Did Ending Roe Make Evangelicals Sane Again?
GETTING PEROT WRONG: A Reader Writes on Gaetz and Hanssen
A reader and longtime friend writes in — I love long reader emails — and I thought I might reply to him in normal font as I don’t necessarily agree with a lot of what he said but think it’s a useful foil.
My friend writes:
Charles
The article titled Matt Gaetz stolen valor certainly ranks as one the best written, focused and convincing posts which you have produced.
The same crowd which took out J William Fulbright (and taught Bill Clinton a life long lesson) is going after Gaetz.
Thanks, I think. One never knows how these things will register. I’m grateful for those who share these posts. For those uninitiated J. William Fulbright was a rather successful U.S. Senator. That is, until he dared say that American foreign policy ought to be first and foremost about Americans, not Israelis. You can read his full thoughts elsewhere but I’m particularly struck by these quotes.
In a 1989 book, The Price of Empire, Fulbright wrote: "The [Israel] lobby can just about tell the president what to do when it comes to Israel. Its influence in Congress is pervasive and, I think, profoundly harmful to us and ultimately to Israel itself...So completely have many of our principal officeholders fallen under Israeli influence that they not only deny today the legitimacy of Palestinian national aspirations, but debate who more passionately opposes a Palestinian state."
He added: "AIPAC and its allied organizations have effective working control of the electoral process. They can elect or defeat nearly any congressman or senator that they wish, with their money and coordinated organizations. They are the really important power to negotiate with in the Middle East if you want an agreement.
"The Israelis and their supporters here especially the latter have long taken the position that if you do not do exactly as they wish, you are anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. Accordingly, since no one welcomes these charges and the political sanctions that go with them, it has been impossible to follow what I would call an evenhanded policy in the Middle East. It has not been possible in the past; and it still isn't."
Fulbricht’s political career came to an end because of his concerns about the so-called Israel lobby. Gaetz, by contrast, is hardly an opponent of the Israelis but he is pro-peace. With his victory last Tuesday Gaetz’s political career remains intact, at least for the moment. Compare that to the defeat of Andy Levin, where Democratic Majority for Israel and AIPAC defeated a progressive Jewish Democrat over being insufficiently pro-Israel.
But to my mind Gaetz’s missing big opportunities in the Biden presidency to be less divisive. He should be praising the Biden Administration when it gets it right and sounding the alarm against it when it goes too far. This is what it means to be the loyal opposition.
If Gaetz could bridge the gap between the deep state Democrats and MAGA world, I think he’d readily become the top contender for 2024. Much of what people love about the DeSantis administration is because Gaetz picked DeSantis’s cabinet.
In my assessment, the way to get Trump’s coveted endorsement for president is to show that you’re a better deal maker than he is. Calling for Jim Jordan to be speaker isn’t going to get it done. Nor is snide comments directed at our would be Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. Gaetz should do as Congressman Walter Jones did and raise the issue of McCarthy’s corruption. Or he should cut a deal to elevate himself into the chair of a committee, preferably Justice or Armed Services.
And Gaetz should not allow himself to be dragged into the morass of hating on the FBI or the deep state. It’s lazy. As far as I can tell, Congressman Gaetz believes some truly crazy things about the whole Russiagate situation. We’ve never fully discussed it so I’m only going on published reports.
In truth what happened in #RussiaGate is plain to see. There will multiple countries engaged in spying on the Trump campaign and when Trump unexpectedly won the Israelis, fearing discovery, scapegoated the Russians. The Russians were rather obviously pissed and so when the time came for them to take out Netanyahu after Trump’s defeat they were only too happy to help President Biden stand up an anti-Bibi coalition with their proxies in Israel. Part of the reason you’re seeing a breaking down of Israeli-Russian relations is precisely the result of the Russiagate obsession. The more sanctions are passed on Russia, the more she will be forced into the arms of the Chinese (or Turks) and the more that’ll undermine whatever purchase we had with her. Perhaps that’s the point — to have the Russian federation eaten by the Chinese and their rapacious desire for resources.
The Federalist Society attorneys who took over the federal judiciary and the Department of Justice thanks to Leonard Leo and Barre Seid’s largesse spent the Trump presidency marking time on things that really didn’t matter — criminal justice reform, criminalizing speech about Israel — and punishing those of us who had helped elect Trump and/or who served our country by outing our status. I look upon the ascension of the Federalist Society in all ways during Trump’s presidency as the real coup. The efforts to scapegoat Trump over January 6th are not dissimilar from the efforts to scapegoat the Russians over 2016.
I was particularly intrigued by your comments regarding Robert Hanssen. Russian AND Israeli spy. Israeli asset. That may help explain the sex addict side of Hanssen. One of the Catholic priests familiar with the case suggested that the Russian espionage functioned as a kind of counter addiction for the Latin Mass Catholic to cover up the sex addiction. I think we know who helped feed that addiction. The Israeli connection may also help explain the "lenient" sentence he got: Hanssen's wife got his pension, he did not get hanged.
I’m always surprised that Robert Hanssen’s story is never told in full. I’m similarly surprised that he’s identified to the extent he’s talked about at all as a Catholic spy when he was most assuredly an Opus Dei spy. For those who don't spend much time on inter-Catholic conflicts the decision by Pope John Paul II to canonize Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei was extremely controversial. Pope Francis’s recent moves against Opus Dei suggest he understands it as the threat to his papacy that it is. I don’t think you can be more Catholic than the Pope.
There are so many scandals involving Opus Dei that it’s hard to know where to begin. Should I start with the $977,000 Opus Dei paid to settle sexual misconduct claims against the Rev. C. John McCloskey, who converted Newt Gingrich, Larry Kudlow, and Sam Brownback, and who counted Louis Freeh, Robert Hanssen, and Bill Barr as his friends?
My views of Opus Dei are a bit more complicated than most. I tend not to favor secret societies simply because I think they are dangerous to the well-ordered workings of the rest of society, especially when they are in the furtherance of a private goal subverting the common good. I’m with Jefferson: “There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world.”
Of course many of the practitioners of holier than thou faiths don’t really practice what they preach and that seems especially obvious with a lot of the Opus Dei types. For them joining Opus Dei is a sort of ballast, keeping their sinful nature in check. Or it’s a way of getting power or making themselves feel significant.
If you were a serious Opus Dei person with no massive character flaws I’d wonder what was wrong with you. Part of the success of joining the organization is that if you don’t understand that it’s really about political power and not “ideas” as Opus Dei member Leonard Leo claims you weren’t fit to join it anyway.
BTW. Susan Hanssen, his daughter, is the featured speaker at ISI's dinner for Western Civilization this Fall… The kids seemed to have turned out all right.
I don’t think this elevation is necessarily a good thing. A well functioning society shuns the children of traitors too. Or at least requires them to give full explanations. Yes, the sins of the father shouldn’t be visited upon the children but behavior is heritable. There should be a public explanation made. How is it that Aaron Parnas has become a vocal mouthpiece for Democrats in South Florida despite his father Lev’s misdeeds?
Some time ago you made remarks about the impact of the overturning of Roe. Most commentators focus on the impact on the upcoming elections: will this aid the Dems by firing up the base? Maybe it will. I don't think that is the most important, long term impact.
My view comes from a remark you made back in 2016 as we discussed the support of gay men like Thiel for Trump. You said: Obergefell allowed gay men to be white.
I believe that same analysis applies to White Evangelicals after the overturning of Roe.
For several decades, White evangelicals have been handcuffed to the GOP globalists elite due to Roe. One example. Back in 1996, I had come to the conclusion that Ross Perot was the best candidate who would represent American interests. Since we discussed this in my church circles, I heard this reply: You cannot vote for him. He is not pro life. I would reply: But he better represents your overall interests. Their response. No. Abortion overrules everything.
These White Evangelicals are now freed of those handcuffs.
(I’m sure there’s a “What’s the matter with Kansas” reference in here somewhere, especially given the results of the recent abortion vote in the state. Long story short: Kansas isn’t Mississippi or Alabama.)
I harbor a lot of interesting conspiracy theories about Ross Perot which could well be the subject of their own posts. Did you know, for instance, that Perot’s firm EDS ran the social security system for the Shah of Iran? Those two Perot employees which were being held in Iran and which Perot purportedly rescued were being held precisely as leverage to get EDS not to run off with Iran’s data. Or that the serial fraudster, Frank Luntz, worked for Perot’s campaign?
I believe that Perot ran for president precisely to stop George H.W. Bush from getting a second term in office over the Israel issue. Bush’s plan to make American aid to Israel contingent on the better treatment of Palestinians and the settlements made Bush an extremely unpopular figure with the Israeli lobby in the United States. By contrast Clinton supported U.S. loan guarantees for Israel and criticized the Bush administration for tying the loan guarantees to a freeze on Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
More to the point, I think that Perot’s support for Israel is the real reason he entered the race — he donated $100,000 to the American Jewish Committee — and threw the election to Bill Clinton who continued being pro-Iran contra and not as aggressive on settlements. Those who study Clinton closely know that Clinton was the governor who made Iran Contra possible.
We won't see this change take place overnight But the ending of Roe will make it much easier for them to move towards an alliance with the growing secular Right (BAP etc).
The defense of abortion of rights by church going Black politicians will also help to disabuse them of the idea that some sort of Black White Evangelical alliance is possible.
This won't happen in this election cycle. But it will be a powerful force in the coming decade.among Evangelicals.
The overturning of Roe will also speed up the split growing in White Evangelical circles. A small, but vocal minority wants to move in a progressive direction. The end of Roe means that they argue that social justice rather than Roe is at the center of their thinking.
There’s a lot here so I’ll try to take it in turn.
I think much of the opposition to abortion comes from those of us who find it disgusting. In that way, it’s not so different from the opposition to factory farming or larger environmental concerns since the 1960s. There’s something disturbing about the flip side of the sexual revolution being millions of aborted pregnancies. “Free love” has real costs and it is measured in the stopped heart beats of our children.
The Clinton formulation — “safe, legal, and rare” was a good compromise but it could not hold because abortion and its opposition had become a sacrament both to the pro-choice and pro-life communities. Call it the tyranny of the extremes causing a political pincer movement. Most of us are in the middle of the issue — we support abortion up to fifteen weeks. Whoever loses the abortion wars is the one who is more extreme.
America is generally becoming a secular country but it is also becoming a very diverse country. It’s “back to blood,” to borrow novelist Tom Wolfe’s phrase about a post-American policy. We will be less abstract with our politics. Of course there are many efforts to hide this racial and ethnic diversity under ideological or religious explanations but pretty much the only analysis which really predicts voter behavior is ethnic. Think of it is as a kind of gangs of New York applied to the whole of the country.
As the efforts continue to stop Chisraeli billionaires and others from donating millions to Christian groups you’ll see these efforts to keep the evangelicals on the plantation disappear. As Fox News goes bankrupt from the Dominion lawsuit, they’ll be a race to recapture the attention of this ethnic group. He who can speak to the rednecks wins the Republican primary in much in the way as he who is acceptable to blacks. Expect interesting attempts here that go around the mega churches and go directly to the Scotts-Irish Americans.
So, yes, I think that evangelical America is on its way out. But then, I believe that the die was cast on it once the iPhone got ubiquity and narcissism became the reigning past time. We worship ourselves now and that’s why the fertility rate is collapsing.