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Newt Gingrich has been keeping pretty quiet about two of his mentors lately, perhaps because he's seeking the White House, writes Tim Murphy at Mother Jones. But for a good 20 years, beginning in the late '70s, he was a loud of proponent of Alvin and Heidi Tofflers' futurist beliefs—but many of the married couple's ideas wouldn't much appeal to the voters Gingrich is currently going after. Indeed, the two "predicted a new era of social norms that are straight out of Pat Robertson's nightmares—polygamy, baby-making factories, gay parents, and serial marriage," writes Murphy.
They befriended Gingrich in the 1970s; the former speaker ended up penning a foreword for one of their books, and echoing their ideas in his own books. "Republicanism is merely Gingrich's politics," said a 1995 New Yorker piece. "Tofflerianism is his religion." The Tofflers, whose "brand of futurism was, at its heart, a Marxist formulation," writes Murphy, offered predictions about the future of marriage—and they bear striking similarity to Gingrich's personal history. They foresaw "serial marriage" (complete with three stages) becoming "more common," and believed that open relationships or polygamy could become "reality for some." Click through for more from the lengthy piece, which explains that "even the Tofflers were a bit perturbed by how deeply they've been linked to Gingrich."
