I just don't see the negative insinuation in the passage from Rauch:

"On balance it is probably healthier if religious conservatives are inside the political system than if they operate as insurgents and provocateurs on the outside. Better they should write anti-abortion planks into the Republican platform than bomb abortion clinics. The same is true of the left. The clashes over civil rights and Vietnam turned into street warfare partly because activists were locked out of their own party establishments and had to fight, literally, to be heard. When Michael Moore receives a hero’s welcome at the Democratic National Convention, we moderates grumble; but if the parties engage fierce activists while marginalizing tame centrists, that is probably better for the social peace than the other way around."
It is easy to see here an insinuation that religious conservatives are the kind of people who, if left out of the political system, will operate as "insurgents and provocateurs".

I admit that, on its face, the passage does seem to intimate that religious conservatives are the kind of people who--among other things--blow up abortion clinics.

On the other hand, let's exegete our culture a bit before leaving off at exegesis of this portion of Rauch's piece. Ever since I converted to faith in Jesus Christ in 1988 (from that brand of atheism called Nihilism), I have heard two assertions, from the Left regarding Christians and politics. First, that Christians' views are so far out of the mainstream that they ought not be accorded a place within the tent of either of the two major parties. The rationale if examined goes, I think, something like this: What religious conservatives (particularly Christians) seem to want is a theocracy. But our political system provides for a rigid separation between religion and government. So, by definition, religious conservatives, have, and can have, no place at the table. Second, I heard precisely that religious conservative are indeed the kind of people who would bomb abortion clinics, and have done. Indeed, so vehemently were these assertions argued at the university I attended that, for some time after my conversion, I did not--at school, anyway--let it be widely known that I was a Christian. Not because I was ashamed of Jesus Christ, but because I did not want to be erroneously associated with wackos who blow up abortion clinics. (I soon got over this.)

Rauch does not have to insinuate anything. There are people who will out and out assert what he supposedly insinuates. I see know reason, given a cultural exegesis that takes into account what many already believe, for understanding Rauch as saying anything other than that (to re-write him a bit): "On the hypothesis that religious conservatives are the kind of people who, if left out of the political system, will operate as insurgents and provocateurs and who, aslo, will bomb abortion clinics, then [o]n balance it is probably healthier if religious conservatives are inside the political system... ."

I am aware, of course, all of this argument relied on just the single paragraph that Hugh originally gave us. Now that we have the whole item, I am still fairly certain that Rauch was not intending to make the insinuation that it appears, at first glance, that he was.

What is telling, for me, is this bit right here: "The clashes over civil rights and Vietnam turned into street warfare partly because activists were locked out by their own party establishments and had to fight, literally, to be heard." Note the phrase, "turned into". Rauch seems fairly clearly not to be asserting that religious conservatives are the kind of people who bomb abortion clinics and so forth, but that, if locked out of the system, they can be turned into that kind. If it were already the case, why would he issue a warning? Otherwise, he would be asserting that religious conservatives are, presently, outside the system and need to be brought in. But what he actually has said, up to this point, is precisely that religious conservatives are inside the system. Indeed, before we get to this portion of his text, we have seen him say that religious conservatives are within the mainstream of the Republican Party. As he is drawing the lines, to be in the mainstream is precisely not to be engaging in insurgency and abortion clinic bombings.

It is clear to me that his argument is against those who bemoan the fact that religious conservatives are mainstream Republicans. His argument very cleary, at this point in his text, is simply this: It is better that they be part of the mainstream, part of the system, because if not, they could turn ugly.

We might take offense at the insinuation that we religious conservatives might, at some point down the road, ever resort to violence. But as religious conservatives, especially Christians, we cannot assert an inability to do evil. What man knows what he might do in circumstances he believes to be desperate?