Ross Douthat offers some interesting thoughts on what political mobilization requires in order to work. The context is the Left’s reaction to the Hobby Lobby decision, but it applies to both ends of the political spectrum, and sadly, Christians are not immune to either of these:
First, political mobilization depends on a sense of victimhood, grievance and looming apocalypse, so no matter the correlation of forces on a given issue you can be sure that the professional agitators on both sides will have an incentive to inculcate solidarity by insisting that theirs is the heroic, hard-pressed side about to be crushed by a ruthless opposition. (See Christmas, the War on, and other extravaganzas of fauxpression, for examples from the rightward end of the spectrum.)
Second, political mobilization also requires a certain amount of ignorance, willful in some cases and cynically inculcated in others, in which the inevitably-complicated details of legal controversies (you see, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act says …. YAWN …. actually, Hobby Lobby already covers most …. zzzzzz) get boiled down to slogans fit for Twitter and cable shoutfests, and no nuancing counterpoint is allowed to be considered.
You can read his whole piece here.
