Onward, Christian Fascists
Chris Hedges
December 30, 2019
The greatest moral failing of the liberal Christian church was its refusal, justified in the name of tolerance and dialogue, to denounce the followers of the Christian right as heretics. By tolerating the intolerant it ceded religious legitimacy to an array of con artists, charlatans and demagogues and their cultish supporters. It stood by as the core Gospel messageconcern for the poor and the oppressedwas perverted into a magical world where God and Jesus showered believers with material wealth and power. The white race, especially in the United States, became Gods chosen agent. Imperialism and war became divine instruments for purging the world of infidels and barbarians, evil itself. Capitalism, because God blessed the righteous with wealth and power and condemned the immoral to poverty and suffering, became shorn of its inherent cruelty and exploitation. The iconography and symbols of American nationalism became intertwined with the iconography and symbols of the Christian faith. The mega-pastors, narcissists who rule despotic, cult-like fiefdoms, make millions of dollars by using this heretical belief system to prey on the mounting despair and desperation of their congregations, victims of neoliberalism and deindustrialization. These believers find in Donald Trump a reflection of themselves, a champion of the unfettered greed, cult of masculinity, lust for violence, white supremacy, bigotry, American chauvinism, religious intolerance, anger, racism and conspiracy theories that define the central beliefs of the Christian right. When I wrote American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America I was deadly serious about the term fascists.
The evangelical magazine Christianity Today, by stating the obvious about Trump, that he is immoral and should be removed from office, became the latest recipient of the Christian rights vicious and hypocritical backlash. Nearly 200 evangelical leaders, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Rep. Michele Bachmann, Jerry Falwell Jr. and Ralph Reed, signed a joint letter denouncing the Christianity Today editorial, written by the magazines president, Timothy Dalrymple, and outgoing Editor Mark Galli. Evangelical Christians who criticize Trump are as swiftly disappeared from the ranks as Republican politicians who criticize Trump. Trump received 80% of the white evangelical vote in the 2016 presidential election, and in a poll this month 90% of Republicans said they opposed impeachment and ouster of the president. Among Republicans who identify as white evangelical Protestants, that number rises to 99%.
Tens of millions of Americans live hermetically sealed inside the vast media and educational edifice controlled by Christian fascists. In this world, miracles are real, Satan, allied with secular humanists and Muslims, is seeking to destroy America, and Trump is Gods anointed vessel to build the Christian nation and cement into place a government that instills biblical values. These biblical values include banning abortion, protecting the traditional family, turning the Ten Commandments into secular law, crushing infidels, especially Muslims, indoctrinating children in schools with biblical teachings and thwarting sexual license, which includes any sexual relationship other than in a marriage between a man and a woman. Trump is routinely compared by evangelical leaders to the biblical king Cyrus, who rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem and restored the Jews to the city.
Trump has filled his own ideological void with Christian fascism. He has elevated members of the Christian right to prominent positions, including Mike Pence to the vice presidency, Mike Pompeo to secretary of state, Betsy DeVos to secretary of education, Ben Carson to secretary of housing and urban development, William Barr to attorney general, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and the televangelist Paula White to his Faith and Opportunities Initiative. More importantly, Trump has handed the Christian right veto and appointment power over key positions in government, especially in the federal courts. He has installed 133 district court judges out of 677 total, 50 appeals court judges out of 179 total, and two U.S. Supreme Court justices out of nine. Almost all of these judges were, in effect, selected by the Federalist Society and the Christian right. Many of the extremists who make up the judicial appointees have been rated as unqualified by the American Bar Association, the countrys largest nonpartisan coalition of lawyers. Trump has moved to ban Muslim immigrants and rolled back civil rights legislation. He has made war on reproductive rights by restricting abortion and defunding Planned Parenthood. He has stripped away LGBTQ rights. He has ripped down the firewall between church and state by revoking the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits churches, which are tax-exempt, from endorsing political candidates. His appointees throughout the government routinely use biblical strictures to justify an array of policy decisions including environmental deregulation, war, tax cuts and the replacement of public schools with charter schools, an action that permits the transfer of federal education funds to private Christian schools.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/onward-christian-fascists/
lark
(23,100 posts)Facts have no meaning with these asses, everything is relative to how it enriches them or hurts others - that is all they care about.
I actually got into a verbal fight with a couple of rw'ers on FB who claim that fascism is a liberal doctrine. Of course, idiots like these pay zero attention to reality or history, just make up shit or believe other made up shit they've seen in rw lying sources, Faux, Breitbart, Drudge and all the other burnable rags and lying heads on radio and tv.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)I admit their lack of critical thinking is stunning. Why it is that way I do not know.
LakeArenal
(28,817 posts)They are ignorant about history and science.
That Klepper video on Daily show
Read the transcript
Did you?
No. I dont have to
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)lapucelle
(18,258 posts)than that of the liberal Christian church.
That element includes the ridiculous Chris Hedges, an early and frequent endorser of Jill Stein in the 2016 cycle.
https://www.gp.org/hedges_endorsement
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/why-i-support-dr-jill-stein-for-president/
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)lapucelle
(18,258 posts)Just wow, indeed.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)lapucelle
(18,258 posts)and Trump, giving us the Roberts' Court in all its iterations.
Hedges worked very, very hard to depress Democratic turnout in 2016, especially that of young and new voters, left wing idealists, and former Sanders supporters. Here's what the contemptible moron was telling unwitting acolytes in 2016 during the GE campaign:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-1-percents-useful-idiots-2/
Voting for Hillary Clinton will not halt this slide into the apocalypse. It will only accelerate it. Donald Trump may vanish from the political landscape, but someone even more venal, and probably more intelligent, will take his place. Our job is to dismantle the machinery that is pushing toward the cliff. And this means sustained and massive civil disobedience. As exemplified by the protests at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and by prisoners across the nation who carried out work stoppages last Friday, it means doing everything possible not to cooperate with the elements of authority. It means disrupting the mechanisms of power. It means overcoming fear. It means no longer believing the lies we are told.
https://bit.ly/2tvtcao
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)(This result is the moral failure of elements of the doctrinaire left more so than that of the liberal Christian church. )
More so is an outrageous slander which has no basis in reality. Hedges supported someone you did not like, he never supported a fascist, a racist, a misogynistic con artist. That you can't see the difference is stunning. To disagree with Hedges on Clinton is one thing, to suggest his support of Stein equates with the pass given by the christian left to a host of charlatans and worse is an absurd notion.
lapucelle
(18,258 posts)During the 2016 GE hNedges was busy calling Bernie Sanders a "useful idiot" and pushing Jill Stein's narrative that "voting for Hillary Clinton will not halt this slide into the apocalypse. It will only accelerate it".
It is stunning that anyone here thinks that calling out RT "on air talent" / Stein supporter/surrogate Chris Hedges is"outrageous slander".
This is Democratic Underground.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)lapucelle
(18,258 posts)like Russia Today on air talent Hedges.
dalton99a
(81,488 posts)Interesting that he keeps referring to himself as a "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist"
lapucelle
(18,258 posts)that contributed to the production of the best picture.
dalton99a
(81,488 posts)People who work for Russian propaganda channels have zero credibility in my book
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)This event was part of our centennial celebration.
CHRIS HEDGES, the former Middle East Bureau Chief for The New York Times, spent two decades overseas seven of them in the Middle East. He also reported from Central America, Africa and the Balkans. He was based in Paris after the attacks of 9/11 where he covered Al Qaeda in Europe and the Middle East. He was part of a team of reporters at The New York Times awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on global terrorism. Hedges writes a weekly column for the online magazine Truthdig and hosts the weekly teleSur show Days of Revolt. He is the author of eleven books including the New York Times best sellers War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America and Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which he co-wrote with the cartoonist Joe Sacco. His latest book is Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt.
https://www.pulitzer.org/event/live-nypl-seymour-hersh-chris-hedges
modrepub
(3,495 posts)is more of what I'd be worried about. Trump's long escalation with Iran only plays into their hands. There are people very close to the President who are convinced fighting in the ME will bring about the Rapture and the Second Coming. Not to mention right-wing Israeli politicians and the House of Saud have always supported US politicians who harbor strong hatred for Iran.