Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, is again selling religion like so much soap. "Social conservatives," said Reed to the NY Times, "need to maximize turnout from the base and expand the map by stressing the softer side of the faith agenda: education reform, immigration and criminal justice reform, and anti-poverty measures. This will help with suburban women, millennials and minorities."
Why the shift away from abortion in Reed's marketing strategy? Social conservatives have the Senate, which means they also have the Supreme Court — their ideological hold on which will only intensify as long as Trump is in the White House. Having no principles himself, the president is happy to exchange socially conservative votes for Justices and judges of their choosing. What does he care?
But, there is a problem. "Steep Republican losses in the House, particularly in suburban areas," reports the Times, "have some strategists reflecting on how to proceed as they pivot their efforts to re-electing Mr. Trump in 2020." A repeat of House Republican losses in purplish suburban regions would mean the loss of their unprincipled benefactor, Trump. Thus the panic in some urban megachurches and little Baptist outposts: They either adjust their marketing strategy or slip into the cursed netherworld of political impotence.
Others disagree, "instead emphasizing their success at the judicial level and seem[ing] only minimally interested in adjusting their focus," says the Times. Among the many is the president of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins. "Very few people anymore are in the middle," he said. Perkins then added the customary Perkinsesque laughable: "Barack Obama brought us to this point more quickly because of the extreme policies that he pushed. Trump, with the support of evangelicals, has worked to move the pendulum back."
So Obama was the extremist and Trump is the moderate? In his next breath, Perkins destroyed his own thesis. "Martha McSally lost her Senate race in Arizona," said Perkins, in the Times' words and my emphasis, "because she was not conservative enough."
It's extremism that sells to the right, and Perkins knows it.
If, then, I had to put my money on Ralph Reed and his expansionist marketing scheme or Tony Perkins' Stay the Course, I'd put it on Perkins' nose. Older social conservatives don't care to hear about education reform and anti-poverty measures; they prefer to hear how evil was Barack Obama and how miraculously splendid is Donald J. Trump. Perkins & Co. will give it to them in spades.
Meanwhile, younger social conservatives will continue morphing into young social liberals. So keep up the good work, Tony.