Hi Guys:
I found an interesting news blurb about evangelicals pushing for America to be a Christian nation. See below:
What are your thoughts?
I, myself, find the situation to be quite frightening.
I used to have enough faith in my fellow Americans to believe that we would never become a theocracy . . . and then we elected Trump, and all my faith in my fellow Americans went out the window.
Well Kevin, I hate to have to be the one to remind you, but faith is the reason that people give for believing something when they donât have a good reason. I too would like to believe that my fellow citizens would not stoop to the levels we have seen in the last decade.
Long before âthe jackassâ we had the tea party. I was surprised by the rampant stupidity being propagated by the right- wing politicians at that time.
The trend toward anti-intellectualism has been a steady decline. I am not optimistic about the prospects of a reversal of that trend.
We so seemed to be moving in the right direction and Iâm still thinking WTF. How did the country that elected Obama turn around and elect Trump? Itâs clearly always been a mistake to underestimate people who are sure god is on their side. They will do anything to further their agenda.
I had some vague recollection of Frank Zappa warning us of a coming theocracy. Iâm sure I laughed just like the panelist in this clip. RIP Zappa.
Ok, Iâll bite. Hereâs my two cents worth, and how I feel.
They have always been there, pushing American politics. Theyâre not new, theyâre the same old degenerate groups of losers that have been around. The only thing that has changed now, theyâre being exposed.
With the rise of YouTube, and independent media companies, like netflix, and Amazon prime, patreon, etc. making series like The Keepers, Keep Sweet Pray and Obey, Fundie Fridays, etc, etc. exposing these groups, what other choice do they have? More Americans than ever are ânon-religiousâ.
There is an existential threat of an âawakeningâ that is having a large backlash on these religious organizations. So of course they are attempting to silence and control the population by way of hijacking the government.
I donât try to predict the future. Itâs going to get ugly though. The Supreme Court is attempting to pander to these theists by giving state government more control. Hoping the angriest craziest theist will be happy in their little state wonderlands like Utah and Oklahoma. Trying to avoid a civil clash, I think itâs futile and pie in the sky thinking from archaic dinosaurs.
In my opinion this will be a long ugly time of terroristic attacks like the Christchurch shooting in New Zealand, the Georgia spa shooter, and our most recent (edit: sorry, not most recent shooting. Thatâs just me, not being able to remember because it seems like every other day itâs another one in America. How sad is that, there are so many, I canât even keep mental track anymore of which one happened when.) shooting in New York at a mainly black community grocery store. There will be physical attacks on women, racial minorities, and religious minorities for years. How long? No one knows.
P.S. unfortunately I cannot directly comment on the article as I donât pay for NYT.
So much to dissect here, but I only want to touch on a couple of things.
First, the people didnât elect Trump. An outdated Electoral College did. Funny how the EC has only ever elected Republicans against the voice of the majority and never a Democrat against the voice of the minority. The reason Trump keeps saying, the election was rigged when he lost the second term was because he was expecting the EC to choose him again.
Furthermore, the regressive state of the country is of great concern to me also. Then, if you look at history, there always seems to be a waffling of governmental power that keeps the people at odds with each other. The two party system is good for one thing, it seems, and that is maintaining the us vs. them mentality. And on that note, looking at history again, we can see that these sorts of uproars from the conservative right always happen: remember Rock & Roll being the devilâs music? But that doesnât mean we should dismiss what is happening, because when it does occur it seems to always get worse. At a certain tilting point, there might be no fixing it, and we have to keep that in mind moving forward.
Thank you all for weighing in and giving me much to think about.
I have always believed the US political system is flawed for a few reasons. Voting is restricted, not all citizens find it easy to cast their vote. The Electoral Collage separates the citizen voters from the Presidency, and each party has been in power too long. That has resulted in a division (us against them) where a person can be identified by what party they vote for. Each party does not want to surrender power and each fight against the citizens contemplating a third option.
Edit: added âŚ
And ignorance and stupidity is almost admired and praised.
My wife phrases it as: American was ready to elect a black president; America wasnât ready to have a black president.
Itâs almost like everyone has forgotten Trump spreading the Tea Party/Birther conspiracy that Obama was a secret foreigner Muslim?
Sometimes I feel like I live in The United States of Amnesia.
Let me remind the 2016 Trump voters here about the racist fuck they voted for, thereby installing a lifetime appointed right wing Christian majority on the Supreme Court. I hope âowning the Libsâ was worth it.
The sentiment and comments that prominent Republican (The Christian Party) politicians express about Trump in private is a world apart from their abject and craven offerings in public. There are now books written on this very subject.
The Tories in Britain have a long and distinguished history of very publicly stabbing the most duplicitous and unfit among them in the back, and sometimes the front. The GOP in the States would be well served by doing the same now, IMHO.
Absolutely. They are in fact well educated enough to recognize a moronic jackass when they see one. They are also educated well enough to recognize the ignorance of their constituency, and eager to take advantage of that ignorance.
We do indeed need politicians who will call it like it is. They may have difficulty surviving politically at first, but eventually the system might change enough to accommodate some semblance of honest scrutiny of these self-serving parasites.
In 1987, under Reagan, the Fairness Doctrine (which applied to news services obligated to present both sides of an issue) was abolished. Gone were the days of Walter Cronkite.
Spring forward to the present and Tucker Carlson. He was sued twice for his disinformation, and won both cases because⌠his defense was that his statements were so outlandish no reasonable person would believe them.
from NPR
Just read U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocilâs opinion, leaning heavily on the arguments of Foxâs lawyers: The "âgeneral tenorâ of the show should then inform a viewer that Carlson is not âstating actual factsâ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in âexaggerationâ and ânon-literal commentary.â
She wrote: âFox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlsonâs reputation, any reasonable viewer âarrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticismâ about the statement he makes.â
Vyskocil, an appointee of President Trumpâs, added, âWhether the Court frames Mr. Carlsonâs statements as âexaggeration,â ânon-literal commentary,â or simply bloviating for his audience, the conclusion remains the same â the statements are not actionable.â
The current political situation started taking root during the depression. FDRâs New Deal politics attracted the enmity of the monied interests and they actively worked against them. One of their tactics was to enlist religious leaders in an effort to have them convince their congregations that these economic policies were unchristian. They also heavily invested in ad campaigns to get their message in the media.
The communist scare in the 1950s greatly contributed to the ever increasing role of religion in politicsâafter all, they said, those âgodless commiesâ threatened our very way of life. It was in this period that the US motto was changed from E Pluribus Unum (from many, one) to in god we trust. The new motto was also added to paper money at the same time (it was on coins dating back to the Civil War). This period also saw the addition of âunder godâ to the Pledge of Allegiance.
It was during the 1960s that christian voters, particularly Southern conservatives and evangelicals, started their migration from the Democratic party to the Republican party, mostly due to the Democratâs support of the civil rights movement. This migration was mostly complete by the time Reagan was elected in 1980.
The only light that I see at the end of the tunnel is the fact that America is slowly, but surely, becoming less religious. The downside here is the religious are going to get more desperate as their power base starts to disappear and weâll start seeing more attempts to hold onto power like we saw with Trump.
One of the recent tactics the religious right has used is to push things like abortion back to the states. The Republicans control 30 of the 50 state legislatures. They accomplished this mainly through anti-democratic means like gerrymandering and voter suppression and will continue to push their regressive agenda while they can.
How to counter this? Good question. I donât think the Democrats have a clue at this point. They seem to be pretty weak and ineffective and if theyâre not careful, will loose seats in the House and Senate in the fall elections.
In addition, the F.D. Required news departments to be separate from entertainment depts. and the networks had to apply for licenses every year, and demonstrate that their programming was indeed in the publicâs interest. Gone thanks to Raygun.
The removal of the fairness doctrine made Fox possible, although Roger Ailes had discussed with then president Nixon the possibility of producing a network to further the conservative agenda.
When Fox so-called-news went to court, their lawyers argued that they were an entertainment program and not a news program.
All good points, it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years. I think Republicans have taken too much too fast. These long strides of sudden policy changes will not sit well with constituents on the left, most certainly leading to a modest surge in voting on the left.
The question is will GOP infighting and sudden victories lead to an over confidence and lack of turn out thinking itâs in the bag? Much like democrats dropped the ball in 2016.
I find the GOP position quite shaky at best, far right hate groups will continue to make ever more attacks and displays of bigotry. Leaving candidates with hard positions to defend. I think the infighting between trump loyalists and centrists might lead to a weakening of the party. If the party keeps leaning hard into the far right, we will see a McCarthy all over again. They already hemorrhaged tens of thousands of voters after Jan. 6th. (Inconclusive data, since a vast majority of states donât track political party changes, but from the few states that do, weâve seen an uptick in independent registration. With an average of 2/3s leaving the right and about 1/3 leaving the left)
Voting rates are already abysmal in our country, we barely even average a 68% voter turnout of eligible voters. Neither party can afford to lose any votes in reality, even with gerrymandering and voter suppression. When people donât turn out to vote because youâve preached for so many years the government is your enemy, we end up where we are now. With unpopular policy like anti abortion now jumping into play, the whole thing in my opinion is completely up in the air.
Yeah, another raygun âgiftâ. Here is a quote from one of his rabid speeches:
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.
Seriously, one of the worst presidents in my opinion. Just proves Americans vote for anyone who will tell them, âYou are a victim.â
I think the law of diminishing returns is finally settling in on this farce of an anti-government movement.
Well, that explains a lot. No wonder he feels free to say the most outrageous shit. Last week he blamed the July 4th parade shooting on women making young men crazy by lecturing them about male privilege. Heâs blaming mass shootings, something women are rarely guilty of, on women. Too bad there isnât a hell where in one of the rings Tucker Carlson gets eternally nagged by a woman. Iâd like to volunteer my sevices 
.
Iâm here in PA living it. At least a few of the Republicans are supporting Shapiro. I just spent the afternoon canvassing for the Democrats. I had at least 3 die hard Republicans. One handed back the info with how much she liked Trumpâs policies.
Oh hey, a fellow Pennsylvathiest!? My wife and I are living it here too! Mastriano is a cartoon villain.