The evangelical vote has been exploited by the Republicans for 30 years. Over that time, they’ve often voted against their own self interests — resulting in their jobs being shipped overseas, their young being shipped off to war, and their environment being ruined for corporate financial gain. For 30 years they’ve given their vote to the Republicans and what do they have to show for it? There’s no abortion ban, no gay marriage ban, and no prayer in schools. If anything, their goals are slipping even further from their grasp as time goes on.
That’s the problem when trying to use politics for further a religious agenda. You get the politicians doing the exploiting and the religious side being exploited until ultimately both sides realize they’re no longer benefiting from each other — at which point the coalition goes BOOM.
So what we have now are the extreme right clinging to their tired old canards, leaving no room for the moderates to get things done. When your constituency wants their abortion ban, gay marriage ban, and prayer in schools, what room does that leave for things like the economy, foreign policy, health care and education? You know — the things that actually affect people in their daily lives?
My guess is that the GOP will eventually jettison the evangelicals and rise again as the party of fiscal responsibility and social libertarianism — maybe under a different name. The question then becomes, can the moderates on the right win an election without the votes of the millions of evangelicals? It’s hard to say, which is why the Republicans find them selves in the predicament that they are in now.
