The populist approach by the right flank of the GOP  has typically been to divert attention away from corporate raiders and financial abuses. This is done by claiming that the problems encountering American workers are caused by liberal elites. "Elite" in this context does not refer to people like Romney or entities like Bain Capital Private Equity, but to a conspiratorial war against holy capitalism by Marxist, labor union-supporting, liberal bogeymen.  This idea is accompanied by extensive religious-based narratives that rewrite American and world history as a war between these anti-Christian bogeymen and red-blooded patriots.

South Carolina's Senator Jim DeMint authored the 2009 book Saving Freedom: We Can Stop America's Slide Into Socialism, complete with barbed wire across an American flag on the cover.  According to DeMint, America's villains are those who have violated the "biblical purposes of civil government," not private equity ventures and corporate raiders. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, whose endorsement of Romney has been controversial, has openly declared war on unions.

Newt Gingrich and David Barton's Judeo-Christian Crusade

Christian nationalist "historian" David Barton advanced his war on labor this week by claiming  that unions were behind the rise of Hitler.  This piece of revisionist history was part of a  Barton rant about the Obama administration taking over ownership of 51% of private corporations, supposedly reducing corporations from 100% private ownership to 33%.  (No, the numbers don't add up, but neither does anything else about this story.)

Gingrich has been traveling around the nation for years, headlining Pastors' Policy Briefings with Barton, a  board member of the Gingrich and Rick Tyler-founded Renewing American Leadership (ReAL).  Gingrich and Tyler left their positions with ReAL earlier this year, but the Gingirch/Barton duo have made presentations for years based on the idea that America's economic and societal problems are caused by abandonment of a Judeo-Christian principles and the lack of recognition of the biblical basis of American law.  Some of these events were titled Rediscovering God in America after Gingrich's book by the same name.

Biblical law requires the abolishment of estate taxes, the minimum wage, and other anti-Christian socialist policies, according to Barton.

Barton and Gingrich  continued to speak at Pastors' Policy Briefings throughout 2011 and are both featured on DVD's produced by the related United in Purpose/Champion the Vote effort to register politically right-leaning evangelicals in time for the 2012 elections.

South Carolina's MorningStar Ministries, Headquarters of the Oak Initiative's War on Marxism  

South Carolina is home to MorningStar Ministries founded by Rick Joyner, a leader in the Apostolic and Prophetic movement or New Apostolic Reformation.  MorningStar is also the headquarters of an organization founded in 2009 by Joyner and Samuel Rodriguez, named the Oak Initiative.  The organization represents the New Apostolic approach to outreach, blending social conservative causes with a war on progressive economic policy and working for a "big tent" Religious Right that embraces minorities.  Leadership claims to be nonpartisan, supporting neither the "elephant or the donkey, but the Lamb" as described in promotional films by Rodriguez, but it is clearly an effort to expand support for right-wing economic policy.

During the 2010 elections, the Oak Initiative promoted a short video production featuring another board member, Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William "Jerry" Boykin, to their state affiliates and numerous Tea Party groups.  In the video, titled Marxism in America, Boykin claims that under President Obama's leadership, America is experiencing a Marxist insurgency. Boykin has also claimed that the economy was intentionally collapsed by George Soros and the Council on Foreign Relations. Cindy Jacobs, also a board member of the Oak Initiative and a leading prophet in the New Apostolic Reformation, has targeted Occupy Wall Street as demonic and an attempt to foment a civil war.

This is typical of the type of right-wing populist message that is being promoted in South Carolina and much of the nation.

Rodriguez, who also leads the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, left the board of the Oak Initiative in August following a series of articles on Talk2Action exposing the virulent anti-Islamic activities of the organization and its distortion of the meaning of "social justice."  Rodriguez and the NHCLC are official partners in the United in Purpose/Champion the Vote effort.  The latest United in Purpose video is titled One Nation Under God and includes Rodriguez and including David Barton, Newt Gingrich, James Dobson, Lila Rose, and others.

Sheldon Adelson and Winning Our Future Super PAC

Winning the Future, a SuperPac supporting Gingrich, is headed by Rick Tyler, who previously led ReAL.  "When Romney Came to Town" is reportedly being funded by with five million dollars donated to Winning our Future from Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire owner of The Sands Casinos. Adelson also own Yisrael Hayom, one of the largest circulation newspapers in Israel and was one a major funder of the now-defunct Freedom Watch, which spent millions in Congressional campaigns in 2007 in support of keeping troops in Iraq.

In 2006 Adelson gave $7 million dollars to Gingrich's American Solutions, which advocated the privatization of Social Security and increased oil exploration.  Adelson is a vocal critic of labor unions and The Sands has managed to get prohibitions against unions written into deeds, like one with the Redevelopment Authority of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Richard Silverstein wrote at his blog, Tikun Olam: Make the World a Better Place,

As far as I'm concerned, I can die now and go to blogger heaven, satisfied that my sense of political irony can't be bested by any future headline that would compete with today's news that global gambling tycoon, Sheldon Adelson is funding a $5-million TV ad campaign on behalf of Newt Gingrich that will target Mitt Romney as a "predatory capitalist."  If you were Andy Borowitz, Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart, what better comedy could you expect?  You might as well hang up the cleats and retire.  It doesn't get much better than this.

The political irony does not stop with Adelson.

Cognitive Dissonance in the GOP

In the United in Purpose DVD, Gingrich states that it is time for Americans to take back power from the "minority elite." In the context of this video and Barton and Gingrich's years of lectures on returning to "Judeo-Christian heritage," the minority elites are those who challenge the notion that the United States was intended to be a Christian nation based on biblical law. There is no mention of the damage done to American workers by private equity firms. Redirecting the anger of working Americans from corporate raiders to a Marxist/Leftist homosexual/Islamic conspiracy has been the game plan of the right flank of the GOP for many years.

This summer I spoke at the conference of the South Carolina AFL-CIO about the promotion of  "Biblical Capitalism" and Religious Right's role in the literal demonization of labor.  The Tea Party Movement and the 2010 elections brought in a wave of GOP politicians who, like Gov. Nikki Haley and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, have declared open warfare on labor unions.  Their ability to do this has followed years of anti-labor, anti-regulatory narratives taught in textbooks used in homeschooling, private schools, and in speeches and seminars for adults, including those led by David Barton's Wallbuilders.  

These narratives dovetail with those of right-wing think tanks and foundations, many of which are not hesitant to capitalize on religious-based demonization of the regulatory system and unions. The dumbing down of the nation with conspiracy theories about global warming as a liberal plot against Christianity and other ludicrous narratives are apparently acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of higher returns on investments.

Newt Gingrich is a savvy politician who has spent much of the last few years currying favor with Religious Right leadership. The GOP's right flank failed in 2008 to rally around former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who some viewed as too populist.  The Religious Right tried to avoid that mistake in the 2012 election cycle by coalescing early behind Rick Perry.  Their intent was broadcast to the nation through the August 6 prayer rally in Houston, which preceded Perry's entry into the race by a week.

Rick Green, a speaker for David Barton's Wallbuilders, expressed the frustration and disappointment over Perry's failure in the national spotlight in a Christmas Eve newsletter, stating,

"Yes, yes, I know...the debates have been painful...literally painful to watch. I nearly wept for the man at times because it was so bad."

Religious Right leaders have been unable thus far to recover and unite behind a candidate in their "anybody but Mitt" desperation, leaving the right flank of the GOP in chaos and looking for any way to stop Romney from getting the nomination.

It will be interesting to see how Gingrich and the Winning our Future Super PAC will continue to attack Romney and his role at Bain Capital without destroying the entire framework that has undergirded the GOP"s decades-long approach to right-wing populism.  Will a different GOP narrative emerge from this strategy or is this simply Gingrich and his supporters determined to destroy Romney's candidacy at any cost?