Barr doesnt want a stay in the grey bar hotel. It wouldnt go well with him there.
Not to mention he sees which way the wind is blowing.
Okay, I was not able to get through this whole thread but I am reading two books I want to recommend that directly address how we got here. It turns out the religious right laid a lot of the groundwork for this mess and built the coalitions that brought us Trump.
JESUS AND JOHN WAYNE How White Evangelicals Corrupted A Faith And Fractured A Nation
By: Kristin Kobes DuMez and:
UNHOLY Why White Evangelicals Worship At The Altar Of Donald Trump
By: Sarah Posner
Here is an except from the Introduction of UNHOLY:
…. Instead Trump spoke another lingua franca of the American right – the rhetoric of resentment, of lost domination, of grievances against “special” rights for others at the expense of white Christians. When Trump says he made it safe to say “Merry Christmas” again, it sounds insipid to outsiders, but to the Christian right it simply encapsulates how he is restoring their diminished power……… ….laid the groundwork not just for Trump’s union with the religious right but also for their attraction to his crude politics of white nationalist grievance.
Trump’s ascent was not an ideological aberration, despite his deviations from Republican free market and foreign policy orthodoxies. For the Christian right, Trump is a culmination of five decades of political organizing. On the surface, the Christian right is saturated with rhetoric about “faith” and “values.” Its real driving force, though, was not religion but grievances over school desegregation, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, affirmative action, and more. Trump became their hero despite being a thrice-married philanderer who talked about dating his daughter, paid off a porn star to keep quiet about an affair, and was terrible at God talk. He became their savior because he spoke the language that tied them and him……… against “political correctness”, civil and human rights, and at its core, the entire arduous project of maintaining a pluralistic, secular, liberal democracy.
Excellent books.
Thanks!
I’m currently reading The Family by Jeff Sharlet, which is about the Fellowship Foundation, a highly influential ministry of politicians (Mostly but not exclusively Republicans) and businessmen - this is the group that sponsors the National Prayer Breakfast- and the dominionist philosophy they expouse.
It’s been eye-opening so far- Sharlet’s writing is just OK, but he actually infiltrated the group to write the book. I can’t really review it yet as I’ve just started it, but it looks to be promising.
Yes!
The same guy who recommended the two books above also recommended The Family (at least a year ago, maybe more). I never got to reading that one yet, but now I am eager to find a copy and get that under my belt also.
I suspect in the medium distant future (when there are few if any who lived through this time), historians will rightly say about this time that Evangelicals changed Christendom and had their biggest political influence since the founding of the nation. (Say from Eisenhower to Trump --at least we all hope that is the end of it) I further believe many historians will say they had to abandon their principles to do so.
We will see that that happens however, there are plenty of instances of Christian Orthodoxy shifting to fit the times (not all of it from outsiders - some Christians have admitted the church [capital C] has evolved while remaining true). I believe in less than One Hundred Fifty (150) years Christendom will fully accept and embrace homosexuality and explain that in the Old Testament God needed people to “be fruitful and multiply” and that it was a “for that time” kind of restriction. When I was a child, it was unthinkable that a woman would go to church without a hat or at least a scarf over her head. Some of those same women (and certainly many of their daughters) now see a burka as an affront to their faith. My how times have changed.
As usual I have rambled on too long. Thank you for the recommendation Ann, I look forward to reading the book. And to learning again the lesson Christians seem to be missing just now: that it takes more than good intentions to accomplish long lasting change, and that abandoning ones principles to gain victory is really a loss due to cheating.
It’s called “the fallacy to stupid to have a name”. Apples aren’t blue, so bananas can’t be blue either. OK, bananas aren’t blue, but it’s got nothing to do with the color of apples.
the rhetoric of resentment, of lost domination, of grievances against “special” rights for others at the expense of white Christians
We have a few such people in the UK - fortunately few and in no position to influence major party politics (so far), with extreme right movements being led by the kind of people they’d find highly unrespectable. But when I come across them I do wonder whether they’ve actually read any of the New Testament, or even just the Sermon on the Mount.
‘Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It’s not pie.’
True.
But equal rights for others does mean less privileges for you. And that part is like pie. At least in the medium term measured in years until the pie grows.
That doesn’t justify discriminatory attitudes. But it does explain them.
How? For example, how does a same-sex couple getting married reduce my right to marry a woman?
Obviously not in every case. Particularly in the areas of cultural policy there are few downsides to the previously-privileged people as you point out.
Once you jump into the economic or political realm things work rather differently.
e.g. a policy that ensured all US blacks got the same quality education as all US whites would radically alter the relative privileges of the white folks, and especially the lower-qualified white folks. To which they would object mightily. And are.
A policy that ensured everyone everywhere could vote with equal ease and safety and to equal effect would also be revolutionary in its adverse impact on the privileges of the currently privileged.
It reduces your right to not to have to live next to a same sex married couple. It also reduces the chances that your son grows up to marry a woman, since there are other options, especially as he grew up seeing how happy that same sex couple was living next to you.
I disagree. If you don’t want to live next to a same-sex couple, then you have the right to move. We do not have the right to not be offended.
That’s not your right, though. It’s your son’s right to choose whom he wants to marry.
I’m not saying that I agree with this, just pointing out the perspective of the intolerant.
My father likened having a same sex couple living next door to having a sewage line spilling out. “It’s not going to just stay in their yard.” he told me.
It’s not rational, it’s hate.
Their perspective is wrong. The intolerants’ rights are not being reduced by someone else having the same rights as they.
I agree, and do not feel the desire to continue to devils advocate the hateful perspective. Just know that it is out there, and it is voting to continue their hatred.
“It”.
Yes, I believe that is exactly her point. This is a quote from the Introduction to her book which I was (and still am) recommending. The point is that some (certainly not all) believers do not want to share their position of privilege with anyone and certainly not with those who are different by heritage and do not adhere to their own belief structures. (Converting to and being devoted to their own spiritual views cures a lot disdain for outsiders for many in Christendom.)
While typing this, it just occurred to me that the place where segregation is most easily found in our current culture is in Christianity. The fact that “Black Churches” is a thing kind of tell us something. Sure we have traditional black colleges and other places where there is not complete integregation, but churches on both sides of this seem to prefer that Black Churches remain largely black (although I am pretty white bread myself and I was welcomed at FAME in downtown LA every time I was there).
It allegedly degrades the meaning of the concept of “marriage”, which somehow weakens your actual marriage…I don’t t get it, but there was recently a 5000+ post thread full of SDMB women complaining that once someone with a penis was allowed to call themselves a woman then the meaning of the word would be degraded to the point were they would be stripped of all identity…or something.
The human brain is really good at finding justification.
To answer the OP, MAGAs see this as a battle between them and progressives like Bernie, Warren, AOC, etc. It is an issue I’ve seen for years as a moderate Republican in that these Pubs can’t see the middle. Why were they so opposed to Obama who be all accounts was a centrist? Because for them there is no center and anyone not in the religious-right is a leftist commie liberal. So they honestly believe they are saving the country from evil Socialism.
I see what you are saying and I agree, no question. The point of the book is that white Christians have been the agenda setters for so long, and it is so natural to them, that when they don’t get to make all the rules for everyone they feel like they are under attack. For people who supposedly venerate those who were faithful unto death (i.e.: Martyrs), American Christians have the greatest capacity to treat slight inconvenience as catastrophe.
The reason white Evangelicals adore Donald Trump is because he makes it “okay” to say Merry Christmas again. As if saying ‘Happy Holidays’ diminished the legitimacy of Christianity one bit. If you do not celebrate the same holiday they celebrate they see it as ruining “their” America. It sounds absurd to me now, but I was just like them once. (I am uncomfortable using “us” and “them” so freely but don’t know to avoid it here.)
I have a devout Christian Uncle whom I have witnessed being good and caring for strangers, widows, and orphans for decades, and he has a sister Mary (named after the mother of his Lord) who converted to Judaism long, long ago. She keeps a kosher kitchen year round and lives the life every day; she raised her kids in the faith and now has Jewish grandchildren. This uncle STILL insists upon saying “Merry Christmas” to them when they speak on the phone (2,700 miles away) during the holidays. He knows they do not celebrate Christmas as well as he knows his own name, but Dammit- this is the United States of America by God and we are a CHRISTIAN nation and we say “Merry effin Christmas”. He and I have disagreed about that so loudly that women folk have moved between us with hands raised as stop signs and neighbors have come over to see if everyone is alright.
(Seems I can still be as stubborn as “they”, just from a different perspective.) The Merry Christmas debate is an example, I wish I had time to describe immigration where he will hire illegals to do his yard work and pay them a little more than they ask for (but still not a living wage – sometimes, he can sometimes be profoundly generous to be fair), then donate a similar amount of money to “build the wall”. he does not see a conflict in those actions.
There is a whole book there on the topic, and I recommend it. But the point is that in the mind of my uncle and his ilk for example, ever since the Mayflower bumped into North America, God Himself has been growing a great theocratic nation that is meant to be and unquestionably Christian. Others are welcome ONLY if they accept that supposition. Small clusters of other faiths are welcome only if they have no power and no voice. For that matter, he doesn’t even like all Christians – Those Papists Catholics and cultist Latter day Saints get a pass, but only barely.