sanders. Unless of course they aren't really serious about what Jesus had to say and they really just want to use their religion to control the lives of other people. I'm going with the latter.
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To Vanessa
My son lives in East Tennessee, is religious and likes to only quote the Bible from the old testament. The points you touch on is very much the way I've tried to influence him for several years without much success. I suggest he read the first four books of the new testament and pay close attention the the words printed in red. Still, I get harsh quotes from Deuteronomy.
Liked your comments. Thanks
My son lives in East Tennessee, is religious and likes to only quote the Bible from the old testament. The points you touch on is very much the way I've tried to influence him for several years without much success. I suggest he read the first four books of the new testament and pay close attention the the words printed in red. Still, I get harsh quotes from Deuteronomy.
Liked your comments. Thanks
9
Please show me in the Bible where it picks/handicaps elections.
You didn't mention what Jesus stood for. Why is that? I don't think you know. What does John 14:6 indicate John 3:16 What did Jesus say about judging others like you are? Matthew 7:1-6
You are making a false assumption. All Christians are trying to do is to keep any more religious liberties from being taken. Why is it that students can't wear a cross to school? Muslim women wear a scarf. Why can they wear this symbol of their religion but Christians are not allowed to wear a cross or carry a Bible?
You didn't mention what Jesus stood for. Why is that? I don't think you know. What does John 14:6 indicate John 3:16 What did Jesus say about judging others like you are? Matthew 7:1-6
You are making a false assumption. All Christians are trying to do is to keep any more religious liberties from being taken. Why is it that students can't wear a cross to school? Muslim women wear a scarf. Why can they wear this symbol of their religion but Christians are not allowed to wear a cross or carry a Bible?
I agree completely. Evangelicals are most known for what they hate, namely education, science, labor unions, immigrants, homosexuals, you name it. My understanding of Jesus is that He stressed universal love and compassion, and kindness to the less fortunate.
I find it very difficult to consider evangelicals as Christians.
I find it very difficult to consider evangelicals as Christians.
17
The political right has cleverly wooed evangelicals by pretending to stand for morality when in fact it is a cynical ploy to boost voting for the GOP’s economic agenda. At long last, the left in the form of Bernie Sanders' speech at Liberty University, has addressed evangelicals, framing economic justice in moral terms that should appeal to significant numbers of them.
Douthat ignored that, instead feeding a persecution complex among those Christians that buy it. Christians who are under very real persecution in some parts of the world can only pray for being victimized the way American Christians are. Public funding of religious activities is prohibited by the First Amendment, yet Ross pushes for Mike Lee’s First Amendment Defense Act. (I just love that truly Orwellian name).
Other than when coercion is involved, sexual ethics are a private matter, but are the one area where Douthat wants the hated government to get in people’s way. Recurring tenets of the major religions, the issues of poverty, wealth and greed, are very much a matter of public morality.
Just maybe, Bernie Sanders’ speech at Liberty U. that Ross, so conveniently, ignored will be the beginning of the end of the GOP’s stranglehold on evangelical voters, who may come to understand that there’s much more to morality than sexual ethics. Not that one example means much, but it seems that Bernie’s address didn’t fall totally on deaf ears:
https://clyp.it/eusxalwe
Douthat ignored that, instead feeding a persecution complex among those Christians that buy it. Christians who are under very real persecution in some parts of the world can only pray for being victimized the way American Christians are. Public funding of religious activities is prohibited by the First Amendment, yet Ross pushes for Mike Lee’s First Amendment Defense Act. (I just love that truly Orwellian name).
Other than when coercion is involved, sexual ethics are a private matter, but are the one area where Douthat wants the hated government to get in people’s way. Recurring tenets of the major religions, the issues of poverty, wealth and greed, are very much a matter of public morality.
Just maybe, Bernie Sanders’ speech at Liberty U. that Ross, so conveniently, ignored will be the beginning of the end of the GOP’s stranglehold on evangelical voters, who may come to understand that there’s much more to morality than sexual ethics. Not that one example means much, but it seems that Bernie’s address didn’t fall totally on deaf ears:
https://clyp.it/eusxalwe
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5
Holy moly, mancuroc. That's a great clip.
People listen to this! An evangelical endorses Bernie Sanders.
It's an inspiring sermon.
People listen to this! An evangelical endorses Bernie Sanders.
It's an inspiring sermon.
8
Very few of the people at Liberty will vote on issues other than abortion and gay marriage. What Jesus actually mentioned, much less taught is of little interest to them. I know that from the fundamentalists in my family.
20
James Davison Hunter's description of those with "a particular fondness for the idea of the history-altering individual, the hope that 'one person can stand at the crossroads and change things for good'" could just as easily have been about liberals. Look how they fell for Obama's rhetoric about "change" and at how they are falling, yet again, for Sanders' rhetoric on "revolution". Talk about a weakness for a pitch!
Maybe it's just an affliction of the optimist to have such a high capacity to delude one's self. Or maybe it's the Achilles heel of ideologues who are wedded to certain ideals. Whatever it's cause, it's certainly not limited to Evangelicals.
Maybe it's just an affliction of the optimist to have such a high capacity to delude one's self. Or maybe it's the Achilles heel of ideologues who are wedded to certain ideals. Whatever it's cause, it's certainly not limited to Evangelicals.
42
Maybe it's just that when the choices are so few, you get behind whoever you can. I don't think any president can change the world, but leadership obviously is powerful. I look at who's out there in reality, not a hero, and figure out who I think is most credible and has the best chance to win as well. It's not unusual. It's what a lot of people do. Just because there are fanatics is no reason not to stake my own claim.
And yet, one person can make a big difference. Elizabeth Warren, for example, is one of my senators, and she's certainly helping to change the conversation at the national level. Heroine? Who cares? She's effective, and that's what counts.
And yet, one person can make a big difference. Elizabeth Warren, for example, is one of my senators, and she's certainly helping to change the conversation at the national level. Heroine? Who cares? She's effective, and that's what counts.
109
Yes, we fell for 19 million more people insured, slowest rate of insurance premiums growth in decades, less US soldiers dying, lower deficits, a fairer tax structure, OBL eliminated, equal pay for equal work, equal rights, etc.
You fell for McCain and Palin, and Romney and Ayn Rand's lovechild.
You fell for McCain and Palin, and Romney and Ayn Rand's lovechild.
41
Yes, the most liberal of my liberal friends firmly believe that Obama could make huge progressive changes, if he merely wanted to. They won't be satisfied by anything short of single-payer healthcare, jailed bankers, an immediate end to all military action, disarming the police, vastly higher taxes on the wealthy, an increase in social security payments, at least a doubling of the minimum wage right away and a limit on CEO salaries, elimination of patents on pharmaceuticals, and shrinking all corporate entities. A president who can't achieve all of this is simply not a real progressive. They used to support Obama, until he failed to deliver.
7
The love affair between the GOP and evangelicals is a massive scam that
97
Wow! Nine recommends so far and it was posted by accident before I had a chance to get far into writing, let alone editing. Please, Times, how about a few minutes' grace period to allow changes?
53
It can only mean one thing: you are loved. :) I'm no. 10.
19
See manuroc we really have enjoyed your past comments..so we were just a little ahead of ourselves.
We’ve all hit that Submit button too early before.
We’ve all hit that Submit button too early before.
4
1 "The conservative mood is angry, frustrated, fed up. People have had enough, they’re tired of making excuses, they’re ready to really let their party have it. is angry, frustrated, fed up.
No. The PHONY conservative mood of ALL phony conservatives CONTINUES etc.
2 Note how quickly the convert cafeteria catholic Ross turns on the evangelicals as silly fools in favor of institution building!?!?!? Shameless. This is what these people are at the core.
3 Ah, statistics and the embarrassment of CINOs, christians in name only (thanks to the commenter who noted this demographic) supporting Trump.
Reuters rolling, candidate percents with republicans for, sept. 15, Trump, 34 percent.
http://polling.reuters.com/#!response/TR130/type/smallest/filters/PARTY_ID_:2/dates/20150808-20150915/collapsed/false
with born again filter, Trump 32
http://polling.reuters.com/#!response/TR130/type/smallest/filters/PARTY_ID_:2,D20:1/dates/20150808-20150915/collapsed/false
So, Ross, and his buddy at the Federalist (yeah, I know), off an unacknowledged tip from Gallup's boy to forget who respondent will vote for, and switch to "favorable", ((Why? You know why.) then screen screen screen to massage the data.
When is it hacking? Stooging? Lying? Is there a difference?
Conformist trash, always, forever, conformist trash.
And, republican catholics polled tend to prefer their own boys. Gangs, just gamgs.
No. The PHONY conservative mood of ALL phony conservatives CONTINUES etc.
2 Note how quickly the convert cafeteria catholic Ross turns on the evangelicals as silly fools in favor of institution building!?!?!? Shameless. This is what these people are at the core.
3 Ah, statistics and the embarrassment of CINOs, christians in name only (thanks to the commenter who noted this demographic) supporting Trump.
Reuters rolling, candidate percents with republicans for, sept. 15, Trump, 34 percent.
http://polling.reuters.com/#!response/TR130/type/smallest/filters/PARTY_ID_:2/dates/20150808-20150915/collapsed/false
with born again filter, Trump 32
http://polling.reuters.com/#!response/TR130/type/smallest/filters/PARTY_ID_:2,D20:1/dates/20150808-20150915/collapsed/false
So, Ross, and his buddy at the Federalist (yeah, I know), off an unacknowledged tip from Gallup's boy to forget who respondent will vote for, and switch to "favorable", ((Why? You know why.) then screen screen screen to massage the data.
When is it hacking? Stooging? Lying? Is there a difference?
Conformist trash, always, forever, conformist trash.
And, republican catholics polled tend to prefer their own boys. Gangs, just gamgs.
27
Yes, it was unnecessary for Douthat to go after Evangelicals this way. I would hardly call Carson's campaign "content-free". This criticism sounds just like the criticism of ideological critics who claim that republicans have "no policy."
Is Carson's sin that he's a 7th Day Adventist?
Is Carson's sin that he's a 7th Day Adventist?
9
"I would hardly call Carson's campaign "content-free"."
Obama and Clinton bashing passes for content to Cons these days.
Too funny.
Obama and Clinton bashing passes for content to Cons these days.
Too funny.
9
Quiry, your research is way off and deeply flawed. In addition, Douthat does not consume café Catholic fare--he dines on the full licit Catechism of the Catholic Church.
1
For a soft spoken person, Dr. Carson has said some pretty outrageous things. Carson is this campaign's Herman Cain: a black conservative manufactured by conservative media.
Carson is the anti-Obama.
Carson is the anti-Obama.
598
What Carson is, unfortunately, the kind of black man today's Republcan Party can admire: you can be crazy or you can be stupid, or you can be neither but be far, far Right, but you can't be Colin Powell.
Powell--and people like him--are dangerous in today's GOP. They tend to be more interested in policy than posturing, and they have a real bad habit of knowing actual things. Oh, and they tend to be actually small-gov conservatives, who don't care to go sticking government's long nose into everybody's private life.
Powell--and people like him--are dangerous in today's GOP. They tend to be more interested in policy than posturing, and they have a real bad habit of knowing actual things. Oh, and they tend to be actually small-gov conservatives, who don't care to go sticking government's long nose into everybody's private life.
11
Angry Kevin Rothstein,
You mean, as compared to a black icon who nobody in the Dermocratic national and state organizations DARED ask ANY questions about -
- when Awesome Coolness came down out of the heavens with Valerie Jarrett riding Sancho Panza with him, right?
Obama had thr least credentials of any major party candidate - the man doesn't even want he best for the U.S.! Any other Senator from 2006 would have done a better job, any party.
Not even the old network news anchors knew anything substantive about Barack Hussein Obama on Election Night 2008. Yet that night, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Ukraine were all very stable countries, too.
You mean, as compared to a black icon who nobody in the Dermocratic national and state organizations DARED ask ANY questions about -
- when Awesome Coolness came down out of the heavens with Valerie Jarrett riding Sancho Panza with him, right?
Obama had thr least credentials of any major party candidate - the man doesn't even want he best for the U.S.! Any other Senator from 2006 would have done a better job, any party.
Not even the old network news anchors knew anything substantive about Barack Hussein Obama on Election Night 2008. Yet that night, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Ukraine were all very stable countries, too.
3
After all the racist things they said about Obama and even his wife, how could they turn around to ignore all that for Dr. Carson and his wife?
They said those things with feeling, repeated constantly for two terms in office. It was real hate. Now? Never mind?
I don't believe it. They can't turn on a dime like that. They've spread so much race hate that Dr. Carson can't overcome it to have the support of the same people.
Anyway, I think Carson is more a political Clarence Thomas. The disconnect with Obama is so extreme they are not even opposites, just on different tracks altogether.
They said those things with feeling, repeated constantly for two terms in office. It was real hate. Now? Never mind?
I don't believe it. They can't turn on a dime like that. They've spread so much race hate that Dr. Carson can't overcome it to have the support of the same people.
Anyway, I think Carson is more a political Clarence Thomas. The disconnect with Obama is so extreme they are not even opposites, just on different tracks altogether.
20
" I’m talking about pundits and political professionals."
I think, when it comes to "truthiness" David Frum is about the only conservative pundit who engaged in it from the beginning. As for the rest, including you, Ross, I await the day when, one by one, the lot of you finally come to terms with the chaos the Koch Brothers have unleashed on this nation in order to realize Pinky and The Brain's dream of taking over the world.
The only problem, as you probably know, is that it has come at the cost of America's manufacturing base and the resultant expansion of America's precariat and, even worse, the rebirth of a Jim Crow who is still very much as racist as he ever was, but in his hunger for victims, more inclusive. It comes at the cost of all of our freedoms, including that to have a decent public education and a free press.
If you guys were real honest, instead of harping on Trump and Carson, you would harp on the other passengers in the clown car. You'd tell us how ill-prepared and unfit Jeb! and Scott are, and how dangerous most of the others are. You would tell us that Kasich, as decent-sounding as he may be in comparison to the others, doesn't stand a chance because of the crazy base the Kochs have cultivated. You should tell us, but... you won't.
---
Deadly Force in Black and White: http://tinyurl.com/qfxplhy
What is a "precariat?" http://tinyurl.com/ofjjz9y
Trump & Co. are irrelevant and a distraction. Bernie & Hillary? They're it! http://tinyurl.com/oubwfna
I think, when it comes to "truthiness" David Frum is about the only conservative pundit who engaged in it from the beginning. As for the rest, including you, Ross, I await the day when, one by one, the lot of you finally come to terms with the chaos the Koch Brothers have unleashed on this nation in order to realize Pinky and The Brain's dream of taking over the world.
The only problem, as you probably know, is that it has come at the cost of America's manufacturing base and the resultant expansion of America's precariat and, even worse, the rebirth of a Jim Crow who is still very much as racist as he ever was, but in his hunger for victims, more inclusive. It comes at the cost of all of our freedoms, including that to have a decent public education and a free press.
If you guys were real honest, instead of harping on Trump and Carson, you would harp on the other passengers in the clown car. You'd tell us how ill-prepared and unfit Jeb! and Scott are, and how dangerous most of the others are. You would tell us that Kasich, as decent-sounding as he may be in comparison to the others, doesn't stand a chance because of the crazy base the Kochs have cultivated. You should tell us, but... you won't.
---
Deadly Force in Black and White: http://tinyurl.com/qfxplhy
What is a "precariat?" http://tinyurl.com/ofjjz9y
Trump & Co. are irrelevant and a distraction. Bernie & Hillary? They're it! http://tinyurl.com/oubwfna
408
For those of you who are interested in news about Bernie Sanders from around the press, here is my roundup, including his comments on the GOP Debate this week:
http://www.rimaregas.com/2015/09/berniesanders-news-roundup-week-ending-...
http://www.rimaregas.com/2015/09/berniesanders-news-roundup-week-ending-...
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Are you really accusing Dr. Carson of supporting Jim Crow?
3
If you are so out of touch that you see Soros' polluted puppet David Frum as anything to the right of Alinsky, no one is going to buy anything else you ever say. He's as conservative as the crows outside.
2
"[A] traditional position on sexual ethics"? That's lovely wallpaper, it seems to me, for trying to cover over discrimination in dealings with others in the public square and in dealings with people who might not share that same "tradition." I don't think "traditional" is a substantive argument, I think one has to come to grips with the details of the position being argued and whether those details are in accord with our law. And keeping an eye very fixed on tax breaks and social acceptance through accreditation makes me think we might be picking and choosing when we are following tradition and when we are trying to enjoy the benefits of modern society.
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The "traditional" position on sexual ethics, as played out in the Bible, is of women treated as chattel. In the old testament, with huge dollops of polygamy and concubinage. Can the Harvard grad be convinced to admit that that ship has sailed, won't be coming back, for which we all should be grateful? Yeah, I didn't think so...
28
The traditional position on sexual ethics is, of course, the missionary position.
16
Its not "discrimination" any more - its "religious freedom". Get it right. There's a war against non-discrimination, its being perpetrated in the guise of so-called 'equal justice under the law' for everyone which is being interperted by activist judges to mean that government must not act in favor of any religion, even Christianity! Can you imagine! So, to protect our "religious freedom" there is a clear need for a constitutional amendment stating that, when ever laws and religion conflict the religion must win, so long as it is a 'good' religion like Christianity (Muslims need not apply, they're "all terrorists" anyway, as all good Christians know...). So watch closely as the freedom to discriminate and force your own religious views onto other people who want to do things you don't like is attacked and vote only for those who will defend our God-give "right" to discriminate, so long as we call it "deeply-held religious beliefs" - even when we're government employees performing (or not) our jobs. Remember, this is critical - vote to protect our freedom (to be bigots).
6
Hey, Ross! Don’t diss Ben Carson and the religious right! They are the salvation of our country. The more these folks rub their out-of-touch theology in our faces the more I anticipate a Bernie Sanders presidency, or (slight grimace), a Hillary victory. Every time Ben Carson lapses into his languid, unfocused, Carlton-the-Doorman delivery, I anticipate four more years of Republican futility. When Huckabee and Jindal and Fiorina and the rest pander to the religious right, or threaten government shutdowns, or gleefully defund medical care for pregnant women, I say thank you Jesus.
Republicans have spent the last decade or more cultivating the low-information voter, the resentful incipient racist voter, and the bible-thumping ultra-conservative voter. Suddenly trying to appeal to this base with a realistic national platform of socially moderate and fiscally conservative policy initiatives ain’t gonna cut it. All they can do is double-down on their anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-science, anti-sex, anti-tax, anti-poor and anti-woman rhetoric. When you insult almost everyone in the United States, you’re unlikely to win a national election.
Ultimately, Republicans will have to consider returning to the days when they were contenders on the national stage. They’ll have to put aside the doomsday rhetoric, the threat of government shut-downs, the promises of war and open disdain for everyone mentioned on the Statue of Liberty.
Until then, Go Bernie.
Republicans have spent the last decade or more cultivating the low-information voter, the resentful incipient racist voter, and the bible-thumping ultra-conservative voter. Suddenly trying to appeal to this base with a realistic national platform of socially moderate and fiscally conservative policy initiatives ain’t gonna cut it. All they can do is double-down on their anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-science, anti-sex, anti-tax, anti-poor and anti-woman rhetoric. When you insult almost everyone in the United States, you’re unlikely to win a national election.
Ultimately, Republicans will have to consider returning to the days when they were contenders on the national stage. They’ll have to put aside the doomsday rhetoric, the threat of government shut-downs, the promises of war and open disdain for everyone mentioned on the Statue of Liberty.
Until then, Go Bernie.
936
Gemli,
Conservative readers don't want to believe that Bernie actually appeals to a segment of their own. When I posted the video of Bernie at Liberty university, one reader kept insisting he was booed. Here's that video...
http://www.rimaregas.com/2015/09/bernie-sanders-at-liberty-university-am...
Conservative readers don't want to believe that Bernie actually appeals to a segment of their own. When I posted the video of Bernie at Liberty university, one reader kept insisting he was booed. Here's that video...
http://www.rimaregas.com/2015/09/bernie-sanders-at-liberty-university-am...
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Rima Regas:
Stop wasting your time with the video. One appearance does not make Bernie popular among conservatives.
Stop wasting your time with the video. One appearance does not make Bernie popular among conservatives.
6
Haha! AACNY!
We have a whole year + to go! :-D
We have a whole year + to go! :-D
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