God help us

MANIFESTO

While I'm always amused by nominal Christians' show of sanctimony, I'm nevertheless sensing a danger these days that may be unprecedented. At any rate, as we get closer to November 2, the pious demonstrations get hotter and heavier.

Exhibit A, I suppose, was Anderson Cooper's recent tête-à-tête with Renee Ellmers culminating with the former telling the North Carolina Christian that one of her rejoinders was "the lowest response I have ever heard from a candidate."

Regarding candidate Ellmers, Paul Waldman at TAPPED warns that

if things work out for the GOP, she could be one of the people making our laws. Whether the Democrats hold on to their majority in the House, one thing we can be almost certain of is that the number of members who combine breathtaking ignorance with shockingly radical views will increase significantly.

And speaking of ignorance, the LA Times today reports that

a survey that measured Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths. In fact, the gaps in knowledge among some of the faithful may give new meaning to the term "blind faith."

Not surprisingly, it turns out that Ellmers and her ilk (too many of whom lack the Y chromosome) don't know what they're talking about.

Tom Tomorrow satirizes the latest hysteria in his strip today wherein he calls the hoi polloi "simpletons," but, unfortunately, as the Sage of Baltimore once almost put it:

"As democracy is perfected, the office of [Congressman] represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the [Congress] will be adorned by ... downright moron[s]."

I lived through the election of 1994 and thought on the morning of November 9 of that year that the Republic, while not exactly doomed, didn't have good days ahead of it. And it didn't take much time for my prediction to be borne out. I haven't felt this concerned since those parlous times, as even during the Bush years the Republicans could be counted on to present a united front—as ridiculous as it might be. Now, however, a great number of candidates are out of control and are campaigning for nothing less than an American Christian theocracy.