Pretty Americentric line of thought considering us dirty gaters have international "membership", but this also applies to the West in general.
Call it China or the Globalists -- 'and' is probably more appropriate, but there's been a deliberate decades long attack on our educational institutions, our government, our economy, the Christian religion, our borders, Communist infiltration of key positions in government and industry, etc. etc. etc.
And it's been so effective, I just don't see a reversal of course. Even if the moderate collective pulled the wool from their eyes and took action, we're still due for an economic implosion as the debt bubble eventually pops, and we'd have to deal with the indoctrinated masses who would violently resist being jacked out of the Matrix.
Personally, by this point I'm not even thinking about saving the republic, but rather what actions will need to be taken to build something better from its ruins.
While the media was trying to rabble-rouse over his being Catholic, which a lot of Americans probably didn't really give a duck about.
There's actually a long thread of suspicion towards catholics in American tradition. Some of it is based on the fact that the country was founded by English protestants, and England doesn't have a friendly history with the Papists. The rest of it is based on the structure of the Catholic Church, which essentially makes the Pope a global Emperor. It was a serious and important question for a long time - if the Pope supports one thing, and the electorate supports the opposite, which will be done?
Oh, I'm aware of all that, but always figured it to be a rather minority view, albeit perhaps an overly loud one (ie, Archie Bunker, the media strawman of the entire 1970s).
Well, I don't know about where it sat with opinion polls, but it made up a substantial part of Common Sense.
It would be a problem if people actually do what the Pope says.