America has always been prone to spasms of attacks on the rights of average Americans. Several scenarios from the last sixty years come immediately to mind. One is the McCarthy Era (1950 to 1954) when Communism was the identified boogeyman and thousands of Americans were falsely accused of disloyalty, treason, subversion, and sympathy with the Communist Party. The effort was fueled by Republican U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who famously went on witch hunts through the use of Congressional investigations that cost thousands their freedom, their reputations, their careers, and sometimes, their lives. McCarthy’s excesses were finally brought to a halt through rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren.
A second is the Civil Rights Era (1955-1968). African-Americans endured brutal, enforced subservience and suppression in this country since before its founding, but the tactics of terror and control in the South became obvious to the whole country in the 50’s and 60’s. Thousands of people, black and white, engaged in civil disobedience of the laws in order to force crises with governments and law enforcement agencies. They did so at risk of life and limb. When the images of children being attacked with fire hoses and police dogs became more than the country could bear, intervention by the federal government and the adoption of civil rights laws followed.
A third time is our current era, the Extreme Religious Right Era. Again, the rights and freedoms of Americans are under serious attack at almost all levels—voting rights, healthcare rights, women’s rights, the right to freedom from the imposition of religion, the right to an education, virtually every humanitarian and civil right—coming from the fringe of Christianity with the aim of subduing and mandating the behaviors of the entire population. This could also be called the Tea Party Era, but it has been brewing much longer than the Tea Party label has been around.
The earlier Eras eventually came to an end when Americans emerged from the shock of watching the feeding frenzy of extremists and took action to stand up against them. There are signs that the current Era is coming to a close as well. The most obvious, of course, is the Occupy Wall Street movement, but there are also indications from within the hotbeds of terror that instigate the oppression—the Republican Party and evangelical Christians.
Moderate Republicans have stood to one side as the frenzy built and continued, allowing their Party to be taken over by and ultimately cooperating with the radical elements. Now Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, has spoken out from the relatively comfortable position of a man not currently running for office. On Sunday at a breakfast for national reporters, Bush said that neither his father (George H.W. Bush) nor Ronald Reagan would fit into today’s Republican Party. Both men would have difficulty with “an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement.”
Bush specifically questioned the current Republican approach to deficit reduction, extreme partisanship, and immigration. He praised his father’s deal to raise taxes in 1990 in order to achieve deficit reduction and, on immigration he said, “Don’t just talk about Hispanics and say immediately we must have controlled borders. Change the tone would be the first thing. Second, on immigration, I think we need to have a broader approach.” This challenge is coming from a man whose wife is Mexican-American, who speaks Spanish fluently, and who is intimately familiar with Hispanic culture.
Mark McKinnon, a friend of Bush’s and strategist with a bipartisan group called No Labels, went a step further. “There are a lot of us still trying to put the compassion in conservatism,” he said, adding that Jeb Bush was speaking for “a piece of the party that’s felt pretty neglected lately.” The two men sound like they are emerging from the Republican Party’s deep sleep. More startling is the fact that evangelical Christians have started to recognize that their survival depends on taking a different approach to immigration reform.
The bald fact is that the fastest-growing segment of their congregations lies within their Hispanic membership. While the National Association of Evangelicals has been on board with the idea of reform for several years, holdouts like Focus on the Family, a radio ministry out of Colorado, have just joined the effort. On Tuesday, a press conference was called to announce that more than 150 evangelical leaders are taking a position similar to President Obama’s in supporting immigration overhaul. They specifically opposed the ideas of Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who advocates “self-deportation” and strict law enforcement measures, such as those enacted in Arizona, to address the issue.
“This is the tipping point to finally convince Republican operatives that they must redeem the narrative on immigration reform in order to be a viable party in America’s political landscape in the 21st century,” said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. Even though he met with Romney to press this point of view, the candidate shows no inclination to change his positions. These developments may ultimately bring relief to our beleaguered country and is certainly good news for the oppressed factions within our population who need a path to legitimacy. The Republican Party, however, has some painful adjustments to make. Jeb Bush’s remarks make it clear that many in the party are keeping their distance from the current Presidential campaign out of the knowledge that they must rebuild their foundation once the election over.
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