Two peas in the godpod

In this video from the Texas Democratic Party, Texas “apologises” for having inflicted George W. Bush on America—and now for Rick Perry. While a real apology would be nice, this tongue-in-cheek version at least hints at why Perry is so much worse than Bush was.

But beyond his truly awful record as Governor of Texas is the very real threat to freedom and democracy posed by the fact Perry’s the darling of the “tea party” evangelicals, for whom nothing other than dedication to their theocratic agenda matters. In fact, Perry’s mobilising an army of "prayer warriors” to help him win Republican primaries, particularly in states like South Carolina. These dominionists promote the “Seven Mountains” campaign in which they plan to take control of the “mountains” (power centres) of arts and entertainment, business, education, family, government, media and religion. They intend that all other religions will be replaced with their own, and the government will become a radically extreme far-right “Christian” theocracy.

In case anyone should doubt Perry’s commitment to the religious lunatic fringe, he had two of their “apostles” on stage with him during his infamous Christians-only prayer-a-palooza recently. He was intending to send a message, even if the mainstream media missed it entirely.

Perry also has a long record of anti-gay positions and associations. This isn’t surprising, given his fealty to the religious lunatic fringe. He even waffled on marriage equality to better meet their litmus test. Even though all this pandering to extremist fanatics could be only expedient lip service, him using them to get what he wants, we can’t afford to take that chance.

Meanwhile, Perry’s chief rival for the religious lunatic fringe vote, Michele “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann, allegedly pals around with an alleged terrorist. And the fact that I use the word “allegedly”, when no one on the right would ever do that in similar circumstances, is not lost on me.

Perry’s ties to the dominionists on the religious lunatic fringe and Bachamann’s alleged ties to an alleged terrorist will play well with their base—the religious fringe, lunatic and less so—but it spells danger in the general election. Writing on the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times, two political scientists, David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam, point out that with the “tea party” completely out of step with mainstream American voters, any candidate or party that embraces them too closely risks major defeat and tainting the party for a generation.

We can only hope.