Mary and Wayne

Last night before I signed off, I posted an interview by Rose Aguillar with Mary Fowler, an Oklahoma Republican. At the end of the interview, I posted a comment from a disabled Oklahoman named Wayne Yeazel who depends on the government but who says he doesn’t vote.

Mary Fowler is an evangelical Christian who believes that Republicans pick their candidates based upon their devotion to Jesus. In fact, she sees republicanism as part of her church. For her, religion and politics are the same thing.

Wayne Yeazel and his family have terrible money problems. If you read the whole interview you can see they are all living on social security disability. Wayne Yeazel feels no connection to the party that has spent the last year fighting to save their only source of livlihood. His wife says she doesn’t like the government in general, which is quite astute considering that they are trying to destroy her family at the moment — but she doesn’t vote either. Clearly, they have no idea how directly politics affects their lives.

Mary Fowler can be dealt with only one way — we must separate Republicanism from her church. It won’t be possible to out church them but it can be done by exposing them. Republicans are not godly. When she finds out that they aren’t godly she will stop voting for them — most likely stop voting at all. (And unless she learns to separate religion from politics it is probably the best thing.) It won’t be easy to convince her, but she is much more attached to her vision of the Bible than the Republican party. She chose Republicanism after she was saved, not before. She will choose Jesus over Tom Delay if push comes to shove.

I urge you to read all the interviews. I picked Mary Fowler because she is probably fairly representative of the hard core evangelical Republican who is unreachable for Democrats because of our fundamental philosophy of pluralism and tolerance (and reason.) I harbor no illusions that she will ever vote for us. But she is fundamentally not a political person; she sees the world entirely through the prism of her church. The concept of democracy is meaningless to her. Until the Republicans realized that they had an highly organized consituency out there waiting to be plucked, people like her didn’t involve themselves in politics because they simply didn’t believe the secular institutions of government were relevant or important. They operated in the spiritual, personal, private sphere which is really where religion belongs and where it thrives.

I think Mary Fowler can be shown that Republicanism is not what she thinks it is and separate it from her belief system. It will take a lot of work because people like her place their trust in authority figures and believe what they are told. But over time these things can penetrate if the message is consistent and clear. We don’t have to convert them. We just have to sow doubts.

If we are to destroy the exploitative evangelical political machine the Republicans have built, the Mary Fowlers out there must open their eyes to the fact that the Republicans are tainting their church with their sin and hypocricy. Mary Fowler is a sincere fundamentalist Christian, not a political hack. Has anyone read “Elmer Gantry” lately? Mary Fowler is being sold a bill of goods.

Wayne Yeazel and his family don’t vote. Mary Fowler does. We need to switch that around.

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