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I'd layer on that "Religion was always political... but in the US it didn't need to be overtly political". By that I'd say since the silent majority of the pop
by somethoughts 5y ago
I'd layer on that "Religion was always political... but in the US it didn't need to be overtly political". By that I'd say since the silent majority of the population was Protestant then dominant Protestant religion would freely be intertwined with government. It's only when there is no longer a dominant Protestant religion that Religion becomes visible in politics.
- smackeyacky 5y agoI can't say I've had much direct experience of the religious-political nexus in the US but as an external observer one thing that stands out to me was the objection to John F. Kennedy becoming president because he was Catholic and would be "beholden" to the papacy. In one respect though, the US and Australia share the history that our leaders have predominantly been protestant. I think that's far more a social class structure artifact than anything blatantly religious though. The denomination of the leader doesn't always dictate who gets the ear of the party in our political system though - Gough Whitlam was famously coerced into including the catholic schools into our public funded school system because they were "broke" - a somewhat laughable assertion even at the time, when the Catholic church was, and is, one of the richest institutions on the planet.
- Kye 5y agoOur media has never been representative of the population's views. It was always spinning an image that looked like the people doing the presenting, even when they didn't mean to. I doubt many people actually cared about the president's religion. They might for a brief moment while the media was making a big deal out of it, but they forgot they ever cared as quickly as they took the issue up. The memory hole in 1984 wasn't just something Orwell made up from nothing.