“There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.”

“You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well, I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down: man’s old, old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.”

Would-be heirs of Reagan should take note: He wasn’t just trying to speak to the base. He was trying to expand the base through persuasion of independents and, later, disaffected Democrats.

Reagan also understood that narrative can be more effective than abstractions or slogans alone.“Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, ‘We don’t know how lucky we are.’ And the Cuban stopped and said: ‘How lucky you are? 

I had someplace to escape to.’ And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there’s no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.”

Jesus preached democracy. He didn’t call it “democracy,” just called it doing God’s will. 
Take the definition of democracy and the social values Jesus taught and modeled and you would then have a difficult time telling the difference between them. 

Question is, why do those known for their religious right work so hard to undermine democracy . . . all while claiming to follow Jesus and support democracy and the constitution?

The standard dictionary definition of democracy - “A government of the people; esp: rule by the majority. A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation. The absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinction or privileges.” In short, the ideal of democracy includes power residing in the people (no rulers or leaders as such – “leaders” merely represent/stand in for the people), the absence of special privilege or preeminence for anyone (no one can claim a status above any other), and by extension, egalitarianism (everyone is equal in society).

Jesus did not come to establish a political order, but throughout his ministry he did preach and model social behavior for his followers and urged that they live according to a new set of principles very different from the existing social order. It’s this new social order that looks remarkably like the democratic ideal.

Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus rejects the idea of rulers or leaders with power over others since all are “brothers and sisters.” He tells his followers, “Do not be called Rabbi . . . And do not be called leaders, since you have only one leader, the Messiah.” Yet he defines his own leadership as that of a servant: “I am among you as one who serves.” And again, “The son of man came not to be served, but to serve.” When his disciples argue among themselves about who is preeminent, Jesus chastises them, urging them to be like children, “for the least among all of you is the greatest.” As in a true democracy, “leaders” exist to serve the people.

Similarly, Jesus completely rejects patriarchy, the prevailing social order of his day, and a system which confers a dominant, superior role on men. “Call no one on earth your father, for you have one Father – the one in heaven.” Throughout his ministry, in a stark repudiation of hierarchy, he urged his followers to create a new order in which everyone is like a child: “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Indeed, Jesus turns tradition on its head. Instead of children looking to their fathers as models, fathers (and all adults) must accept children as their ideal of behavior. 
Needless to say, a childlike patriarch is an oxymoron.

Jesus explicitly laid out the process by which the community is to govern itself and deal with differences and disputes. He uses the example of a community member who commits a wrong against another. The aggrieved member, he says, should meet with the offending party and point out the fault. If the offender agrees, that ends the matter.

If not, witnesses/evidence should be brought before the offender, who is given a second chance to make things right. If that doesn’t happen, the grievance is brought to the community which decides, giving the offender another chance to set the matter right. If the offender still refuses, he or she is ostracized by the community. 

Clearly, for Jesus, final authority rests with the community, not with any individual. The process could not be more democratic. 

The American Constitution, of course, goes beyond the definition of democracy and here, too, Jesus confers. The constitution rejects a theocracy and insists on separation of church and state. In telling his followers to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s,” Jesus makes clear that religion and state are separate and both should be respected.

The constitution’s preamble makes clear the purpose of government: to promote the general welfare, form a more perfect Union, insure justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, and liberty for all. All purposes are community oriented. Here, too, Jesus is on board as he redefines the family as the community in which all are equal brothers and sisters who care for each other.

Taxation enables a democracy to function and thrive. Again, Jesus accepts the right of taxation. We have the interesting example in the Gospels of Jesus himself paying taxes even though it requires a miracle to procure the coin from the mouth of a fish to pay the tax collector.

And just as plutocracy, the power of the wealthy, is anathema to a democracy, Jesus again and again rejects wealth as incompatible with his new order.

So where does current GOP right through administration stand in democracy? 
We have heard their loud and repeated protestations that the constitution is or was their guide. 
Yet the closer look redundantly reveals a true emptiness in their alleged loyalty to the constitution with truths that are not of God by the representative democracy it sustains.

And just as plutocracy, the power of the wealthy, is anathema to a democracy, Jesus again and again rejects wealth as incompatible with his new order.

HYPOCRISY poses a serious threat to democracy on numerous grounds especially when it pushes  agendas composed of fabricated values bearing no relationship to what Jesus actually taught.

This type of nuclear family version of what the nuclear family should look like can only Smell Test the entails of the patriarchy that Simple English the acceptance of a hierarchy with the patriarch/father is its head. 

He is preeminent; his will is law; he dominates all members of the family as the sole authority to which they are subordinate.

There are perhaps four speeches in American history that so electrified the public that they propelled their orators to the front rank of politics overnight: Abraham Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address of 1860, William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech at the 1896 Democratic convention, Barack Obama’s keynote address to the 2004 Democratic convention and Ronald Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” speech 50 years ago.

Although most Americans were familiar with Reagan from his movies, this was the first many had glimpsed of his politics. The Reagan whom Americans saw on the night of Oct. 27, 1964, was not the avuncular, optimistic Reagan of his film roles, or of his subsequent political career that emphasized “morning in America” and the “shining city on a hill,” but a comparatively angry and serious Reagan, serving up partisan red meat.

“Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government,” he declared, “and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.”

In conclusion under current administrations continuity explodes Reagan was “too moderate” for today’s GOP and frustrated Republicans can’t measure up to the Gipper’s standard as a “great communicator.”

In practical politics, this would include lacks in the need for key leaders to lay out serious and compelling cases for the choosing under God.

Political egalitarianism is where members of a society are of equal standing in terms of political power or influence. It is a founding principle of various forms of democracy. It was an idea which was supported by Thomas Jefferson. It is a concept similar to moral reciprocity and legal equality.