The Religious Right vs. The Corporate Elite

Even before I finished reading this James Wolcott post, I was thinking somewhat along the lines of three latter paragraphs:

At what point will corporate chieftains in the US, particularly those who rely heavily on exports, going to realize and acknowledge that Bushism is bad for business?

And not just abroad but domestically in the long run? In the Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida convincingly argues and documents that the ingredients for future prosperity and well-being are Technology, Talent, and Tolerance. Under the last T, he emphasizes diversity, sexual as well as ethnic. A gay-friendly community is a creative community and a creative community is a forward-thinking, open, freer, technologically cutting-edge community. "[A] place that welcomes the gay community welcomes all kinds of people," Florida writes. As a reporter friend of Florida says, "Where gay households abound, geeks follow."

Does that sound like the kind of America that reelected Bush last week? A country open to science, skepticism, dissent, tolerance, liberal values, and sexual diversity? The evangelical ascendence in America is yet another indicator of decline and sullen pouting. Unable to tell the world what to do, it's going to tell other Americans what to do, how to live, and how to get right with God.

My own take is a little more geared towards the potential for internecine conflict within the GOP coalition. Damn, I forget where I saw it, but as I prowled around the internet last night after making it home, I saw a post somewhere noting that the "red states" who vote GOP based on "values" always end up being told to wait.

Now, that's not entirely true--judicial appointments, it seems, tend to be the sop thrown to the literal truthers. And our surfeit of prisoners, not to mention the zeal with which executions are carried out (especially in Texas), attests to, well, a decidedly Old Testament view of things. But at the same time, I think there's a nugget of truth in the fact that the corporate types who've allied themselves with the religious right do so without considering the possibility that they might one day find themselves wishing they'd chosen a different ally.

I'm not big into celebrity and/or elite gossip mongering, but it hardly takes having a keen interest in that sort of thing to notice that their "values" don't exactly comport with those of Middle America. Between the Paris Hiltons, the Jenna and Barbara Bushes, and assorted sundry spawn of those running the show, I think it's evident that sex, drugs, and rock & roll haven't lost their appeal.

And, as others have said elsewhere, when pornography outsells pro sports, you can't simply dismiss it as a phenomenon limited to blue-state depravity.

So, what happens if/when the religious zanies decide that their version of morality--and public policy--will be enforced at all costs? Well, as Wolcott notes, you run the risk of generating a serious backlash in the form of lost business. Which doesn't bode well for the country when you consider that at least for the last century or so, it's been acknowledged by most who understand and follow this sort of thing that overseas markets are key to maintaining the productive base. If you can't sell your excess product there, look out.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the GOP coalition over the next couple of years. To be honest, I don't expect Jenna or Barbara Bush to be arrested any time soon, no matter how many bong hits they have at an Ashton Kutcher party. However, the possibility of lost business, particularly when the economic climate aggressively punishes even the slightest decline in revenue, could badly hurt the GOP coalition, especially if it's combined at some point with an enforced morality that corporatists have never signed on to.

When folks talk about what's "wrong" with the Democrats, they don't bring up the fact that the GOP has some serious holes in the hull as well...