The Santorum Surge: One Man’s Culture War Is Another’s Flaccid Flop

You know your party is having a bad election year when it’s only February and they’re already screeching about social issues. After all, opposing parties generally save the sideshow gimmicks until the tail end of the race, when the galvanizing potential of rational arguments has diminished and a few successful stump speeches built on divisive demagoguery may be the difference between the Oval Office and the equally circular process of finger pointing until you find out precisely where you went wrong. But in a sea of blunders, hysteria and snarls that now define a major political party in decline, it might be easier if you instead ask where—if anywhere—you went right. Or actually, it might be better if you didn’t ask anything at all. Rather, you must distract.

That’s exactly what today’s Republican Presidential contenders, namely Rick Santorum, are doing. And in some ways, it makes sense: the economy is on the rise, Obama’s approval ratings are no longer below freezing, and his administration has demonstrated its foreign policy prowess by successfully removing two of the world’s most despised men—Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi—from power. Not too shabby given that Obama accomplished all of this while dealing with a House and Senate led primarily by individuals with as much flexibility as slabs of granite.

As Americans have begun to pick themselves up by their bootstraps following several years of economic uncertainty that were an inevitable symptom of decades of hands-off economic policy making, there is great potential for unity both nationally and abroad. Most Americans are in favor of the Buffett Rule and it is becoming increasingly obvious that draconian austerity measures alone in Greece, Spain and other debt-ridden countries will not work. Yet, aware of this potential for union, a second term for Obama, and the resuscitation of the spectral ‘American Dream’ at a precipice in world history, liberty-loving and Bible-thumping men like Rick Santorum have tried to thwart this momentous opportunity by shrieking (much like a dying animal) about abortion, homosexuality, and now even a former non-issue like contraception.

The most pathetic part about this hollow ploy for American vitriol that will hopefully extend its claws to the voting booths this fall is that it’s not even new; it’s a repeat of 1992’s Republican Convention. And even worse, it’s based on a speech by Pat Buchanan. In Buchanan’s eyes, “radical feminists,” “environmental extremists,” and those damned homosexuals who actually sought equal rights had all begun their pathogenic pursuit of America’s “soul” (albeit a white heterosexual male one) and would stop at nothing until they got what they wanted. In Buchanan’s eyes, much like Santorum’s, said wants included abortion on demand, homosexual rights, and even women in army fatigues. And so, in an attempt to render his feeble argument inarguable, Buchanan cited God as his backer. Thus if you refuted him, you were also defying God’s word, which would render you as yet another heathen slowly sucking away at the precious white marrow of America.