Evangelicals: The GOP's useful idiots

Used, abused, and starting to figure it out:

TUCKER CARLSON: It goes deeper than that though. The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power. Everybody in...

CHRIS MATTHEWS: How do you know that? How do you know that?

CARLSON: Because I know them. Because I grew up with them. Because I live with them. They live on my street. Because I live in Washington, and I know that everybody in our world has contempt for the evangelicals. And the evangelicals know that, and they're beginning to learn that their own leaders sort of look askance at them and don't share their values.

MATTHEWS: So this gay marriage issue and other issues related to the gay lifestyle are simply tools to get elected?

CARLSON: That's exactly right. It's pandering to the base in the most cynical way, and the base is beginning to figure it out.

Surely the conservative evangelical leaders like Falwell, Robertson, and Dobson, who dutifully lead their flocks to the GOP over and over in every election, know—and have known for quite some time—exactly what the game is. They serve as conduit for the "values" message and talk up the GOP, who then reward them with legislation that continues to make religion once of the best businesses in America. As The New York Times reported Sunday, since 1989 "more than 200 special arrangements, protections or exemptions for religious groups or their adherents were tucked into Congressional legislation, covering topics ranging from pensions to immigration to land use. New breaks have also been provided by a host of pivotal court decisions at the state and federal level, and by numerous rule changes in almost every department and agency of the executive branch." Evangelical leaders aren't hurting for a return on their investment; it's the voters, the people who genuinely expect a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, who are waking up to the reality that they've been suckered.

The question is: When will they realize that it's their leaders who delivered them for the suckering?

(Crossposted at AlterNet PEEK.)