SteveM,
Anyone calling the folks at Tea Parties populists is getting it a bit wrong. The folks at Tea Parties are limited-government, fiscal-sanity types. Sure, there are other issues – some shared some not – important to them, but stopping the runaway growth of government is what unites them. I’m also sure there are MSM commentators who want to slander the Tea Parties, and think Populist is a good tag for that.
And I think you misunderstood James. Moderate socialism certainly doesn’t have anything to do with school prayer, etc., and certainly isn’t very consistent with an American christian culture (other countries, YMMV). But there is a group of people who hold those views and James was pointing that out. My/i> addendum just says that group is unreliable precicesly because they are so confused. They talk about traditional morality, but they don’t really understand it. They’re missing the core of it, so they get it wrong. The mistake Social Conservatives made was trying to ally with these people. They weren’t what they seemed, and sold conservatives out.
Conservatives made the ultimate immoral mistake – they sold out Libertarians in order to get a better deal, and the better deal turned out to be fake. Like a woman who leaves her husband for another guy and gets dumped in turn by her boitoi. Well, reconciliation is possible. Pretty important too.
