The next front in the radical right war on democracy: Turning political groups into religions

A core goal of the Christian nationalist political movement is to aggressively protect and expand tax breaks for its growing scope of allegedly religious activities. Rapacious Christian gold diggers are claiming religious freedom for more and more activities. Those activities are qualifying for IRS tax status and direct payment from governments or indirect tax subsidies. The Supreme Court significantly expanded the reach of religion into state revenue streams in its recent decision requiring states to support religious schools (Supreme Court Rejects Maine’s Ban on Aid to Religious Schools -- The decision was the latest in a series of rulings forbidding the exclusion of religious institutions from government programs).

Apparently, radical right Republican political groups are waking up to the idea of going from non-profit groups with some tax breaks to religious organizations with much better tax breaks. Key reasons to convert from a "charity" to a "religion" are (1) more tax breaks, and more importantly (2) protection from mandatory divulging of financial information. Unlike charities, religious organizations do not have to make their finances public. Fascist Republicans want to do their dirty work in private.

ProPublica writes:

The Family Research Council’s multimillion-dollar headquarters sit on G Street in Washington, D.C., just steps from the U.S. Capitol and the White House, a spot ideally situated for its work as a right-wing policy think tank and political pressure group.

From its perch at the heart of the nation’s capital, the FRC has pushed for legislation banning gender-affirming surgery; filed amicus briefs supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade; and advocated for religious exemptions to civil rights laws. Its longtime head, a former state lawmaker and ordained minister named Tony Perkins, claims credit for pushing the Republican platform rightward over the past two decades.

What is the FRC? Its website sums up the answer to this question in 63 words: “A nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to articulating and advancing a family-centered philosophy of public life. In addition to providing policy research and analysis for the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the federal government, FRC seeks to inform the news media, the academic community, business leaders, and the general public about family issues that affect the nation from a biblical worldview.”

In the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service, though, it is also a church, with Perkins as its religious leader.

According to documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act and given to ProPublica, the FRC filed an application to change its status to an “association of churches,” a designation commonly used by groups with member churches like the Southern Baptist Convention, in March 2020. The agency approved the change a few months later.

The FRC is one of a growing list of activist groups to seek church status, a designation that comes with the ability for an organization to shield itself from financial scrutiny. Once the IRS blessed it as an association of churches, the FRC was no longer required to file a public tax return, known as a Form 990, revealing key staffer salaries, the names of board members and related organizations, large payments to independent contractors and grants the organization has made. Unlike with other charities, IRS investigators can’t initiate an audit on a church unless a high-level Treasury Department official has approved the investigation.

[Not surprisingly,] the FRC declined to make officials available for an interview or answer any questions for this story. Its former parent organization, Focus on the Family, changed its designation to become a church in 2016. In a statement, the organization said it made the switch largely out of concern for donor privacy, noting that many groups like it have made the same change. Many of them claim they operated in practice as churches or associations of churches all along.

Warren Cole Smith, president of the Christian transparency watchdog MinistryWatch, said he believes groups like these are seeking church status with the IRS for the protections it confers.

“I don’t believe that a lot of the organizations that have filed for the church exemption are in fact churches,” he said. “And I don’t think that they think that they are in fact churches.”

Unlike the Southern Baptist Convention, whose website hosts a directory of more than 50,000 affiliated churches, the FRC’s site does not list these partners or mention the word “church” anywhere on its home page. The FRC’s application to become an association of churches didn’t include this list of partner churches, nor did it provide the names to ProPublica.

The organization’s claim to be an association of churches is disingenuous, said Frederick Clarkson, who researches the Christian right at nonpartisan social justice think tank Political Research Associates.

“The FRC can say whatever bullshit things they want to,” he said. “The IRS should recognize it as a bad argument.”

Three experts told ProPublica that the IRS is failing to use its full powers to determine who gets the special privileges afforded to churches. And when a group like the FRC appears to push the limits of what charities are allowed to do — particularly relating to their partisan political activity — the IRS doesn’t often step in to crack down. [Not surprisingly,] the IRS did not answer a list of detailed questions for this story or make anyone available for an interview.

The American Family Association, a Tupelo, Mississippi-based group that runs the influential American Family Radio network, as well as a film studio and magazine, changed its designation to a church in early 2022, according to IRS data. The association sends out frequent “action alerts” to subscribers asking them to sign petitions opposing government appointees or boycott media and brands that it has identified as supporting LGBTQ rights or abortion access. [Not surprisingly], the organization declined to respond to a request for comment.

It is really important to understand that the fascist Republican assault on democracy, secularism and civil liberties is well-funded, aggressive, multi-pronged and increasingly successful. Both Christian nationalists and laissez-faire capitalists are exploiting every angle of attack they can exploit. In essence, in addition to controlling society, they want to gain full control of the federal government, all sources of tax revenues and more tax subsidies. 

In other words, Republican fascists are hell-bent on using our tax dollars and subsidies against us to take away our democracy and civil liberties. After decades of focused effort, the radical right is starting to succeed on a massive scale. We are in urgent, grave danger.

Convergence of Republican Party and foreign authoritarianism in democracies under attack

ACUF is the American Conservative Union Foundation

American anti-democratic authoritarians are merging 

with those in Hungary

Acknowledgement: The following is copied and lightly edited from a comment PD posted in another discussion thread yesterday. PD synthesizes complicated things extremely well into coherence. Better than me, that's for sure. I appreciate his time and effort here a great deal. This is quite timely and informative.

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Initial comment: Hungary and Poland are not the USA. Again, I'd compare us to England, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Maligned as the Anglo-American world, although I very much admire it.

PD's response: When I mentioned Orban's Hungary as an example of bloodless de-democratization, you said,

Hungary and Poland are not the USA.

Orban is now going to speak alongside Trump and Steve Bannon at CPAC in Texas next month. As the articles and video linked below report, the GOP and the Hungarian autocrat are becoming much closer. As you know, I don't think interwar Germany is a good point of comparison with the US. But I do think the democratic backslide in Hungary is much more relevant than that.

Apparently the GOP elites agree. There is now a Hungarian version of the US-based Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) which opened in May, with Orban as the main speaker, of course. CPAC US and CPAC-Hungary have signed a "Memorandum of Understanding"-- note the American and Hungarian flags waving harmoniously behind Orban as he states that,

We need to take back the institutions in Washington and Brussels. We need to work with friends and allies. We need to coordinate the movement of our troops, because we have a big challenge ahead of us. 2024 will be decisive.

See also this ABC News article: Hungarian nationalist PM Orban to deliver speech at CPAC, which includes these comments: "BUDAPEST, Hungary -- Hungary's nationalist prime minister will speak at a conference of prominent U.S. conservatives this summer, the latest sign of tightening relations between Hungarian and American conservatives."

While speaking on the theme of "God, homeland and family" (as shown in the video), Orban speaks of the need to have government control the media, something he has managed to do in Hungary, to a great extent. Speaking of Washington and Budapest as the "two fronts of the War for Western Civilization," he said:

Dear friends, let's have our own media. The madness of the progressive left can only be demonstrated if there is media to help us do so.

As I also told you earlier, this is why I don't talk about "wokeness" anymore. It is being used as the main bait for radicalizing disenchanted citizens who used to be mainstream, but got upset about the culture wars. Of course, once you take the bait there comes the switch: you let Dear Leader ( Orban? Trump? DeSantis? Pres. Tucker?) "run the show"-- literally and figuratively. And what a show it is, with 24/7 fear-mongering about non-white immigrants, LGBTQ causes and the like. We learned from 1/6 Select Committee testimony yesterday that Twitter was cowed by Trump for months. "If that account had belonged to anybody else it would have been deleted long before 1/6" said a lead moderator for Twitter in testimony. Fox, OAN, and others already thrive as, essentially, GOP propaganda outlets with almost no regard for evidence based reporting. Do we even want to imagine emulating the Hungarian model of state controlled media?? (see, e.g., New Report: Hungary dismantles media freedom and pluralism)

This is not good news, IM. The GOP and far Right parties in Europe are becoming more and more cooperative. Just a couple of months back, Steve Bannon was in France sharing the stage with then-presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen (leader of the National Front or National Rally). Thankfully, she lost. But that's not my point. What the GOP is becoming/has become here has its analogues in much of Europe where reactionary, and often bigoted parties have been growing alarmingly over the past 5 or 6 years (esp. since the refugee crisis and Brexit). Seeing a European iteration of CPAC in this context is alarming. Jonathon Krohn, one of the few journalists allowed to cover the opening of CPAC-Hungary writes:

BUDAPEST, Hungary — European and American conservatives descended on this city Thursday morning to bemoan the supposed ‘suicide’ of Western civilization. The impending cultural death was blamed on a variety of causes, including immigrants who were “replacing” native-born workers; communists and “progressivists” pushing “gender madness”; and liberal democracy, which was creating a new “civic religion” out of the rights of man. Speakers, ranging from the CEO of Parler to the Prime Minister of Hungary, railed against the ‘woke’ media and the “unified troops of the international left” during a series of programming blocs with titles like “Western Civilization Under Attack,” “In God We Trust,” and “The Culture Wars in the Media.” It was the opening day of CPAC Hungary, the first European edition of the American Conservative Union’s flagship confab, and dark clouds were forming over Hungary....

What were those ideas and how could [Europe and America] be salvaged?

The answers proposed by an international slate of nationalist speakers betrayed a growing affinity between American conservatism and illiberal authoritarians in Europe. Immigration, gender identity, abortion rights, foreign culture, and the media all needed to be heavily controlled by stronghanded politicos in order save the native (white) population, the Church, and ‘Western civilization.’

“Hungary is the laboratory where we have managed to come up with the antidote for progressive dominance,” said right-wing Hungarian Prime Minster Viktor Orban. “The nation comes first: Hungary first, America first.”

The full article, CPAC Europe is a Safe Space for Authoritarians -- and the Republicans Who Love Them, is here.

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I've said it before here and say it again: The intolerant, anti-democratic authoritarianism that the Republican Party, T**** and their dark free speech Leviathan (Faux News, etc.) have fomented and unleashed has taken on a life of its own. Things are spinning out of control and the odds of partisan social violence continues to increase with time.

This is what fascist Republican 

talking points actually mean

The 1/6 Committee hearing today: American fascism is a matter of faith

Fascist Republican rhetoric and politics in the weeks before the 1/6 are clear and undeniable. The fascists based on faith their belief that the 2020 election was stolen. Contrary facts and sound reason were denied or deemed non-existent or irrelevant. 

That's like the Bill Nye the Science Guy faux debate with Tom Ham, the young Earth "theory" crackpot discussed here yesterday. Faith says the Earth in young, but facts and reason contradict it.

One cannot debate faith, but there is no choice but to try. People with faith believe regardless of supporting, ambiguous or contrary facts, truths and/or sound reasoning. That's more or less the definition of faith. 

Liars are a different beast. They are at least impervious to contrary facts, truths and/or sound reasoning as faith-based believers.

The testimony today makes it undeniable that the fascist Republican assertion that the 2020 election was stolen is either a lie or a matter of faith. Either way, it is not a matter of fact, truth or reason. That's how fascist, pro-T**** Republican faith has to work. There is no other way. 

Waddabout Ciopplone and the Republicans who argued against the fascist tyrant?

What about them? If the GOP had been in control of the House after the 2020 elections, there would have been no 1/6 Committee. Their knowledge would have been buried. What would they have done? Mostly nothing. It is probably only the cognitive dissonance the 1/6 Committee created that forced them to reluctantly testify. What else could they have done on their own, write a book of little or no significance, or just keep quiet and watch democracy and truth stand, wobble or fall?

The Republicans who fell on their own swords and resigned in protest are real patriots. 

Of course a good counterpoint is that with the Republicans who stayed and opposed T****'s fascism, we and democracy were better off with them staying there and opposing the tyrant than leaving quietly or in a blast of public criticism. Maybe non-fascist Republicans staying and opposing from with in is the best one can hope for with current American democracy. If so, democracy hangs on damn weak threads. Those folks are being RINO hunted. They will probably be extinct fairly soon in most positions of significant state or federal power. Those threads are being broken. 

Why Do Some People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?

 What happens when people see patterns and “clues” in random real-life events and start creating associations where none exist? A conspiracy theory is born.

What is a conspiracy theory?

A conspiracy theory is an idea that a group of people is working together in secret to accomplish evil goals.

Now, sometimes in the real world, people indeed do wicked things. We just have to look at criminal networks like the mafia, terrorist groups, and sex trafficking rings, for example. Even high-level political figures and celebrities get involved from time to time.

In other words, real conspiracies do exist.

So, how do you tell the difference between real plots and conspiracy theories? Well, sometimes you don’t know right away, but there are ways to find out.

Criminal cases are built on solid and provable evidence — not hunches, coincidences, or fabricated information like memes or social media posts.

On the other hand, when you closely examine the facts, conspiracy theories don’t hold up.

What makes conspiracy theories more deceptive is that they are woven into real-life events — all strung together in a fictional way. So, in some instances, they might make sense. But when you dig deeper, you start noticing the lack of consistency and fact-based proof.

And no, lack of proof shouldn’t be taken as evidence for the conspiracy. That’s the whole point.

Psychology of conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories often take flight during unsettling times.

For example, in a pandemic, during a close election in a politically divided country, or after a terrorist attack.

Why is that?

Painful and uncertain times might lead many people to find alternative ways to make sense of such a shocking or painful situation.

Following a conspiracy theory might help you feel you understand the events, and, in turn, this could alleviate some uncertainty and anxiety.

There’s more to conspiracy theories than the need to make sense of shocking events, though.

Personality traits of conspiracy theorists

Is everyone vulnerable to conspiratorial thinking? Not necessarily.

Conspiracy theory experts have found that certain cognitive styles and personality traits might be common among people who believe in them.

According to a 2018 study, people who believe in conspiracy theories tend to show personality traits and characteristics such as:

• paranoid or suspicious thinking
• eccentricity
• low trust in others
• stronger need to feel special
• belief in the world as a dangerous place
• seeing meaningful patterns where none exist

The strongest predictor of belief in conspiracy theories, according to the study, is having a personality that falls into the spectrum of schizotypy.

Schizotypy is a set of personality traits that can range from magical thinking and dissociative states to disorganized thinking patterns and psychosis.

Examples of mental health conditions in the schizotypy spectrum include schizotypal and schizoid personality disorders and schizophrenia.

Not all schizotypy personality traits translate into a personality or psychiatric disorder, though.

Many people have one or two symptoms of schizotypy but don’t qualify for a full diagnosis.

Preliminary research also suggests that belief in conspiracy theories is linked to people’s need for uniqueness. The higher the need to feel special and unique, the more likely a person is to believe a conspiracy theory.

Other personality traits commonly linked to the tendency to believe or follow conspiracy theories include:

• narcissism
• low agreeableness
• Machiavellianism
• openness to experience

The link between personality traits and personal beliefs is a complex one that cannot be explained by isolating social and cultural factors, though. Research on the topic is still limited.

Suspicion: An evolutionary advantage?

Humans seem to be prone to suspicious thoughts and paranoia.

In fact, some expertsTrusted Source have studied paranoia and suspicious thoughts as an important evolutionary advantage.

One of them is professor of clinical psychiatry Richard A. Friedman, MD, who writes in his viewpoint paper, “Why Humans Are Vulnerable to Conspiracy Theories”:

“Having the capacity to imagine and anticipate that other people might form coalitions and conspire to harm one’s clan would confer a clear adaptive advantage: a suspicious stance toward others, even if mistaken, would be a safer strategy than carefree trust.”

In other words, from an evolutionary perspective, a conspiracy theory might help you stay safer if your rival attacks, as you have already anticipated their moves.

“The paranoia that drives individuals to constantly scan the world for danger and suspect the worst of others probably once provided a similar survival edge,” Friedman adds.

Illusory patterns

Believing in conspiracy theories can also be linked to distortions in cognitive processes.

Illusory pattern perception refers to perceiving meaningful or coherent connections between nonrelated events.

In other words, a distortion in how you think might make you prone to seeing patterns between events where there are none.

A 2018 studyTrusted Source tested this theory and found that distortions of normal cognitive processes were repeatedly associated with conspiracy and irrational beliefs.

In the study, under controlled circumstances, participants detected patterns in randomly generated stimuli. This helped them make sense of their environment and respond well to each situation, even when the connections didn’t really exist.

A 2008 studyTrusted Source found that lacking control in a situation increased a person’s likelihood to perceive nonexistent patterns, including developing superstitions and believing in conspiracies.

Participants who felt they lacked control connected unrelated events more often than participants who felt they understood and had some degree of control in a situation.

Apophenia: The tendency to connect the dots

The human tendency to seek and find patterns everywhere is indeed something that has often been linked to believing in conspiracy theories.

The human brain has evolved into seeing patterns in just about everything. It’s an evolutionary advantage but also a natural tendency.

We recognize animal figures in the clouds or uncover creepy faces in the bathroom wallpaper at night. If we meet three new friends — all named Bill — we tend to notice.

It doesn’t mean that every time we connect the dots we are right, though.

In fact, Friedman explains that humans detect patterns in randomness in an effort to make sense of the world quickly. This process, though, makes us prone to cognitive errors, such as “seeing connections between events when none exist.”

“For a species so intent on connecting the dots and making sense of the world, this information-rich environment is fertile ground for confusion and conspiracy theories,” Friedman explains.

There’s actually a name for this phenomenon: apophenia. This is the tendency to perceive a meaningful connection within random situations.

In other words, you take elements that are near each other by chance, and you see a meaningful and purposeful connection between them.

Experienced game designer Reed Berkowitz says that apophenia is common in the gaming world.

Take one of his games, for example. The goal is to find a clue in a basement to move to the following phase of the game.

The real clue placed by gamers was obvious. However, many of the players overlooked it and instead noticed a few loose floorboards. Then, they concluded their shape was an arrow pointing toward a wall. Consequently, they started tearing down the wall.

“These were normal people, and their assumptions were normal and logical and completely wrong,” Berkowitz wrote in a 2020 column.

There are different types of apophenia. These include:

Pareidolia, or connecting different visual elements and stimuli to form a nonexistent pattern. For example, seeing a face on the bark of a tree, or a specific sign in a light projected on the White House.

Clustering, or the tendency to find a pattern in a random sequence of data. For example, finding logic in a randomly generated sequence such as xvvxvvxxxvx, or seeing a trend in stock market fluctuations.

Gambler’s fallacy, or the inaccurate belief that if an event repeatedly happens during a certain time period, it will then occur less often in the future (or vice versa.) For example, if you toss a coin and get heads four times in a row, you’ll likely bet it’ll be tails next time.

Confirmation bias, or the “my way bias,” refers to the process of disregarding information that might disprove a belief while seeking information that supports it. For example, believing someone often sends secret messages in their speech will make you more likely to find secret messages in such speeches, even when that’s not the case.

A mathematical explanation

Following apophenia, there’s the Ramsey theory. This theory states that any large structure will implicitly contain patterns if you really pay attention.

That way, even in mathematics and geometry, patterns can be found whenever there are enough elements to connect.

So, according to the Ramsey theory, if you were to line up the text of just about any book, you’d find “hidden” words and sometimes several “meaningful” ones in a row.

In other words, if you’re looking for clues somewhere, you’re bound to find some!

QAnon: The excitement of living in ‘fiction’

QAnon, an internet conspiracy theory, has recently captured a large segment of the public’s attention.

It might be a strong indicator of another possible reason underneath some people’s tendency to follow conspiracy theories: the thrill of being the one who knows the secret.

QAnon has become so mainstream you may know at least one believer.

Followers of this conspiracy theory believe that an anonymous government insider, known as “Q,” often drops mysterious clues and riddles to expose the “deep state” apparatus.

According to QAnon believers, these clues range from the color of the lights the White House uses on a specific date to coded messages posted in internet forums.

For QAnon followers, former President Donald Trump is a secret agent fighting to save the world.

Who is he fighting against? A satanic cult of cannibals, pedophiles, and sex traffickers, led by Democratic politicians, such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Why is QAnon so popular?

For some people, learning more about QAnon might just be a matter of curiosity.

For followers, QAnon might be convincing because its theories often play on:

• people’s fears
• the need to feel one is an empathetic person (e.g., saving the children)
• a natural thrill to solve mysteries
• a desire to be part of a like-minded group
• an explanation and a possible hopeful future for things not going “your way” right now

Also, QAnon might offer the thrill of a game.

Yes. The constant search for secret clues in mysterious places might give you the dopamine rush of “unlocking levels” in a video game.

In fact, when Berkowitz saw what QAnon was all about, he immediately recognized Q’s tactics.

Berkowitz has vast experience creating stories and games that begin on a computer and move to the real world. To him, QAnon has a very “game-like feel.”

“When I saw QAnon, I knew exactly what it was and what it was doing. I had seen it before. I had almost built it before,” he said in his column. “It was gaming’s evil twin. A game that plays people.”

When asked by Psych Central why he thought QAnon was so alluring, Berkowitz summed it up:

“QAnon explains the world in terms of vibrant fictions and gives its members ‘permission’ to believe in these fictions as facts.”

It’s like living in a movie or a game.

“It offers an accepting community of like-minded people and a worldview that puts members in the center of an exciting ‘reality’ that they have an active role in affecting,” Berkowitz tells Psych Central. “QAnon is alluring because it gives life the intensity and emotional vibrancy of living in a fiction.”

He adds: “It’s about being in a community of people all working together to help save the world and solve a mystery that is always just about to be revealed.”

https://psychcentral.com/blog/conspiracy-theories-why-people-believe#whats-a-conspiracy-theory

Personal thoughts: Is it even possible to debate demagoguery?

Demagoguery (official definition): political activity or practices that seek support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument

Demagoguery (Germaine definition): any political, religious, commercial or other activity or practices that seek support by playing on and/or appealing to the ignorance, desires and/or prejudices of people rather than by using rational argument; demagoguery usually relies significantly or mostly on lies, slanders, irrational emotional manipulation, flawed motivated reasoning, logic fallacies, etc.; relevant inconvenient facts, truths and sound reasoning are usually ignored, denied or distorted into an appearance of false insignificance or false irrelevance

Way back in 2014, when cowboys with six shooters were duking it out against cattle rustling T. rex lizards, Bill Nye the science guy publicly debated young Earth believer Tom Ham, a crackpot Christian nationalist. He is a demagogue by Germaine's definition. Ham, the founder and chief executive officer of Young Earth creationist ministry and Answers in Genesis, challenged Nye to debate the question "Is Creation A Viable Model of Origins?" The debate was held at Ham's "Creation Museum" in Petersburg, Kentucky.

Before the debate, Team R&R (reality and reason) urged Nye not to debate because there was nothing to debate. Many in the scientific community criticized Nye's decision to debate, arguing that it lent undue credibility to the creationist worldview. Ham argued crackpottery like cowboys duking it out with dinosaurs in the wild, wild West. Obviously, Team R&R had a point. But Nye debated anyway. As expected, things ended just as they started. Minds did not change. But, Ham did get some publicity for his "museum" and probably made some extra money.

Rock solid proof that cowboys and 

dinosaurs co-existed in the 1800s

Over the years, it slowly dawned that, like the Nye-Ham nonsense, debating demagoguery is pointless, but probably unavoidable in most situations. Such debates are arguably more harmful than beneficial as Team R&R argued. But, maybe not as harmful as not engaging with demagoguery at all. There is nothing to debate when demagogues deny or distort important facts, resort to flawed reasoning and so forth. But they are there, influencing public opinion, well funded, and not going away.

Much (most?) of the harm arises from false balancing (false equivalence, bothsidesism). By simply debating with a demagogue, the demagogue's false assertions (lies), flawed reasoning and whatnot are treated with seriousness and respect they do not deserve. In the hands of a skilled demagogue, false balancing can feel or seem like rational thinking, especially when it appeals to prejudices, comforting false beliefs and the like. 

We easily mistake psychological comfort for rationality, i.e., nonsense has to be rational because it feels so right. But when relevant facts and the reasoning applied to them heavily favor one side and heavily undermines the other, a basis for rationality just isn't there. But the basis for false belief is still there, i.e., people still want to feel good about themselves and their beliefs, even when there is no basis for it. That never goes away. That is the demagogue's target.

The problem is that by ignoring the demagogue and not trying to counter the lies and nonsense, Team R&R leaves the public opinion playing field uncontested for the demagogues to slime all over. Demagoguery is rampant in major issues including climate change, climate regulations, gun regulations, the scope and meaning of the Constitution, civil liberties, and abortion. 

Slimed by demagoguery &

the ground gets slippery

I suppose little or none of this is new to most folks here at Dissident Politics. It's all come up multiple times. Guess it doesn't hurt to repeat some things. 

Doxxing a fascist billionaire

A day or two ago our beer boofing, sexual predator Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh was disgruntled when protestors turned up outside the restaurant he was having dinner at. The protests disrupted dissert and Bretty-poo left the restaurant in a huff-snit. 

AOC was dismayed at the protests, musing that protesters should have at least let him eat cake.

Anyway, the restaurant in DC where this happened was a Morton's steak house. The restaurant issued a public statement saying that the beer boofer had a "right" to eat dinner without protestors disturbing his equanimity or the restaurant's feng-shui. Now the restaurant is being flooded with fake reservations and irate messages. Poor Morton's. Nah, not really. 

Morton's is one of those grossly overpriced cow and booze houses with dark stained wood paneling, low lights, thick carpets, comfy stuffed chairs and cute young waitresses. I know because over the years I've been to a Morton's for several business dinners. I didn't know who owned it or what he was.

One observer commented:

Morton's is a subsidiary of Landry's. It's owned by Tillman Fertitta, a billionaire who also owns the NBA Houston Rockets (and has close ties to the NFL Houston Texans [and Donald T****]).

These are related restaurants/hotels/etc. in his corporate org if you'd like to avoid giving them your money/business:

• Bubba Gump Shrimp Company

• Cadillac Bar

• Landry's, Inc.

• Landry's Seafood

• Rainforest Cafe

• The Golden Nugget Hotel and Casinos

• McCormick & Schmick's Seafood & Steaks

• Saltgrass Steak House

• Claim Jumper

• Houlihan's

• Joe's Crab Shack

• Del Frisco's

• Chart House

• The Oceanaire

• Mastro's Restaurants

• The Palm

• Grotto Restaurants

• The Boathouse Restaurants

• Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse

• Brenner's on the Bayou

• La Griglia

• Willie G's Seafood & Steaks

• EMM group (Catch Restaurants)

• B.R. Guest restaurant group (owns 15 large Manhattan places, including five Dos Caminos, two Strip House steak joints, Blue Water Grill and Ruby Foo’s)

• Restaurants Unlimited, Inc. (includes Skates on the Bay, Portland City Grill, Manzana Grill, Palisade, Cutters Crabhouse, Stanford's, Henry's Tavern, Kincaid's, Palomino Restaurant & Bar and Portland Seafood Company)

• Kemah Boardwalk

• Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier

• Houston, Denver and Nashville Downtown Aquariums

• Waitr (online delivery app)

• several hotels in the Houston, TX area

One source reports that Rocket guards James Harden and Russell Westbrook may want out of Houston is because they have a problem with Fertitta’s support of T****.

If you are a pro-democracy patriot and happen to have a choice, consider choosing to not patronize any of Fertitta's establishments. He supports T**** and by implication, fascism.

Q: Can a person support T**** and not be a fascist in some form to some non-trivial extent?

Billionaire T**** supporter Tilman Fertitta