My boss (also a student of politics) and I were discussing “conservative” politics the other day, and how it means something very different in America than in the rest of the world. Historically conservatives have stood for smaller government: lower taxes, fewer social programs, less interference in commercial enterprise, etc. However, in America it has come to mean something very different. Traditionally Republicans have been considered the more conservative party, but Republicans today are no longer “conservatives” in the political sense. Rather, they are pro-life, anti-gay, pro-religion (Christian, specifically) and, to a lesser extent, pro-war and pro-gun.

As such, it seemed to us that every issue seized upon by American conservatives gets twisted into those main talking points. Debate over judicial nominations becomes a debate about “godly” versus (one assumes) “godless”; school science classes become a debate about evolution versus “intelligent design”; every address by an elected official, no matter the subject, ends with “God Bless America”; same-sex marriage is cast as an affront to God; and so on. There is little room for reasoned debate; arguments are defined as “holy” vs. “unholy”, “godly” vs. “godless”, “moral” vs. “immoral”, “with us” vs. “against us”, etc. They ask themselves, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”, but they seem to find a different answer than the left / progressives / liberals / whatever you choose to call them.

It’s nothing new; fifty years ago McCarthy was attacking godless communists and having religious language inserted into the pledge of allegiance, and many schools still didn’t teach evolution. I’m just baffled that it’s gone on so long, and that it hasn’t seemed to catch on in Britain or Canada. Why not? Or has it, and I’m just blind to it?