re: #109 withak

I’ll refer to my original claim: I don’t see any of that garbage here; I’ll be much more worried if and when that does happen.

Don’t get me wrong; the fact that this hyper-religiosity is even tolerated, much less successful, in the Republican tent is troubling, to say the least. But it’s a far cry from a civil war.

No, I don’t think we’re in Civil War territory at all. That’s some other commenter’s view, and I’ve never said such a thing.

But we used to have two parties which were about equally religious, meaning they were both predominantly secular. Indeed, if you look at elections pre-1980, you’ll see that voters who considered themselves very religious or evangelical, voted about 50% D and 50% R. Now we have a secular party and a Jesus party. Which is highly unusual and worrisome in a world where other developed nations are almost uniformly secular.

I’d have to disagree with what you call “that garbage”, as if it were a tiny minority view in the party. It’s not. Rather it has infected virtually the entire south—by far the gop’s strongest region. That’s how you get people like Rick Perry holding a Christian revival in a football stadium with 50,000 in attendance. And it’s how you get state Governors (not just fringe fanatics) calling upon America to have a religious revival or risk being punished by God. Even Rand Paul has adopted such rhetoric, calling for a Third Great Religious Awakening. There was virtually none of this in the GOP of 50 years ago. So the trend towards theocratic thinking is quite clear.