Rick Santorum, the man-god of the GOP cult

Rick Santorum, who denounces the moral views of a majority of voters
on countless issues, and who is destined to explode into political
oblivion before Election Day, is the latest example of the point I made
in my latest column.
Republicans could be on a march to self-destruction and will suffer a
gender gap of intergalactic magnitude. Mitt Romney is the candidate who
stands for nothing. Ron Paul says America is headed for fascism
because of the fusion of business and government while his cult-like,
laissez-faire extremism only makes worse the problem he claims to
oppose. While Rick Santorum is the new man-god of rightist Republican
cult politics.

The new teaching of the Republican cult is to render unto God what is God’s, render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, render unto the right what is the right’s, render unto Santorum what is Santorum’s, and render unto all of us whatever Santorum and the right dictate. Those who do not agree with the man-god Santorum or the radical cultism of the right will find their patriotism, Americanism and faith under constant attack.

The man-god Santorum does not believe in the separation of church and state. He does not believe in independent thought and religious freedom in the traditionally American way. At times he does not accept the Christianity of the president. He believes the majority of women hold views that are immoral, and attacks their views, and attacks laws and programs designed to protect them. Hardly the way to win an election.

The GOP has come full circle. In early months the front-runner was Donald Trump, who paraded around the nation like Sherlock Holmes determined to prove the president was not an American. Now the cult’s latest flavor of the week claims the president is not really a Christian.

In between the man who questioned the president’s Americanism and the man who questions the president’s faith there has been a reactionary cult figure of laissez-faire extremism of Ayn Rand and Austrian economists, and a candidate who did not know that China is a nuclear power and is embroiled in multiple charges of abuse of women. And a candidate who once talked secession and virtually threatened violence against the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. And a career adulterer who found God but whose Christianity enables him to claim that poor black people want to take food stamp money from white people, while saying supporters of Freddie Mac should go to jail after taking big money from Freddie and bearing false witness claiming he was paid to be a historian.

These were not just fringe candidates of far-right European parties. They were front-runners in the party of Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.

The Republican Party is dominated by a beast of a base that holds in contempt those who disagree with them, morally condemns a majority of voters on a long list of issues, would destroy the separation of church and state and treats those of different faiths as enemies of the state.

And now comes the man-god Santorum. He believes the presidency is the bully pulpit to browbeat those of differing faiths and attack the Americanism and Christianity of his opponents. He is the latest intolerant voice of the politics of the cult, in a party that has dangerously lost its way, in a country that will not elect those who campaign on the platform of turning the land of the free and the home of the brave into a new Spanish Inquisition.