Matt Yglesias parses Newt Gingrich’s (merely) ostensibly contradictory statement, that “if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age [my grandchildren] will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists . . . .”
You have to think of “America” in Gingrich’s eyes as constituting not so much a place as a specific tribe of people. The concern is that tribe of people might all go secular, which will leave the country exposed to takeover by radical Islamists. This is what many conservatives appear to believe has happened in Europe. A place like France has supposedly managed to both go secular and also be ground zero for Eurabia. Those two things are causally related because secularism enfeebled France by undermining support for Christian patriotic militarism, and they’re non-contradictory because French Muslims aren’t “really” French. This is how it gets to be the case that overturning marriage equality in Iowa is somehow a blow against the threat of creeping sharia.
Read the full post here.