Republicans Are Still Bigoted Authoritarians, This Should Surprise Nobody
This week, 157 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against a bill that would codify same-sex marriage into federal law even if Obergefell v. Hodges is overturned. A few days later, 195 Republicans voted against a bill that would codify the right to contraception into federal law even if Griswold v. Connecticut gets overturned. To speak personally, as someone who follows politics and knows the details of how the Republican Party operates, this in no way surprised me.
Ever since Donald Trump became President, a popular image among our media elites has been that of an economically populist but highly white supremacist Republican Party that no longer cares about LGBT issues nor appealing to the religious right. After all, Republicans managed to make a vulgar multi-millionaire from New York with no interest in Christianity into the President, and Donald Trump even held up an LGBT Pride flag during a 2016 rally. Although the 2016 Republican Primary had many candidates who were popular with the religious right — including ones who had previously done well in Republican primaries by appealing to those groups like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum — Republican voters went with Donald Trump, therefore proving that Republicans had moved beyond the religious authoritarianism of old.
Although I understand the thinking, it’s worth noting that even at the time it showed various fundamental flaws. First off, although both Huckabee and Santorum were the popular candidates of the religious right when they ran for President in 2008 and 2012 respectively, neither managed to get the nomination. In fact, both times the more moderate John McCain — who famously denounced people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell during his 2000 Presidential campaign — and Mitt Romney ended up winning. In 2008, this was because the incumbent President George W. Bush was so unpopular that the only person Republicans could possibly think of to keep the White House was somebody who had already ran against Bush back in 2000. George W. Bush was also highly religious, and therefore any candidate who talked too much about their faith ran the risk of appearing too much like Bush, which would alienate all but the most dedicated Republicans who would vote for a nomination no matter what. McCain even through the religious right a massive bone in the form of picking Sarah Palin as his running mate, someone who become a favorite of them and who would soon become a well known face for the Tea Party. This fear still existed in 2012 and 2016, with George W. Bush so trashing the name of conservative Christianity during his eight years in office that many Republicans on the national stage would like to run from the term if they can.
It should also be noted that moderate Republicans just had an easier time balkanizing their voters as opposed to more extreme Republicans because, to put it simply, less extremists ran. In 2016, a dedicated religious conservative could have voted for Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, or Rick Santorum — all of whom were openly members of the religious right. However, those who wanted an outsider businessman and were perfectly fine with electing a vulgar and not particularly religious President only had one place to go — and that was Donald Trump.
This has always been an issue religious Republicans have had, that and their ideas just aren’t all that popular on a national scale, even when they are in power. In 1988, Pat Robertson — one of the founders of the Moral Majority — decided to run for President. Considering this was after eight years of Ronald Reagan buddying around with the Moral Majority, you would expect him to easily be able to win the primaries — especially considering many Reagan voters were unsure of Vice President George Bush’s commitment to the Reagan agenda. However, Robertson only won four states and failed to get even ten percent of the vote.
In truth, the success of religious authoritarians has always been their ability to gain massive support in small conservative communities, not their ability to compete nationally. Shortly after his defeat, Robertson created the Christian Coalition, which played a massive role in Republicans winning back Congress during the 1994 midterm elections — as well as an important role in making sure the Republicans that went to Congress were the radical extremists Clinton had to deal with.
The main difference during the Trump years has been, as the population of the United States grows increasingly atheist, Republicans have had to downplay the religious side of their ideology. In the same regards, as the people desire a more civilly libertarian, Republicans have been forced to be more quiet regarding their authoritarian social views. However, Republicans have never changed their views, the most they’ve just put them on the down low until they have power.
