Stumping God: Reagan, Carter, and the Invention of a Political Faith

6. The Legacy of 1980 at the Dawn of a New Era: Lessons for Religion and Politics Going Forward

237 6 The 1980 presidential election cast a long shadow over the last three decades because, since that time, religion has remained a pronounced and prominent aspect of presidential politics. In fact, the types of religious politics that Reagan and Carter created lived on, helping to shape an era of American politics. While office seekers since 1980 have doubtless introduced a few new uses of religion, and while some of them have slightly tweaked the forms introduced by Reagan and Carter to fit their own styles or the shifting political situation, in some clearly discernable ways, the rhetorical infrastructure that Reagan and Carter built for the use of religion in 1980 can be seen in almost every presidential election since. In concluding this work about the formative origins of religious rhetoric in modern American politics, it seems fitting, at this date and time, to do several things. The first is to confirm the importance of the 1980 election by showing the lasting impact of the political religions that Reagan and Carter constructed. These constructs, I contend, have exacerbated the partisan divisions and resulting rancor of the last thirty years, something that has been detrimental both to the practice of American politics and to the public witness of the religious conservatives who initiated America’s religious politics in the first place. Second, it seems fitting to discuss the prospect of a new era with respect to religion in American politics, the contours of which seem to be emerging at present. Finally, in a meditation of sorts, I ask three questions: given religion’s influence and lasting power over the last thirty years, as we look ahead to an emerging new era, will religion continue to play an important role in presidential politics? Should religion continue tHe legACY of 1980 At tHe dAwn of A new erA Lessons for Religion and Politics Going Forward 238 g Stumping god to play an important role in presidential politics? And finally, if it will and should remain, how should religion come to bear in presidential politics? tHe legACY of 1980 . . . If the Carter-Reagan-Anderson contest was in fact as vital an election in the development of American politics as I have contended, then surely we must examine the manner in which it shaped the era that followed. I argue that its effects were indeed great, and the rhetorical infrastructures that Reagan and Carter erected—the political religions of right and center-left respectively—lived on distinguishably in the era that followed. To underscore this point, several instances bear mentioning, because they show the lasting impact of Reagan and Carter on the last three decades. on the Republican side, nearly every candidate has adopted much if not all of Reagan’s strategy in the effort to win over and/or to mobilize religious conservatives, and who can blame them? Religious conservatives only gained strength as a political force after 1980 and established themselves as perhaps the most unified and at times most dominant voice in the Republican Party. All Republican nominees, thus, adopted core components of the Reagan discourse, beginning with the private component. each Republican nominee, that is, has met behind closed doors with Falwell, McAteer, Land, Dobson, Robertson, or various other mobilizers of religious conservatives to assure these leaders of their own personal piety and their commitment to the causes of the religious right. Moreover, Republican candidates also adopted the public component of Reagan’s strategy—if sometimes with less skill—as part and parcel of running under the GoP banner. The first of those elements, addressing and endorsing religious audiences, is perhaps the most conspicuous. For example, George H. W. Bush made campaign visits to Roundtable’s 1988 national Affairs Briefing, to a Southern Baptist Convention meeting, and to national Religious Broadcasters (nRB) meetings (starting as early as 1985, when Reagan had begun his second term and Bush had his sights set on the 1988 bid). Bob Dole ventured even further right in 1996, addressing an assembly at fundamentalist Bob Jones University, as did George W. Bush in 2000. These, of course, are just some instances. Asserting piety, the second public element of the Reagan religious stratagem , has also been a staple of Republican presidential hopefuls. The elder Bush, for example, declared to a prayer group in Houston, which had turned tHe legACY of 1980 At tHe dAwn of A new erA f 239 out to pray for him on...