Despite Palin's Resignation, the GOP Needs Culture Warriors
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Reihan Salam, an influential young player in the effort to revive the Republican Party, writes this weekend that Sarah Palin's resignation is another sign of the fading culture wars:
What does seem increasingly clear is that Palin's collapse represents the end of a certain kind of politics. If the culture war really is ending, culture warriors like Palin will fade from the scene.
I can hear many mainstream Republicans sharing Salam's sigh of relief. I think they're fooling themselves.
It's wishful thinking by the GOP's non-social conservatives, who want the party to double down on fiscal conservatism—especially now that Democratic spendthrifts are running the country—to regain its competence in governing and to step back from divisive culture war issues.
Rather than marking the twilight of the culture wars, however, the GOP's love/hate relationship with Alaska's outgoing governor illustrates a persistent conundrum for the party: The religious conservatives whom Palin represents are a Republican minority that can't be counted on to deliver the presidency or congressional majorities, and yet they constitute the most crucial part of the party's base.
Republicans can't win with them alone, but they can't win without them.
Successful Republicans like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush knew this. They mobilized the religious conservative base while managing to transcend it.
Sarah Palin is incapable of such transcendence. But no other Republican in the country touches her power to mobilize, to draw huge crowds. Without that, the Republicans may boast intellectual firepower, governing prowess, and smart messaging and they'll still be out of power. Who will sign up new voters, knock on doors, and make phone calls—who will counter Barack Obama's grass-roots army—in the lead-up to Election Day?
Lots of Republicans know this. It's why the 2012 Republican presidential field is dominated by unabashed culture warriors like Palin, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich; softer, George W. Bush-style religious conservatives like Bobby Jindal and Tim Pawlenty; and wannabe culture warriors like Mitt Romney.
Palin's resignation isn't a sign of the culture wars' end. Her meteoric rise is a sign that they're still very much with us.
- Take our poll: Will Palin's exit help or hurt the Republican party?
- Follow Dan Gilgoff on Twitter.
- Read more about Sarah Palin.
Tags: religion | Sarah Palin
Tools: 
Share
|
| Comments (24) | Print
Reader Comments
Wars, including Culture Wars, need money for soldiers
"Pay Christian Soldiers" is the motto of generals leading the Far Right "Culture Wars." Palin raised huge contributions for the GOP after she was chosen by the Old Boy Network to be one of those generals. She turned out to be too maternal at her stage of life. It's very hard to hold and care for a child while holding aloft the flag with the Cross on it. She needs a rest. With a ghost-writer, she should be able to comfortably retire. Roe v Wade has been working since 1973. There truly are fewer people being born to poverty, abandonment or welfare rolls. At last, Obama made a law forcing employers to pay women the same wage as men for the same work. That means fewer women will be forced to be prostitutes. From brothels, all nations expect a lot of unaborted conceptions to be cast out to become tax burdens. I blame Palin and other Ban=Abortionists for loading us taxpayers down with these "little strangers." The GOP was wrecked when Goldwater and Reagan stole its assets and gave the money to the Far Right. Reagan said his presidency was guided by the pope, who is the Big Cheese of Po-Life political action.
moral high ground in rural v. urban
David of ID says, "It's about moral values. For conservatives, moral values are like the Basalt Boulders that make up the Rocky Mountains. They are eternal principles and never change." Simply being rigid in social norms doesn't always spell morality. It can be just the opposite, considering that this nation maintained slavery nearly 200 years, justifying it with quotations from the Bible. Sometimes the critical thinking skills that come with a liberal education are helpful in breaking down the "traditions" that discriminate against those who would be our citizens.
Additional comment on Urban vs. Rural
I wondered about that urban Democrat/rural Republican divide... With the economy doing frightening things, and stories of the Great Depression swirling around, I came to a conclusion.
City dwellers depend on networks of others to survive. What would happen if food and water ceased to flow into the cities, the garbage wasn't removed, and the cops ceased to protect the public? Starvation, chaos, crime, and violence - that's what! Urban dwellers count on others every day to make it work. The alternative is almost unthinkable.
Rural dwellers look at the same crisis like the Great Depression and think, "We can expand the vegetable garden and preserve more food this year. The hens will still lay eggs. And if we have to we can slaughter the cow..." They generally have more options for self sufficiency. They can afford to take an attitude like, "Let Rome burn - we will make it through..." These folks understandably see themselves as off to the side, in another category, not so foolishly vulnerable! We call it "Rugged Independence". And understandably, they are not as interested in participating in that more inclusive City Dweller reality.
Of course, if things got really grim, the countryside wouldn't be much safer than the city. Any perceived differences between urban Democrats and rural Republicans are largely superficial, despite all the yelling and condemnation. Ultimately we all sink or swim together. We have a choice every day.
Heaven on Earth, anyone?
advertisement
