I have mentioned a number of times that there's a sizeable bloc of conservatives who believe—really, literally believe—that liberals hate America and are deliberately trying to subvert and cripple it. This level of paranoid delusion, fueled by Fox News and others, is what produces events like the January 6 insurrection. If you truly believed that the country was on the verge of collapse if Democrats governed for a few more years, you might have joined in.
This belief originated in the white evangelical community and mostly centered on social issues like gay marriage, abortion, religious freedom, and so forth. It has since spread beyond the religious community, but the religious ties are still there.
Now, you may or may not believe me about this. I gather that many of you don't, which makes it useful that in the Atlantic this month Emma Green interviewed Ryan Williams, president of the Claremont Institute.
The Claremont Institute used to be a fairly ordinary conservative think tank, but around 2016 or so it went around the bend. It was the source of the infamous essay, "The Flight 93 Election," and was an early supporter of Donald Trump. One of its senior fellows, John Eastman, wrote a brief in early 2021 trying to make the case that Vice President Mike Pence could declare Trump the winner of the 2020 election.
This makes Ryan Williams an interesting source of apocalyptic conservatism. Let's hear him out:
Emma Green: What do you see as the threats to Western civilization?
Ryan Williams: The one we have focused on at the Claremont Institute is the progressive movement....I would say the leading edge of progressivism now is this kind of woke, social-justice anti-racism. It’s a threat to limited government because it seems to take its lead from scholars like Ibram Kendi, [whose] definition of racism is any policy that results in disparate outcomes for different groups....The pursuit of equal results is only going to be successful in a new woke totalitarianism. I realize that sounds a little hyperbolic, but that seems to be the road we’re on.
....Even during the Civil War—I think we’re more divided now than we were then. As Lincoln said, we all prayed to the same God. We all believed in the same Constitution. We just differed over the question of slavery....Most of the Founders of America were Christians. There were radicals, to be sure. But there was much more consensus back then on what human nature is—on monotheism, broadly speaking, but really Christianity as well.
....Green: Do you think America can hang together in 2021 without Christianity at its core?
Williams: I’m ambivalent about that question. I think it would be bad for America if that longtime Christian core disintegrated. The Founders were pretty unanimous, with Washington leading the way, that the Constitution is really only fit for a Christian people.
....Green: Do you feel like there is a hopeful future for America, or do you think we are headed toward some sort of generationally defining conflict that could potentially be violent?
Williams: I worry about such a conflict. The Civil War was terrible. It should be the thing we try to avoid almost at all costs.
Hmmm. "Almost."
Williams is obviously trying to come across as a thinker, not an evangelical hysteric. Nevertheless, he believes that America is on its way to decay and ultimate ruin if progressives remain in charge, pushing their anti-Christian and anti-racist agenda. Presumably Williams means that neither Christians nor white people will put up with this, and a civil war is inevitable if progressives don't change their tune.
How common is this view? I can't say for sure, but I think I can say that it's not especially rare these days among conservatives. It is this kind of view, pushed down to the rank and file by Fox News, evangelical pastors, and the entire conservative media machine, that makes the right wing so dangerous these days: they are desperately afraid of what they think liberals are doing and are increasingly willing to do anything to stop it. They support Donald Trump not in spite of his all-but-open racism and stagey Christianity—which make even many Republicans cringe—but because of it.
And as I mentioned above, if you really believe in this, it makes sense that you would be willing to resort to violence to prevent progressives from running things. This is not normal politics. It is, as Williams says, a belief that Trump's version of conservatism is the only thing standing between modern progressives and the destruction of Western Civilization.
Not sure I believe that these folks have any idea what "western civilization" is, but sure it's true they're scared to death as they look at the alternatives of waking up or sticking with Jesus. Jesus and the related "god" are mean megalomaniacs and scary; it's the main message of their scripture. So the question is how to pace it so they don't go totally insane and blow it all up while half of the country has already passed them by. The change is well on its way whether they're ready, willing, or able to handle it.
I country full of people like you are what we are trying to avoid.
*A country
Well, too late, as I said. The country is already fairly full of people like me. What are you like?
Pew Research Center:
65% of adults in the United States identified themselves as Christians. 22.8% of the U.S. population is religiously unaffiliated, atheists made up 3.1% and agnostics made up 4% of the U.S. population. Also, a majority of liberals are Christians.
I'll also note that the anti-slavery movement and the civil rights movements had strong ties to Christianity. And it continues. Nancy Pelosi is very religious.
Well, that's what people say to pollsters, I guess.
As far as their behavior, it's closer to an Elvis Costello song: "Lip service is all you'll ever get from me."
Do you think that the “Christians” who support Trump consider Nancy Pelosi to be a fellow Christian?
How do you avoid it? We're here, we're increasing in number. What do you mean you're trying to avoid it?
Here's the thing, Atticus. I am a Christian, on of those 65% you mention below, and I think the analysis is bunk. It's based on an impoverished theology and a weak conception of what God is, and what he/she/it/they can do. The sun shines on all, not just on Christians.
The notion that "the Constitution is only fit for a Christian people" is rubbish. There's nothing in the Gospels to support that. The OT is full of stuff about God's Chosen People, but when the Israelites embraced that, it usually was described as "pride" and it led them to ruin.
The greatest commandment was to love your neighbor as yourself. There was no stipulation that they be Christian. There was no carve-out for "except if they are gay". There was no qualification at all. We are also commanded to love our enemies. I don't see a lot of that these days much of anywhere.
Being the salt of the earth means making life "taste better" for other people. Not other Christians, other people.
People have made lots of bucks telling y'all you don't have to change. It's all lies. The world is changing and "woke" people have less to do with that, and less control over it than you think.
Williams or Kevin??
And yet here you are, insulting someone and proving Kevin's point.
"Even during the Civil War—I think we’re more divided now than we were then."
I just... don't understand how anybody can say stuff like this with a straight face. In the Civil War, red and blue states were *literally shooting at each other*. It doesn't get more divided than that.
No kidding. The line about how they were closer in their understanding of the constitution is the icing on the cake. Because abolitionists and slavers had such similar views of what "all men are created equal" means.
They are using the illiberal tendencies of current-day progressivism as a flying wedge to push through their Christian supremacist garbage. My response would be, yeah, there are people on the left who don't believe in free speech and due process anymore, but neither do people like the "Claremont Institute" -- I wish the 5Cs would sue these fools because it tarnishes the value of my degree.
Both sides are accusing the other side of trying to bring down western civilization but only one side are correct in that accusation…
A small reminder from a Swede
>> It is this kind of view, pushed down to the rank and file by Fox News, evangelical pastors, and the entire conservative media machine<<
And apparently Facebook has had no role in this.
A supporting role, but only that.
I'm a lot less sanguine about Facebook than Kevin is, but he's not wrong that Fox News is the force driving the insanity on the right. There are other media organizations actively pushing right-wing lunacy, but none come anywhere near Fox's power and reach.
Facebook is just some extra octane in Fox's gasoline firehose.
Facebook brings together like-minded people who otherwise would never know each other. This, of course, enlarges and amplifies the echo chamber they inhabit. The ideas may come from Fox, Breitbart, etc, but people find mutual reinforcement for them via social media.
There is another amplification effect, although it has a longer history (as talk radio, newspapers, fax newslettters, etc), and that is to expand the sense of fear by taking toxic but rare examples and holding them up as global threats. And, of course, these are also amplified by social media.
This is why Facebook can claim it is neutral but still be a menace to democracy, and may be why Kevin doesn't see much evidence of it as a threat. I've know and have known a number of people who have worked there, and they skew from liberal to libertarian, just like most youngish Silicon Valley citizens. It's only when you look at how those outside Facebook are using the platform to their own ends, with Facebook plausibly claiming that it has no more to do with them than anything else, that you see the threat.
...they are desperately afraid of what they think liberals are doing ...
I would say they are afraid of what "liberals" are ACTUALLY doing, i.e., working to avoid/frustrate/undermine/destroy the white-nationalist/Dominionists' vision of "Western Civilization," which is explicitly authoritarian -- even totalitarian -- overtly religiostic (explicitly contra the Constitution, not that they pay much attention to the Constitution when it's inconvenient), and deeply bigoted in many ways (racial, sexual, ethnic, national).
They are fearful of things that are unfamiliar, or that they don't understand, or that don't obey "proper authority" (which authority supports and enforces the same values and preferences as they do). That fear, duly stoked by decades of multi-channel reinforcement (national media, political figures, social media, religious institutions, peer group, family, etc.), consumes them and drives them to unthinking rage, the Jan. 6 riots being only the largest and most recent example.
Their vision is destructive, dangerous. and deeply un-American. It SHOULD be destroyed. They're right to be afraid. We're coming for them.
It's just that I think the core of our strategy should be to placate them, calm them, reassure them that we mean them no harm. After all, the core of our belief is that we mean ALL people well, and they have nothing to fear. We are humanists. Your rhetoric stokes the fires of division; my aim would be enlarge the circle of the tribe to encompass all of humanity, and look, you haven't lost a thing that was worth having to begin with.
Your strategy seems to be what the Democratic Party has been trying to do for the last several decades. But the wingnuts just get wingnuttier.
You say "we mean ALL people well" -- that translates as embracing the perverts and looters and non-Protestand terrorists. And let's not forget them uppity wimenfolk who want to slaughter their own babies. Being a "humanist" means rejecting Jesus to them, which means you are definitely NOT on the side of the angels.
Well then, what's the solution? I dunno, but these people seem to embrace "tough love".
Gradual change, while you mean time pet the tiger and lull him back to sleep. Pass the Build Back Better thing. Just don't be going out of your way to rub these folks' faces in it; our humanism is a lot like (some) Christianity anyway. And ally with the center right; we need every friend we can get.
The really difficult part? Immigration. I've long felt that race is at the center of the rightist meltdown. (Of course race blends into this civilizational thing.) The core message is that they have nothing to fear from a brown country as long as we embrace the Declaration and Constitution, neither of which said a single thing about race.
Maybe I'm naive. But what is political culture but the enshrinment of naivety?
Dude, the problem is, they don't even like being white. Your simply not getting it.
You're right that the wingnuts keep getting wingnuttier. But keep in mind that there are more of us than them, so far. We need to build on our majority and that means at all times to be the reasonable choice. Only with kindness can we crush them.
No, no no. There is no 'us' or 'them'. There is them over there, them over there and 10 more thems. You got it yet boy???? Part of Trump's appeal and conservative rebirth in the 10's was understanding this. You need a nostril rip p. Your ignorant.
And why are you advocating violence?
Please don't feed the troll.
Were it 10 or 15 years ago, I probably would agree. But not any more. They preach "live and let live," and "we just want to be left alone," but they very actively and explicitly do NOT practice what they preach. They are authoritarian to the core, they demand obedience to THEIR rules and values, and they're more than willing to use violence -- even as a first resort -- to achieve that.
They do not believe in the Golden Rule or in equal treatment under law. For them, as Wilhoit says, "there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, and out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." That's their vision, one they have been pursuing for DECADES very much on their own initiative, and there is no reason to assume they'll stop, most especially not if they are "placated" -- quite the contrary!
I'm done with appeasement. It's time to push them all the way back to Berlin and put the ones that survive on trial for their lives.
They've really latched onto the word "woke", haven't they? I'd love to hear them try to define it.
Ha! Just as likely as them defining "socialism", "communism", "critical race theory", or describing just what it was that Neville Chamberlain DID.
I think he defines it when he says in the same sentence that he's worried about "social justice" and "anti-racism". Apparently he prefers social injustice and racism, and being unaware (unwoke) of all the evils within that.
Exactly - that is very clear to us. How they can pretend otherwise is inexplicable.
Yes, there are some "true believers" in the nonsense being pushed.
The problem, of course, it to continually incite their base, they need to keep increasing their craziness. Every time, more incitement and more people drop out. In the end, a smaller and more rabid following.
And it's more crass than that. Look at the Catholic Bishops. Their response to the sex abuse scandals was to double down on "morality" issues--kids were molested--but gays! abortion! sex!. (Not all--but...)
Obama kept hoping the fever would break. That demonstrates the difference. The right wing thinks the country is going to hell in a hand basket, when that is not the case, and have gotten to talking about taking up arms. The left thinks the right wingers need help, esp. since they have gotten to the point of hurting themselves and others--talking about Covid, not guns, right now.
These people have a traditional conservative worldview. There is an in-group that is supposed to get all the goodies, have god's or the gods' blessing, and be able to abuse everyone else as they choose. The theology is irrelevant. It changes culturally. In India it would be about the gods and caste. In ancient whatever, it would be about the gods in the big temple. Now, it's Christianity and Jesus. That's the starting point of their thinking. Everything else flows from that.
"America" to them is just whatever it takes to support their worldview. All the wording about freedom, collectivism and equality in the founding documents and since was just bunting on the railroad platform. Whenever new sources of wealth and power arise, the traditional reaction is to lean on the gods and vilify the newcomers. It's a way of getting and hoarding the goodies, taking them from those who developed them as desired.
This is one reason liberals cannot argue with conservatives. Liberals are concerned with who gets kicked in the ass rather than some not very mysterious divine right of the in-group draped in religious and patriotic mysticism. Look at the abortion argument. The conservatives are AOK with a plague killing millions, constant warfare and the death penalty, but somehow or another concerned with lives of the unborn and unconceived because it involves the wrong people enjoying sex. (They used to be openly anti-masturbation. Go out and be a man and rape or hire someone to screw.)
Once you recognize that it's all about in-group thinking, it all makes sense. Everything else is window dressing.
The power of religion and Christianity in the US has been declining for generations. Evangelicals buck the trend, but this won't slow the overall trend. In 1950, 91% of people said they were Christian. In 2020, 68% did. So the rise of the Trump right I don't think is about a rise in Christian thinking. Evangelicals are a factor, but mostly it came from the advent of propaganda machines on the right - AM talk radio, Fox News, and an ecosphere of conservative websites and social media groups.
No, the propaganda machines only developed after the ascent of Reagan and the new racist Republican party. It was enough for Republicans to signal that they would support racism as the Democratic party abandoned it. Remember that the South had legal white supremacy essentially until the mid-60's. That very strong racist feeling was there for Republicans to tap - the attitude was not instilled by any media.
There was not a "new racist Republican party" starting with Reagan. In fact racism continued to decline among all major groups of Americans. No prominent Republicans expressed racists views, that is leftie mindreading. It is the same as Trump supporters saying they know in progressives' minds they want communism, and thus they want to destroy the country.
You would imagine that a deep thinker would realize that the framers of the Consitution relied on pre-Christian Greek and Roman ideas of governance with a heavy dose of Enlightment philosophy which specifically rejected any religion as a basis for government. That person would also be aware that the Declaration refers only to a nondenominational Creator, the Constituion specfically allows for freedom to practice any religion and both documents are otherwise completely silent on Chrisitanity specifically except a a dating method. But then there are Conservatives.
The Founders for these folks are basically a talisman and rationalization for their ideology. They don't actually care about who they really were personally, or what they actually believed.
Very true....
The whole point of the first amendment was to keep gov't. and religions separate--because many people here were escaping the "holy wars" in Europe--which were pitting Christian against Christian and everyone against the Anabaptists.
The Founders were explicitly Deists. Not Christians. Ralph Waldo Emerson, not Jonathon Winthrop.
If he's worried about "new woke totalitarianism" I would suggest he take a break and consider the king of woke, -- I give you old as dirt Joe Biden, who ran away from his Dem competition.
I mean, as long as there are significant groups of people who are willing to believe what people say about a group rather than engaging with the group itself - here, what Fox news says about liberals as opposed to talking to a, ya know, liberal, we are stuck.
However, to the extent you want a Christian nation, you've lost. Appropo of yesterdays post, there is no reason to assume that this guy, or those like him, are going away.
However, there will be no second Civil war, they can have the former Conferderacy as far as I care. If they think the blue states will actually resort to violence to keep these ass hats in the country they are in for a surprise.
"what Fox news says about liberals as opposed to talking to a, ya know, liberal"
This, this this. My late uncle would ask me, "why do liberals believe {insert flaky idea from Fox News]" and I'd explain that most of us don't think that, we think, whatever it is we actually think.
And he'd say, "oh. that's not so bad."
I don't think we're going to have a civil war in the same sense as the 1861-1865 one. For one thing, even red states have a deeply vested economic interest in staying in the United States -- if they leave we won't give them any money! Whereas in 1861 the southern economy was based on slave holding.
Also, look at all the trouble the UK is having with Brexit, when they are not even on the Euro!
What I do fear and what I think is already happening is ongoing individual stochastic terrorism -- murders and bombings carried out by individuals who are inspired by right wing ideas but may not be members of any right wing groups.
No, it was based on agriculture and exports to Europe. When automation started in the late 1700's, the writing was on the wall. The problem was the southern planters were still really Tory's and didn't want to change despite northern industrialists hungry for sales. Slavery as the institution really didn't get going until 1689 and began to die by the war of 1812. There hadn't been much slave trade for a decade by the first shot in 1861. Supply was getting tight. I also call the Civil War battle of the bourgeois.
I see the end-game here as all those Red-State types as suing for peace. They care less about some abstract ideology and more about making sure the material goodies keep coming.
TL;DR: It's nothing more than simple extortion to get more than their share at the expense of the blue states.
Kevin, this goes many ways. In the 90's before I left for the military, I met Billy Corgan and at that time, a young new age guru named Mike Adams at a California based, New age/eco rally. Man, it sounded like a proto-"Q speak". Climate change apocalypse, food police nutters, conspiracy theories......oh yeah, anti-vaxxers. Hippies, Crowleyists. They did not reject the dark side of the new age either. There were definitely bigots. Mike Adams being one. Billy Corgan at this time is very anti-racist. All held together with pure hatred of what the capitalism was doing to the planet. It was the golden age of the new counterculture. The Unabomber was a prophet. Why the media obsessed over the libertarian/identity christian "militia" crap, they ignored a movement 10x as large. A movement by 2003 was fading out and people like Adams and Corgan, selling out. This is how conservatives were able to rebuild with foreign help via Jewish Russian Oligarchs, Lukud, KSA helping spur propaganda. They saw that there were a group of voters who generally were bigoted, but hated the big business "machine" that pushed down the little man. It worked well. You saw voters from rural Ohio attack gmo's, support organic farms. Question corporations. In then comes Trump to grift them. Make sure you wink to normal conservatives, while powering up the new age quackery. It worked. These voters kept some traditional conservative politics, but believed Trump would expose the truth of the deep state business cabal similar to Evangelicals believing Trump would end Roe. One was right.......one was wrong.
All grifts end. You cannot reject climate change and support naturopathy forever. It's a dialectical collision. Trump Organization does not care or give a shit about them. Many voters Republicans brought in during the 2016-20 elections are very very soft. Western Civilization is in the eye of the beholder.
Interesting slip there from Williams on the "equal results" bit. A good reminder that a key component of conservatism is defending the social and economic hierarchy that benefits them.
What makes it interesting is that from the early 2010s onward, the central fight shifted homeward for conservatives. They used to be heavily focused on the supposed apocalyptic threat of Islam in the 2000s, but now that's old hat - the real enemy are the liberals at home, and fighting them is such a high priority that it overrides stuff like national loyalty and the like (hence why they're palling around with authoritarians like Orban in Hungary).
Only comfort, meager as it is, is that part of the reason they're so desperate is that the younger generations (and especially the college-educated ones) are so staunchly progressive compared to what came before. Young Boomers and Gen-X-ers weren't that progressive when you look at the polls at the time, but Millennials and Zoomers absolutely are. The base for movement conservatism is becoming ever thinner, and it's only through aggressively anti-democratic tactics and good political geography that they've held on to power as long as they have.
This is an amazing quote -
"I think we’re more divided now than we were then...We just differed over the question of slavery...But there was much more consensus back then on what human nature is—on monotheism, broadly speaking, but really Christianity as well."
Yeah! Back then we pretty much agreed on what human nature is. Well, except for the part about owning other humans. You know, the trivial stuff. We read the same book though!
My thought, too. More consensus back then? Puh-lease. The south was quoting the Bible in support of slavery while the abolitionists quoted it in opposition. Not exactly consensus. Also, our "consensus" on human nature was about to produce Jim Crow and eugenics.
The main difference between then and now was that then you pretty much had to profess Christianity in public if you wanted a career and position in society. Now, thankfully, that is more optional, although this guy seems to want to take us back.
John Calhoun was an agnostic, and Lincoln came close to that, so being a Christian didn't seem to be a requirement.
Hasn't this been characteristic of conservatives ever? The folks who resisted the French revolutionaries were afraid of an "end to civilization", in their case aristocratic rule supported by an authoritarian, strictly hierarchical Catholic Church.
I'd say fear of the end of "civilization" has always been the driver of conservatism. Conservatism is about defending and enlarging the privileges of the privileged and it is the loss of those privileges that they mourn as the "end of civilization". Which also explains the ease and perfectly good conscience with which conservatives dupe their non-privileged followers.
Conservatism is by its nature destructive which makes it an easy political sell: Destruction is easier than construction.
'Conservatism is about defending and enlarging the privileges of the privileged and it is the loss of those privileges that they mourn as the "end of civilization".'
Well, that's the spin according to liberals. Responsible pre-Trump-era conservatives would say: Conservatives want policies that continue to improve the country while being careful to conserve the best aspects of society and government policies.
Liberals/progressives differ only in that they are willing to push the envelope more regarding "being careful to conserve the best aspects of society and government policies".
But what is privilege??? It changes. Most of what we call "Christianity" is enlightenment era dreck. Far different than the Catholicism that preceeded it. These Christians aren't necessarily wealthy either. Their privilege is really religious and that religion is all the power they have.
Williams gives the game away with the following exchange.
---
Williams: The counter from the left is that there’s systemic racism that has built up over years by certain legal systems. I would have to see some real proof of that. The main evidence seems to be that there are disparate results, thus there’s systemic racism.
Green: Let’s take one concrete policy example. The prison system in the United States disproportionately incarcerates Black men.
...
So I guess the question is, in your vision of America, is this a problem? And is it a problem caused by racism?
Williams: It would depend on what is driving the disparate results. We would have to separate out the extent to which sentencing is truly discriminatory—and it ought not to be, if it is—and the extent to which the high incarceration rate of Black Americans is due to their much higher propensity to commit violent crime.
---
It's all about race. They believe non-white folk are just not as "civilized" as they are. It is very unlikely you can reason with that. They must be opposed at each turn, and their agenda exposed—which is why they hate being called racist.
Right, but that is a social construct. Too many liberals think in economic terms. It's my point above with the general non voter who Trump and his globalists conned for 2 elections.
Is the social construct right however??? Are Blacks being held back by a degenerative social culture????
I would like to see a detailed psychological description of the contortion they go through to describe to goal of an even playing field and equal justice for all as 'totalitarianism'.
I had a reasonable (past tense?) but right wing cousin recently tell me that a grandma friend of the family was starting a grandma militia.
The problem, stated many, many times before, is that Christianity is on the wane, and evangelicalism is a shrinking demographic. Particularly among the younger voters. The writing is on the wall, and no one sells White Out anymore.
Claremont is a sanctuary for no-hopers, people who never accepted the NON-Christian government the Framers quite purposefully created. It's a simple fact that one cannot believe in the Constitution and argue for more Christian influence. You can't outwit the Framers by calling them Christians who wanted a sectarian government. That would be a lie.
They don't seem to understand the fallacy of modern conservatism: You cannot freeze time and keep progress out. You cannot stand still: If you try to, you will begin to regress as the world passes you by. You will start to rot, because life's momentum is forward, not backward. And life doesn't give a shit whether you like that or not. It will just grind you under its heel as it moves relentlessly ahead.
No what's happening is more younger white's are getting into new age philosophy. Or I should say, returning. White Christian identity is being replaced. Info-European civilization is being reexamined and what right wingers told them, is a lie.
Yeah, Buckley’s “standing athwart history, shouting ‘stop’” has always been treated as a meaningful statement, when it’s really just a tantrum. History never stops, or it wouldn’t be worth recording.
The January 6th insurrectionists and other rightist wackos are not responding to the latest intellectual screed from the Claremont Institute, they are responding to the constant incitement of racism and religious extremism from Republicans. This has been going on since the 60's and in fact it was largely responsible for the election of Nixon and Reagan and the major right turn of American economic policy at that time (the adoption of conservative economics was not due to Bill Buckley). When you manage to incite the instincts behind these group affinities rationality goes by the board - people are willing to believe anything bad (and nothing good) about their tribal, national or partisan enemies. The intensity of this incitement has been increasing over decades - it was not invented by Rupert Murdoch or Trump. Fox News is the latest mouthpiece, but Republicans and the groups they support got their message across effectively long before Fox News was founded. The destruction of Western Civilization has nothing to do with it - the Republican base has no real concern with the state of civilization. The Republican party leaders are not concerned with civilization either - they just want tax cuts and deregulation. The base just knows that Democrats are the hated enemy and must be destroyed. This type of tribal conflict has essentially zero intellectual content - it is just basic group instinct.
They are desperate. They hate pro-white groups who are pagan and anti-capitalism like the traditional IE's. The Jewish bankers have coddled one to many whites with easy debt.
I don't see the given example as a wild apocalyptic vision.
Judging from the interview excerpt, Ryan Williams's conservativism draws from political currents that preceded Fox News and Trump. It's more stodgy than desperate. He thinks that it's hard to have a national consensus in this country without maintaining a strong Christian social core, and that, in the absence of consensus, progressive goals can only be achieved by totalitarian means.
Right wing news is more evenly distributed across the population and marinates their views more than it used to. Every rightwing person I know watches Fox News non-stop. In 1980, they didn't read the Ron Paul newsletters 2 hours every night.
I'll grant that Fox News hardens political views rather than helping build consensus. It can't be healthy for anyone to have it on their TVs for hours every day.
That Christian social core is what ended slavery, was the spirit of the progressive movement and why Byran feared Darwin by the 1920's. Bolshevik and Nazi revolutions which were chock full of new age quackery which allowed Sociopaths to run wild.
I get the fear. Liberals really are behind the times. This isn't 1960 anymore.
This guy is, obviously, a crank. But there is a reason for it, the conservative propaganda is rational. "Rational" in the sense that if they adopt the framework below they will lose elections or have to completely re-build the current republican party.
1. Government is basically about as exciting as a huge insurance company. Its obvious, for example that the entire rest of the first world has come to consensus on a couple of things, first, that universal health insurance is extremely appropriate for government, and to name one more example, that insurance against possible climate catastrophy is also appropriate at the governmental level.
2. Government regulation is all about the tragedy of the commons. If the tragedy of the commons is not blatantly obvious then the person you are talking to is not bothering to open their own eyes. Taken broadly, this includes allowing people to discriminate as they wish.
Repubs know that if they debate this on this framework they have already lost, so instead any action by government is framed in totalitarianism. A nice, inflamatory word which is basically meaningless.
The conservatives are, in fact, correct that progressives (defined very broadly as "people who believe in progress and constant improvement") are trying, with considerable success to destroy civilization as the conservatives know it. However, they're centuries too late in trying to stop the process. I'm 66; civilization as I know it has been totally changed ("destroyed") at least twice, maybe three times, since I was a child. Since the Industrial Revolution "civilization as we know it" has been totally overhauled a couple of dozen times.
There is an old joke that has considerable truth to it. "In twenty years, civilization as we know it will not exist. This statement has been true if made at any time in the last two hundred years." Conservatives suffer from future shock; we need to recognize the illness, but not accommodate to it.
Williams basically expresses the conservative view that too much diversity is bad and only a broadly homogenous nation can survive. And why should liberals join their bandwagon and not the other way around? Because liberals ARE diverse and like it that way.
So to me it's not his logic that's crooked, it's the tribalistic axiom on which that logic is based that's morally wrong. The left/right divide used to be on social questions and free enterprise. Vestiges of that are still around but fundamentally it is now universalism versus tribalism. And there's no way for one side to convince the other because it's about basic assumptions, not conclusions.
Again, your talking from a bourgeois pov. What does a socialist need with diversity???? Williams is a contradiction. He knows it though.
Must be an institute for comedians. Their October Gala honors Gov. Death of Florida.
https://claremontgala.com/
Religious psychotics are all god's special little hamsters.
Conservatives? These aren't conservatives. These are right-wing extremists. Can we please stop with the Fox News branding can at least be honest?
Eh, conservatives and liberals traditionally would be called "right wing". These guys just try way to hard and sound confused. The Founding Fathers preferred northern European immigrants to any other.
I suspect subconsciously they don't get why capitalism isn't growing fast anymore and believe it's a self-reflection of white failure. Many are leaving Christianity. Their slippery slope to socialism is beginning.
You left out the part about the expansion of rights. That Atlantic piece made me mute their account on Twitter, Sunday night. She didn't even challenge him on his bullshit, which makes The Atlantic look pathetic as a journalistic outlet.
I'm so angry at them, I'm going to continue to boycott The Atlantic through the month.
I mean, FFS, if all you're going to do is serve as an outlet for crackheads to spread bullshit, what are you, exactly?
Conor Friedersdork, another pompous, upper middle class twit from Orange County like the writer of this blog, wouldn't have it any other way.
Humans are tribal and hierarchical on average and it has served our species well. Liberals do a great disservice by not articulating 'a tribe' that appeals to most people. We criticize and ridicule other people's tribes (patriots, Christian) but offer nothing for most people to identify with.
I'm a convert to the idea that we need to embrace full-throated patriotism (Yglesias). We can express unabashed support for the constitution's freedoms, which are as remarkable now as they were then.
"Q Shaman" dude is a great example of new age quackery which many a leftist has supported since 1750, which Trump let into the door, would have never had a chance under the Reagan to Romney era to vote Republican. How can a person complaining about gmo's, is vegan, distrusts food processors. Deny climate change and fossil fuel release???? He cannot. Force them to come clean and make climate change s spiritual reckoning.
Patriotism is tribalism and tribalism is manifested as hostility to other tribes. This is instinctive. Would you call for a war against some other country to unify the US? Politician often call for war to increase their own popularity and power. Both Bushes did this, although Trump did not.
The brilliance of the Trump grift is pushing movement conservatives into a war mentality while scrounging up the edges for new voters. Obama had a bit of that as well. It's important in politics to have that. Clinton and Biden are fodder for these types despite generally good appeal for Biden.
But remember, all grifts end.