BEST PART6

the Christian Right still a power in American politics? The lavish coverage which its partisans and their favorite issues have received during the current Republican campaign certainly leave that impression. Yet all this attention is akin to the dazzling glow of a setting sun. In fact, the Christian Right is a fading force in American life, one which has little chance of achieving its cherished goals.
Yes, pious conservatives earned the underfunded Rick Santorum a virtual tie in the Iowa caucuses, and, last week, a large gathering of evangelical leaders nodded fervently in his direction. Every GOP candidate still in the race speaks of Planned Parenthood as if it were a band of terrorists and vows to stop the largest and oldest reproductive rights group in the country from winning even a dollar of federal funding—and all of them except Ron Paul has signed a firm pledge to support a constitutional amendment that would essentially ban same-sex marriage. As for the presumptive nominee Mitt Romney, who has earned the suspicions of many conservative evangelicals, he has worked tirelessly to ingratiate himself with the Christian Right. Pro-Romney robo-calls in South Carolina currently feature a right-to-lifer from Massachusetts who opens her pitch, “I know you have heard a lot of folks talking about Mitt’s record on life, faith, and marriage while governor of Massachusetts.”
But, whatever their influence on the Republican primary, the Christian Right is fighting a losing battle with the rest of the country—above all, when it comes to abortion  and same-sex marriage, the issues they care most about. A strong majority of Americans backs abortion in the early months of a pregnancy. If elected president, it’s exceedingly unlikely that Romney would ever sign legislation that could lead to the indictment of millions of women and tens of thousands of physicians for fetal murder. Last fall, even voters in Mississippi soundly rejected a bill that might have done just that.
Meanwhile, support for gay rights is rising, quite swiftly. Same-sex marriage tops fifty percent in some recent polls, and the remarkably placid response to New York’s recent legalization of the practice will make it easier for other states to follow suit. With over two-thirds of Americans now endorsing the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the debate on that once controversial issue is now a matter for historians to analyze.
More fundamentally, the right of privacy is now all but unchallenged. Almost half-a-century after Griswold v. Connecticut, not even Rick Santorum proposes outlawing birth control methods that nearly every heterosexual woman has used or will use at some point in her life. The news that the traditionalist Catholic ex-Senator from Pennsylvania had suggested that contraception “is counter to how things are supposed to be” was enough to bury under a heap of ridicule whatever slim chance he had to win the nomination. In the modern U.S., once a demand for justice gets widely accepted as an individual right, its victory becomes all but certain. As the woman suffrage, birth control, and black freedom movements triumphed, so will those who campaign for legalizing gay marriage.
Thus, contrary to the whims of lazy pundits, the waning of enthusiasm for battling over “social issues” is not due to higher concerns about jobs, the deficit, and the economic future. As President, George W. Bush, despite his born-again convictions and eloquent speeches crafted by his fellow evangelical Michael Gerson, could not slow, much less reverse the erosion of support for the Christian Right.
Part of its decline is due to the absence of effective, well-known leaders. Two decades ago, evangelical conservatives could look to charismatic men like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson to raise hefty sums, build sizeable national organizations, and generate fear as well as loathing among liberals. But few Americans outside their own circle would recognize any of the key figures who organized the meeting last week that endorsed Santorum. That may be a blessing of sorts. One of them—Donald Wildmon, the 73-year-old founder of the American Family Association—made headlines in the past by calling for a boycott of Disneyland because it hosted an annual “gay day” and demanding that Sears pull its ads from the original Charlie’s Angels.
But the emptiness at the top of the movement reflects a gradual hollowing out at its base. At Glenn Beck’s prayer meeting cum political rally in August 2010, the average age of the participants was somewhere in the late fifties or older: White and gray hair and spreading midriffs predominated in the nearly all-white crowd. It may have been the first Washington rally in history at which a majority of the participants were resting on portable folding chairs.
Put simply, the Christian Right is getting old. According to the largest and most recent study we have of American religion and politics, by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, almost twice as many people 18 to 29 confess to no faith at all as adhere to evangelical Protestantism. Young people who have attended college, a growing percentage of the population, are more secular still. Catholicism has held its own only because the Church keeps gathering in newcomers from Latin America, Africa, and Asia, few of whom are likely to show up at a Santorum rally. To their surprise, Putnam and Campbell discovered that conservative preachers infrequently discuss polarizing issues from the pulpit. Sermons about hunger and poverty far outnumber those about homosexuality or abortion. On any given Sunday, just one group of Christians routinely grapples with divisive political issues: black Protestants, the most reliably Democratic constituency of them all.
The passion of evangelical Christianity has always been a vital part of American religion and culture. It came ashore with the first Puritan settlers and will surely survive and prosper for decades to come. But, over the centuries, piety, in its messianic form, has proven quite adaptable to a variety of warring causes. Abolitionists and apologists for slavery, labor priests and ministers who denounced strikers as Communists, Martin Luther King and George Wallace—all fit Lincoln’s description of the Civil War antagonists who “read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.” If they still hope to transform our pluralistic, profane culture into a new Jerusalem, Christian conservatives will have to find new holy battles to wage. The old ones and their crusaders are rapidly aging.
Michael Kazin is the author, most recently, of American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation. He teaches history at Georgetown University and is co-editor of Dissent.

Down my street, one family is doing its best to pump up the Christmas spirit. They have filled their modest lawn with inflated ornaments, each about five-feet tall. On one side of the walkway stands a Frosty the Snowman and a Rudolph the Reindeer, both with scarves wrapped around their necks and big smiles on their faces, as well as a miniature Santa Claus and Rudolph waving from inside a snowdome. Across the walk, a larger Santa holds the reins of a red sleigh with a yellow border that is pulled by two reindeer with normal-colored noses; a jaunty penguin sits behind him, surrounded by boxes of presents. The front of the house is fringed with dozens of lights and red and green balls and thick ropes of gold tinsel.

In my high-priced neighborhood, a short drive from Washington, DC, this kind of display is frowned upon. Christmas lights are fine, of course. But the height of fashion is to place a single faux-candle bulb in every front window and a demure little wreath on the door.

Yet whenever I pass that neighbor’s house, I smile. Without kitsch, it just wouldn’t feel like Christmas to me. For the past two weeks, I have been tuning my car radio to satellite channels that play nothing but Christmas pop songs. I sing along, badly, with Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby. Over the years, I’ve seen It’s a Wonderful Life so many times I can narrate many of its scenes by heart. Long before I became a left-wing historian, Mr. Potter, as played by the incomparable Lionel Barrymore, taught me to dislike big businessmen. Every year, I re-read “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” to anyone who will listen. By December 25, I’m as filled with holiday rapture as a Jewish atheist can be.

You may conclude that I am a desperate sentimentalist or, worse, a self-hating Jew. But that would not explain why I am so comfortable expressing my fondness for Christmas kitsch. You see, I have both personal history and American history on my side.

First of all, my mother brought me up this way. A German Jew whose ancestors emigrated to the U.S. from Frankfurt before the Civil War, she assumed that Christmas was as inclusive a national holiday as Thanksgiving or Independence Day. Every year, we had a tree, festooned with frosted glass balls and little ornaments, some plastic and others cardboard. A few of the latter were handed out by local businesses. I recall one tiny Santa distributed by a local savings bank who advertised the prevailing interest rate on his red pot-belly. Of course, my mother filled my stockings and bought me a team of milk chocolate reindeer and put my presents under the tree. I knew the words to all the most popular carols, although I stuttered trying to pronounce “Good King Wenceslas.” One night before the big day, we would drive around our suburban New Jersey county to find the prettiest or, at least, the most outlandish lawn displays.

How my mother and I observed Christmas was firmly rooted in American tradition. As Stephen Nissenbaum shows, in his indispensable book, The Battle for Christmas, most devout Christians refrained from celebrating the holiday until the middle of the 19th century. They scorned the way peasants, slaves, and laborers marked the occasion with heavy drinking, cross-dressing, and fornication. In 1659, the General Court of the Massachusetts colony even “declared the celebration of Christmas to be a criminal offense.”

But with the emergence of a modern market economy in the 19th century came the desire to exchange gifts in a domestic setting that, for an increasing number of urban-dwellers, was no longer a place of work but a refuge from it. In the 1820s, some German immigrants introduced the Christmas tree, a relatively new custom first popularized in Strasbourg, and it was promoted by Unitarians and other reforming types who saw it as a device to help turn the holiday into a romantic ritual centered on teaching children about the joy of being good. The branches of the evergreen tree, wrote the feminist Margaret Fuller in 1844, “cluster with little tokens that may, at least, give them a sense that the world is rich, and that there are some in it who care to bless them. It is a charming sight to see their glittering eyes…”

Because Santa Claus—as concept and mass-produced image—made kids brighten up even more, he too became part of the new ritual. His artisanal workshop, comments Nissenbaum, evoked a pre-industrial past which disguised “the fact that most of the presents he brought were commodity productions.” And because Santa made presents for all children everywhere in the world, he became a grand surrogate or even a substitute for Jesus. Salvation may be possible for all, but, in the meantime, a new train set or a necklace would be just fine. Singing about a white Christmas and displaying a balloonish St. Nick on your front lawn are thus not commercialized departures from tradition but the logical extension of it.

So I am enjoying Christmas in a completely appropriate, even patriotic fashion. Can I make an aesthetic argument for my preferences? Not really. But then, when it comes to holiday observances, the heart wants what the heart wants. So say what you will: I am going to have myself a merry little Kitschmas.

Michael Kazin's most recent book is American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation. He teaches history at Georgetown University and is co-editor of Dissent. Di jalan saya, satu keluarga melakukan yang terbaik untuk memompa semangat Natal. Mereka telah diisi rumput mereka yang sederhana dengan ornamen meningkat, masing-masing sekitar lima meter. Di satu sisi jalan berdiri sebuah Frosty Snowman dan seorang Rudolph Reindeer, baik dengan syal melilit leher mereka dan senyum besar di wajah mereka, serta miniatur Santa Claus dan Rudolph melambai dari dalam sebuah snowdome. Di seberang jalan, seorang Santa besar memegang kendali sebuah giring merah dengan perbatasan kuning yang ditarik oleh dua rusa dengan normal berwarna hidung; seekor penguin riang duduk di belakangnya, dikelilingi oleh kotak-kotak hadiah. Bagian depan rumah adalah dibatasi dengan puluhan lampu dan bola merah dan hijau dan tali tebal perada emas.
Pada harga tinggi lingkungan saya, perjalanan singkat dari Washington, DC, jenis tampilan disukai. Lampu Natal baik-baik saja, tentu saja. Namun ketinggian fashion adalah untuk menempatkan bola faux-lilin di setiap jendela depan dan karangan bunga sedikit sopan di pintu.
Namun setiap kali saya melewati rumah itu tetangga, aku tersenyum. Tanpa kitsch, hanya tidak akan merasa seperti Natal kepada saya. Selama dua minggu terakhir, saya telah menyetel radio mobil saya untuk saluran satelit yang memainkan apa-apa selain lagu pop Natal. Aku bernyanyi bersama, buruk, dengan Nat King Cole dan Bing Crosby. Selama bertahun-tahun, saya telah melihat Ini adalah Wonderful Life berkali-kali saya dapat menceritakan banyak adegan dengan jantung. Jauh sebelum saya menjadi seorang sejarawan sayap kiri, Mr Potter, sebagai dimainkan oleh Lionel Barrymore tak tertandingi, mengajarkan saya untuk tidak menyukai pengusaha besar. Setiap tahun, saya membaca kembali "Seorang Anak Natal di Wales" kepada siapapun yang akan mendengarkan. Dengan 25 Desember, saya sebagai diisi dengan pengangkatan liburan sebagai ateis Yahudi dapat.
Anda mungkin menyimpulkan bahwa saya seorang sentimental putus asa atau lebih buruk lagi, seorang Yahudi membenci diri sendiri. Tapi itu tidak akan menjelaskan mengapa saya begitu nyaman mengekspresikan kesukaan saya untuk Natal kitsch. Anda lihat, saya memiliki sejarah pribadi dan sejarah Amerika di sisi saya.
Pertama-tama, ibu saya membesarkan saya dengan cara ini. Seorang Yahudi Jerman yang nenek moyangnya beremigrasi ke AS dari Frankfurt sebelum Perang Saudara, ia menganggap bahwa Natal adalah sebagai inklusif sebagai hari libur nasional Thanksgiving atau Hari Kemerdekaan. Setiap tahun, kami memiliki pohon, dihiasi dengan bola kaca buram dan ornamen kecil, beberapa plastik dan kardus lain. Beberapa yang terakhir yang diberikan oleh bisnis lokal. Saya ingat seorang Santa kecil didistribusikan oleh sebuah bank tabungan lokal yang diiklankan tingkat bunga yang berlaku pada merah pot-perut. Tentu saja, ibu saya diisi stocking saya dan membelikan aku sebuah tim rusa susu coklat dan menaruh hadiah saya di bawah pohon. Aku tahu kata-kata untuk semua lagu-lagu Natal yang paling populer, meskipun saya terbata-bata mencoba untuk mengucapkan suatu malam "Baik Raja Wenceslas." Sebelum hari besar, kita akan berkeliling di pinggiran kota New Jersey kami daerah untuk menemukan yang tercantik atau, setidaknya, yang paling aneh rumput menampilkan.
Bagaimana ibu saya dan saya mengamati Natal berakar kuat dalam tradisi Amerika. Saat Stephen Nissenbaum menunjukkan, dalam buku yang sangat diperlukan, The Battle for Natal, banyak orang Kristen yang taat menahan diri merayakan liburan sampai pertengahan abad ke-19. Mereka mencemooh cara petani, budak, dan buruh menandai kesempatan dengan minum berat, cross-dressing, dan percabulan. Pada 1659, Pengadilan Umum koloni Massachusetts bahkan "menyatakan perayaan Natal menjadi tindak pidana."
Tetapi dengan munculnya ekonomi pasar modern di abad ke-19 datang keinginan untuk bertukar hadiah dalam pengaturan negeri itu, untuk peningkatan jumlah penghuni perkotaan, tidak lagi menjadi tempat kerja tapi tempat perlindungan dari itu. Pada 1820-an, beberapa imigran Jerman memperkenalkan pohon Natal, kebiasaan relatif baru pertama kali dipopulerkan di Strasbourg, dan dipromosikan oleh Unitarian dan jenis reformasi lain yang melihatnya sebagai perangkat untuk membantu mengubah liburan menjadi ritual romantis berpusat pada anak pengajaran tentang sukacita menjadi baik. Cabang-cabang pohon cemara, menulis Margaret Fuller feminis pada tahun 1844, "cluster dengan sedikit bukti yang mungkin, setidaknya, memberi mereka perasaan bahwa dunia adalah kaya, dan bahwa ada beberapa di dalamnya yang peduli untuk memberkati mereka. Ini adalah pemandangan yang menawan untuk melihat mata mereka berkilauan ... "
Karena Santa Claus-sebagai konsep dan diproduksi secara massal gambar buatan anak-anak mencerahkan bahkan lebih, ia juga menjadi bagian dari ritual baru. Lokakarya rakyat Nya, komentar Nissenbaum, membangkitkan masa lalu yang pra-industri yang menyamar "fakta bahwa sebagian besar hadiah yang dibawanya adalah komoditas produksi." Dan karena Santa dibuat hadiah untuk semua anak di mana-mana di dunia, ia menjadi pengganti besar atau bahkan pengganti Yesus. Keselamatan dimungkinkan untuk semua, tetapi, sementara itu, satu set kereta baru atau kalung akan baik-baik saja. Bernyanyi tentang Natal putih dan menampilkan balloonish St Nick di halaman depan Anda sehingga tidak dikomersialkan keberangkatan dari tradisi melainkan merupakan perpanjangan logis dari itu.
Jadi saya menikmati Natal dengan cara, benar-benar tepat bahkan patriotik. Dapatkah saya membuat argumen estetika untuk preferensi saya? Tidak juga. Tapi kemudian, ketika datang ke perayaan liburan, jantung menginginkan apa yang hati inginkan. Jadi mengatakan apa yang Anda akan: saya akan memiliki diriku Kitschmas sedikit gembira.
Buku Michael Kazin yang terbaru adalah Pemimpi Amerika: Bagaimana Kiri Berubah Bangsa. Ia mengajarkan sejarah di Georgetown University dan co-editor Perbedaan pendapat.