It is now common to observe that the American Left has become more and more European in its sensibility. Sometimes this point is made humorously (“Kerry looks French“), but the disturbing outbursts of anti-religious, specifically anti-Christian, vitriol in the aftermath of the election suggests at least an undercurrent (and maybe more) of a serious, and ominous, anti-clericalism, a hallmark of the French left for most of the 20th Century. Although “traditional anti-clericalism seems passé,” according to the source just linked, it is still popular in France “in some left-wing circles.”
Judging by recent spewings from Maureen Dowd, Gary Wills, Bill Maher, Paul Krugman, et. al., it’s clear that anti-clericalism is alive and well on the American Left. There is, however, one serious obstacle to a serious anti-clericalism on these shores: we have no clerics. There is no Church in America. Instead, we have thousands of churches and, more central to the religious enterprise here, millions of churchgoers, and millions more of their fellow-travelers among the secular “values voters.”
In France anti-clericalism was, or could plausibly claim to be, a progressive force. But here it is profoundly anti-democratic, since in the absence of institutional targets it is of necessity aimed at the people themselves. Hence all the offensive talk of the “ignorance” of American voters is necessary to today’s anti-clerical left, not an optional mistake that can be easily discarded.
