Why Giuliani Gets Away With It (by Francis Wilkinson at HuffPost)

[marmar]

Francis Wilkinson

Why Giuliani Gets Away With It


To the surprise of just about everyone, Rudolph Giuliani has yet to be struck by the righteous lightning of the Republicans' God wing, a fact that has led to speculation that the party may be prepared to lay down arms in the long-running culture war. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, is the first Republican in decades to muster an aura of viability, if not exactly inevitability, while remaining apostate on the core Republican values issues of abortion, gay rights and gun control.

If the gambit succeeds - and it's still a long shot - it will be proof that, among the Republican faithful, the fear of terrorism, Giuliani's signature issue, trumps the fear of cultural dissolution. But even a candidate like Giuliani, who has wrapped himself in 9/11, would not have been able to retreat from the front lines of the culture war had the enemy not already fled the field. And the Democrats have.

Unlike American society at large, where a raucous popular culture is more than a match for conservative mores, in the political arena the culture war has been a lopsided affair. Republicans have played offense, Democrats defense; it's not hard to figure out which party has benefited. The shorthand for the contest is "God, Guns and Gays," because in every election cycle Republicans raise the specter that the first two will be taken away by conniving Democrats while the third, in the form of patrons of a San Francisco leather bar, will be unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Abortion is the fourth wheel beneath the Republican values bus, to be rhetorically inflated or deflated as political necessity dictates.

...(snip)...

So at some point in the not too distant future, Democrats may be able to stop dodging the traffic in values and start directing it. Public support for gay rights has accrued with stunning speed, making eventual acceptance of gay marriage a foregone conclusion. Regardless of what happens to Roe v. Wade, abortion is likely to fade from public view due to advances in technology and pharmacology, like the morning-after pill, that render it an ever more private matter.

As for God, he may be omnipresent but his role in domestic politics tends to be cyclical. If America is prone to great awakenings, it is in part because of more spiritually sleepy interregnums during which science and philosophy - not to mention secularists and even the occasional atheist - manage to have a say.

If Rudolph Giuliani's candidacy hastens the demise of a GOP values coalition that lately has shown signs of fatigue, Democrats are sure to benefit. But sooner or later, with or without Giuliani, the coalition was bound to crumble, creating an opening for a Democratic alternative. After all, in politics and culture, seasons turn and values change. Until then, see you at the gun show. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/francis-wilkinson/why-giuliani-gets-away-wi_b_51854.html

[AlinPA]

1. He is celebrity. That's way it is in 'murca..