Bernie Sanders had the balls to go into the belly of the Beast at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University to give his stump speech to 12,000 evangelical Christian college students and did fairly well. At least no one threw aborted fetuses at him anyway. In fact he not only survived but even got some applause for his explanation of why he is pro choice, which was a slap in the fact to those present by mocking them for throwing the centerpiece of conservative ideology – keeping the government our of our private lives – to the wind in this case.
The big story here is that this is the actual place from where Jerry Falwell took evangelical Christianity into the single most important political movement for Republicans since McCarthyism. Falwell took Ronald Reagan under his wing with the newly invented Pro Life Agenda – which protestants had lobbied to make legal only a few years earlier – to win the White House and change America into a nation that hates their own government as much as any other. This quickly caused the rise of once fringe politics of the John Birch Society, Barry Goldwater and Southern reactionaries to become the dominate factor of the Republican Party to this day.
But even here at Liberty University we are now seeing some dents in that armor who are also moving away from intolerant religion nationwide.
The mastodon in the bathroom is of course Trump can beat a socialist but not a woman.
Which reminds me, I once said the mastodon in the bath room is McCain can beat a Negro but not a woman. So there is that…