Slow train coming

The blame Romney game begins: If only the GOP had had a more aggressive candidate, a more pointed message, a better ground game in several states. The blame God game also commences: If only Superstorm Sandy hadn’t let Barack Obama break Mitt Romney’s momentum.

Maybe, maybe, yet Gov. Romney did OK given the state of our culture. Republicans lost this presidential election not just yesterday, but:

Fifty years ago, as increasingly liberal college faculties began to exclude dissenters from the new academic orthodoxy. The Daily Princetonian reports that 155 members of Princeton University’s faculty or staff donated to President Obama, and only two (one visiting lecturer in engineering, one janitor) to Romney. We’ve delivered generations of students to left-wing propagandizing, and the effect is telling.

Forty years ago, as state after state created no-fault divorce and marriage became a contract breakable by one party for any reason, rather than a lifelong commitment. Married women still vote Republican, but the increasing number of the never-married and divorced vote overwhelming Democratic, seeing government as a provider.

Thirty years ago, as the Moral Majority and other religious organizations bulwarked the Reagan administration. While the political approach was needed at the time, that success led some Christians to emphasize short-term fixes rather than long-time preaching of the Gospel and working to transform culture.

Twenty years ago, as the advent of talk radio left many conservatives thinking they had a weapon adequate to overcome the influences of liberal newspapers and news magazines. That proved untrue, because those print publications still do the original reporting and storytelling that frames national debates.

Ten years ago, when President George W. Bush (and almost everyone else, including me) settled for faulty intelligence. He led the country into an Iraq War that could not receive sustained public support once the truth came out and an even harder truth—that Islam and liberty do not go together—penetrated our theological illiteracy.

Five years ago, when Bush tried valiantly to push through a plan to deal with Hispanic immigration, but could not summon sufficient GOP support. Romney this year ran to the right on immigration and did even worse among Hispanics than John McCain did in 2008.