First, she said it was a joke. Now, she's saying it was a metaphor. One thing is clear: Michele Bachmann thinks that hurricanes happen because of welfare.
Last week, shortly after a strong earthquake shook the East Coast and Hurricane Irene left millions without power, Michele Bachmann spoke at a campaign rally. "I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians," she said. "We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?'... (He) know(s) government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending."
Those of us who were born during the Clinton years have never known a political landscape not shaped by religious influence and the impact of political guidelines brought on by the "Moral Majority." In fact, for as long as we can remember, Church has often been mistaken for State (or vice-versa).
Two presidents, most notably, have had to pass a religion test during the campaigns that preceded their elections (albeit for disparate reasons): John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama.
Before 1960, no Catholic had ever ascended to the country's highest office. Accordingly, Kennedy was subjected to a nationwide loyalty oath of sorts. At rally after rally, press conference after press conference, reporters would ask him the same questions: Would his religion influence or impair his political judgement as president?
In Obama's case, the questions were a bit different -- and fueled more by steadfast intolerance than legitimate uncertainty. Was he a Muslim? Or was he a Christian? If he was a Muslim, did his presence in an Indonesian madrassa during his early youth affect his current views on the American dream? And if he was a Christian, had he been indoctrinated by an "anti-American" preacher? The questions were sharp and pervasive.
Kennedy had to prove that he was the right flavor of Christian. ("Whatever issue may come before me as president," he said in 1960, "I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates.") Obama had to prove that he was Christian period. ("I'm a Christian by choice," he's said during his term in office.) Both had to prove that their faith in the country outweighed any other faiths they may have held. Both were held to a standard that defied and ignored any preordained ideas of an acceptable relationship between religion and policy in presidential duties. As a consequence, both gave into media pressures and testified publicly and unequivocally that their faith in God was an indication of that alone.
Michele Bachmann's faith in God is an indication of her political mindset. She made clear last week that she thinks two episodes that have put FEMA on high alert are the Almighty's mechanisms of conveying his disappointment with the current administration's policies.
Had Kennedy ever stood before a rally and made a radical religious statement -- or one that openly turned a blind eye to the religious impartiality that is meant to accompany a Commander in Chief -- his campaign would have been over in a matter of hours. And still today (and into the next several months) if Barack Obama dares to use a term, or even makes use of "suspicious" body language, media outlets and demagogues on both sides of the political spectrum will call his actions into doubt, cast aspersions upon his allegiances, and openly question his fitness to lead.
Michelle Bachmann -- in the company of other right-wing presidential contenders like Gov. Rick Perry of Texas -- has created an illusion: Some of the necessary drawbacks of government, she presumes, can be solved by the infusion of religion. That principle enraptures and exhilarates her ever-growing base. Almost 80 percent of the country is Christian. Bachmann suggests that such a populace can unite under the banner of Christianity.
But Bachmann's logic is flawed. No denomination of Christianity can boast more than 30 percent of the American population. Baptists approach around 26 percent and Catholics 23 percent. These denominations certainly don't agree on everything, and typically clash on key issues -- particularly those of social significance. While those who support her delight when she implies that there should be a divine hand in life on Pennsylvania Avenue, Christianity itself shouldn't be a political force.
Often, the unique will and prerogative of the individual mixes with what should be populist civics. No politician comes to power without some preconceived notions or personal biases. People act in their self interest and seek to advance the causes that resonate with them. That's just how the world works.
For that reason, it isn't problematic that politicians have religious beliefs; it is the fervor with which those on the Right allow those beliefs to sway their political judgement that is troublesome.
Bachmann isn't the first ambitious politician who has crossed the line in invoking religion. Our last president -- a man of true faith -- also exploited and abused publicly his relationship with the divine. "I am driven with a mission from God," George W. Bush said in 2003, "God would tell me, 'George, go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.' And I did."
Candidate after candidate on the right -- Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Sarah Palin (they keep emerging) -- claim that President Obama defies the Founding Fathers' intentions by offering a solution for people who don't have access to affordable health insurance. These candidates, who continually call on God and religion to justify their opinion on public policy, forget Thomas Jefferson's guidelines -- which have been upheld time and again by the Supreme Court -- "religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions...thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."
This same group of candidates and candidates-to-be are the driving force of several fabricated notions of conflict: war between Islam and the rest of the world; war between China and the American Dream; war between Obama and "family values." What Michele Bachmann and her ilk fail to realize in the heat of hyperbole is that they are instigating another war altogether: the war between Church and State -- and it is turning the main-stage of American politics into a circus.
Modern politics is shaped by a rapidly decreasing degree of religious impartiality. Forget "joke" or "metaphor." If John F. Kennedy had to prove that his religion would not conflict with his civic duty in 1960, Michele Bachmann has even more obligation to do so in our current political landscape.
Our contemporaries are the movers of the next generation. We will be voting for the first time in November 2012. We need each of the current crop of candidates to echo what President Kennedy told a cluster of cameras in 1960:
"Whatever issue may come before me as president... I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates."