There’s an emerging consensus around the liberal blogosphere around a few topics–some Harriet Miers-related, some not:

  1. Conservative activists are deeply disappointed by Miers’ nomination, not least because Bush’s second SCOTUS seat was supposed to be the hard right’s opportunity to give a one-fingered salute to moderates and liberals.

  2. Despite that disappointment, many conservative evangelicals are falling in line anyway.

  3. Despite that, some of those conservative evangelicals may be full of crap concerning the enthusiasm of their endorsement.

  4. All of this is the result of a Republican base steadily marching to the right, often a specifically Christian right.

That last link, from Max Blumenthal, is worth quoting:

Word on the street is Tancredo has endorsed Jim Gilchrist for Congress. Gilchrist belongs to the American Independent Party, which George Wallace helped create and which is now affiliated with the Christian Reconstructionist-dominated Constitution Party. In other words, Tancredo is backing a third-party candidate against fellow Republicans. How does this guy still get pork projects funded?

The vaunted Republican base may be getting ready for a split–or at least some nasty infighting. The moralists and the moneyed interests can’t hold off their internal disputes forever, and Miers may be the issue that causes it all to boil over. We’ve seen it here in PA, where the Constitution Party came within a hairsbreadth of ousting Arlen Specter in the primaries last year, and I’m sure it’s been noticed in other parts of the country.

This radicalization of the Republican base is a net positive for Dems in other ways. Because as much as they howl about the “radical left,” it’s really ultra-conservatives who are out of step with the mainstream. In California, that’s helped keep Democrats the majority party for decades. Arnie was a crazy fluke. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It used to work the same way in Wisconsin and Minnesota, though I understand the ground has shifted there.

Here in Pennsylvania, the advantage isn’t so partisan, but the same dynamic keeps moderates of both parties in control. Unfortunately, it also helps keep corrupt members of both parties in control, but that’s another story. The point is that as long as the Republican base stays outside the mainstream–and Kevin Drum says they’re still trending that way, it’s an opportunity for Dems and moderate Republicans like Specter, who won on the strength of convincing the Philadelphia suburbs he was the most credible alternative to the wild-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth Pat Toomey.

That’s particularly the case for Republicans tied to the conservative evangelical base, as most of the truly hard-right folks are. Americans are often described as “tolerant traditionalists,” and even though we love us some Elmer Gantry, we also love us some Las Vegas. There is a limit to our tolerance for intolerant religious domination of the public discourse. The pendulum will swing, eventually.

And when it does, look for some megachurches to stand dramatically empty. With some exceptions, those enormous monuments to the Gospel of Prosperity are a Southern phenomenon, and as the transplant population continues to grow, the South is becoming more like the North. Eventually the megachurches will lose their place of honor in the social economy, or at least find it transformed. It’s happening already, as more evangelicals become interested in environmentalism and meaningful service to the poor.

I’m sure there are some folks who will try to say that Miers’ nomination seals the doom of liberalism or a whole raft of liberties, or that the megachurches will continue to loom over the social deserts of the sprawling exurbs they inhabit. But such gloom-and-doomers would be well advised to look at the cathedrals of Europe, many built as combination churches, marketplaces, monuments to regal power, and social-services agencies, and which now stand largely empty, exquisite reminders of their well-connected patrons, all firmly and finally dead, their politics all but forgotten.

Nothing is permanent but God; all else is chaff, even the strongest political coalition.