The Future of USAmerican Politics

While I don't believe The Economist to be the only thing worth reading, it is one of the best weekly companions for constantly connecting to and engaging the world in a broad sense. Given that their aim is to "to tell the world about the world, to persuade the expert and reach the amateur" - no less and no more - I think they ably succeed.

This week, a short paragraph in a profile of Minnesota (in a series on swing states) seemed to me to capture the very essence of one of the real turning-points at which US politics has come:

This ties into a broader suspicion that Mr Bush's brand of Republicanism is just a little too Dixified for Minnesota. Ventura country likes Schwarzenegger Republicans, pragmatic figures who take a moderate stance on social issues such as abortion and the environment. Minnesota has relatively high church-attendance rates, but the evangelical influence is still much fainter than in, say, Texas; Minnesota Christians, with their Lutheran cast, devote their energy to social justice in the third world rather than dreaming up new ways to punish the wicked at home.

Obviously I appreciate the mostly-correct social-political characterization of Lutherans (except for the Mahtomedi extremists). What caught me most was the dichotomy facing the right, and the battle that will loom in coming years between social-crusaders allied with conservative (in varying degrees) Christianities and social-moderates. In many ways, the issue is whether there can be a Republican Party beyond being "besieged" by the "culture wars." This, of course, is deeply intertwined with the question of the future of US public religion, and particularly whether another version of socially conscientious and politically engaged Christianity can ascend.