Two linked chunks: Christian nationalism; Pseudoscience and racist radical right billionaires

America is changing in fundamental ways. Christina nationalism is making inroads into government and the law. That is a cherished goal of what used to be extremist crackpots, but it's now mainstream among the far right elites who control the authoritarian radical right Republican Party. Slate writes about a current example of authoritarian Christian nationalist extremism:

Texas Republicans Cite Noah’s Ark in Lawsuit Over 

State’s Right to Wage War With Mexico

Texas Republicans have no good argument to justify the state’s construction of buoys separated by circular saw blades in the Rio Grande. This dangerous stunt is a clear violation of federal law, which grants the federal government—not Texas—control over the river. So GOP lawmakers and lawyers have fallen back on a series of claims that run from disturbing to comical. They say the Rio Grande, which law enforcement navigates every day, is not “navigable.” They assert that Texas is under “invasion” by “thousands of aliens” that warrants the use of force to repel migrants, and potentially merits the invasion of Mexico by state law enforcement. And they fall back on the story of Noah’s Ark to bolster their defense. Yes, the tale of the divine deluge has been invoked in support of a death trap meant to turn back migrants fleeing violence and poverty. Just as the Bible intended.

The Department of Justice promptly sued, citing the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899, which prohibits “the building” of any “structure” or “obstruction” in a “navigable river” without permission from the federal government.

Abbott’s lawyers, aided by a group of mostly Texan GOP congressmen, filed their response on Wednesday, and it is, to put it mildly, not the work of serious people. .... the law prohibits all unapproved “structures” in the Rio Grande, regardless of whether they interfere with navigation.

The DOJ’s “theory” that a river is still “navigable” even when some parts become unnavigable, they declare, “would lead to absurd” outcomes because “most of Texas was once covered by seas.” But don’t just trust the geological record; also consider “the Book of Genesis,” which, taken “literally,” says “the entire world was once navigable by boats large enough to carry significant amounts of livestock.” For support, the brief cites Genesis 7:17–20, which tells the story of Noah’s Ark. Checkmate, libs.

Unauthorized border crossings, the state’s lawyers write, is tantamount to an “invasion,” and Texas “has the constitutional power to repel that invasion” to “protect the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of its citizens.” They cite a provision of the U.S. Constitution that bars states from “engag[ing] in war” without congressional approval “unless actually invaded.”

Until DJT came on the scene and accelerated and normalized the ongoing radicalization of the anti-democracy, anti-inconvenient truth GOP, radical crackpots citing Genesis in a lawsuit would not have happened. Radical Christian nationalist moral and intellectual rot is slowly but persistently eating away at democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties and secular society, at least among many of those on the political right.  

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Pseudoscience, racism, vicious propaganda -- the radical's plan for the rise of tyranny

The NIH describes the concept of eugenics and scientific racism like this: 

A NYT opinion by Jamelle Bouie, Why an Unremarkable Racist Enjoyed the Backing of Billionaires, . Bouie writes: 

.... “John D. Rockefeller Jr., the world’s wealthiest man, funded scientific research into how what he called the ‘defective human’ could be bred out of the population.” Or that, as Edwin Black explains in “War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race,” eugenicists drew from “almost unlimited corporate philanthropy to establish the biological rationales for persecution” of the so-called unfit.

I mention all of this as context for Richard Hanania, a rising star among conservative writers and intellectuals. For years before appearing in the pages of newspapers and publications like this one, Hanania wrote articles for white supremacist publications under a pseudonym. According to a recent investigation by Christopher Mathias of The Huffington Post:

[Hanania] expressed support for eugenics and the forced sterilization of “low IQ” people, who he argued were most often Black. He opposed “miscegenation” and “race-mixing.” And once, while arguing that Black people cannot govern themselves, he cited the neo-Nazi author of “The Turner Diaries,” the infamous novel that celebrates a future race war.

Hanania no longer writes for those publications. And though he may claim otherwise, it doesn’t appear that his views have changed much. He still makes explicitly racist statements and arguments, now under his own name. “I don’t have much hope that we’ll solve crime in any meaningful way,” he wrote on the platform formerly known as Twitter earlier this year. “It would require a revolution in our culture or form of government. We need more policing, incarceration, and surveillance of black people. Blacks won’t appreciate it, whites don’t have the stomach for it.” Responding to the killing of a homeless Black man on the New York City subway, Hanania wrote, “These people are animals, whether they’re harassing people in subways or walking around in suits.” 

But more interesting than either Hanania — whose recent notoriety has not lifted him too far from his previous obscurity — or his rancid views are his backers. According to Jonathan Katz, a freelance journalist, Hanania’s organization, the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, has received at least $700,000 in support through anonymous donations. He is also a visiting scholar at the Salem Center at the University of Texas at Austin — funded by Harlan Crow. 

A whole coterie of Silicon Valley billionaires and millionaires have lent their time and attention to Hanania, as well as elevated his work. Marc Andreessen, a powerful venture capitalist, appeared on his podcast. David Sacks, a close associate of Elon Musk, wrote a glowing endorsement of Hanania’s forthcoming book. So did Peter Thiel, the billionaire supporter of right-wing causes and organizations. “D.E.I. will never d-i-e from words alone,” wrote Thiel. “Hanania shows we need the sticks and stones of government violence to exorcise the diversity demon.” Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican presidential candidate, also praised the book as a “devastating kill shot to the intellectual foundations of identity politics in America.” 

The question to ask here — the question that matters — is why an otherwise obscure racist has the ear and support of some of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley? What purpose, to a billionaire venture capitalist, do Hanania’s ideas serve? 

Look back to our history and the answer is straightforward. Just as in the 1920s (and before), the idea of race hierarchy works to naturalize the broad spectrum of inequalities, and capitalist inequality in particular. 

If some groups are simply meant to be at the bottom, then there are no questions to ask about their deprivation, isolation and poverty. There are no questions to ask about the society which produces that deprivation, isolation and poverty. And there is nothing to be done, because nothing can be done: Those people are just the way they are.  

This, in fact, has been the traditional role of supremacist ideologies in the United States — to occlude class relations and convert anxiety over survival into the jealous protection of status. The purveyors of supremacist ideologies have worked in concrete ways to bound the two things, survival and status, together; to create the illusion that the security, even prosperity, of one group rests on the exclusion of another. 

Why are billionaires backing an unremarkable racist as he tries to find a place in polite society? Because his interest in a hierarchical society built on racism serves their interest in a hierarchical society built on class — and ruled by capital.

It’s the same, then, as it ever was.

What the modern radical right Republican Party 

has done and wants to ultimately do

Points I want support by citing both chunks together in this post are:

1. Modern brass knuckles capitalism has a deep inherent streak of authoritarianism in it, just like old-fashioned laissez-faire capitalism of the late 1800s with its vicious robber baron plutocrats like Rockefeller (a capitalist Taliban, if you will); 

2. Radical American Christian nationalist elites have a deep, inherent streak of authoritarianism in them, just like radical Islamic Taliban elites have in Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia and radical Jewish Taliban elites have in Israel -- God's law is above man's law and God is cruel, bigoted and unforgiving;

3. Both the radical capitalists and the radical Christians in America rely heavily on (i) scapegoating target groups (usually prominently including, liberals and liberalism, racial minorities and the LGBQT community and "woke" policies), and (ii) dark free speech to distract, deceive, divide and foment distrust among the public; those targets and states of mind are enormously helpful to American authoritarians in making their run at far more power and wealth than they already control;  

4. Elites running the the modern Republican Party and their wealthy and/or powerful elite capitalist and Christian nationalist supporters have not just formed an intimate marriage to gain more power and wealth, the GOP has radicalized and embraced far right authoritarianism -- the party is now engaged in a vast, well-funded, coordinated propaganda and corruption effort to replace (1) meaningful democracy with deeply corrupt theocratic-plutocratic-autocratic authoritarianism, (2) principled, constitutional rule of law with rule of a corrupt Christian Taliban and corrupt plutocratic Taliban backed by a corrupt tyrant, (3) civil liberties with power flowing from the people to elites and special interests, and (4) a principled constitutional rule of law with an unprincipled rule of God, plutocrats and/or the tyrant; and

5. The radical right authoritarian plan for America is well underway and may already at a point where it is unstoppable, although a couple of powerful forces are beginning to mobilize in possibly meaningful opposition, e.g., American population demographics and attendant voting behavior seems to favor defense of democracy and popular civil liberties over radical right tyranny, oppression and corruption.

Q: Is that analysis wrong, flawed, hyperbolic and/or crackpot?