Frank Schaeffer: 'The Progressives Are Now the Conservatives'

[BradBlog]

Frank Schaeffer: I'm Now a 'Liberal' Because I'm a Conservative

-- Guest Blogged by Frank Schaeffer

I grew up in a fundamentalist missionary family that in the 1970s and 80s morphed into my father's activity as one of the founders of the Religious Right. We would hobnob with Republican leaders from Ronald Reagan to Gerald Ford and the Bush family, Jack Kemp and many others. One day it dawned on me that the far right of the Republican Party --- in other words its base --- actually hates America.
…
People ask me why I'm a progressive these days and "changed sides" from being a conservative. I didn't change sides.

What changed --- ironically with my father's and my nefarious "help"! --- was a conservative movement that became an enclave for hate-filled ignorance, anti-American sentiment and nihilistic individualism. What changed was my bare faced self deception as I profited from the God business and the far right even though I knew better. Today I am an independent voter, and an Obama supporter, and a progressive because I am a conservative…

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7499

[izquierdista]

1. He should just STFU

Like a toddler who just realized that his diaper leaked all over the house, Frank needs to take a time out. The conservative movement has always been extruded from the bowels of hate-filled ignorance, from Theodore Bilbo to Joseph McCarthy to Lester Maddox to Jesse Helms, right up to the 30 Republican rape senators.

He's still delirious from the fumes of bullshit he's inhaled over the years and still needs to clear his head. Get back to us in a couple more years, Frank.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. Frank is as usual making great points

My favorite quote:
"to be a conservative today is to be an anti-American, nihilistic libertarian know-nothing who believes in unregulated consumerism and the theology of dominion, and the Rapture that many conservatives also subscribe to along with such "facts" as that Obama is the --- literal! --- Antichrist."

[BradBlog]

3. Well, that's two very interesting...

Well, that's two very interesting and diverse opinions so far. (izquierdista's (#1) and Bluenorthwest's (#2))

Could hardly be more polar opposite reactions, I suspect.

Frank Schaeffer, Rorschack Test? :-)

[leveymg]

4. Heard exactly the same thing yesterday from a self-described "moderate" VA GOP pollwatcher.

He's a DC lobbyist for a labor union, so he doesn't exactly fit the profile. But, he's a lifetime Republican. We had a lot of time to kill and got into a revealing political conversation. Here's this suit and tie Republican official who ends up admitting that the VA Republican Party and the evangelical base are "lunatics" and Limbaugh is just a "cynical comedian". I feel sorry for the guy because he's too intelligent to be a Republican and finds himself so isolated within his own Party.