If we make police response the metric, then the religious left is officially regarded -- by law enforcement and TPTB -- as vastly, disproportionately more powerful than anything the religious right represents.
Look at Ferguson, or the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, both of which drew MILITARY responses from law enforcement. They were officially regarded as EXISTENTIAL threats to The Powers That Be. ...
"Black Lives Matter" is the most tepidly modest slogan imaginable, yet when people gathered to pray in the name of that cause, they were met with tanks, tear gas, and whole platoons of cosplaying cops in military riot gear. ...
The religious right, by contrast, holds rallies under militant, martial slogans like "Take Back America" and no one in power regards them as any kind of threat worthy of police attention. Ralph Reed never gets tear-gassed or hit with a rubber bullet like the clergy at Ferguson.
It's certainly true that the religious right has more purchasing power to spend acquiring elected officials. They've bought and paid for a big chunk of Congress and state legislatures. They're far more influential in terms of money & all the corrupt levers of access in DC. ...
But for all the dismissive punditry minimizing the significance of the "religious left," it sure seems like SOMEBODY thinks they're the biggest threat to the status quo imaginable, a threat that requires immediate, massive, military-style suppression in its defense.
