Crossing a dark threshold: Jesus’ teachings aren’t good enough

Who and what is the wicked?

The Atlantic writes about what appears to be a dark new threshold in Republican Party propaganda. Attacking the teachings of Jesus. If this had been going before, I was unaware of it. The Atlantic’s article, The Gospel of Donald Trump Jr., is ominous in its tone and content. We are witnessing the birth of something viciously hateful and divisive. The Atlantic writes:

The former president’s son told a crowd that the teachings of Jesus have “gotten us nothing.”

Donald Trump Jr. is both intensely unappealing and uninteresting. He combines in his person corruption, ineptitude, and banality. He is perpetually aggrieved; obsessed with trolling the left; a crude, one-dimensional figure who has done a remarkably good job of keeping from public view any redeeming qualities he might have.

There’s a case to be made that he’s worth ignoring, except for this: Don Jr. has been his father’s chief emissary to MAGA world; he’s one of the most popular figures in the Republican Party; and he’s influential with Republicans in positions of power. He’s also attuned to what appeals to the base of the GOP. So, from time to time, it is worth paying attention to what he has to say.

Trump spoke at a Turning Point USA gathering on December 19. He displayed seething, nearly pathological resentments; playground insults (he led the crowd in “Let’s Go, Brandon” chants); tough guy/average Joe shtick; and a pulsating sense of aggrieved victimhood and persecution, all of it coming from the elitist, extravagantly rich son of a former president.

But there was one short section of Trump’s speech that I thought was particularly revealing. Relatively early in the speech, he said, “If we get together, they cannot cancel us all. Okay? They won’t. And this will be contrary to a lot of our beliefs because—I’d love not to have to participate in cancel culture. I’d love that it didn’t exist. But as long as it does, folks, we better be playing the same game. Okay? We’ve been playing T-ball for half a century while they’re playing hardball and cheating. Right? We’ve turned the other cheek, and I understand, sort of, the biblical reference—I understand the mentality—but it’s gotten us nothing. Okay? It’s gotten us nothing while we’ve ceded ground in every major institution in our country.”

Throughout his speech, Don Jr. painted a scenario in which Trump supporters—Americans living in red America—are under relentless attack from a wicked and brutal enemy. He portrayed it as an existential battle between good and evil. One side must prevail; the other must be crushed. This in turn justifies any necessary means to win. And the former president’s son has a message for the tens of millions of evangelicals who form the energized base of the GOP: the scriptures are essentially a manual for suckers. The teachings of Jesus have “gotten us nothing.” It’s worse than that, really; the ethic of Jesus has gotten in the way of successfully prosecuting the culture wars against the left. If the ethic of Jesus encourages sensibilities that might cause people in politics to act a little less brutally, a bit more civilly, with a touch more grace? Then it needs to go.

Decency is for suckers.

He believes, as his father does, that politics should be practiced ruthlessly, mercilessly, and vengefully. The ends justify the means. Norms and guardrails need to be smashed. Morality and lawfulness must always be subordinated to the pursuit of power and self-interest. That is the Trumpian ethic.  

Liz Cheney voted with President Trump more than 90 percent of the time but is now persona non grata in the GOP because she is willing to defend the Constitution and the rule of law and stand against a violent assault on the Capitol and an effort to overturn a free and fair election. When Liz Cheney is more despised in the party than the crazed Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Jim Jordan, Madison Cawthorn, or Donald Trump Jr., you know that the GOP has lost its moral bearings.

The article goes on to note that the crowd generally enthusiastically received this toxic propaganda. But it also asserts that this kind of talk is common among of at least some Republicans in positions of power, arguably making Donald Trump and Don Jr. a some kind toxic authoritarian evangelist. 

The article also points out that not all Republicans embrace this tactic, asserting that some GOP governors and other Republicans adhere to a less toxic ethic. That said, the author argues it would be “naïve and irresponsible to pretend that what we have seen since Donald Trump left office is the revivification of ethical standards and demands for moral excellence within the Republican Party.”

That assessment feels right.

The unstated, mostly non-existent grievances and persecutions that Don Jr. claims to be suffering from are dogma straight out of Christian nationalist ideology and propaganda. They are myths based on crackpottery, e.g., the left cannot cancel the right. American Christianity is intolerant, aggressive, greedy and heavily protected by the constitution and dozens or hundreds of laws and institutions. Federal, state, county and local governments, the military, police, schools, prisons, most businesses and courts are all dominated by Christians. Exactly what the hell is Don Jr. complaining about? Not enough tax breaks for Christians? Maybe the goal is to make non-Christians pay taxes and let Christians off the hook. 

The main cancel culture here is radical right neoliberal conservatism and fundamentalist Christian nationalism. Republican elites want wealthy White males to control government, education, society and commerce. They demand imposition of their version of history and morality on all of the rest of us. They want to legalize discrimination against women, non-Republican opposition, racial and ethnic minorities and the especially hatred LGBQT community. That is the real cancel culture at play here. 

Questions: 

1. Is this article just an over the top partisan screed[1], or is this a new Republican propaganda effort to negate whatever restraining and democratic teachings the Bible might still exert?

2. Are conservatives really persecuted victims on the verge of being canceled as Don Jr. claims? What does cancellation mean, e.g., mass murdered, re-educated into socialist atheists or subjugated to socialist and minority tyranny?

Footnote: 

1. The author is Peter Wehner, a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and writes about political, cultural, religious, and national-security issues. He wrote the 2021 book, The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump.

Conservative intolerance toward inconvenient free speech

I've mentioned here several times that before the 2016 election I tried to engaged with seven big conservative politics websites. All seven wound up blocking me, two of which did not allow me to make even one unblocked comment. I did that to try to open communications with conservatives, Trump supporters and Republicans generally. From what I can tell, the effort appeared to be about 98% failure.

Given how dire and fragile our political and social situation is, making another attempt to reach conservatives makes sense, even if the effort is doomed to fail. What I am finding is that at least some big conservative politics sites are now more explicitly intolerant of non-conservative commentary, even if it is respectful and fact-based. 

Here's an example. The is a big conservative politics site (subreddit) at reddit called r/Conservative. The site shows it has 898,000 members and about 3,500 online at the moment. I checked its commenting rules. Here are the relevant ones, copied verbatim:

We have seven rules here - and they're easy to follow so let's review:

1 - Be civil, follow any flair guidelines.

This one is pretty easy... try and be nice to people. If you're getting some of that famous Liberal snark just message the moderators and let them know what's going on so we can help. And if a post says, "Conservatives Only" and you're not a Conservative don't comment there (your comment won't be visible anyway unless you have flair). if you want flair click here to learn about it.

It's not civil to say someone has a "punchable face" or we need to have another civil war. So don't be that person because we will find you and take action for it.

From the flair rules page:

To display your User Flair, you must also have the “☑️ Show my flair on this subreddit” box checked on the sidebar.

The only thing having User Flair does is grant you the ability to comment in posts marked with the submission flair "Flaired Users Only". All the other posts not flaired as such are open for you to comment in.

This is designed so that a couple posts per day are almost guaranteed to have conversation which is not hijacked by leftists and other non-conservatives.

Who Gets Flair?

Only mods can assign User Flair, and User Flair is only for conservatives. Once you have a solid history of comments in /r/Conservative, and have been commenting in the subreddit for at least two weeks, that is the right time to request flair via the link at the bottom of this page.

Please understand that this is for conservatives. We do our best to vet you based on your post history on reddit. You will need some post history to qualify - ideally within the subreddit itself. If you do not have a conservative leaning post history you will likely be asked to re-apply when you do.

You may choose your own flair but mods reserve the ability to reject the text. The flair must be conservative or at least generally right wing in nature. As our mission statement is to provide a place for conservatives to speak to other conservatives - we do not grant flair to those who are not at least reasonably close to that world view.

We do give variants on some of the above: "Libertarian Conservative" and "Moderate Conservative" are acceptable, for example.

We're looking for people who have been commenting for at least two weeks with verified history here in our subreddit. Ideally, we want you to average a couple comments per week, as well. If this is your first comment in /r/conservative, you have not met the minimum requirements to get flair.

7 - Do not violate the Mission Statement

We have a mission statement and we take it very seriously. This is what guides our subreddit and determines who and what belongs here:

We provide a place on Reddit for conservatives, both fiscal and social, to read and discuss political and cultural issues from a distinctly conservative point of view.

For our purpose behind the mission statement, please read Why We Have a Mission Statement.

Our Mission Statement

We provide a place on Reddit for conservatives, both fiscal and social, to read and discuss political and cultural issues from a distinctly conservative point of view.

Why Does /r/Conservative Have Its Mission Statement

The mission statement of this sub exists solely due to the hordes of leftists trying to silence this sub. If they could engage in civil discussion without resorting to personal attacks, dogpile downvotes, and endless parroting of hackneyed talking points, then we wouldn't need to ban them.

In fact, conservative ideas thrive when contrasted with the vapid superficiality, pseudo intellectualism, and creepy totalitarianism of leftism.

-/u/philosoguido - Moderator January 21, 2018

 

So, there you have it. A conservative politics site with almost 900K members that explicitly says liberals (i) want to shut r/Conservative conversation down, by making personal attacks, dogpiling downvotes[1] and whatever other bad things all liberals always do (ii) don't engage in civil discussion, (iii) are vapid and superficial, and (iv) make only hackneyed talking points. Liberals and presumably moderates need to be banned for these horrors.

I will keep civilly commenting at r/Conservative based on facts and logic until they ban me. I imagine it won't take long. My first comment there is here. It is the beginning of my latest little experiment in how mainstream conservatism deals with inconvenient free speech.

Questions: 

1. Are sites like r/Conservative unable to deal with civil, but inconvenient facts and logic, or am I just another one of those uncivilized, superficial, vapid, brainwashed liberal blowhards who makes only hackneyed talking points and is rude to conservatives? (I suspect most conservative really do see me as rude, uncivil, ignorant and stupid-brainwashed)

2. Are sites like r/Conservative echo chambers or places for unfettered, honest discussion?

Footnote: 

1. The dogpiling of downvotes might have been what flagged me to the two conservative sites that would not let me post even one comment under my Germaine II Disqus account. People on the other Disqus sites constantly downvoted most of my comments, So by the time I got to the last two sites on my list, I was already persona non grata by virtue of a having buttload of downvotes. 

FWIW, I dislike downvoting and rarely do it. I dislike it here. 

From the fascism and crackpot files: GOP-style election integrity, etc.

Let the brainwashed cool off first, then maybe they can vote

Newsweek writes: 

If red states and blue states were to "divorce" each other, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene called it possible that people who move from a Democratic state to a Republican state would be barred from voting for a temporary "cooling off" period.

California's seen an influx in people moving out of the state and many have opted to go to Texas and Florida, where residents can get more bang for their buck. However, some, including Greene, have complained that those who are leaving California are bringing their political beliefs with them and potentially shifting the political landscape.

On Wednesday, the Georgia congresswoman posted on Twitter that "brainwashed people" who move from California and New York need a "cooling-off period." Her comment was in response to a Twitter user who wrote he supports discriminating against Democratic transplants, including restricting their ability to vote for a period of time. He also wrote that they should have to "pay a tax for their sins." 

"After Democrat voters and big donors ruin a state like California, you would think it wise to stop them from doing it to another great state like Florida," Greene tweeted.

What can one say in the face of Marjorie's style of . . . . "excellence"? At least she is honest about her fascism and hate. One can only wonder about how many other Republicans, elites and rank and file, see the Democrats as brainwashed and their right to vote as optional. 40%? 70%? Who knows?

Ex-president accuses the House 1/6 investigation committee of bad intent 

Axios writes in an article, Trump accuses Jan. 6 panel of "seeking evidence of criminal activity":

Former President Trump's legal team on Wednesday accused the House committee investigating the Capitol riot of seeking to uncover evidence that would support a criminal referral against him.

The select committee is acting as “an inquisitorial tribunal seeking evidence of criminal activity,” Trump lawyer Jesse R. Binnall wrote in the brief, adding that such action is “outside of any of Congress’s legislative powers.”

“The Washington Post has confirmed what was already apparent — the Committee is indeed seeking any excuse to refer a political rival for criminal charges, and they are using this investigation to do so," Binnall added.

By gosh, maybe Trump has a point. The House committee just might be seeking evidence of criminal activity related to his 1/6 coup attempt. But, he's really got nothing to worry about. Neither Biden nor Attorney General Garland have any interest in vindicating the rule of law against Republican politicians or elites for their crimes, corruption, insurrection, treason, shootings or anything else. They will blow off any House criminal referral just like Trump blew off concerns about ethics, rationality, truth and the rule of law during his time in office.

Two historians got their shorts in a twist -- we need to be like Antifa

The courier journal, a Kentucky newspaper writes in an opinion piece, 
Two Kentucky historians agree the GOP is steering the US straight toward authoritarianism:

Two Kentucky historians agree it’s past time for Democrats to start warning voters — loudly, clearly and unceasingly — where Donald Trump and his truest true believers in the GOP are steering the country: Straight toward white supremacy and authoritarianism.

“This is real, this is serious and it’s frightening,” said Brian Clardy, a Murray State University history professor. “We must build a democratic resistance that amounts to a counter-fascist coup — In short, we must all become ‘antifa,’ or antifascists,” said John Hennen, a Morehead State University history professor emeritus.

Clardy said Trump largely won on a white backlash triggered by Barack Obama’s election. Clardy was in the crowd when our first African American president was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009. 

“While we’re celebrating here in Washington, folks back home are seething,” he said to a woman standing near him. He meant white folks.

Hennen said Trumpism has deep roots. “The eruption of violent white nationalist authoritarianism in our country is the shocking manifestation of less noisy currents of fascist politics which have evolved for decades.”

At least, I'm not alone in seeing Republican Party fascism as a dire, imminent threat to democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties. More people are slowly waking up. Whether the awakening is too little and/or too late is hard to tell. Elections in 2022 and 2024 ought to shed some light on the state of what's left of American democracy, elections, the rule of law, civil liberties and social cohesion.

I wondered how much ill-will and anger Obama's election created in the GOP. I suspected it was a lot. Apparently at least some others see it about that way too. The night Obama was elected in 2008 and walked out on the stage in Chicago, all I could think was 'don't shoot him', 'don't shoot him', 'don't shoot him.' 

Toothless federal government ethics

The New York Times writes:

As House ethics investigators were examining four cases this fall detailing a sweeping array of improper financial conduct by lawmakers, they ran into an obstacle: Two of the lawmakers under scrutiny refused to meet with them or provide documents.

The investigators were not too surprised. Over the past decade, fewer and fewer House members have been willing to cooperate with congressional investigations, a development that ethics experts warn could reduce accountability for misdeeds and erode trust in the institution of Congress.

Omar Ashmawy, the staff director of the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent entity that reviews allegations against House members and refers misconduct cases to the House Ethics Committee, acknowledged the growing resistance to his office’s work, but said he was undeterred: “It has never prevented us from being able to gather the facts and determine what happened and whether or not the subject was culpable.”

Still, the trend is unmistakable.

In 2009 and 2010 — the first Congress scrutinized by the Office of Congressional Ethics, which was created in 2008 — three lawmakers refused to cooperate with the office’s 68 investigations, a noncooperation rate of just 4 percent.

This year, six out of 14 House lawmakers under investigation have refused to participate — a rate of 43 percent, the highest on record.  

There is no requirement that lawmakers cooperate with the Office of Congressional Ethics, but legislators who do so often are able to resolve what had appeared to be violations of ethics rules.

The fact that many will no longer even meet with ethics investigators reflects a troubling trend in American politics in which improper behavior is no longer a political liability, ethics experts say.

Maybe ethics investigators can gather facts to determine what happened as is claimed, or maybe they can't. How can they know what is being withheld from them? Given the open hostility of both Democrats and Republicans to ethical concerns, it seems reasonable to think that Congress is becoming increasingly corrupt and autocratic. 

One outside ethics expert commented: “What people used to think was a career-ending mistake has been proven to not be a career-ending mistake. Many people have noticed a shift in ethical norms. It used to be the case that when a member violated the ethics rules, if not a fine, there would be a fairly stiff political price to pay. I worry that has gone away.”

Indeed, concern for ethics has gone away. That, along with unwarranted opacity, is one of the key hallmarks of a corrupt government.

Should we require an intelligence test to vote?

 There are multiple links on Google search (or whatever your search engine is) that asks the question: Should passing an intelligence or IQ test be required to vote? 

Ideally not. But when the truly ignorant, bigoted, and ill-informed can vote, what does that say about our ability to vote wisely?

Consider: The senior, who is barely able to still contemplate the world around him or her, being coerced by their kids to vote a certain way. 

Consider: A uneducated poor rural family, who have limited access to the internet or news other than Fox.

Consider: A tribe that gets told how to vote by their local leader, or an urban slum resident who lacks a highschool education but is "taught" how to vote by his or her local activist.

Consider: The bigot, who has made no bones about his or her feelings about those different from themselves.

I have read opinions both in favor of and against this idea. Because ONCE you start down this slippery slope, who ELSE will be denied a vote? Already moves are under way to make voting harder for minorities or those without "proper" IDs. 

Now imagine asking people to be informed or intelligent to vote. BUT AGAIN, why not? We need to know how to drive to get a driver's license, right? Yeah but, we can also be as dumb as doorknobs to have kids and no one can say different. Same, apparently, for voting.

SO the question remains: Should we require that voters at least have some level of knowledge, learning, and intelligence to vote?

Random stuff from the internet

There is just so much going on. 

Satan returns for Christmas to the capitol building

In the Illinois capitol building, The Satanic Temple out up its annual Christmas display with its God Baphomet shown as a baby in a basket. Baphomet is the goat headed thing with a human body and hoofs. Grumpy Catholics were there protesting its presence. 

Catholics protesting the baby Baphomet

Ban blasphemy, gol' darn it!

Insulting the president during a Christmas good will phone call

In Oregon, a man who joined a public phone call with Biden closed by insulting the president. The man, southern Oregon parent, 35-year-old Jared Schmeck, ended his initially polite conversation with, “Merry Christmas and let’s go, Brandon.” The schmuck Schmeck lied when denied he was a Trump supporter and complained that he was being attacked online, commenting "now I am being attacked for utilizing my freedom of speech." After the call, he wore a MAGA hat to an interview with the toxic traitor Steve Bannon. CNN comments: "Aww, poor "victim" Schmeck. Apparently, he thinks he should be able to tell Biden to basically go f**k himself while on a family friendly holiday call, but no one should be able to take issue with his actions."

One has just gotta love that freedom of speech thingie. And liars with their lies.

Democrats really did steal the election!

In a novel rationale to explain why Trump lost the 2020 election, the always delightfully crackpot Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), adduced a novel explanation grounded in evil, underhanded deeds. Here's what the Dems did to win, and (microaggression alert) this isn't for the faint of heart: They went out and legally convinced some voters to vote for Biden. The horror . . . the horror . . . . how could they sink so low? 

The Independent comments on this catastrophe: 

Kentucky senator Rand Paul was mocked on social media after he accused Democrats of “stealing elections” legally by convincing potential voters to support them.

Sharing an article from The American Conservative on how “Mark Zuckerberg’s millions and the Centre for Technology and Civic Life turned Wisconsin blue in 2020,” Mr Paul wrote: “How to steal an election.”

He then cited a paragraph from the report that suggested that Democrats planned to seed “an area heavy with potential Democratic votes with as many absentee ballots as possible, targeting and convincing potential voters to complete them in a legally valid way, and then harvesting and counting the results”.

My God (Baphomet), what is this country coming to?

I don't know what I am talking about, but it is

my right to talk, blah, blah, blah! 

Yup, the Republican leadership still blithers about the election

Making elections have integrity again

Reuters reports that the new laws in Georgia are being used to purge Black Democrats from county election boards. Reuters writes:

Now a faction of three white Republicans controlled the board – thanks to a bill passed by the Republican-led Georgia legislature earlier this year. The Spalding board’s new chairman has endorsed former president Donald Trump’s false stolen-election claims on social media.

The panel in Spalding, a rural patch south of Atlanta, is one of six county boards that Republicans have quietly reorganized in recent months through similar county-specific state legislation. The changes expanded the party’s power over choosing members of local election boards ahead of the crucial midterm Congressional elections in November 2022. 

"What we want to make sure is that we have election integrity,” said Butch Miller, the No. 2 Republican in the Georgia Senate, a leading advocate for Senate Bill 202 and a sponsor of the bill to reconstitute the Lincoln County election board.

In five of the Georgia counties that restructured election boards - Troup, Morgan, Pickens, Stephens and Lincoln - the legislature shifted the power to appoint some or all election board members to local county commissions, all of which are currently controlled by Republicans.

By golly, we're gonna get so much election integrity in 2022 and 2024 that it will slop over the top of the bottle and spill over into the swamp in Washington. That will cause all the swamp creatures to prodigiously reproduce. No wait. That's not right. The swamp creatures will go away. That's it -- they'll go away.

Republicans didn't even need the 1/6 insurrection

Republicans in congress were ready to commit the coup without street violence

The (medium credibility) Baily Beast writes:

A former Trump White House official says he and right-wing provocateur Steve Bannon were actually behind the last-ditch coordinated effort by rogue Republicans in Congress to halt certification of the 2020 election results and keep President Donald Trump in power earlier this year, in a plan dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep.”

In his recently published memoir, Peter Navarro, then-President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, details how he stayed in close contact with Bannon as they put the Green Bay Sweep in motion with help from members of Congress loyal to the cause.

But in an interview last week with The Daily Beast, Navarro shed additional light on his role in the operation and their coordination with politicians like Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).

“We spent a lot of time lining up over 100 congressmen, including some senators. It started out perfectly. At 1 p.m., Gosar and Cruz did exactly what was expected of them,” Navarro told The Daily Beast. “It was a perfect plan. And it all predicated on peace and calm on Capitol Hill. We didn’t even need any protestors, because we had over 100 congressmen committed to it.”  

Staffers for Cruz and Gosar did not respond to requests for comment. (Well, duh! What a shocker!)

I'll just assume the medium credibility Daily Beast (DB) isn't just making this stuff up. Some of it is fact checkable. Of course regarding the interview, Navarro can now just deny that he said what the DB says he said. He would do that if he was told to say he didn't say those things because it just looks soooo darn bad for Republicans. Well, probably to at least some Republicans based on their "don't play into their hands" talking point. 

Caveat: This brings up a common problem in modern day politics. Here, we've got the medium credibility news source DB talking about a rabid, no credibility Republican Trump supporter. So, even if Navarro changes his mind and denies all of it, the DB still gets the benefit of the doubt. Why would Navarro makes up lies like that to the DB -- to trap the DB or make it look bad? 

But of course, minds will differ on this. This is why I prefer and usually use high credibility sources over lower or no credibility sources.