A Chilling Thought

Okay, I'll admit right up front that this could be something out of The Twilight Zone, but I think it's worth at least a little consideration.

george w. bush and his evangelical cronies would love to see one of their own take over the White House. That's okay, every politician wants to be followed by another of his or her stripe. The problem is that so many of bush's cohorts are Dominionists, advocating a theocratic government for the U.S. (Kos diarist Dogemperor has many, many postings on Dominionism)*. Among the Dominionists with ties to the current administration are John Ashcroft, Dominos Pizza founder Tom Monaghan (he's also establishing a fundamentalist "Christian" community around his openly-Dominionist Ave Maria "Law School"), former Michigan gubernatorial candidate and Amway heir Richard DeVos, Truett Cathy (head of the Chik-Fil-A restaurant chain) and the Paxton family (of Pax TV).

Dominionists also have ties to other fringe groups: Christian Identity, the Militia movement, Sovereign Citizens (the "Republic of Texas" crowd), even the Klan and skinhead groups. The only thing these groups have in common is a pathological hatred for what this country represented before bush stole the presidency (twice).

The Dominionists are smart enough to realize that, thus far, they do not have a snowflake's chance in hell of getting one of their Talibangelicals elected to the highest office in the land.

So what do they do?

"Submitted for your consideration," as Rod Serling used to say:

Have the GOP nominate for President a man in his 70s, with a history of cancer... a cancer that is quite often fatal. Even without the cancer, McSame would be the oldest incoming President in history. How could they make this happen? Easy. Promise the GOP the fundamentalist/evangelical vote, and threaten to withhold it --or even worse, nominate their own candidate. The GOP is so used to knuckling under to the mouth-breathin', Bible-thumpin', hooker-humpin', sister-marryin', rifle-rack-in-the-pickmup crowd that they'd do it without a second thought.

They get one of their own -- Sarah Palin -- nominated as VP for John McSame. Palin has well-known ties to the Dominionist movement, and has even told interviewers she believes Christ will return to Earth during her lifetime. The right-wing loonie fringe could also point out that a certain (I hope small) number of hard-core feminists would vote Rethuglican to "punish" the Democrats for not nominating Hillary Clinton.

McSame cashes out, either through cancer or just plain old age. And if it looks like he might survive either the full term or -- God help us -- two terms (how's that for a terrifying thought?), I wouldn't put it past them to whack him... with "plausible deniability", of course.

Voila... Palin the Dominionist is President.

Far-fetched? Sure. But so is a lot of the rest of the things that have happened the past eight years.

* If the link doesn't work, go to Daily Kos and search authors for "Dogemperor".