Politics & Power Quote by Rick Santorum

Santorum turns a culture-war complaint into a moral sting operation: the left accuses conservatives of "imposing values", and he replies that the left is doing the same thing, just under a different flag. The move is classic political jujitsu. By quoting the stereotype of Bible-and-guns America, he frames his opponents as not merely disagreeing with him but sneering at a whole way of life. That quotation isn’t incidental; it’s bait, meant to activate a sense of humiliation and grievance, then convert it into certainty.

The phrase "They have values too" sounds conciliatory, but it’s a trapdoor. He immediately recasts those values as a counterfeit faith: "a religion of self". That’s the subtext doing the heavy lifting. If the left’s worldview is a "religion", then secular politics stops looking neutral and starts looking like an established church - one that just happens to worship autonomy, pleasure, choice, and personal sovereignty. Suddenly, the usual accusation (religious conservatives want to legislate theology) flips: it’s liberals who are evangelizing, and conservatives who are defending "life" against a rival creed.

Context matters: this is post-Obama-era rhetoric shaped by battles over abortion, marriage equality, and religious liberty, when "values" became shorthand for who gets to define normal. Santorum isn’t trying to win a philosophical debate; he’s drawing a bright moral border. By grounding "our values" in "religion" and "life", he claims ontological seriousness. By branding "their values" as self-worship, he denies them the dignity of principled disagreement. It’s not persuasion so much as excommunication.