Mormons and Democrats Yet Again -- and Strange Bedfellows, and New Alignments

The New Republic is back on the Mormon/Democrat beat -- in today's letter of the day, Russell Arben Fox of the Department of Political Science at Arizona State responds to Amy Sullivan:

But as Sullivan should well understand, the sort of voters who are likely to be moved by candidates' religious talk (or at least their lack of anti-religious talk) are exactly the sort of voters who are likely to build their political concerns out of their own faith commitments. Until progressive political leaders take the time to show how their positions (on abortion, health care, economic security, etc.) are at least partially joined with those of believers, as opposed to simply in alignment with them, the number of people Sullivan's strategy could potentially enlist is going to remain ridiculously small--basically only liberal Christians who don't vote for liberals, which can't amount to more than a handful anywhere in the country.

Sullivan, in her response, hedges, then adjusts:

I'd advise against reading too much into this exploration of Mormon political affiliation. The article makes quite clear that there will never be any sort of wholesale defection of Mormon voters... I tried to emphasize... that no religious community--even the LDS Church--is as homogenous or inextricably tied to one political party as observers often assume... I stand by the belief that the Democratic Party needs to continue opening its doors to voters who happen to hold pro-life positions... in order to attract more voters who feel the party is intolerant.

I suppose we could leave the matter there.  But let's not -- because it points the way to a bigger, more interesting question: how are things going to re-align?

The idea of re-alignment is out there -- percolating, but not getting a lot of attention.  We're mostly caught up in the current fight -- red vs. blue, Bush vs. anti-Bush, religious vs. secular.  And of course, the media love a good conflict, and they're reluctant to move on.  But, since I'm contrarian, I have to ask -- what's next?  What are the next fights?  What are the new combinations?  What's over the horizon?  A few initial thoughts...

Last Sunday, The New York Times ran Laurie Goodstein's excellent survey of trends in religion worldwide.  GetReligion comments on it here.  Her conclusion -- counter to the conventional wisdom, fundamentalism isn't actually on the rise.  What's on the rise is personal, experiential religion -- in the U.S., for example, the fastest-growing communities are Pentecostal.  Personal, experiential religion is essentially the opposite of fundamentalism.

Now, casting the net a little wider than Goodstein does, we come across an interesting point.  Many -- not all, but many -- experiential religionists are anti-authoritarian.  Think about the distinction -- my experience, vs. the word and the clergy.  Or ask any Gnostic about Catholicism (or vice versa), or any Sufi about the Sunni (or vice versa). 

I'm not saying that Pentecostals are rebels.  But I am saying that there's a different line to be drawn than the currently fashionable one between religious people and secular people.  There's a line between experiential and authoritarian.  On the experiential side, you'd find (among others) Pentecostals, many Buddhists, New Age seekers, and secular nonconformists.  On the authoritarian side would be fundamentalists, of course -- and also other dogmatists from a variety of religious and secular dogmas.

Why is this interesting?  Because a new progressivism might do well among experientialists.  And the people who are trying to build it might do well to think about this distinction, as opposed to religious vs. secular (how do we appeal to those religious people?) or red state vs. blue state (how do we talk to them at all?)

Looking still farther afield -- I'm thinking along these lines, in part, because of this long speech, sent to me by Adina Levin, a friend of Metaphor Country.  It's by Adam Werbach of The Sierra Club, and it traces the life, death (his formulation) and possible rebirth of environmentalism.  It includes a few political observations that, to me at least, are slightly off-center (the connection between Goldwater and George W. Bush is novel).  Far more important is his contention that the traditional environmental movement failed because it set itself up in opposition to development and, by extension, the economy and prosperity.  And he suggests a future for the movement -- one in which it aligns itself with community-level economic concerns, and in some cases uses the economy, rather than the environment, as a starting point.  His new environmental movement will succeed, he says, because it loses itself in a broader progressivism -- and because it finds common ground with the people and issues who used to be the enemy.  It does exactly what Fox suggests in his letter to Amy Sullivan -- joins with the former opposition, in order to create a new movement.

There's an even bigger idea in Werbach -- so deeply embedded in his argument and his thinking that it's hard to see.  It's the idea that a new progressivism would do well to borrow one of the central concepts of environmentalism -- that of interdependence.  The best environmental thinkers don't think in terms of species, they think in terms of systems.  Similarly here -- rather than thinking in terms of a set of environmental issues over here, and a set of economic development issues over here, and the question of job growth and job quality over there, it would be far more productive to look at intersections and commonalities.  His example -- a New Apollo Project for clean energy infrastructure -- seems, by his account, to have won a fair amount of grassroots support in red-state, blue-collar communities, once the economic benefit was made clear.

So what are the opportunities for new alignment?  There are many.  We touched on one yesterday -- the value of regulation and enforcement in creating a better business environment.  Paul Berman has long since made the argument for a liberal stance against Islamism.  And the Fox-Amy Sullivan discussion points the way to what might be an ultimate prize -- a middle ground on abortion, based perhaps on a commitment to reduce the number of abortions, and a progressive approach to the social services that really ought to support a "culture of life."

Achievable?  Maybe.  In some cases.  After a lot of difficulty.  The challenge for any new alignment is that it lacks infrastructure, and it lacks vested interests.  Whereas the established conflicts are well organized and well funded.  Environmental groups raise funds by talking about environmental issues, and demonizing development.  Abortion groups -- for and against -- raise funds by demonizing each other.  The major political parties are each beholden to a set of interests -- and the groups that define them, and provide the contributions.  And as noted, the media like conflict, and an easy-to-read scorecard.  There's a lot of money to be made, and a lot of power to defend, in categorical thinking.

On the other hand -- we are living in a free-information world, in which it's pretty easy for noncategorical types like me to slip across borders, gather viewpoints, and create new affiliations.  Maybe this is a new cut on the Internet revolution -- Industrial-Age political parties and interest groups and organized religious communities and the broadcast media on the one hand, and boundary-free re-alignments on the other.

Again, these are early thoughts.  There's more to think about and more to observe.  Me, I'm going to make some popcorn, get my program guide, and see what's next.  Additional notes to follow.