There’s much being said and written about the midterm elections (you can thank me later for not [yet, at least] adding my own voice to the cacophony).
Right now, I’m just going to note a few pieces I just read, thanks to RealClearReligion .
First, there’s the garden-variety hysteria of Susan Jacoby : the social conservatives will stick their fingers in every pot and undo everything we secularists have accomplished over the past thirty years.
Then there’s Albert Mohler’s antidote to this hysteria :
Americans will soon learn the difference between conservatism and libertarianism. A good many of the new faces in Washington will have been supported by the Tea Party movement, and a good number of these are committed to the worldview and political philosophy of libertarianism. Many conservatives are as yet unable to tell the difference. They are likely to learn fast.
Finally, there’s Jordan Sekulow’s triumphalism , which will surely be cited by those who wish to share Jacoby’s concerns:
November 2nd was a historic day for the religious right. Republicans are back in control of the House of Representatives and many social conservatives are heading to the US Senate. Among the 80 new Republicans headed to the House (includes all non-incumbents), American voters elected an estimated 70 new social conservatives. In the Senate, 10 of the 12 new Republicans heading to the US Senate will vote social conservative.
He refers to them as “pro-life constitutional conservatives,” which is neither an oxymoron nor a redundancy. Glenn Beck equates constitutional conservatism with libertarianism, which isn’t necessarily pro-life. Since I don’t think the Founders were libertarians (though they did, for the most part, favor limited government at the federal level), I don’t follow Beck. But it just might be possible for a constitutional conservative to regard the constitution as silent on the question of abortion and to believe that such a political question should be settled at the state level. If this is a “constitutionally conservative” position, then it isn’t necessarily prolife.
I think Mohler’s is the most sober voice of the three. Social issues will inevitably come up, especially in the judicial arena, which is much more amenable to those who, like Jacoby, are impatient for what they regard as progress. And I cannot imagine that those sorts of judicial decisions won’t evoke a political response.
But, for the moment, I want the new Congress to keep its eye on the prize.
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