They went after the GOP’s traditional ally, big business, for siding with the sodomites. Cruz blasted “big business” for joining Democrats “to say their commitment to mandatory gay marriage in all 50 states trumps any commitment to the First Amendment.” Jindal decried “the assault ... in Indiana and Arkansas,” in which “corporate America joined up with the radical left to bully those lawmakers” who had defended religious exemptions from laws against anti-gay discrimination. The audience cheered as Jindal declared, “I’ll also say this to these corporations that have already told me in Louisiana they don’t want us to pass our own bill protecting the rights of individuals and businesses who support the traditional view of marriage. Don’t even waste your breath trying to bully the governor of Louisiana.”

This rhetorical appeal to Christian conservatism is ramping up because the matter is out of politicians' hands, and all parties are aware that their upbraiding of businesses will not acutally pan out in policy. It is safe, in other words, for GOP candidates to rail against business, so long as their protests remain at the level of frustrated grumbling. What the conservative media machine’s destruction of Huckabee demonstrates is that the free-market, anti-egalitarian wing of the GOP establishment has less patience for the Christian wing than it used to, though Daniel Bell's 1976 book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism serves as a reminder that these tensions have always existed. It has just taken this long for things to unravel.



If Huckabee has become politically disposable because the pro-Christian song and dance has become de rigueur, then the real test of GOP mettle is now mostly a matter of pro-business sentiment, just as the donor class desires—which is a serious problem not just for Huckabee, but for the committed evangelicals who believed Republicans sincerely had pro-Christian interests at heart. The GOP's true devotion all along has been to tax-cutting, anti-spending fiscal policies that, as Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson argued in 2010's Winner-Take-All Politics, were responsible for concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a precious few Americans. And it is into these hands that the Christian right now delivers itself, hoping for mercy.

There is a curious irony in the crack-up of the lucrative accord between American business and conservative Christians. As Kevin Kruse recently detailed in One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, the marriage of the two was always one of convenience. Post-Depression big business needed a makeover after so many Americans were stung by the implosion of the economy, and a few enterprising Christian leaders figured they could make a few bucks and expand their political influence by forging a friendship with wealthy industrialists. And they were exactly right, for a time. From their compact, older ideas of a uniquely "Christian America," were fully manifested, placing a religious, patriotic gloss on the virtues of individualism, self-sufficiency, and low taxes. Worse, some of the more revolutionary impulses issuing from Christianity concerning poverty and justice were, through this alliance with industry, perilously muted.

The rapport between Big Business and the religious right wasn't so much about businesses being aided by Christian rhetoric as not being inconvenienced by it. On some issues, businesses are still willing to show up for the Christian right, so long as it doesn't damage their revenue. But as society shifts on key moral issues, businesses are more than willing to shed the bonds of obligation to their Christian patrons in order to keep turning healthy profits. Consider, for example, the rift unfolding between free marketeers and their formerly cozy Christian counterparts on the subject of gay marriage.