I don't think we ever had a home. We had a certain coalition but with the pattern evident in GHW Bush, Dole, McCain and Romney candidacies -- in other words, the entire losing streak excepting an outlier in Dubya (not that he served us much good) there would be no basis for us staying. With Romney, especially, two litmus tests failed: at least nominal Christianity and at least plausible pro-life convictions.
Yes, they may go for the suburban secular vote and drop the conservative pretense. The demographics may point in that direction.
No matter what they do, we have to think of ourselves as a permanent opposition party and possibly a regional party, providing a block on most egregious encroachments from Washington, but without a governing prospect.
Observe, however, that a separate conservative party, free from the demographic urges toward appeasement, will become attractive in ways the GOP could not be attractive: as the salt of the American earth. I think, the American conservatives will not have the GOP numbers, but we will not dwindle to single digits. We could be a 30-40% congressional party tomorrow, and hold keys to government that way.
"The Reformation unintentionally undid the medieval synthesis of faith and reason. Now we romantically seek a spiritual life free from authority and tradition, or rationalistically seek truth as if human beings were autonomous and self-sufficient."
"The day may come when Catholics can support neither of the main American political parties or their candidates. Some think it’s already arrived. Alasdair MacIntyre, the Notre Dame philosopher, argued along those lines a few years ago, explaining why he couldn’t vote for either a Democrat or a Republican."
"Elections are tough times for serious Catholics. If we believe in the encyclical tradition—from Rerum Novarum to Evangelium Vitae; from Humanae Vitae to Caritas In Veritate—then we can’t settle comfortably in either political party. Catholics give priority to the right to life and the integrity of the family as foundation stones of society. But we also have much to say about the economy and immigration, runaway debt, unemployment, war and peace. It’s why the US bishops recently observed that “in today’s environment, Catholics may feel politically disenfranchised, sensing that no party and few candidates fully share our comprehensive commitment to human life and dignity.”
"Any committed Christian might be tempted to despair. But the truth is that it’s always been this way. As the author of Hebrews wrote, “here we have no abiding city” (Heb 13:14). Augustine admired certain pagan Roman virtues, but he wrote the City of God to remind us that we’re Christians first, worldly citizens second. We need to learn—sometimes painfully—to let our faith chasten our partisan appetites."
"In the United States, our political tensions flow from our cultural problems. Exceptions clearly exist, but today our culture routinely places rights over duties, individual fulfillment over community, and doubt over belief. In effect, the glue that now holds us together is our right to go mall-crawling and buy more junk. It’s hard to live a life of virtue when all around us, in the mass media and even in the lives of colleagues and neighbors, discipline, restraint, and self-sacrifice seem irrelevant."
- Archbishop Charles Chaput
“I don't think we ever had a home.”
Then, if you like, a place to rest our heads mostly unmolested.
“With Romney, especially, two litmus tests failed: at least nominal Christianity and at least plausible pro-life convictions.”
Gov. Romney's Mormonism is problematic. In some sense, it IS nominally Christian. The problem is that it's clearly not substantially Christian.
As for his pro-life “convictions,” these seemed plausible to that half of the country, at least, that did NOT vote for him. LOL. And even many who voted for him, I think, viewed him as sincerely pro-life. It is ironic that those who questioned his pro-life “convictions” were a subset of those most dedicated to the cause of life.
Myself, I think the question of his “pro-life” convictions is a little more complicated than, “is he?/isn't he pro-life?”. That's a topic for a whole other thread. For myself, I came to the conclusion that he was sufficiently pro-life to provide at least enough of a fig leaf not to irreparably damage the Republican Party's stand as a party of life.
A Giuliani candidacy would not have provided that fig leaf.
I don't think the rest of your analysis holds up. I'm not sure that a thorough-going pro-life party would attract much more than about 20% of voters. That's what every reliable poll ever conducted shows: those who are uncompromisingly pro-life constitute about 20% of the electorate.
You could easily broaden the appeal to 40% or more if you accept some pro-life compromises. Like, the “hard cases,” or maybe a little euthanasia around the edges, or a little embryonic stem cell research.
But heck, why bother going third party if we have to compromise, most folks will say.
Let's face it, support even for a “substantially” pro-life legal regime isn't terribly broad (perhaps 55% of the electorate would find that acceptable), and probably fairly shallow (many of those folks will fall away if you take away their free rubbers and pills, or argue for fiscal constraint, or get all judgmental & stuff about illegitimacy, etc.).
John Derbyshire posits that as whites shrink to minority status in the US (which is allegedly about 40 years off), we will think more like a cohesive ethnic group, and we will form a party around our white “ethnicity,” and being the single largest racial group, we will be able to at least negotiate tolerable political outcomes. He also foresees that as non-white minorities, in the aggregate, become the majority, that they will be less likely to make common cause with each other, and our “multi-culti” nation will see three or four major, mostly ethnically-based parties and maybe a few minor parties, that will result in shifting alliances to accommodate political solutions.
It's an interesting theory.
Myself, I think it's far too optimistic, as it suggests a certain continuation of the path that we're on.
I think we're more likely to have a discontinuity or two that will cause significant disequilibrium of the system. The re-election of the anti-Christ is the direct, proximate cause of the coming discontinuity. It's tough to know, to predict, what lies on the other side of the disequilibrium. It may be good, it may be bad, it may be worse.
This is why it was important to elect Gov. Romney - to provide space and time for God's action before the coming sorrow. Now the great sorrow is upon us as a nation and it will not be avoided.
At this point, it's all in God's hands.
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