Politics - playing the religious card

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In summary, playing the religious card in politics refers to the use of religious beliefs and rhetoric to garner support or sway public opinion. This tactic is often employed by politicians to appeal to a particular religious group or to portray themselves as more morally upright than their opponents. While it can be an effective strategy, it can also be divisive and controversial, as it can perpetuate the idea of a binary between religious and secular values. Additionally, using religion as a political tool can blur the lines between church and state and undermine the separation of religion and government. Ultimately, the use of the religious card in politics can have both positive and negative consequences, and it remains a contentious issue in many political arenas.
  • #71
MarcoD said:
Care about what? Everybody cares about things, it may very often just not be fleshed out very well.

Considering the caring, I wonder more whether democracy is failing since people invented the 'poll'. I have really wondered the last years whether just not all politicians are opportunistic and just maximize market shares with whichever emotion is popular in the public. And since both parties do that, but there will be differing opinions, in a two party system you end up with a 50%/50% divide on trivia by default (where everybody fervently agrees on common ground).

In essence, the poll might have turned the US into a direct democracy (at least, during voting time), but also popularized democracy such, that only the general 'feeling' of the public, as rationalized by representatives, is leading, and moral 'leadership' has degraded towards being the best front runner of the public's common 'emotional' response.

(Uh, I am not sure what I am trying to say here, or whether it is relevant.)
It's that this year is unusual in regards to the number of politicians claiming that the Christian God wants to get into politics, through them, the ones God chose, more exactly fringe Christian Evangelical/fundamentalist church politicians.

I find this a disturbing trend.

Sure, we get the occasional crank running for office, but they are short lived because cranks usually aren't a well organized group with lots of money.
 
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  • #72
Evo said:
It's that this year is unusual in regards to the number of politicians claiming that the Christian God wants to get into politics, through them, the ones God chose, more exactly fringe Christian Evangelical/fundamentalist church politicians.

I find this a disturbing trend.

But doesn't this just simply mean that the US, as a democracy, wants Christian leader who talks to God? I mean, these people use polls right?

Maybe I am pessimistic, but in a claim by Bachman, which was something along the lines of 'my husband is the boss,' I just hear someone dropping a line, fishing for the vote of the neoconservative right.

These are troubling times, that makes people conservative, people may be looking for God (or rather, religious conservatism).
 
  • #73
MarcoD said:
But doesn't this just simply mean that the US, as a democracy, wants Christian leader who talks to God? I mean, these people use polls right?

Maybe I am pessimistic, but in a claim by Bachman, which was something along the lines of 'my husband is the boss,' I just hear someone dropping a line, fishing for the vote of the neoconservative right.

These are troubling times, that makes people conservative, people may be looking for God (or rather, religious conservatism).
One of the problems is although they are a small number of the populace, they are highly organized and they have a lot of power and control. Republican politicians fear them and their threats (see previous posted articles), they can buy a lot of advertisements, making it appear that they have a lot of public support, which they don't, they can organize and mobilize their people to go to political rallies, to dictate to their members for whom they will vote, to register people that don't even know what's going on, get absentee ballots for those that don't know what's going on, and bus people to the polls to vote. IMO. I have been witness to this type of thing first hand through Born Again Christian friends that thought that they could bring me to their side by inviting me to their secret "prayer meetings" where they planned these things out in great detail. All it did was shock the crud out of me.
 
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  • #74
MarcoD said:
But doesn't this just simply mean that the US, as a democracy, wants Christian leader who talks to God?
. No!
 
  • #75
Evo said:
One of the problems is although they are a small number of the populace, they are highly organized and they have a lot of power and control. Republican politicians fear them and their threats (see previous posted articles), they can buy a lot of advertisements, making it appear that they have a lot of public support, which they don't, they can organize and mobilize their people to go to political rallies, to dictate to their members for whom they will vote, to register people that don't even know what's going on, get absentee ballots for those that don't know what's going on, and bus people to the polls to vote. IMO. I have been witness to this type of thing first hand through Born Again Christian friends that thought that they could bring me to their side by inviting me to their secret "prayer meetings" where they planned these things out in great detail. All it did was shock the crud out of me.

Oh, that bad. :redface:
 

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