OK, just got up and posted the pending comments, which were only GftNC and wonkie. I'll contact you both off list this weekend and try to figure out what's up.
Well, they used to canonize Reagan, although the real St.Ronnie (as vile as many of his policies were) would be hunted out of the party these days as a RINO. It was and still is blasphemous to tell that he raised taxes (12 times iirc) when he realized that his initial tax cuts would have led straight to national bankruptcy.
The Roman governor of the Roman province of Judea allegedly crucified Jesus of Nazareth for calling himself (or being called by others, perhaps) "King of the Jews". So, yes?
MAGAts are generally ignorant of the content, let alone the history, of their "faith". Or maybe not. Maybe "Christian Nationalist" is not an oxymoron but the modern-day culmination of the Jesus cult. Forget that whatever Jesus of Nazareth thought of "nationalism", American "patriotism" never crossed his mind. Ignore what namby-pamby Christians have to say about welcoming the stranger or caring for the poor, it's what the multimillionaire pastors of megachurches have to say that counts. Or what "martyrs" like Charlie Kirk have to say, for that matter.
The Gospel According to Saint Charles of Kirk got a curious sort of publicity boost by dint of his death. On the one hand, his "martyrdom" is purported to require veneration of his dedication to spreading his gospel. On the other hand, quoting it verbatim is blasphemy, according to the MAGAt Inquisition.
The MAGAts are determined to canonize Saint Charlie, but to forbid quoting him. Come to think of it, they don't like libruls quoting Jesus of Nazareth either.
I think my approach is a less formalized version of what nous described. If we disconnect completely and irreparably, the alienation from each other and the dehumanization of each other both become that much easier. That makes people more willing to harm each other in various ways, and that's dangerous for everyone.
Someone on another thread some time ago brought up one of the ways the divide between sides during The Troubles in Northern Ireland was narrowed. IIRC, it had much to do with talking about things other than politics to rehumanize each other.
I thought I would see how long that last comment was in moderation, because I think last night the average for mine was about 40 minutes. It's now 21.02, so it's been in almost three hours, and I'm bored with checking on it, so this is just a catch up before I shut up shop. As I mentioned, all my boxes except website are filled and ticked. And Priest, the time stamp seems to be UK Summer Time, which is GMT+1.
On the Horst Wessel side of it, though, much of the religious right is referring to Kirk as "a warrior for God" and "a soldier of Christ." The Christian side of the culture wars is heavily influenced by the "spiritual warfare" types. They literally believe that they are engaged in spiritual combat against demons who have jurisdiction over geographical areas. It's very animist - I'm wondering if it isn't to Christianity what Shinto is to Buddhism. As such, I expect more hagiography, and more militant hagiography, as they seek to meld temporal military service with spiritual military service in their political theology. It's a very small narrative step from the valorization of the fallen soldier as political martyr and extending it to all of the Left Behind mythology and fantasies of one big, final End Times battle for the soul of humanity. Kirk is ideally situated for this project.
That's certainly what the Republicans are doing: deifying Charlie because that's how they legitimize themselves and delegitimize everyone else.
I've been thinking about Ezra Klein and his horrible fascist-enabling article about Kirk "doing politics the right way." Apparently, Ezra thinks that having public discussions where a hater gets to air the hateful crap is doing politics the right way.
I'm more in agreement with this guy who says in the article that he doesn't debate fascists. Why not? Because they are wrong, so there's nothing to discuss.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-problem-with-debating-fascists-from-a-guy-who-s-debated-just-about-everyone/ar-AA1MOhSE?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=68cc404ce9b94b64b1660870857945a1&ei=21
Medhi Hasan engages in lots of debates, not to change the mind of the person he's talking to, but to reach the people who are watching and listening.
We need to move the Overton Window so that discourse that promotes stochastic violence is not debated or discussed as if there was legitimacy to it. Just called out for what it is and rejected.
To remarkable degree, Republican messaging uses the precepts set out by Goebbels. One is to give people the thrill of fear, basically something to be outraged about that isn't real. Kind of like the fun of being scared at a horror movie. For literally decades, Republican messaging has consisted of telling people to be afraid of not-real while also telling them that the real is fake. So "They are going to take your guns!!!!" and "There is no climate change." War on Christmas, trans kids, white people are going to be a minority!!!! ect. From the safety of their armchairs, life becomes an exciting experience of being scared/outraged over imaginary threats, which is a reinforcing experience. It's fun. Allows the participant to feel virtuous and vicariously heroic by voting for the party that will smite the evil enemy without ever being in any real danger. Meanwhile, I'm sure that those people worry about real problems, but election after election they vote to fight the imaginary ones.
I think leading Dems are sort of hoping that the economy will be the real problem that breaks through this bullshit and gets enough voters to vote D to give the Dems some power in Congress and at the state level. Hence "kitchen table issues" versus R culture war bullshit. It worked in Sioux City at a special election.
On the other hand, Missouri, which is a hell hole of bad government, just keeps electing Republicans over and over.
I keep thinking of the Depression, when enough voters were suffering enough to give a reform politicians real power. Once the suffering receded to being mostly minorities, that desire for reform and improvement, that desire for government as a service for the common good, started losing elections to "I got mine, screw you, and besides you are just a (fill in the hater crap du jour)."
It is a privilege to be outraged all the time about imaginary shit.
Until now none but my first comment (as announced) went into moderation, and I just entered name and email address without opening any account.
I did not click the box "save my name..."
One youtube commenter succinctly put my thoughts on the current RW adulation of Kirk into just 5 words: "They found their Horst Wessel."
And their renewed attempts to blame George Soros for everything conjured up another name: Emmanuel Goldstein. The Orbanization (pun unavoidable) of the US is rapidly succeeding.
Just a quick comment here, Russell's comment had to be approved, but I believe that nous' comment wasn't. So whatever nous did and Russell didn't, that is the key
The Republican party message is a fairy tale about how the good Republican party will save the good people from the existential threat presented by the rest of us.
My sense is that MAGA people are generally full of fear.
They're gonna take my guns. They're letting a lot of brown people in so that white people are outnumbered. Some Mexican is gonna take my job, or, if you're white collar, some South Asian is gonna take my job. They're gonna chop my kid's genitals off. They're gonna let great big guys play on my daughter's soccer team and she's gonna get run over (my (D) House Rep came out with that one).
There are actually some legitimate concerns in all of the above, and there are sensible conversations to have about them. Those conversations are not available because everybody is so freaking hyped up.
And then there are the folks whose point of view basically my life's good, I'm making money, I want to keep it that way, and if it means tasering some brown person mowing somebody's lawn or working in a restaurant kitchen or mopping floors in a hospital, I'm OK with that.
I have a friend who's an academic, a professor of psychology, who has been involved in this project for a few years trying to find ways to "bridge the divide". His approach is to get people to talk to each other, listen to each other, and try to establish some kind of empathetic connection.
My question to him is always, where the hell is that going to happen? And how are you going to scale that to a level that is going to have an actual effect on the situation we find ourselves in?
It's a mess. I have no solution. Find whatever ways are available to you to mitigate whatever harms you can, and do those.
But I don't see a path to persuading committed MAGAs to change their minds. Even if it all falls to shit around them, they'll find a way to blame on somebody, anybody, other than Trump.
He's their champion, their idol, their savior. That's no exaggeration.
One of the things I think about a lot WRT these conversations is the difference between retributive and restorative justice approaches. For me it's not a question of whether to forgive or not to forgive, but rather a question of whether or not a path to reconciliation can still exist, and what sort of changes might be required to effect such a reconciliation.
I'm reminded of a passage in Dave Grossman's On Killing (nota bene, Grossman is not a good person and his research is deeply flawed in my estimation, but not in a way that negates what I'm about to describe). He talks about the Japanese treatment of Chinese prisoners, and how Japanese recruits were required to bayonette helpless prisoners in front of their comrades as a way of destroying their old sense of identity and making them feel as if there was no way to redeem themselves in the eyes of their old communities. They were made monstrous in order to be wielded as monsters.
I'm always deeply concerned to try, as much as decency will allow, to leave some path back for reconciliation. It doesn't have to be (and probably shouldn't be) a free-and-easy path. They should have to do the work of restoration, of reparation, to earn that reconciliation, but unless we work to keep such a path available I don't think that we will ever be able to restore the breach.
I think my difficulty is... MAGA is a fascist movement--literally. People who like Prager U, Kirk, or other haters are the moral equivalent of good Germans. And most of the good Germans were, mostly, nice people.
As noted above, they only learn from being hurt themselves and even then the commitment to their groupthink often remains. The core of that groupthink is disrespect for the rest of us.
Actually disrespect isn't a strong enough word. That friend I had who claimed that Dems supported infanticide, for example. How the hell could he justify believing something that awful about other people? The Republican party message is a fairy tale about how the good Republican party will save the good people from the existential threat presented by the rest of us. How are we an existential threat? Because we (fill in the blank with current hater memes). What unites the MAGAs isn't a set of shared values or support for certain policies; it's hate for the rest of us.
Just as racists make exceptions for someone they know, MAGAs make exceptions for someone they know. But that nice person who is a good neighbor, a long time friend, goes home and chooses to indulge in hate messaging that makes the rest of us potential targets of violence because of the false claim that we are an existential threat to real true good American values.
Would my neighbor Anne object if I got shot at a protest rally? Probably. Would she object if someone else did? Not if Ingraham or Watters or someone told her that the protester had it coming.
It's weird to chat and be friendly with someone who would has no trouble seeing people get hauled off to prison in El Salvador or FL, can rationalize women dying of miscarriages, supports voter suppression and gerrymandering, voted for the guy who instigated a violent attack on Congress and who is in fact an existential threat to representative government and fundamental human rights.
I guess I have to remember the line about "Forgive them, they know not what they do." But I sure as hell am not forgiving to the ones who get elected or get on Faux.
How/where do you make the account. I can't find a way, and a search brought up nothing. Below my comment box I have a box for my handle, a box for my email address, an empty box (I don't have a website) and an already ticked box for "Save my name, email and website in this browser for the next time I comment".
I have a lot of friends on the right - people I've known since I was a kid. My approach these days is more or less the same as russell's. I talk about other stuff. A few of them will try to bait me into a debate on whatever topic has them spun up at the moment. It usually prompts me to say something like, just as one example, "Let's start with this: Do you think global warming is a hoax?" I respond to anything even close to a "yes" with, "There's no point in talking about this. How about those Phillies?"
I can usually play the argument we would have had in my head, anyway. I know these people.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Notes about commenting”
OK, just got up and posted the pending comments, which were only GftNC and wonkie. I'll contact you both off list this weekend and try to figure out what's up.
On “Precursors”
Well, they used to canonize Reagan, although the real St.Ronnie (as vile as many of his policies were) would be hunted out of the party these days as a RINO. It was and still is blasphemous to tell that he raised taxes (12 times iirc) when he realized that his initial tax cuts would have led straight to national bankruptcy.
"
Was Jesus, the Christ, a nationalist?
The Roman governor of the Roman province of Judea allegedly crucified Jesus of Nazareth for calling himself (or being called by others, perhaps) "King of the Jews". So, yes?
MAGAts are generally ignorant of the content, let alone the history, of their "faith". Or maybe not. Maybe "Christian Nationalist" is not an oxymoron but the modern-day culmination of the Jesus cult. Forget that whatever Jesus of Nazareth thought of "nationalism", American "patriotism" never crossed his mind. Ignore what namby-pamby Christians have to say about welcoming the stranger or caring for the poor, it's what the multimillionaire pastors of megachurches have to say that counts. Or what "martyrs" like Charlie Kirk have to say, for that matter.
The Gospel According to Saint Charles of Kirk got a curious sort of publicity boost by dint of his death. On the one hand, his "martyrdom" is purported to require veneration of his dedication to spreading his gospel. On the other hand, quoting it verbatim is blasphemy, according to the MAGAt Inquisition.
The MAGAts are determined to canonize Saint Charlie, but to forbid quoting him. Come to think of it, they don't like libruls quoting Jesus of Nazareth either.
--TP
On “Guestpost from Wonkie”
I think my approach is a less formalized version of what nous described. If we disconnect completely and irreparably, the alienation from each other and the dehumanization of each other both become that much easier. That makes people more willing to harm each other in various ways, and that's dangerous for everyone.
Someone on another thread some time ago brought up one of the ways the divide between sides during The Troubles in Northern Ireland was narrowed. IIRC, it had much to do with talking about things other than politics to rehumanize each other.
On “Notes about commenting”
Correction: the time stamp was 8.05, which is indeed GMT, so the first comment had been in moderation for almost two hours.
"
I thought I would see how long that last comment was in moderation, because I think last night the average for mine was about 40 minutes. It's now 21.02, so it's been in almost three hours, and I'm bored with checking on it, so this is just a catch up before I shut up shop. As I mentioned, all my boxes except website are filled and ticked. And Priest, the time stamp seems to be UK Summer Time, which is GMT+1.
On “Precursors”
On the Horst Wessel side of it, though, much of the religious right is referring to Kirk as "a warrior for God" and "a soldier of Christ." The Christian side of the culture wars is heavily influenced by the "spiritual warfare" types. They literally believe that they are engaged in spiritual combat against demons who have jurisdiction over geographical areas. It's very animist - I'm wondering if it isn't to Christianity what Shinto is to Buddhism. As such, I expect more hagiography, and more militant hagiography, as they seek to meld temporal military service with spiritual military service in their political theology. It's a very small narrative step from the valorization of the fallen soldier as political martyr and extending it to all of the Left Behind mythology and fantasies of one big, final End Times battle for the soul of humanity. Kirk is ideally situated for this project.
On “Notes about commenting”
Another test comment. Let's see
On “Precursors”
That's certainly what the Republicans are doing: deifying Charlie because that's how they legitimize themselves and delegitimize everyone else.
I've been thinking about Ezra Klein and his horrible fascist-enabling article about Kirk "doing politics the right way." Apparently, Ezra thinks that having public discussions where a hater gets to air the hateful crap is doing politics the right way.
I'm more in agreement with this guy who says in the article that he doesn't debate fascists. Why not? Because they are wrong, so there's nothing to discuss.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-problem-with-debating-fascists-from-a-guy-who-s-debated-just-about-everyone/ar-AA1MOhSE?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=68cc404ce9b94b64b1660870857945a1&ei=21
Medhi Hasan engages in lots of debates, not to change the mind of the person he's talking to, but to reach the people who are watching and listening.
We need to move the Overton Window so that discourse that promotes stochastic violence is not debated or discussed as if there was legitimacy to it. Just called out for what it is and rejected.
On “Notes about commenting”
Test comment. Curious about the time stamp, is it GMT?
On “Guestpost from Wonkie”
To remarkable degree, Republican messaging uses the precepts set out by Goebbels. One is to give people the thrill of fear, basically something to be outraged about that isn't real. Kind of like the fun of being scared at a horror movie. For literally decades, Republican messaging has consisted of telling people to be afraid of not-real while also telling them that the real is fake. So "They are going to take your guns!!!!" and "There is no climate change." War on Christmas, trans kids, white people are going to be a minority!!!! ect. From the safety of their armchairs, life becomes an exciting experience of being scared/outraged over imaginary threats, which is a reinforcing experience. It's fun. Allows the participant to feel virtuous and vicariously heroic by voting for the party that will smite the evil enemy without ever being in any real danger. Meanwhile, I'm sure that those people worry about real problems, but election after election they vote to fight the imaginary ones.
I think leading Dems are sort of hoping that the economy will be the real problem that breaks through this bullshit and gets enough voters to vote D to give the Dems some power in Congress and at the state level. Hence "kitchen table issues" versus R culture war bullshit. It worked in Sioux City at a special election.
On the other hand, Missouri, which is a hell hole of bad government, just keeps electing Republicans over and over.
I keep thinking of the Depression, when enough voters were suffering enough to give a reform politicians real power. Once the suffering receded to being mostly minorities, that desire for reform and improvement, that desire for government as a service for the common good, started losing elections to "I got mine, screw you, and besides you are just a (fill in the hater crap du jour)."
It is a privilege to be outraged all the time about imaginary shit.
On “Notes about commenting”
Final test, I'm now logged out but have had comments approved for this post.
"
The last one did. Testing to see if this comment goes to moderation while I'm logged in.
"
Testing to see if this comment goes to moderation or not.
"
Until now none but my first comment (as announced) went into moderation, and I just entered name and email address without opening any account.
I did not click the box "save my name..."
On “Kuzushi and Charlie Kirk”
Hartmut, great minds. I'm working on a post about this and it should be up soon.
On “Notes about commenting”
Tomorrow, when I can get on the university computers that don't have my password saved, I'll see what I can figure out.
On “Kuzushi and Charlie Kirk”
One youtube commenter succinctly put my thoughts on the current RW adulation of Kirk into just 5 words: "They found their Horst Wessel."
And their renewed attempts to blame George Soros for everything conjured up another name: Emmanuel Goldstein. The Orbanization (pun unavoidable) of the US is rapidly succeeding.
On “Guestpost from Wonkie”
Name and email saved. Website left blank. Mostly posting from Chrome.
"
Just a quick comment here, Russell's comment had to be approved, but I believe that nous' comment wasn't. So whatever nous did and Russell didn't, that is the key
"
The Republican party message is a fairy tale about how the good Republican party will save the good people from the existential threat presented by the rest of us.
My sense is that MAGA people are generally full of fear.
They're gonna take my guns. They're letting a lot of brown people in so that white people are outnumbered. Some Mexican is gonna take my job, or, if you're white collar, some South Asian is gonna take my job. They're gonna chop my kid's genitals off. They're gonna let great big guys play on my daughter's soccer team and she's gonna get run over (my (D) House Rep came out with that one).
There are actually some legitimate concerns in all of the above, and there are sensible conversations to have about them. Those conversations are not available because everybody is so freaking hyped up.
And then there are the folks whose point of view basically my life's good, I'm making money, I want to keep it that way, and if it means tasering some brown person mowing somebody's lawn or working in a restaurant kitchen or mopping floors in a hospital, I'm OK with that.
I have a friend who's an academic, a professor of psychology, who has been involved in this project for a few years trying to find ways to "bridge the divide". His approach is to get people to talk to each other, listen to each other, and try to establish some kind of empathetic connection.
My question to him is always, where the hell is that going to happen? And how are you going to scale that to a level that is going to have an actual effect on the situation we find ourselves in?
It's a mess. I have no solution. Find whatever ways are available to you to mitigate whatever harms you can, and do those.
But I don't see a path to persuading committed MAGAs to change their minds. Even if it all falls to shit around them, they'll find a way to blame on somebody, anybody, other than Trump.
He's their champion, their idol, their savior. That's no exaggeration.
"
One of the things I think about a lot WRT these conversations is the difference between retributive and restorative justice approaches. For me it's not a question of whether to forgive or not to forgive, but rather a question of whether or not a path to reconciliation can still exist, and what sort of changes might be required to effect such a reconciliation.
I'm reminded of a passage in Dave Grossman's On Killing (nota bene, Grossman is not a good person and his research is deeply flawed in my estimation, but not in a way that negates what I'm about to describe). He talks about the Japanese treatment of Chinese prisoners, and how Japanese recruits were required to bayonette helpless prisoners in front of their comrades as a way of destroying their old sense of identity and making them feel as if there was no way to redeem themselves in the eyes of their old communities. They were made monstrous in order to be wielded as monsters.
I'm always deeply concerned to try, as much as decency will allow, to leave some path back for reconciliation. It doesn't have to be (and probably shouldn't be) a free-and-easy path. They should have to do the work of restoration, of reparation, to earn that reconciliation, but unless we work to keep such a path available I don't think that we will ever be able to restore the breach.
"
I think my difficulty is... MAGA is a fascist movement--literally. People who like Prager U, Kirk, or other haters are the moral equivalent of good Germans. And most of the good Germans were, mostly, nice people.
As noted above, they only learn from being hurt themselves and even then the commitment to their groupthink often remains. The core of that groupthink is disrespect for the rest of us.
Actually disrespect isn't a strong enough word. That friend I had who claimed that Dems supported infanticide, for example. How the hell could he justify believing something that awful about other people? The Republican party message is a fairy tale about how the good Republican party will save the good people from the existential threat presented by the rest of us. How are we an existential threat? Because we (fill in the blank with current hater memes). What unites the MAGAs isn't a set of shared values or support for certain policies; it's hate for the rest of us.
Just as racists make exceptions for someone they know, MAGAs make exceptions for someone they know. But that nice person who is a good neighbor, a long time friend, goes home and chooses to indulge in hate messaging that makes the rest of us potential targets of violence because of the false claim that we are an existential threat to real true good American values.
Would my neighbor Anne object if I got shot at a protest rally? Probably. Would she object if someone else did? Not if Ingraham or Watters or someone told her that the protester had it coming.
It's weird to chat and be friendly with someone who would has no trouble seeing people get hauled off to prison in El Salvador or FL, can rationalize women dying of miscarriages, supports voter suppression and gerrymandering, voted for the guy who instigated a violent attack on Congress and who is in fact an existential threat to representative government and fundamental human rights.
I guess I have to remember the line about "Forgive them, they know not what they do." But I sure as hell am not forgiving to the ones who get elected or get on Faux.
On “Notes about commenting”
How/where do you make the account. I can't find a way, and a search brought up nothing. Below my comment box I have a box for my handle, a box for my email address, an empty box (I don't have a website) and an already ticked box for "Save my name, email and website in this browser for the next time I comment".
On “Guestpost from Wonkie”
I have a lot of friends on the right - people I've known since I was a kid. My approach these days is more or less the same as russell's. I talk about other stuff. A few of them will try to bait me into a debate on whatever topic has them spun up at the moment. It usually prompts me to say something like, just as one example, "Let's start with this: Do you think global warming is a hoax?" I respond to anything even close to a "yes" with, "There's no point in talking about this. How about those Phillies?"
I can usually play the argument we would have had in my head, anyway. I know these people.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.