President Bachmann

Last Monday, the Republican Party of America set out it's seven potential candidates to challenge Barack Obama at the Presidential election in 2012 in a warm up debate in New Hampshire. Thrusting her way into the limelight, the percieved big winner of the debate was Michele Bachmann. Bachmann's performance was reportedly slick, strategic and full of stage presence; a strong-minded, attractive and resolutely American-blooded woman, the current darling of the Tea Party and second to only Sarah Palin in their crazy Fox News universe.

Palin, of course, has so far neglected to stand for the forthcoming election and although you might think that's a good thing, Palin is such a devisive figure in the States, that many think although she'd get the backing of the more right-wing half of the GOP demographic audience, that the more moderate Republicans would abandon ship, leaving Obama with a clear path to victory. Palin might very well be the very worst chance the Republicans have to regain the seat behind the desk in the Oval Office.

It's also interesting to discover that recently, for the first time, more than fifty percent of Republicans support the creation of a new third US political party, most likely in the form of the separation of the Tea Party from its Republican Party host. Over sixty percent of Tea Partiers would prefer a three party system and it's not hard to imagine that a lot of the more moderate Republicans are equally frustrated in being lumped in with the more extreme elements of their party.

However, splitting the Republican party down the middle has some very obvious downsides for them, namely that no one is splitting up the Democrats too. If the Tea Party decides to go it alone, then there are serious concerns from within the GOP that Obama could simply coast to the finish next November. More bad news for the Grand Old Party then.

So this leaves us with the possibility of a Bachmman / Obama contest in 2012 and, as many of you would probably agree, right now the stakes could not be higher. In order for any of us to stand a chance in the forthcoming century, we need forward thinking, modernist leaders withn sound econonimic and scientific understanding of the world, people willing to push things forward rather then letting them slip into reverse. Although you might agree that in some respects Obama might not represent enough of those things or always endorse or enforce them in ways we might wish, Bachmann doesn't represent any. Bachmann is, in my opinion, not just a bad choice, she's frankly a dangerous one.

The possiblity of President Bachmann, or maybe just even her existence, prompted Truthdig's columnist E.J. Dionne, Jr to pangs of "nostalgia for Bush". Based on his previous articles and has he himself states, that's not something he ever expected to have.

Bachmann has already called for the closure of the US's Environmental Protection Agency (created by Republicans, actually) as part of her swathe of spending cuts and obviously diametrically opposes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare, as she'd call it) and pretty much every other form of government aid as "socialism". You could argue that this is just down to politics though and that sacrifices have to be made somewhere; the environment and healthcare might not be the first choice of everyone but they're usually fairly close when it comes to the Right getting to weald the spending cleaver (our NHS anyone?). Hoever, I think there's something far more worrying about hearing it come from Bachmann - the fact that she's a hardline fundamentalist Christian (described by possibly my favourite website - Conservapedia - as a "Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod").

This puts Bachmann firmly into the climate change denying Creationist camp, something she's gone on record about several times. In 2006 she claimed that “there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact… hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel prizes, believe in intelligent design.”, which as the linked site rightly points out, is so completely false it's borderline farcical. She's spoken out similarly fantastically incorrect fashion about Global Warming on several occasions too, claiming as recently as 2009 that “[T]here isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows carbon dioxide is a harmful gas. There isn’t one such study because carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is natural. It is not harmful. It is part of Earth’s life cycle.”. Needless to say Bachmann is also pro-life and pro-guns (always a bewilderingly illogical combination, I think).

To me, this kind of denial-based reasoning, the hide-your-head-in-the-sand attitude, is the most terrifying aspect of Bachmann. Her extreme religious views propel her forward, certain under the knowledge that she is correct because God tells her she is. I find it very hard to believe that she would ever even bother listening to a reasoned scientific argument that didn't already support one of the views she already holds. In September of this year, we'll be remember how religious fundamentalism flew some planes into a building and killed a whole load of people; if Bachmann's fundamentalism takes the Presidency next year, I am confident we will see a much bigger crash and a much more severe collapse, of which the fallout will not just kill a few thousand but that its effects will be epochal. We're well known to be on the brink of a paradigm shift in the world; it's a knife edge, one last chance to step back from the void; with Bachmann, the Americans seriously risk seeing the ground give out beneath both them and us.

That said though, I have hope that the American's are simply not that stupid. We, over here in the jostling, secular world of Europe, often tend to regard our US cousins with a fairly dim view when it comes to religion. We can't really understand how middle America obsesses over Christian values, how their nation struggles with separating morality and rationality from religion, how they give face time to Fred Phelps and Fox News. The nearest we get to religious interference is when a bishop has a bit of a go at a few Coalition policies and even then most of us, even the non-religious, respect the fact that although he's a holy man, he's also talking about non-religious things; we might not agree with Dr Rowan Williams about his his choice of deities, but that doesn't mean we can't agree with him about anything else.

I suppose the hope comes from facts like the potential divide looming in the Republican party. We have to hope that those elements that have arisen to power within the GOP remain cowed by the moderates on whose votes they depend. We have to hope that the moderates see through the smokescreens and outright lies to see exactly who and what they're voting for. If I had to offer any advice, I would call that moderate Republicans should stand up and defy this new wave of ridiculous Tea Party candidacy, they should vote with their voices, their actions and frankly, their votes. Maybe they should vote Obama, just to show Bachmann how it really is.

Dionne is right when he says that against such candidates, one would wish for the return of Bush. He may have invaded Iraq because "God told him to", but at least we weren't very worried that he might actively be seeking the End Times.

Oh yes, one last stat I forgot to add in, the one that inspired this whole article actually... As you'll remember we recently managed to avoid 21st May's notably absent Rapture, as prophecised by the US televangelist Harold Camping. A recent national poll of the GOP primary voters revelead that although Bachmann at the time was only supported by nine percent of the pollsters, a staggering thirty-five percent of them believed the Rapture was really going to happen. Compare that will Palin, who was second place for potential Rapturees (is that a word?) who was way down at seventeen (which is still obviously worrying).

Perhaps we should have a little more faith, if you like (small "f"), in our more sensible American cousins. Clearly, most of them thought the idea of the Rapture was ridiculous and hopefully enough of them will think Bachmann is too. I couldn't name you a single person I know that would come out in defence of Bachmann and I'm sure if I was in America that would still be the case.

Really though, America, it's time to pull your socks up. This kind of thing is going too far.