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The Kiryas Joel Option

Insular communities can get what they want by putting their votes up for bid by the two parties. Is that an option for social conservatives?
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Rod Dreher is convinced the GOP establishment has finally decided to ditch social conservatism entirely:

A large group of Republicans have signed a “friend of the court” brief supporting same-sex marriage. The conservative friend who tipped me off to this says:

It’s quite the litany of GOP staffers, politicians, and consultants. It’s getting increasingly harder to contend that social conservatives have any home in the GOP. I think we’re in the process of transitioning from “useful idiots” to “political liability.” Social conservatives like to ask, “Why would you want a ‘bigot’ to bake you a cake anyway?” Well, why would you want to be part of liberal party anyway?

Let any social and religious conservatives who have eyes to see recognize that this list represents the GOP Establishment. You have likely heard of only a few of these folks, but the list represents the people who actually make the party work. The social liberals have won decisively. Let there be no more illusions.

And from this he concludes . . . that social conservatives would “still be compelled to vote Republican,” based on the “hope that there are some principled libertarians in the GOP.”

Principled liberals who care about actual religious liberty are simply presumed not to exist. Similarly, no thought whatsoever is given to the possible existence of unprincipled liberals who could be swayed by the prospect of a large number of votes.

But why not? Wouldn’t it be worth a bit of effort to find out if they exist? Wouldn’t it be worth a great deal of effort to try to cultivate such people? Wouldn’t it seem to be a better use of energy than continuing a strategy that, by Dreher’s own lights, has gone from failure to failure?

The analogy is often made between social conservative support of the GOP and African-American support of the Democrats. But the analogy is imperfect. Both groups fret periodically that overwhelming loyalty to one party makes it easy for that party to take them for granted. But most African-American voters have a set of bedrock economic interests dovetail better with the Democratic Party’s positions than with those of the GOP. If the GOP were the party of reversing mass-incarceration, greater scrutiny of the power of the police, etc., with the Democrats taking the opposite side on all these matters, and if the GOP overwhelmingly rejected appeals to white racial solidarity, then, over time, the African-American vote might split between those who voted more based on economic interest and those who voted more based on issues related to personal freedom – roughly the way the African-American vote split after FDR and before LBJ. Until that day, there’s no contest.

Now, I think it is very much in the African-American community’s interests to try to bring that day about. I think it’s more in their interest than it is in the GOP’s interest, which is why I think African-American leaders should be courting Rand Paul and other GOP libertarians rather than the other way around. But precisely because the interests of the African-American community are diverse, and because so many of them fit better within the Democratic issue matrix, I can understand why most African-American leaders don’t see the point in trying to cultivate options outside the Democratic Party.

But if Dreher is correct (and I’m not saying he is), then social conservative support for the GOP is single-issue driven. It’s “all about religious freedom,” he says. If that one issue were taken off the table, socially conservative voters would be free to vote their consciences – and their economic interests. If he really believes that, why is he so sure that there is no trade to be done there? That there is no point in even trying to negotiate with the other party?

Let’s imagine a handful of significant figures in the religious right stating publicly that their support was up for grabs based on a single issue: religious freedom. Come up with legislation providing adequate protection, and any candidate signing on would earn their support – or their firm neutrality if both candidates signed on. This would be true regardless of those candidates other views – including on social issues. Meanwhile, absolutely no further support would be provided to either party generally.

Does Dreher really think that the Democratic Party wouldn’t take a serious look at somebody credible who said that? Or that such a statement wouldn’t at least prompt a real debate in Democratic ranks about how to respond?

Dreher talks a lot about the Benedict Option, the building of independent communities organized around a common moral and spiritual commitment, which could keep the flame of Christian civilization alive during a new dark age. He always stresses that he doesn’t mean withdrawing from the world, but merely seceding from the larger culture. Well, there are such communities in America, and it’s worth noting how some of them play the political game.

Consider Kiryas Joel. This village in Orange County, New York, was designed as an enclave of the Satmar Hasidic sect. Satmar are the most insular of Hasidic sects, going to enormous lengths to keep themselves uncontaminated by the larger culture. But they participate in commerce – and they most certainly participate in politics. Specifically, they vote as a bloc for whichever candidate best-supports the narrow interests of the community.

And, funny thing, but politicians respond to incentives. This is a community that rigidly separates the sexes and imposes a draconian standard of personal modesty – and that strives mightily to impose that norm as a public matter in their community. Don’t even talk about homosexuality. But none of that prevented a Democratic candidate for Congress from earning their support by promising to help them with facilitating the community’s growth. And with their help, he narrowly won his election against a Republican who had previously earned the Satmar community’s favor.

I am not writing a brief for Kiryas Joel or Satmar. I think that kind of insulation is extremely destructive, not only for the individuals involved but for any kind of authentic spiritual life. But it seems to me that this is what the Benedict Option looks like in the real world – or, rather, this is a somewhat extreme end of what it might mean.

And my real point is that that approach – a focus on nurturing a spiritual community, maintaining however much integration with the rest of the world as is compatible with that priority, and orienting one’s politics on the specific needs of your community – is completely compatible with playing the two parties off against each other. Satmar stands opposed to basically everything the Democratic Party stands for. Heck, it stands opposed to basically everything America stands for. For that matter, it stands opposed to basically everything the rest of the American Jewish community stands for as well – it’s resolutely anti-Zionist, extremely socially conservative, refuses to cooperate with non-Hasidic groups – it even has a hard time getting along even with other Hasidic groups. And it still gets courted by Democrats.

And their freedom is pretty darned secure.

If that’s really the only issue, well, there you go. And if it isn’t the only issue, then let’s talk about the whole panoply of possible questions that might rightly affect somebody’s vote, and make an open-minded assessment of the relative merits of different candidates and parties. Anything is better than, in the wake of what you see as another round of betrayal and abuse, working to convince yourself you have no alternatives.

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