Saturday, May 21, 2011

Breaking: World to End, Narrowing G.O.P. field

Posted by Hendrik Hertzberg

judgment-day-sign.jpg

For political reasons, I’m rooting for the world to end on schedule tomorrow, Saturday, May 21st. For one thing, the world won’t actually end right away. The plan is for the Rapture to take place tomorrow, accompanied by an earthquake or some such banal, increasingly frequent natural disaster. But the obliteration of the entire planet won’t happen until October—unless it doesn’t. That’s the key. Frankly, I find that part of the prophecy iffy at best.

The Rapture will usefully thin out the Republican field, which, since I assessed it in our current Comment, has already been culled by the departure of Trump and Huckabee. As of tomorrow, Palin, Bachmann, Santorum, and possibly Pawlenty (a Lutheran who attends an evangelical megachurch) will be out of the picture, having been bodily swooped up to Heaven (along with, redundantly, Huckabee).

Back here on Planet Earth, the two Mormons, Romney and Huntsman, will still be in the race, obviously. So will Daniels (mainline Presbyterian), Gingrich (hopelessly sinful), Paul (follower of militant atheist Ayn Rand), Bolton (Lutheran, but no sign he takes it seriously), Johnson (political pothead), and Cain (Baptist, but from the social-justice Dr. King wing).

That will leave eight men scrambling for the support of a very different Republican primary electorate. The religious right will still be a factor, but its numbers will be greatly reduced and those “left behind” are apt to be relative moderates. As before, I’ll look for one of the “gubernatorial grownups” (Romney, Huntsman, Daniels, or, if he’s still among us, Pawlenty) to emerge as the eventual nominee, but, whoever he is, he’ll be free to take more nuanced positions on issues like abortion, gay marriage, and Greater Israel. And, despite an easier path to the nomination, he’ll probably lose to Obama in the general, because on Election Day a big chunk of the G.O.P. “base” will be playing harps on clouds, far from any terrestrial polling station.

One possible wild card: with Palin and Bachmann gone, there’s an opening for a Republican “dark mare.”

On a personal note, tomorrow is our son’s thirteenth birthday. His religious views preclude any sudden departure, but I’ve been hoping to score a “The World Will End on May 21” T-shirt for him. The other day I ran into a procession of sign-bearing, chanting, T-shirt-wearing world-enders as they passed through Times Square. (Nice people, by the way, smilingly immune to the wisecracks of the urban masses.) Unfortunately, none of their merch was for sale.* But I’m told that getting Raptured hoovers you right out of your clothes, so tomorrow I might be able to find something just lying there crumpled on the street.

* Free stuff is another matter, however. At the official May 21st Web site, clicking on “Free Materials and Resources” takes you to a page that offers

Special Promotions
AVAILABLE THROUGH May-20-2011 to May-27-2011

As any orders placed from May 22nd on will have to be handled by infidels, one may surmise that Family Radio is an equal opportunity employer.

Photograph by Timothy Krause via Flickr.

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