An unremarkable story about the power of polarizing propaganda

 

How radical right puppetmasters  

demagogue the political left

The New York Times writes:

FORT SMITH, Ark. — In the fall of 2020, Kevin Thompson delivered a sermon about the gentleness of God. At one point, he drew a quick contrast between a loving, accessible God and remote, inaccessible celebrities. Speaking without notes, his Bible in his hand, he reached for a few easy examples: Oprah, Jay-Z, Tom Hanks.

Mr. Thompson could not tell how his sermon was received. The church he led had only recently returned to meeting in person. Attendance was sparse, and it was hard to appreciate if his jokes were landing, or if his congregation — with family groups spaced three seats apart, and others watching online — remained engaged.

So he was caught off guard when two church members expressed alarm about the passing reference to Mr. Hanks. A young woman texted him, concerned; another member suggested the reference to Mr. Hanks proved Mr. Thompson did not care about the issue of sex trafficking. Mr. Thompson soon realized that their worries sprung from the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that the movie star is part of a ring of Hollywood pedophiles.

For decades, Mr. Thompson, 44, had been confident that he knew the people of Fort Smith, a small city tucked under a bend in the Arkansas River along the Oklahoma border. He was born at the oldest hospital in town, attended public schools there and grew up in a Baptist church that encouraged him to start preaching as a teenager. He assumed he would live in Fort Smith for the rest of his life.

But now, he was not so sure. “Jesus talks about how he is the truth, how central truth is,” Mr. Thompson said in an interview. “The moment you lose the concept of truth you’ve lost everything.”

A political moment in which the Supreme Court appears on the brink of overturning Roe v. Wade looks like a triumphant era for conservative evangelicals. But there are deepening cracks beneath that ascendance.

Across the country, theologically conservative white evangelical churches that were once comfortably united have found themselves at odds over many of the same issues dividing the Republican Party and other institutions. The disruption, fear and physical separation of the pandemic have exacerbated every rift.

If he spoke against abortion from the pulpit, Mr. Thompson noticed, the congregation had no problem with it. The members were overwhelmingly anti-abortion and saw the issue as a matter of biblical truth. But if he spoke about race in ways that made people uncomfortable, that was “politics.” And, Mr. Thompson suspected, it was proof to some church members that Mr. Thompson was not as conservative as they thought.

The NYT article goes on to point out that many churches are fragile because attendance remains well below prepandemic levels. Christian denominations are declining, along with the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian. at least some observers see a “seismic shift” underway, with white evangelical churches dividing into two camps. One embraces Trump-style messaging and politics, including belief in crackpot conspiracy theories. The other follows a different path, maybe less emotional and more grounded in reality and reason.

In my opinion, the pastor’s comment about losing sight of truth is a key insight about a key trait of modern authoritarian conservative propaganda. Loss of truth is central to how followers of intolerant, irrational falsehood-driven political-religious messaging exerts power. Those people have to detach from truth. They are mostly unaware of what has happened to them. Effective propaganda works mostly unconsciously to deceive and manipulate. 

When people have lost truth to effective propaganda, their power to decide and act on the basis of truth has been taken from them. The flow of power from the deceived and manipulated to the deceiving manipulators is real. Such personal power loss has serious, life-changing consequences for millions of average people’s lives.

Anti-abortionists shift gears and aim for nationwide ban and criminal penalties

There appears to be a growing recognition that religious conservatives, now more accurately called radical Christian fundamentalist conservatives or just Christian nationalists, have a broader agenda than merely overturning Roe v. Wade. The New York Times writes:

The court’s opinion is not final, but the draft immediately shifted the horizon by raising a new question: If Roe is struck down, where does the anti-abortion movement go next?

Many leaders are redoubling state efforts, where they’ve already had success, with an eye toward more restrictive measures. Several prominent groups now say they would support a national abortion ban after as many as 15 weeks or as few as six, all lower than Roe’s standard of around 23 or 24. A vocal faction is talking about “abortion abolition,” proposing legislation to outlaw abortion after conception, with few if any exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

The sprawling anti-abortion grass-roots campaign is rapidly approaching an entirely new era, one in which abortion would no longer be a nationally protected right to overcome, but a decision to be legislated by individual states. For many activists, overturning Roe would mark what they see as not the end, but a new beginning to limit abortion access even further. It also would present a test, as those who have long backed incremental change could clash with those who increasingly push to end legal abortion altogether.

This week, many anti-abortion leaders were wary of celebrating before the court’s final ruling, expected this summer. They remembered Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992, when they hoped the court would overturn Roe and it ultimately did not. But they said they have been preparing for this moment and its possibilities for decades.  

“If a dog catches a car, it doesn’t know what to do,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee. “We do.”

The Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion political group, is planning a strategy involving state legislatures where it sees room to advance their cause or protect it. The National Right to Life is trying to support its affiliates in every state as it looks to lobby lawmakers. Both groups have been hoping to build support in Congress for a national abortion ban, even if it could take years, just as it did to gain momentum to undo Roe.  

Across the anti-abortion spectrum, everything is on the table, from instituting bans when fetal cardiac activity is detected, to pressing their case in Democratic strongholds. Some activists are prioritizing limiting medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of all abortions.  

While many fighting for restrictions believe abortion to be murder, only a small fringe openly call for punishing a woman for procuring one.

Lawmakers in Louisiana, however, advanced a bill on Wednesday that would classify abortion as homicide and make it possible for prosecutors to bring criminal cases against women who end a pregnancy.

Just wait. Over time that “small fringe” will grown to become the dominant dogma for Republicans. Those who dissent, will be RINO hunted out. That what years of demagogic propaganda can do to a society. In that kind of protected free speech lies the poison that will kill democracy and allow an intolerant theocratic White Christian dictatorship to flourish in the wreckage.

In moral terms, most rank and file Christian nationalists see this as (i) the morally right path to take, and (ii) not political at all, just normal. Fantasies like that are what decades of demagogic authoritarian dark free speech has brought down on what's left of our fading American democracy.

Notice the signs: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you 

Before you were born I set you free”

and

“Love them Both”

That is really what millions of Christian  

nationalists sincerely believe

Love them Both is BS, it’s like the Christian falsehood 

“Hate the sin, Love the sinner”

(most of them hate the sin and the sinner

-- people just cannot separate the sin from the sinner 

because the human mind does not work that way)

The Republican Party’s slide into anti-democratic authoritarianism

An article The Hill posted, Republican Party’s fear of debate highlights our slide toward authoritarianism, reflects the apparently growing recognition of what the Republican Party has clearly become, American fascist or neo-fascist (as I define the concept). 

The Hill writes:

Last week, the Republic National Committee voted to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) and will require candidates to pledge they will not participate. My immediate thought was, what are they afraid of? Then a more discouraging realization seeped in — this is another sign the U.S. is moving backwards. The U.S. has supported candidate debates through our foreign aid as an important benchmark in democracy. Debates signal maturity, transparency, and competition. Sparring over policy differences and making a case to voters are signs of democratic advancement. And now the U.S. itself may not be able to meet that challenge.

Everywhere I’ve worked, a key sticking point in debate organization is moderation. In weak and new democracies, the hangover of distrust is strong. There is no history of referees — neutral arbiters calling balls and strikes. One of the more difficult tasks for countries transitioning to democracy is building out independent bodies, whether an election management body, auditor general, anti-corruption commission, or ombudsperson. Media proves the most difficult, with journalists and outlets labeled partisan. Thus, the question of who will moderate a debate is fraught. I have had parties refuse to participate, rejecting every proposed moderator and insisting they would only join if they alone could choose. In Cambodia, finding a neutral moderator was difficult, but we managed to identify someone all parties could live with.

One of the RNC’s complaints about debates is unfair and biased moderation selected by the CPD. The committee argues that moderation in 2020 gave Joe Biden an advantage. The CPD is actually nonpartisan, with a board of former Republican and Democratic leaders. Furthermore, selected moderators have included a diverse array of journalists, including from conservative-leaning outlet Fox News, such as Chris Wallace. No matter, as Donald Trump declared them all “against him” or “terrible and unfair.” As in the newer democracies where the U.S. provides aid, it appears we also are too polarized to agree upon neutral referees, and immaturely insistent that only our choices are the fair ones.

Agreeing on debate rules is also a challenge. My experience has shown that candidates only like the rules applied to their opponent.  

Like elsewhere, the RNC is also complaining about debate rules, and the behavior they try to enforce. In 2020, the Trump campaign was furious that the commission determined that mics would be controlled in future debates to keep order because in the previous debate Trump refused to follow the time limits, constantly interrupted, and ignored the moderator. The Trump campaign also wanted control over the topics for debate, particularly when learning questioning would focus on his COVID response, though the campaigns had already agreed the issues for debate would be up to the moderators. The campaign also complained about live fact-checking by the moderator, accusing the commission of being “stacked with Trump Haters and Never Trumpers.” Trump said the quiet part out loud: “As President, the debates are up to me… avoiding the nasty politics of this very biased Commission.” As I’ve experienced elsewhere, the Trump campaign had an inconsistent relationship with rules (he certainly wanted Biden’s speaking time limited), depending on to whom it applied, and a sense of entitlement.

The RNC should consider carefully the company they are in — following the path of Putin, Orban, Mugabe, and other authoritarians. Refusing to debate is a trait of strongmen and dictators, not confident democrats. In a free society, as I have told parties everywhere, opting out of debates is not a good look.

 Yes indeed, the Republican Party and its morally rotted ex-president leader are following the path of democracy- and liberty hating authoritarians, including Putin. 

Regarding the origins of Christian nationalism and some of its moral mindset

This 18 minute interview by NPR's Michele Martin with American Christianity historian Kristin Du Mez (do may) discusses the Evangelical movement, its origins and one aspect of its moral mindset. Du Mez argues that the American Christian right is undermining democracy and fracturing the country. 

One of the points that Du Mez asserts is that the modern White Evangelical way of thinking is so innate and natural that they sincerely believe that their Church and Evangelism is not political. To them, it's just ordinary day to day life. They fully engulfed by this religious culture and society. In their prayers they thank God for anointing Brett Kavanaugh to be on the Supreme Court and they vilify big government, but they see no politics in any of that. Instead, they see these things as merely being Christian. They have lost sight of most or all differences between politics and religion. In their minds, religion has swallowed politics.

Regarding Evangelical values, Du Mez asserts that most people did not understand them. Support for the ex-president was not a betrayal of those values. Instead, he was the embodiment of them. One needs to puts White patriarchal authority at the center of the Evangelical morality, to see that the ex-president embodied their moral beliefs and values. The vulgarity, disrespect, mendacity, infidelity, bigotry and so on were all beside the point. The core value is a strong, even ruthless White man capable of defending Christianity, the nation, the women and the children. She argues that is what many Evangelicals, men and women, saw and liked about him.

Along with white unease over the rise in minority populations and various social changes, White patriarchal moral authority is another factor in what Christian nationalism and the Republican Party are today.

Du Mez notes that prominent Evangelicals in leadership positions who opposed the ex-president as being to radical or otherwise not acceptable or Christian turned out to be wrong. Now they have either lost their power in a populist American Evangelical Christianity by being pushed out or by leaving after realizing that their leadership position has simply vanished in the face of a a populist insurgency and the White patriarchal moral authority the ex-president represents in the insurgents' minds. 

The purity/sanctity moral frame[1]: Wife beating, rape and uncontrolled lust --

It's the woman's fault, men just can't help it 

In a fascinating segment beginning at ~10 minutes in the interview, Du Mez describes why Evangelical women do not find the ex-president's marital infidelities or sexual vulgarities strongly offensive or objectionable. Evangelism teaches that men are aggressively sexual, while women are not. Because of that, it is the woman's duty to defend purity. When men do bad things related to sex, the woman has tempted the man or has failed him sexually. That is the woman's fault. For example when a man has sex with his young daughter, it is the wife's fault for not properly satisfying her man's sex urges. According to Du Mez, this strain of belief dates back to Evangelical teachings from the 1960s and 1970s. It is a central theme in Evangelical moral belief today.

If what Du Mez argues is mostly true, that would help explain some or most of why supposedly moral Evangelical women accept and support people like T****. That is a manifestation of their moral purity belief that the woman is responsible for taming men's uncontrollable sex urges. That may seem counter intuitive, but it does make moral sense to me. I think I get it.

Christian nationalists are happy campers today: They got what they wanted, Roe overturned: The sacred ends justified the dirty means

Finally, the interview ends with a segment on how Evangelicals see the situation today. They are overjoyed at the impending reversal of Roe v. Wade. They also see that, unpleasant as the means may have been, the sacred ends morally justified what the ex-president and the Republican Party have done.

These people are scary. They will accept the fall and loss of democracy, the secular rule of law and civil liberties if those things are demagogued into truth as the will of God. These anti-democratic impulses to obey God are deeply embedded in Evangelical minds. Contrary facts and reasoning are not persuasive or even relevant. One just cannot question God's will. God is first. Democracy and all the rest is arguably not even a close second.

Footnote: 

1. Purity is one of the moral values hypothesized to be important in Moral Foundations Theory. MFT was mentioned here a couple weeks ago. That post discussed what happens when the loyalty moral value clashes with the honesty moral value. Propagandists and demagogues intentionally create artificial moral conflicts to divide, distract, foment distrust and subjugate the masses. 

The core moral values hypothesized in Moral Foundations Theory are Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation, and Liberty/Oppression. The purity that Du Mez mentions refers to the sanctity/degradation moral.

Recent origins of the Christian nationalist anti-abortion movement

This fascinating 18 minute interview by Christiane Amanpour with a former Christian nationalist propagandist, Frank Schaeffer. Schaeffer now says he regrets his role in helping to convert Evangelical Christians from mostly positive or neutral about abortion to rigidly anti-abortion. He claims that he and his father were important players in the demagoguery and the conversion.[1] The one group that was the most anti-abortion was Catholics. They did not need to be convinced to oppose Roe v. Wade. The Evangelicals needed to be convinced.  

Schaeffer made propaganda films that demagogued abortion for maximal emotional impact, especially to foment moral outrage and hate. A key point was that this was an effective way to raise money and trap votes for Republicans. Republican politicians and activists, e.g., Paul Weyrich[2], noticed this and started pandering to the anti-abortionists in the Republican Party quest for money and power. 

In all of what is going on in American neo-fascist conservative politics, lust for money and power among the elites is a constant central theme. The minds of most rank and file supporters (~95% ?) are quite different.

Footnotes: 

1. I don't know the history of this well enough to know how important Schaeffer was in the conversion of Evangelicals to rabid anti-abortionists. If what he claims is true, he was arguably a significant player in both the anti-abortion movement and in crystallizing (maybe inadvertently) Christian nationalism into the toxic, powerful neo-fascist political and social movement it is today.

2. Apologies for posting this short video so many times. It just strikes me as important to know. This 40 second video is Weyrich stating the fringe of the Republican Party view on free and fair elections in 1980. Today in 2022, that old fringe opinion is now dominant mainstream Republican Party dogma. The Republican concern Weyrich stated in 1980 is still true today.  

Public opinion on abortion

The polling experts at FiveThirtyEight posted some data on public opinion.

The last graph shows that relentless, ruthless Republican demagoguery on abortion is swaying public opinion. 

Once again, the power of dark free speech is on display. If that can happen with opinions on abortion, it can happen on opinions with most anything, including support for democracy and respect for truth, a secular basis for the rule of law, and civil liberties. That's the threat, right out in the open.