From the alt-reality files: Blind radical Christian nationalist faith in the White House

This is from an article that New York Times magazine published in 2004:

Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that "if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3." The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.

"Just in the past few months," Bartlett said, "I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do." Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: "This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .

"This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts," Bartlett went on to say. "He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence." Bartlett paused, then said, "But you can't run the world on faith."

Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off the Senate floor. I was there as a guest speaker. Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. "I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad," he began, "and I was telling the president of my many concerns" -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. "'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?"'

Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts."

Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. "I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!"'

.... The president would say that he relied on his "gut" or his "instinct" to guide the ship of state, and then he "prayed over it." The old pro Bartlett, a deliberative, fact-based wonk, is finally hearing a tune that has been hummed quietly by evangelicals (so as not to trouble the secular) for years as they gazed upon President George W. Bush. This evangelical group -- the core of the energetic "base" that may well usher Bush to victory -- believes that their leader is a messenger from God. ....  

The nation's founders, smarting still from the punitive pieties of Europe's state religions, were adamant about erecting a wall between organized religion and political authority. But suddenly, that seems like a long time ago. George W. Bush -- both captive and creator of this moment -- has steadily, inexorably, changed the office itself. He has created the faith-based presidency.

The faith-based presidency is a with-us-or-against-us model that has been enormously effective at, among other things, keeping the workings and temperament of the Bush White House a kind of state secret.  

Still others, like Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, a Democrat, are worried about something other than his native intelligence. "He's plenty smart enough to do the job," Levin said. "It's his lack of curiosity about complex issues which troubles me." But more than anything else, I heard expressions of awe at the president's preternatural certainty and wonderment about its source. (emphases added)

When they are right, they are infallibly right. No debate allowed. No inconvenient facts permitted. 

Christian nationalist faith and dogma has such a powerful grip on trapped minds, that all the barbarian, chronic liar Trump had to do was things like mouth the right words, including insults, beat up on racial minorities, and install radical Christian nationalist judges on the federal bench. That made him one of God's chosen for most of the true believers. About one-third of Americans believe that God influences presidential elections.

One can wonder how many of those who believed God was on Obama's side also believed that God was on Trump's side. The overlap was probably major. After all, this is about God politics, not human politics.

Lest we forget: A short trip down memory lane

The meaning of post-truth goes beyond being a fool or a liar — “in its purest form, post-truth is when one thinks that the crowd's reaction actually does change the facts about the lie (...) what seem to be new in the post-truth era is a challenge not just to the idea of knowing reality but to the existence of reality itself.” In this regard, although political lies have always existed, “post-truth relationship to facts occurs only when we are seeking to assert something that is more important to us than truth itself. Thus, post-truth amounts to a form of ideological supremacy, whereby its practitioners are trying to compel someone to believe in something whether there is good evidence for it or not.” So, while truthiness locates the responsibility for lying, post-truth is more vague and collectivist in this regard, providing no clear way to define who is responsible, when, and to what extent. Hence, post-truth gives rise to “a world in which politicians can challenge the facts and pay no political price whatsoever.” -- A. Fasce, The upsurge of irrationality: post-truth politics for a polarized world, Disputatio. Philosophical Research Bulletin, 9(13):0-00, 2019 (note the strange page numbering 0-00 -- something is amiss)

Memory can be short. Much is happening. Times are confusing and complex. Sophisticated liars, manipulators and crackpots are a scourge of poxes upon the land. Blithering lunatics with loaded guns roam free in congress. Dogs sleep with cats. There is a fly in the ointment. Transgender bathrooms are popping up all over the place. Christian nationalist extremists are rampaging through the federal courts because they are the federal courts. The horror, the horror . . . . 

Speaking of memory, here's a short blast from the past. This is from a 2018 article by Politico,
Giuliani: ‘Truth isn’t truth’:

President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Sunday claimed “truth isn’t truth” when trying to explain why the president should not testify for special counsel Robert Mueller for fear of being trapped into a lie that could lead to a perjury charge.

“When you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry, well that’s so silly because it’s somebody’s version of the truth. Not the truth,” Giuliani told Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning

“Truth is truth,” Todd responded.

“No, no, it isn’t truth,” Giuliani said. “Truth isn’t truth. The President of the United States says, “I didn’t …”

A startled Todd answered: “Truth isn’t truth?”

Giuliani: “No, no, no.”

Todd said: “This is going to become a bad meme.”

Last week on CNN, he rejected Chris Cuomo’s assertion that “facts are not in the eye of the beholder."

"Yes, they are," Giuliani said. "Nowadays they are."

In May, the former New York mayor pursued a similar line of thought in an interview with The Washington Post about the Mueller investigation: “They may have a different version of the truth than we do.”

The statement also recalled Kellyanne Conway’s statement in January 2017 referring to “alternative facts” offered by the White House about crowd sizes at Trump’s inauguration.

What a pleasant little trip down bad memory lane this has been. I'm all excited (and fortunately, unarmed).

Question: Has “Truth isn’t truth?” become a bad meme?

OK then, how about now? Bad meme or not? Not yet? How about this plausibly true commentary from 2009?:

“People like you are still living in what we call the reality-based community. You believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you are studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

What about America's staunch ally, Israel?

Since Israel came into existence by its own fiat in 1948, no other country has been generously blessed by the US with as much political, financial, diplomatic and military support. Israel is America's top foreign aid recipient and has been for years.[1] The US-Israel friendship runs deep and strong.

Axios writes:

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield protested to her Israeli counterpart over Israel's refusal to join 87 countries in backing a U.S.-led resolution to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine at the UN Security Council on Friday, Israeli officials tell Axios.

Apparently, Israel's friendship with Russia runs deeper and stronger. In fact, its friendship with itself is far deeper and stronger than with any other nation on Earth.

Questions: With friends like that, who needs enemies? Is it time to cut the umbilical cord?

Footnote:
1. "Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. Successive Administrations, working with Congress, have provided Israel with significant assistance in light of robust domestic U.S. support for Israel and its security; shared strategic goals in the Middle East; a mutual commitment to democratic values; and historical ties dating from U.S. support for the creation of Israel in 1948. To date, the United States has provided Israel $150 billion (current, or noninflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding. At present, almost all U.S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance; from 1971 to 2007, Israel also received significant economic assistance." -- Congressional Research Service, U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel, Feb. 18, 2022 

U.S. Training Birds to Spread Bio Weapons

 After accusing the U.S. of producing bioweapons in Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense has added another feather-ruffling theory to their accusation: That the U.S. is training birds in Ukraine to spread deadly diseases among Russian citizens.

Major General Igor Konashenkov, the chief spokesman for the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, discussed the plot Thursday on RIA Novosti, a TV media outlet controlled by the Russian government.

Konashenkov claimed that U.S. forces had planned to infect birds with a spreadable form of the H5N1 flu strain "with a mortality rate of 50 percent" as well as Newcastle disease, the privately-owned Russian news outlet Pravda reported.

Newcastle disease is a contagious, fatal bird disease affecting the respiratory, nervous and digestive systems, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

https://www.newsweek.com/russian-conspiracy-theory-says-us-training-birds-spread-bio-weapons-1687399

Of course the White House are denying these charges:

A U.S. State Department spokesman called the claim "outright lies" and "total nonsense" adding, "These claims have been debunked conclusively and repeatedly over many years." Pentagon spokesman John Kirby described the allegations as "absurd", "laughable" and "propaganda." White House press secretary Jen Psaki also called the claims "preposterous."

The Russian invasion shines light on global ideological splits

An interesting opinion piece the New York Times published raises the question of whether the West is playing into Putin's hands by solidifying an image of clashing cultures. This is worth at least considering. The NYT writes:

Putin Wants a Clash of Civilizations. Is ‘The West’ Falling for It?

Russia’s invasion has also provided the geopolitical equivalent of CPR for NATO. Washington’s perennial requests that Europeans pay their share for the security organization that defends them has been met with an unprecedented vote in Germany to increase its country’s military budget and its contribution to the alliance. ....

The unification in Europe that Mr. Biden speaks of is certainly real, but in a cruel paradox, European cohesion appears achievable only by further binding itself to the mast of American power and prerogatives. The idea of a geopolitically autonomous Europe acting independently of the United States — a vision historically dear to the French — is rapidly becoming unutterable. .... 

As former Warsaw Pact countries welcomed NATO expansion, he [Putin] shifted to a more civilizational understanding of Russia’s place in the world, one based on “Eastern” values: the Orthodox Church, patriarchal chauvinism, anti-homosexuality edicts, as well as a notion of a greater ethnic Russian identity whose ancient wellspring is inconveniently Kyiv, Ukraine. Protesters such as Pussy Riot and others who struck directly at this neo-civilizational image came in for swift retribution.

Mr. Putin’s turn reflected a broader phenomenon of authoritarian-led liberalizing economies trying to fill an empty ideological space that seemed poised to be filled by Western idolatry. In China, too, in the late 2000s, there was a turn to a civilizational understanding in Beijing, where dutiful readers of Mr. Huntington have spread notions of Chinese civilization in the forms of global Confucius Institutes or a program for “cultural self-confidence,” and which President Xi Jinping today expresses in his elliptical “thought.”

Turkey, too, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has pushed a vision of a neo-Ottoman sphere stretching from North Africa to Central Asia, which is a direct repudiation of Ataturk’s more bounded vision of Turkish nationalism. More recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has revived ideas about Hindu supremacy, glorifying his nation’s ancient past — Hindustan is his Kyivan Rus — and using it as a bludgeon against his opponents. The turn to civilizational imagining provides a useful lever for ruling elites who want to suppress other forms of solidarity, whether class, regional or ecologically based, and to restrict the attractions of cosmopolitanism for their economic elites. 

For all the talk about how Ukraine is — despite whatever losses on the battlefield — winning the P.R. war, there is a sense in which Mr. Putin has already won at another level of framing the conflict. The more we hear about the resolve of the West, the more the values of a liberal international order appear like the provincial set of principles of a particular people, in a particular place.

Of the 10 most-populous countries in the world, only one — the United States — supports major economic sanctions against Russia. Indonesia, Nigeria, India and Brazil have all condemned the Russian invasion, but they do not seem prepared to follow the West in its preferred countermeasures. Nor do non-Western states appear to welcome the kind of economic disruptions that will result from, as Senator Rob Portman phrased it, “putting a noose on the Putin economy.” North Africa and the Middle East rely on Russia for basics from fertilizer to wheat; Central Asian populations rely on its remittances. Major disruptions to these economic networks seem unlikely to relieve Ukrainian suffering.  

Mr. Putin himself came to power atop the rubble of Russia’s 1990s economic chaos. It would be rash to think that out of the new economic chaos inflicted, a phoenix to the liking of the West will rise.

That vision of clashing civilizations feels like it has significant grounding in reality. Some others suspect that Putin's agenda is deeper than just obliterating Ukraine.[1] If so, it raises the question of what should we do differently, if anything? Maybe it is true that Russia will never culturally integrate with the West.

Footnote: 

1. An interview with Russian journalist Masha Gessen got the title, Putin Is ‘Profoundly Anti-Modern.’ Masha Gessen Explains What That Means for the World. The transcript is here. It includes this:

And as of today [March 10], the two polls I’ve seen out of Russia found majority support for the war in Ukraine. But the question that raises is what are Russians supporting? What do they know of the war being waged in their name by their government? Do they even know it’s war? The Russian government does not call it a war. It’s a special military operation.

And under a new law, to say anything that Putin’s government thinks is false about his war in Ukraine is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. He’s wiping out independent news operations. He’s tightening access to social media. This is a country that already was filled with propaganda where information and untruth were in an unusually intense competition and information is being choked off that much more and that much more rapidly.  

The state narrative is already that — and, in fact, it has been the narrative since at least 2014, since the sanctions imposed on Russia for its first invasion of Crimea — the narrative has been the West is waging an economic offensive against Russia, an unmotivated, unprovoked economic offensive, which makes sense because it’s always us against the world. It’s always as against the West. And the West is just doing the thing that it does, which is wage war against Russia.

The idea that sanctions could possibly change Putin’s behavior, or motivate the elites or the masses to coalesce and protest and overthrow Putin is wrong. It is demonstrably wrong. It’s been tried over and over and it doesn’t work. Now, obviously we’ve never seen sanctions on this scale and it is mind-boggling.

Texas is really messed up

Some Biblical guidance for Christian nationalists

Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins (Ecclesiastes 7:20); All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23); No one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him (1 John 5:18; 1 John 3:6, 3:9)

No one has ever seen God (1 John 4:12); No man has seen or can see [God] (1 Timothy 6:16); The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day (Genesis 18:1); The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend (Exodus 33:11)

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (Matthew 5:17–18); The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. (see Hebrews 8:6–13)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8–9); We maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law (Romans 3:28); Will [God] not repay everyone according to what they have done? (Proverbs 24:12); What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? (James 2:14); For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done (Matthew 16:27)

The mess in Texas

No one needs to mess with Texas. It has royally messed itself up. The news coming out of that state is beyond bizarre. At present the toxic influence of the Republican Party there is more a matter of hyper-radical Christian nationalism (CN) rampaging against civil liberties than it is ultra-wealthy radical right laissez-faire capitalists rampaging for more power and wealth and less government and taxes. Radical CN social engineering, call it Christian Sharia, is what CN is inflicting on Texas right now. It is what CN ideology and politics want to do to all of America. This stuff is terrifying.

One New York Times article makes clear the intense hate and cruelty that sacred, infallible CN fundamentalism holds against the LGBQT community. The NYT writes in an article entitled, Texas Court Halts Abuse Inquiries Into Parents of Transgender Children:

A judge said the governor’s order to consider medically accepted treatments for transgender youth as abuse had been improperly adopted and violated the State Constitution.

Investigations of parents with transgender children for possible child abuse were temporarily halted across Texas on Friday after a state court ruled that the policy, ordered last month by Gov. Greg Abbott, had been improperly adopted and violated the State Constitution.

The injunction, issued by Judge Amy Clark Meachum in Travis County, stemmed from a legal challenge by the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl. Her family was among the first to be investigated by the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services under Mr. Abbott’s order, which directed state officials to consider medically accepted treatments for transgender youth — including hormones and puberty-suppressing drugs — as abuse.

CN ideologues hate non-heterosexuality so much that they consider it child abuse to medically support accepted treatments. Here, God has intervened in modern medicine. God crushed science to vindicate the religious beliefs that infallible self-righteous of CN adherents hold. Christian Sharia is above man-made law, including the US Constitution. That is a cherished CN dream. It is starting to come true in radical right states where CN is powerful enough to pass such awful laws.

In another display of the power of fundamentalist CN dogma on law, CN legislators may have figured out a way to pass laws that, for the most part, courts cannot examine for constitutionality. If this legal tactic works, the floodgates of CN discrimination and bigotry will open and remain unchecked as long as this CN tactic is held by courts to be legal. The NYT writes in an article entitled Texas Supreme Court Shuts Down Final Challenge to Abortion Law: 

The ruling says state officials have no authority to enforce the law, which empowers private citizens: “We cannot rewrite the statute.”

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday effectively shut down a federal challenge to the state’s novel and controversial ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, closing off what abortion rights advocates said was their last, narrow path to blocking the new law.

The Texas law, which several states are attempting to copy, puts enforcement in the hands of civilians. It offers the prospect of $10,000 rewards for successful lawsuits against anyone — from an Uber driver to a doctor — who “aids or abets” a woman who gets an abortion once fetal cardiac activity can be detected.

By empowering everyday people and expressly banning enforcement by state officials, the law, known as S.B. 8, was designed to escape judicial review in federal court. Advocates of abortion rights had asked the Supreme Court to block it even before it took effect last September. The justices repeatedly declined, and said that because state officials were not responsible for enforcing the law it could not be challenged in federal court based on the constitutional protections established by Roe.  

Abortion rights supporters and legal scholars said the Texas law would encourage other states not only to pass similar bans on abortion, but to attempt to nullify other precedents they oppose.

It is not rocket science to see where this legal tactic is going. Once the tactic to evade courts is established for abortion, which is just one of the civil liberties that CN ideologues hate, the path is clear to do the same for other things they hate. Unfortunately, CN fundamentalists hate some important things that most Americans like. This isn't just about abortion. It is also about voting rights, gun rights, LGBQT rights, secularism, especially including secular public schools and education, pluralism (CN ideology is rigidly and radically White-centric and male dominated), obliterating what little is left of church-state separation, getting unfettered access to tax dollars to fund CN churches, schools and businesses, etc. What CN hates and will get rid of if allowed to includes some important things that most Americans support.  

That raises one last point that needs to be mentioned. Another aspect of CN fundamentalism and its dogma is its demand for loyalty and submission. It is inherently authoritarian and anti-democratic. CN fits easily and comfortably with the rising American fascism that the Republican Party now mostly openly supports. In this regard, elite CN fundamentalist radicals are comfortable and heavily overlapping with elite laissez-faire capitalists and their lust for completely unfettered markets, zero social responsibility and infinite profits come hell or high water. Contrary public opinion is of no concern to either the CN radicals or the capitalist radicals. For them, it is all about accumulating power and wealth and shutting people up if they do not like or support what the elites demand for all of us.

If there was such a thing, what is going on in the Republican Party today would be an unholy marriage made in hell.