Pat Buchanan, right-wing pundit, former presidential candidate, a regular political consultant on MSNBC, has gone on record for some years now that he believes that global warming is s scam, calculated to frighten Americans “into transferring sovereignty, power and wealth to a global political elite.” Buchanan has also written: “Whether it’s hunger, poverty or homelessness, in the end, the poor are always with us.” That’s the level of thoughtful political analysis MSNBC is apparently willing to pay for. But, more recently, Buchanan, the man who would be president (he sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996 and ran on the Reform Party ticket in the 2000), has shown remarkable similarities to William Jennings Bryan. Bryan, best remembered for his role in the prosecution of John Scopes in Tennessee’s notorious “Monkey Trial,” was himself the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in 1896, 1900 and 1908 (as well as the 41st United States Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson). I mention this, in part, to transcend bipartisanship and to underscore that there once was a time when Republicans had less of a monopoly over political lunacy than they do today. In any event, Buchanan has long believed (and has recently reiterated on MSNBC) that evolution is nonsensical. It “fails,” he wrote in August, 2005, “to answer the arguments of reason. And parents have a right not to have their children indoctrinated in an unproven belief system, one purpose of which is to destroy their faith.” The United States, he has said, is “a nation we still call God’s country.”

So, welcome to the wonderful world of Republican creationists, the believers in non-science who want to be in charge of government, who would confront our myriad economic and social problems, not with reason and empirical evidence, but through faith and “common sense.”

In her new memoirs, Sarah Palin, once Republican governor of Alaska and former vice-presidential candidate, says that she’s a creationist. But, to be fair, she thinks that schools should give equal time to creationism and evolution, letting the kids decide on their respective merits. The way responsible parents let their kids decide about the risks of crossing the street without looking. Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, recent Republican presidential contender (and possible future candidate) and an ordained Baptist minister, firmly denies the reality of evolution. Michelle Bachmann, Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota, with a J.D. from fundamentalist Oral Roberts University, believes in what is called “intelligent design,” a euphemism for creationism. Bobby Jindal, Republican governor of Louisiana and often spoken of as a potential presidential candidate, has endorsed the teaching of intelligent design/creationism in Louisiana schools, as part of their science curriculum. And Rush Limbaugh, right-wing radio personality and one of the so-called ideological leaders of the Republican Party, calls the science of evolution “BS.” Misunderstanding the whole theory of evolution, he has said: “If we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?”

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Behind the leadership is a mass of evangelical-minded voters. In June, 2007, a Gallup poll reported that Republicans disbelieve in evolution by more than 2-to-1. According to CBS, “Republicans saying they don’t believe in evolution outnumbered those who do by 68 percent to 30 percent in the survey. Democrats believe in evolution by 57 percent to 40 percent, as do independents by a 61 percent to 37 percent margin.” I can’t say that those figures give me much confidence in any party –there is obviously much wrong with the way we teach science in the United States– but, certainly, Republicans are least likely to comprehend the intellectual challenges of the modern world.

If there is any reasonable consideration for not voting for such people, it is this: If they don’t understand that a vast body of evidence overwhelmingly tends to confirm the idea of evolution, then, of course they don’t comprehend the evidence for the nature of global warming. Or of the structural causes of global poverty. Or of the need to restrain corporate greed. And they certainly don’t appreciate the evident need for profound, urgent health care reform.

Posted on December 22nd, 2009

Eric B. Ross is a U.S.-trained anthropologist, who taught for 16 years at the Institute of Social Studies (The Hague), where he specialized in the political economy of agrarian change, health policy and equitable development and was Chair of the Institute's MA in Development Studies. He currently is Visiting Professor of Anthropology and of International Development Studies at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Among his books are Death, Sex and Fertility and The Malthus Factor: Poverty, Politics and Population in Capitalist Development. He is editor of The Porcupine.

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