The GOP is still morally corrupt, even if Discourse breaks

[Alstein]

Simply put, we need to make the white evangelical something to fear and hate. We need to make everyone else see them as monsters. The problem is such a pain makes grift inevitable within the Dems.

[Sharpe]

The problem is, that’s fucking impossible, pardon my French, in the current circumstance. You’ve said stuff like this over and over Alstein and it’s just not happening. Maybe after the Gilead-to-be, if we recover from that, but not before.

As to why it’s fucking impossible, let me count the ways:

1)There’s too many of em.

2)It’s not just white evangelicals, but white nationalists, white non-college more generally (there’s huge self-identification overlaps between these groups - we don’t get to pick and choose who identifies as what).

3)There’s really no way to after the group without alienating tons of other groups that may not share the ugly qualities of the groups you want to target but often share characteristics (being white, no college education, being devoutly Christian, having a pro-America/semi-jingoist view of history, etc. ad infinitum.)

It’s a pipe dream and counter productive.

[Nightgaunt]

@Alstein

Simply put, we need to make the white evangelical something to fear and hate. We need to make everyone else see them as monsters.

Good idea. Also, we can make them worth less than others as far as representation! Maybe, like, three-fifths of a regular citizen?

[scottagibson]

Anti-anti-racists are the real anti-racists.

[TheWombat]

@Sharpe

The problem is, that’s fucking impossible, pardon my French, in the current circumstance. You’ve said stuff like this over and over Alstein and it’s just not happening. Maybe after the Gilead-to-be, if we recover from that, but not before.

As to why it’s fucking impossible, let me count the ways:

1)There’s too many of em.

2)It’s not just white evangelicals, but white nationalists, white non-college more generally (there’s huge self-identification overlaps between these groups - we don’t get to pick and choose who identifies as what).

3)There’s really no way to after the group without alienating tons of other groups that may not share the ugly qualities of the groups you want to target but often share characteristics (being white, no college education, being devoutly Christian, having a pro-America/semi-jingoist view of history, etc. ad infinitum.)

It’s a pipe dream and counter productive.

Sadly, you are probably correct. Which leaves us with the same issue, though: what can we do? I think you are definitely correct that one of the big challenges is that so many of the things many of us are concerned about overlap other things, and not all of those things on their own or in particular contexts are bad.

Take religion (please!). Personally, I pretty much have rejected all traditional religions as superstitious holdovers from an ancient pass; anything that isn’t seen as purely metaphorical and in the context of trying to make our Earthly lives better and more harmonious is not only bunk, but dangerous bunk. That view though is not going to cut it politically. Too many people, many off them if not most probably good, solid, kind people overall, still believe strongly in what I consider to be mumbo-jumbo. Attacking religion is not going to work, and it will probably hurt. Yet religion is at the root off a lot off the issues we are looking at. Pretty much everyone opposed to gender equality and gender identity fluidity does so on the basis off their religious beliefs. Ditto reproductive rights. Ditto a lot of immigration issues. Etc.

Same with pretty much every social and cultural issue. We have a ton of people who have a very static view of humanity. God said something thousands of years ago and that’s it, those rules for humans are eternal, and humans don’t change in any important way. For every modern person of faith who understands that the essence of scripture may be eternal–like the golden rule–but the details shift as the times change, there seem to be three who have stickers that say “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”

Beyond religion I think it’s similar in many ways. There’s a vision of America and American that is fixed, and unchanging, possibly because all the changes over the past few decades have left many behind and rather than figuring out a way forward it’s a lot easier (and a lot more supported by the people in power) to think back and recreate a fictional utopia of nostalgia. Attacking those images of the rosy colored past will not get you votes for sure.

So what do we do, really? I’m convinced that these folks are a minority overall, but they seem to control the government at state and local levels disproportionately. Are they the only ones engaged in politics? Maybe; everyone else who was able to roll with modernity got complacent perhaps? Dunno.

[scottagibson]

@TheWombat

I’m convinced that these folks are a minority overall, but they seem to control the government at state and local levels disproportionately.

Depending on who you include in ‘these folks’, ISTM that something like 47% of the electorate is either explicitly bigoted straight white folks, or people willing to make common cause with straight white bigotry in order to gain something else from it. The problem is that this 47% isn’t evenly distributed, and the result is that the mechanisms of the constitution give them disproportionate clout in the Senate and in Presidential elections. And it wins them control of the majority of states.

[Sharpe]

That “willing to make common cause” element is what has rendered me so gloomy in recent months. I used to think that enough of the folks who were not committed to the GOP would see reality and choose the Dems over the GOP due to the manifest and multitudinous negatives of the GOP platform, but so many of the folks “in the middle” are just… complacent and/or blind to the threat.

That’s the basic problem. I actually think by the time you add in the “complacent”, “willfully blind” and “vulnerable to misinformation” groups you might get over 51% of the voters, (I wouldn’t be surprised if the GOP House vote this year is 51% or more) and well… put a fork in us. I mean, heck, with the structural and geographic distribution problems 47% might be enough to screw us…

Bah.

[scottagibson]

@Sharpe

That’s the basic problem. I actually think by the time you add in the “complacent”, “willfully blind” and “vulnerable to misinformation” groups you might get over 51% of the voters, (I wouldn’t be surprised if the GOP House vote this year is 51% or more) and well… put a fork in us. I mean, heck, with the structural and geographic distribution problems 47% might be enough to screw us…

Probably they will get 51%, but that’s because it’s a midterm, low turnout election, and they’re the party out of power, thus more motivated. The 47% number is right around Trump’s total in 2020. I think that’s a pretty good indicator of the size of the deplorables plus those willing to go along.

[Timex]

@Alstein

Simply put, we need to make the white evangelical something to fear and hate. We need to make everyone else see them as monsters. The problem is such a pain makes grift inevitable within the Dems.

I believe @legowarrior is a white evangelical.

Should we hate and fear him, Alstein? Is he a monster?

[ShivaX]

@Sharpe

3)There’s really no way to after the group without alienating tons of other groups that may not share the ugly qualities of the groups you want to target but often share characteristics (being white, no college education, being devoutly Christian, having a pro-America/semi-jingoist view of history, etc. ad infinitum.)

This is the big thing.

Going off White Nationalists mostly works because they’re proto-Nazis (if not full on Nazis). People don’t identify with them as a whole. Going after evangelicals? That’s a group a lot of people identify with and having Fox News and their ilk say “they hate you for being white and Christian” isn’t going to play well. I mean they’re already doing that and no one is going after them, if you were going after them, the effectiveness of this rhetoric would increase exponentially.

[Banzai]

I have no problem with christianity, and as soon as the majority of evangelical people actually start following the teaching of christ, I think our country will get 1000x better.

When I point out the actual words of jesus to peole who are acting in unchristlike ways, I don’t get ‘that’s true, jesus did teach that, but…’, which would be problematic, but at least a conversation, rather, I get ‘even satan can quote scripture’ which pretty much is the end of any discussion. Once I’ve been called satan by someone who refuses to hear the words of what they claim to be their lord and savior, there’s not much room for anything but pitchforks.

[Alstein]

Yep, a big thing evangelical heresy teaches is you can’t take words in or out of the bible , which is interpreted as not questioning, which is actually a common tenet of Wahhabism as well (the form of Islam that started Al-Qaeda/ISIS)

I got to see a lot of the worst of this culture growing up. I saw a queer kid get beat almost to death, then never saw them again. I saw the hatred and repression side of it hard. I got to see the propaganda techniques, something I was attuned to because of what I read independently as a kid (My time in overseas US dependent schools I learned about holocaust history a lot). I saw this stuff taught directly in public schools. I saw the hierarchical, corrupt side of it. I came out of high school with a burning hatred of all Christianity, that led me into exploration. It took the military to moderate me some- because no athiests in foxholes, and I met some actual Christians. I had some toxicity to work out.

The scariest thing about the whole situation is I didn’t know anyone who didn’t see all this horrible stuff as normal, and just the way life was. There weren’t many outsiders where I was at.

A big reason I ended up in the military was because despite seeing how bad it was where I ended up spending the last few years of my childhood, I thought it wasn’t as widespread, and that the US military, and America was a force for good. That was shattered by Bush II and Trump.

The one thing that hasn’t faded is my knowledge that these folks are a threat, they have a chance to seize total political power the way Putin has, and I’m scared as fuck right now. I fear what a Putin-style America could do, and I believe I won’t survive it. I’m scared, and that fear has hurt me in so many ways in my life.

BTW I definite white evangelicalism to differentiate it from black evangelicalism, which is an entirely different beast. white Evangelicalism is not all white, there’s actually a decent-sized non-white component these days . Prosperity theology and a hyper-charged political activism are the core tenets of “white” evangelicalism.

@Banzai you’re right, but the younger general seems to consider the white Evangelical brand beyond saving at this point. This is why the churches are getting old and they can’t figure out why, being incapable of change.

[sillhouette]

Right Wing Cope

Right Wing Cope

[TheWombat]

@Alstein

Prosperity theology and a hyper-charged political activism are the core tenets of “white” evangelicalism.

Bingo. Toss in medieval levels of sexual repression and hostility to anything other than bog-standard hetero cis gender identities (regardless of what these people actually do or think) and a propensity for excusing violence because extremism in defense of liberty yada yada, and you have it in a nutshell.

@Timex

I believe @legowarrior is a white evangelical.

Should we hate and fear him, Alstein? Is he a monster?

We definitely should not equate groups with individuals. I have colleagues and friends who have radically different views than I do, and while it does affect how much I interact with them, and on what topics, they are individually good people who would never personally do any of the horrible things we are talking about.

But.

They are also members of a larger group that as a larger group is characterized by exactly those horrible things. Take the GOP for instance. Anyone, no matter how personally good and nice and what all, who says they are a Republican today is supporting an organization that is on record advocating some very horrible things, endorsing very bad ideas, and supporting very terrible people. Being “Republican” today means you are not disavowing those things and positions. If you were, you would be calling yourself a “fiscal conservative independent” or something. I find the same thing to a degree with evangelicals, though with one big caveat. One can be an evangelical Christian (small ‘e’) and not in any way endorse the hellish beliefs of the big ‘E’ Evangelicals we are talking about. Unlike the GOP, there is no single entity or clearly defined structure that the name “evangelical” applies to.

So when folks condemn Evangelicals, I always take that as the fascist theocratic terrorists, not the people who happen to follow a charismatic sort of Christianity. But Republicans? You wear that label, you are to me beyond the pale today.

[Menzo]

DeSantis knows what the fuck he’s doing. He’s building his cred in a way that Trump can’t. He knows who votes in primaries.

[Alstein]

@TheWombat

They are also members of a larger group that as a larger group is characterized by exactly those horrible things. Take the GOP for instance. Anyone, no matter how personally good and nice and what all, who says they are a Republican today is supporting an organization that is on record advocating some very horrible things, endorsing very bad ideas, and supporting very terrible people. Being “Republican” today means you are not disavowing those things and positions. If you were, you would be calling yourself a “fiscal conservative independent” or something. I find the same thing to a degree with evangelicals, though with one big caveat. One can be an evangelical Christian (small ‘e’) and not in any way endorse the hellish beliefs of the big ‘E’ Evangelicals we are talking about. Unlike the GOP, there is no single entity or clearly defined structure that the name “evangelical” applies to.

I fully 100% agree with all of this, and this explains what I meant. Also don’t forget black evangelicalism , which is an entirely different beast, and one that is the predominant influence in Southern democratic party politics.

[Timex]

But you said that you wanted to make Evangelicals into a group that people would fear and hate. That you wanted people to regard them as monsters.

What exactly are you trying to inspire hate against, if not the actual people in that group?

[Pyperkub]

@Menzo

DeSantis knows what the fuck he’s doing. He’s building his cred in a way that Trump can’t. He knows who votes in primaries.

He also has an election security force to ensure it stays that way with regards to who votes…

[Alstein]

Those evangelical viewpoints like corruption of democracy, anti-science, and hatred shown against any racial/sexual minorities.

That’s going to take waging a culture war.

[Nightgaunt]

@Alstein

Also don’t forget black evangelicalism , which is an entirely different beast, and one that is the predominant influence in Southern democratic party politics.

Well, good news: The Southern Baptist Convention (which isn’t all of “white evangelicalism,” but is the largest subdivision, and one of the more conservative ones) has a black leader right now!

First African American picked for key Southern Baptist Convention position

Maybe they’re not “entirely different beasts”?