2.1 Our Present Crisis
The State of the Crisis at the Beginning of Obama's Second Term
The title of Jonathan Alter's 2013 book (left) captures what happened politically with President Obama's 2012 reelection victory. And Alter's use of the phrase "and his enemies" in the subtitle (rather than phrases like "opponents" or "the loyal opposition") also accurately represent the extremist ideology and tactics of those who tried to make sure he didn't get a second term. Those enemies didn't go away after the election and, for me, their actions are still a serious danger to the health of our democracy.
My further description of the state of the crisis as it existed in August 2013 as well as updates throughout the second term can found on page 2.1.3 We're Not Out of the Woods Yet. Preceding that are a few pages--starting with this one--spelling out the nature of the full-blown crisis as it initially developed in 2008-12 and some layers of context which help put it into a historical perspective.
The Heart of the Crisis As It Developed in 2001-2008
When new political cycles consoladate their power and have free reign to institute their policies, they often move more and more toward the extremes of their basic principles and overreach. Usually this triggers powerful reactions that create a new cycle centered somewhere on the other side of the political spectrum. This is what happened during and after the presidency of George W. Bush in the first years of the 21st century. I'm one of those who see it as the final dangerously extremist phase of what can be called "the Reagan Era."
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This is ironic because Bush had been elected in 2000 on a center-right agenda of "compassionate conservatism" at home and a very cautious realism about military entanglements abroad. However, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, President Bush allowed himself to be co-oped by extremist neoconservatives ("neo-cons")--led by vice president Dick Cheney--who essentially took over of the administration. They used the opening caused by that national trauma to initiate an unjust preemptive war against Iraq in 2003. You didn't have to demonize Dick Cheney, as in the far-left caricature (left), to see him as the most dangerous politician we've seen for a long time and work hard to keep the extremist ideology he represented from retaining power.
I had been disappointed by Bush winning the 2000 election, but did not see it as a serious danger to the health of our democracy until I saw the clearly bogus reasons for justifying the Iraq War and learned more about the neocons who were pushing it. I preached a sermon in October 2004 just prior to the national election in the new congregation my wife and I were serving. This marked the time I became more politically involved and began arguing that it was the civic duty of moderate religious communities to do so also. In that sermon I did something I had never done before from the pulpit. I shared my viewpoint that voting for President Bush without also working for the rejection of the neo-cons dominance in the Republican Party was a threat to the health of our nation.
Needless to say, I was not only disappointed but very worried when President Bush got reelected in 2004 with Cheney and company intact. This was largely achieved by extreme-right Republican strategists being able to co-opt the support of extreme-right Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals with promises they had no intention of fulfilling. This political/religious wedding of convenience was sometimes called an "unholy alliance" by its detractors.
I had been disappointed by Bush winning the 2000 election, but did not see it as a serious danger to the health of our democracy until I saw the clearly bogus reasons for justifying the Iraq War and learned more about the neocons who were pushing it. I preached a sermon in October 2004 just prior to the national election in the new congregation my wife and I were serving. This marked the time I became more politically involved and began arguing that it was the civic duty of moderate religious communities to do so also. In that sermon I did something I had never done before from the pulpit. I shared my viewpoint that voting for President Bush without also working for the rejection of the neo-cons dominance in the Republican Party was a threat to the health of our nation.
Needless to say, I was not only disappointed but very worried when President Bush got reelected in 2004 with Cheney and company intact. This was largely achieved by extreme-right Republican strategists being able to co-opt the support of extreme-right Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals with promises they had no intention of fulfilling. This political/religious wedding of convenience was sometimes called an "unholy alliance" by its detractors.
However, the Cheney/Bush administration (order intentional) overreached in both foreign and domestic policies, which totally discredited their extremist ideology to the point that it effectively ended the 38-year Reagan Era. President Bush took back control of his presidency during his second term, but it was too late to turn things around. The utter failure of radically utopian neocon goal of creating a pro-Western democracy in Iraq right in the heart of the Middle East, can now be seen as the radicalization and end of the foreign policy side of Reagan era politics. The end of that that era's domestic economic side was the far-right policies that caused the most devastating levels of inequality since the Gilded Age and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
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A Pause for an Ideology Alert!
If this is sounding to you like just another partisan Democratic Party attack on Republicans, I assure you it's not. It's only because Republicans have recently moved so far to the extreme-right that it sounds like it. As you will see from this website, politicaly I'm a center-left Democrat, who believes we need a strong center-right in the Republican party again for the health of our democracy. Also, I'm neither a religious fundamentalist nor an anti-religious secularist. Rather, with respect to faith I'm a center-left Christian, who believes it's necessary to have strong center-right faiths in our country.
Opposition to the war in Iraq and to the policies that caused the financial crisis were the main factors that lead to the election of Barack Obama, a center-left president in 2008. But that was far from the end of the crisis.
The next page focuses on the struggle to overcome attempts to scuttle the possibility of
a new center-left period in American faith & politics by keeping President Obama from being reelected. |