Convert or Die

The media are paying close attention to the NY-23 congressional race there, in particular because the incumbent, a pro-choice Republican woman, has dropped out of the race and thrown her support behind the Democratic challenger. The more moderate elements in that district are trying to avoid the wingnuts from establishing a beachhead in this district, to serve as the model for other races around the country as they try to define, once and for all, the Republican Party as the Christian(ist) God/Tea Party Party.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich opines thusly:

Though they constantly liken the president to various totalitarian dictators, it
is they who are re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode.

Well, while I would agree that purges are most definitely on the minds of these wingnuts, they are not Stalinist to any degree. I would liken them more to the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, and al Qaeda than Stalin. Stalin's atheistic purges were designed to kill off political enemies. The wingnuts's desire to redefine the GOP comes from a deeply-held conviction that 1) the United States is a Christian nation, that her founders were devout Believers in the modern Evangelical mold, and that for the sake of their twisted political narrative the Constitution's roots are in the New Testament; and 2) those who claim to be Republicans/Conservatives who do not rigidly adhere to this worldview are neither Republican nor Conservative, and have no place at their table, at least when it comes to defining their political platform (they certainly will take their money and their votes, however).

This movement is based in hatred: hatred for gays, hatred for non-Christians, and hatred for non-whites, in that order. Their views on governmental fiscal management are irrelevant, as they lionized Obama's predecessor, whose irresponsible spending nearly triggered a global depression. Sensible Americans (read, those who do not watch Fox News or listen to right wing talk radio except to laugh) does and will continue to see through this nonsense.

As for political victories, they will be few and far between, no more consequential than a potential freshman Congressman from a district in New York that elected him with votes that numbered in the low four figures. They will marginalize themselves even more, find themselves unwelcome on college campuses across the country and unwelcome at military academies, anywhere where their overtly theocratic tactics are in full court press.