Huckabee and the Theocrats

Usually, I tend to be skeptical about hysterical denunciations of the Christian Reconstructionists. As this 1998 Reason article makes clear, they are indeed batshit crazy -- they really do want to establish a theocracy in the United States. Sort of the Christian equivalent of Muslim Sharia Law, right here in the U.S. of A. Typically, the folks who try to drum up fear of the Christian Reconstructionists do a six-degrees-of-separation act to "prove" that a mainstream conservative really is under their sway.

Now, via Andrew Sullivan and Brink Lindsay, this Robert Novak column which mentions in passing that Huckabee held a fundraiser in the home of Dr. Steven Hotze, a Christian Reconstructionist of some note. Brink Lindsay has the lowdown on this guy, and he's one scary dude. He's associated with the Coalition on Revival, which really and truly does want to establish a no-kidding Christian theocratic state. Here's one of their statements, dug up by Lindsay:

We affirm that the Bible is not only God’s statements to us regarding religion, salvation, eternity, and righteousness, but also the final measurement and depository of certain fundamental facts of reality and basic principles that God wants all mankind to know in the sphere of law, government, economics, business, education, arts and communication, medicine, psychology, and science. All theories and practices of these spheres of life are only true, right, and realistic to the degree that they agree with the Bible.

Yeah, that's right. They want a Magisterium-style totalitarian theocracy, based on their interpretation of an inerrant Bible.

And Huckabee didn't accidentally accept a campaign contribution from this guy. He went to the man's home and held a fundraiser there. Andrew Sullivan throws around the term "Christianist" with far too much abandon. But in Huckabee's case, it fits.

Mike Huckabee -- The Anti-Corporatist

Some of our friends on the left seem convinced that Mike Huckabee is the genuine anti-establishment, anti-corporatist Republican candidate. Glenn Greenwald wrote a long (well, it's Greenwald) bit -- with five updates! -- about the anti-establishment candidates -- Ron Paul, John Edwards, and Mike Huckabee. Now, it's pretty ridiculous to call Edwards and Huckabee anti-Establishment -- Edwards is a trial lawyer with standard liberal "populist" views, and Huckabee is the ideological heir to George W. Bush. But it's interesting that he quotes, apparently approvingly, Huckabee's claim that he's not part of the "Wall Street-to-Washington axis, this corridor of power." Likewise, Jon Ponder claims that the members of the "corporatist Republican establishment" won't cede power to a Yahoo like Huckabee. Dave Neiwert has similar observations.

Guys, I'm sorry to tell you, but you have it exactly backwards. First of all, Huckabee is the direct ideological heir to George W. Bush. If you hate Bush, you should loathe Huckabee. He's even more of a religious fruitcake than Bush, and, in terms of policies, he seems not to differ from Bush a whit on, well, much of anything.

Sure, Huckabee talks like a populist anti-corporatist. But will that matter a whit in the end? Huckabee is the sort of big government Republican who will undoubtedly embrace all sorts of government programs, rules, regulations, and giveaways. As I noted in this post, corporatism isn't the result of bad people in office -- or not just the result of bad people. It's the result of structures and incentives. And I assure you that Mike Huckabee is not going to fundamentally alter the incentive structures that create corporatism. Nor will Hillary Clinton, or John Edwards, or Barack Obama, or anybody else with a plausible chance of winning.

The bigger the government we have the more corporatism we will have. And from the sound of things, Mike Huckabee wants a very big government indeed.

Mike Huckabee Phones God -- and Sully Freaks

Sully links to this blurry YouTube video of Governor Huckabee talking to God -- on his cell phone. Sullivan dubs it "horrifying," but I think that's going too far. It would be "horrifying" if Huckabee actually heard God on the other end of the phone, issuing instructions. I don't think he believes that God is actually on the other end, although with Huckabee you can't be sure.



It's my sense that Huckabee was just trying to be funny, although it's not nearly as successful as his Chuck Norris ad. But, while it's not horrifying, it is derivative: he's just copying an old Ellen DeGeneres act.



Was that horrifying too? Well, I suppose it was.