There’s been a lot of buzz about NBC’s mini-series “Revelations,” a sort of mainstreamed version of the Left Behind novels. The Washington Post’s TV critic Tom Shales pretty much buried the series as television drama. And in a more ideological corner of the media, The New Republic’s TV critic Lee Siegel tauntingly suggested that this saga represented the secular cooptation, and potential taming, of the fundamentalism so rampant in U.S. politics in recent years.I’m prejudiced on this subject, being sympathetic to Martin Luther’s view that the Revelation of St. John should be expelled from the canon of Holy Scripture as “fundamentally un-Christian.” And I’ve also been influenced by the New Testament scholars who tell us that Revelations was not a prophecy, but a classic apocalyptic text motivated by the incredible trauma of the Romans’ destruction of the Second Temple, at a time when Christians had not definitively separated themselves from Judaism.Still, the obvious fascination of American Christians with what can only be described as a predictive interpretation of Revelations is impossible to ignore.I’m not sure at what point the premillenial theology of The End Times, with its antinomian interpretation of Western Christendom as actively Satanic, escaped its pentecostal and adventist ghetto and began to conquer ostensibly postmillenial Calvinist turf in the major fundamentalist denominations, such as the Southern Baptists. Maybe it coincided with the decline of the confident, triumphalist Moral Majority and the rise of the pessimist, counter-revolutionary Christian Coalition, and more recenctly, its openly seditious cousin in the radio ministry of James Dobson.Lee Siegel views “Revelations” as the potential beginning of a secularly-induced cooptation and corruption of militant Christian Fundamentalism. I personally view much of contemporary militant Christian Fundamentalism as secularly motivated in itself, a misuse of Holy Scripture, including Revelations, to support a secular cultural conservatism that has little to do with the Bible or with Christianity. And the premillenial trend among historically postmillenial denominations may simply represent this same process of secularization, without any help from popular culture.Watch Revelations if you wish, but if you want to see a truly interesting presentation of premillenial theology set against the worst features of secular culture, rent a copy of The Rapture, Michael Tolkin’s bizarre and fascinating 1991 film, featuring Mimi Rogers and David Duchovny, which alternates between graphic couple-swapping sex and a very literal depiction of the The Tribulations, with a morally and theologically challenging twist at the very end.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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July 11: If Biden “Steps Aside” and Harris Steps Up, There Should Be No Falloff in Support
At New York I discussed and tried to resolve one source of anxiety about a potential alternative ticket:
One very central dynamic in the recent saga of Democratic anxiety over Joe Biden’s chances against Donald Trump, given the weaknesses he displayed in his first 2024 debate, has been the role of his understudy, Vice-President Kamala Harris. My colleague Gabriel Debenedetti explained the problem nearly two years ago as the “Kamala Harris conundrum”:
“Top party donors have privately worried to close Obama allies that they’re skeptical of Harris’s prospects as a presidential candidate, citing the implosion of her 2020 campaign and her struggles as VP. Jockeying from other potential competitors, like frenemy Gavin Newsom, suggests that few would defer to her if Biden retired. Yet Harris’s strength among the party’s most influential voters nonetheless puts her in clear pole position.”
The perception that Harris is too unpopular to pick up the party banner if Biden dropped it, but too well-positioned to be pushed aside without huge collateral damage, was a major part of the mindset of political observers when evaluating Democratic options after the debate. But now fresher evidence of Harris’s public standing shows she’s just as viable as many of the candidates floated in fantasy scenarios about an “open convention,” “mini-primary,” or smoke-filled room that would sweep away both parts of the Biden-Harris ticket.
For a good while now, Harris’s job-approval numbers have been converging with Biden’s after trailing them initially. These indicate dismal popularity among voters generally, but not in a way that makes her an unacceptable replacement candidate should she be pressed into service in an emergency. As of now, her job-approval ratio in the FiveThirtyEight averages is 37.1 percent approve to 51.2 percent disapprove. Biden’s is 37.4 percent approve to 56.8 percent disapprove. In the favorability ratios tracked by RealClearPolitics, Harris is at 38.3 favorable to 54.6 percent unfavorable, while Biden is at 39.4 percent favorable to 56.9 percent unfavorable. There’s just not a great deal of difference other than slightly lower disapproval/unfavorable numbers for the veep.
On the crucial measurement of viability as a general-election candidate against Trump, there wasn’t much credible polling prior to the post-debate crisis. An Emerson survey in February 2024 showed Harris trailing Trump by 3 percent (43 percent to 46 percent), which was a better showing than Gavin Newsom (down ten points, 36 percent to 46 percent) or Gretchen Whitmer (down 12 points, 33 percent to 45 percent).
After the debate, though, there was a sudden cascade of polling matching Democratic alternatives against Trump, and while Harris’s strength varied, she consistently did as well as or better than the fantasy alternatives. The first cookie on the plate was a one-day June 28 survey from Data for Progress, which showed virtually indistinguishable polling against Trump by Biden, Harris, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, and Gretchen Whitmer. All of them trailed Trump by 2 to 3 percent among likely voters.
Then two national polls released on July 2 showed Harris doing better than other feasible Biden alternatives. Reuters/Ipsos (which showed Biden and Trump tied) had Harris within a point of Trump, while Newsom trailed by three points, Andy Beshear by four, Whitmer by five, and Pritzker by six points. Similarly, CNN showed Harris trailing Trump by just two points; Pete Buttigieg trailing by four points; and Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer trailing him by five points.
Emerson came back with a new poll on July 9 that wasn’t as sunny as some for Democrats generally (every tested name trailed Trump, with Biden down by three points). But again, Harris (down by six points) did better than Newsom (down eight points); Buttigieg and Whitmer (down ten points); and Shapiro (down 12 points).
There’s been some talk that Harris might help Democrats with base constituencies that are sour about Biden. There’s not much publicly available evidence testing that hypothesis, though the crosstabs in the latest CNN poll do show Harris doing modestly better than Biden among people of color, voters under the age of 35, and women.
The bottom line is that one element of the “Kamala Harris conundrum” needs to be reconsidered. There should be no real drop-off in support if Biden (against current expectations) steps aside in favor of his vice-president (the only really feasible “replacement” scenario at this point). She probably has a higher ceiling of support than Biden as well, but in any event, she would have a fresh opportunity to make a strong first or second impression on many Americans who otherwise know little about her.