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The Christian right is emboldened and on the march

  
Via:  John Russell  •  4 months ago  •  67 comments


The Christian right is emboldened and on the march
And as the Texas Tribune noted, while the prior standards said that students should learn about post-World War I racial violence “including the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and the Tulsa Race Massacre,” the new standards “instead suggested that students learn about the Klan’s ‘intolerance’ of Catholics, Jews and immigrants but did not specify Black Americans. They also changed the ‘Tulsa Race Massacre’ to the ‘Tulsa Race Riots.’”

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The Christian right is emboldened and on the march






Beware when they speak of "tolerance."


Last Friday, the right-wing majority on the Texas board of education voted to approve new social studies standards for the state’s five million public school students.

Texas students already have the Ten Commandments posted in every classroom and schools have been allowed to replace counselors with unlicensed “chaplains.” Now the state will require Bible readings for students’ entire progression through the education system.

Members of both the Republican-controlled legislature and the board were clear that they hope to inject not just religion but as much Christianity as possible into public education.

“We’re going to stop watering down American history. We’re going to teach the truth. Our nation was founded as a Christian nation, and Texas is a Christian state,” said board member Brandon Hall, a pastor from an intensely conservative part of rural north Texas.

Trump is clowning his evangelical base


What does this less-watered-down version of American history consist of? Among other things, it is animated by the venomous hatred of Muslims that has poured over GOP politics in Texas like a plague. Lessons on the theology and historical contributions of Islam are eliminated and replaced by discussion of radical Islam and the Prophet Muhammad’s “brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes, the normalization of slavery, and the taking of female captives as harem slaves.”

And as the Texas Tribune noted, while the prior standards said that students should learn about post-World War I racial violence “including the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and the Tulsa Race Massacre,” the new standards “instead suggested that students learn about the Klan’s ‘intolerance’ of Catholics, Jews and immigrants but did not specify Black Americans. They also changed the ‘Tulsa Race Massacre’ to the ‘Tulsa Race Riots.’”

It may not have garnered as much notice as the Bible stories, but the word “intolerance” is an important one.

Goodbye, separation of church and state


The problem with the KKK, of course, was not their inability to tolerate people of different religions and races; it was their decades-long campaign of terrorism. But the ascendant Christian nationalists in today’s Republican Party not only want credit for their willingness to tolerate at least some of those who are not like them, they claim that tolerance is the limit of what Christians should extend to everyone else.

In other words, their political vision is one in which Christians and Christian ideas rule, and all other Americans should expect no more than to be tolerated in a country that does not belong to them.

Conservative Christians unbound


It was a big week for the religious right in politics, since it also saw the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference in Washington.

The gathering of Christian political activists featured appearances by a parade of Republican members of the House and Senate, multiple Trump cabinet members, and the president himself. As usual, Trump’s speech rambled almost incoherently from topic to topic, but he did return multiple times to the supposed oppression of Christians, both past and future.

“These ruthless communists,” Trump said — by which he meant Democrats — “will attack all religions, but in particular, Christianity. They always do. They’re after Christianity more than any other religion. It seems to be more and more throughout the world, maybe because we’re doing so well.”

However well “we” are doing vis-a-vis “them,” in Trump’s description, the threat liberals pose to Christians is positively genocidal.

“They will close your churches in this country,” he said. “They go communist, and they’re trying to. They will kill your people. And that’s what they’re about. They want to end religion. They have to end religion because their ideology doesn’t work if you have strong religion.”

Afterward, some participants gathered in the Oval Office, where Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — who once said “we were a nation founded upon not the words of our founders, but the words of God because He wrote the Constitution” — insisted that “the separation of church and state is not in the Constitution.”

It actually is — the First Amendment’s establishment clause and free exercise clause create that separation — but the Christian right believes it has never had a better opportunity to weave support for Christianity into all levels of government policy and make its tendentious reading of the Constitution a reality. Not only do they have a president happy to do so, but the Supreme Court has for years been waging an attack on church-state separation — as long as Christians are the ones being protected.

A long succession of cases has defined ever-more ways that Christians can exempt themselves from laws they don’t like, and required government to fund their ideas, their expression, and their institutions. With each new religious liberty case, the court makes its perspective clear: If you are a football coach who was punished for holding Christian prayers at the 50-yard-line at games you’ll find a court eager to defend your rights, but if you’re a Rastafarian whose dreadlocks were forcibly shaved by prison guards, don’t expect sympathy.

Certain that the court’s conservative supermajority will continue dismantling that wall of separation, red states are seeing how far they can push their own policies. Four states — Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas — have passed laws in the last few years requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms, and other states may follow. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the posters have produced an upswing in the virtue displayed by their students. Though in fairness, it’s difficult to know whether middle schoolers in these states are now less likely than they used to be to make graven images or covet their neighbor’s wives, asses, oxen, or slaves (the coveting is all part of the Tenth Commandment).

Will Democrats become the party of faith?


Meanwhile, the Trump administration is stocked with unapologetic Christian nationalists like OMB Director Russell Vought, the architect of the administration’s dismantling of the federal government.

“Part of being a nation is a shared religious heritage. And in America, that historical heritage is, of course, Christianity,” Vought wrote in a 2021 column defending Christian nationalism. The secretary of defense has multiple Crusader tattoos, and has instituted monthly Christian prayer services featuring far-right clerics, including at least one who advocates the establishment of a Christian theocracy. Official government social media accounts regularly send out sectarian Christian messages.

And as Vice President JD Vance said at a Turning Point USA event in December, “the only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God, we always will be, a Christian nation.”

A rejection of pluralism


What all these efforts amount to is an emphatic rejection of religious pluralism, the principle that was embedded in the founding and has defined the American religious context for 250 years.

America, today’s right says, may include people of many religions, but is fundamentally of, by, and for Christians — and only Christians. Everyone else is merely tolerated, here at the sufferance of those who believe in the country’s true religion.

It’s the same way that Vance implicitly describes immigrants and their descendants in the multiple blood-and-soil speeches he has given over the last few years, insisting that the heart of America lies not in its ideals but in those who have been here, as his family has, for multiple generations. They are the truest Americans, Vance wants us to believe, and those who came more recently can at best expect only to be tolerated.

But the whole point of establishing religious pluralism — one of the things that made the American experiment so radical in the late 18th century — was that people of various faiths would not merely be tolerated by the Protestants who ran the country. Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or followers of any other religion — or no religion at all — would be full citizens in every sense, because the country belonged to everyone.

That may have only sometimes been true in practice. But the ideal of religious pluralism — and the labor of those who would force the country to live up to it — not only helped the country survive, it’s the primary reason why America today has higher rates of religiosity than most similar countries that watched their moribund state churches steadily lose adherents.

How MAGA learned to love Christian persecution


In August 1790, Moses Seixas, leader of the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, wrote a letter to President George Washington expressing his gratitude for the Constitution which guaranteed people of all faiths an equal place in this new nation. Washington replied a few days later, reiterating to Seixas the importance of that equality, and specifically rejecting the notion of toleration.

“All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship,” Washington wrote. “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”

Today, toleration is spoken of plenty, by those who view it as a generous favor they do for the Americans who do not share their beliefs. They know well that the country is growing more religiously diverse all the time; Christians now make up around 63 percent of Americans, while just a few decades ago they were over 90 percent.

So the religious right claims to be oppressed victims, while pushing harder every year to give their religion official government status. They seek the power not just to worship as they wish but to impose their beliefs on the rest of us. If only they understood what the tradition of American religious liberty is actually about.


Last Friday, the right-wing majority on the Texas board of education voted to approve new social studies standards for the state’s five million public school students.

Texas students already have the Ten Commandments posted in every classroom and schools have been allowed to replace counselors with unlicensed “chaplains.” Now the state will require Bible readings for students’ entire progression through the education system.

Members of both the Republican-controlled legislature and the board were clear that they hope to inject not just religion but as much Christianity as possible into public education.

“We’re going to stop watering down American history. We’re going to teach the truth. Our nation was founded as a Christian nation, and Texas is a Christian state,” said board member Brandon Hall, a pastor from an intensely conservative part of rural north Texas.

Trump is clowning his evangelical base


What does this less-watered-down version of American history consist of? Among other things, it is animated by the venomous hatred of Muslims that has poured over GOP politics in Texas like a plague. Lessons on the theology and historical contributions of Islam are eliminated and replaced by discussion of radical Islam and the Prophet Muhammad’s “brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes, the normalization of slavery, and the taking of female captives as harem slaves.”

And as the Texas Tribune noted, while the prior standards said that students should learn about post-World War I racial violence “including the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and the Tulsa Race Massacre,” the new standards “instead suggested that students learn about the Klan’s ‘intolerance’ of Catholics, Jews and immigrants but did not specify Black Americans. They also changed the ‘Tulsa Race Massacre’ to the ‘Tulsa Race Riots.’”

It may not have garnered as much notice as the Bible stories, but the word “intolerance” is an important one.

Goodbye, separation of church and state


The problem with the KKK, of course, was not their inability to tolerate people of different religions and races; it was their decades-long campaign of terrorism. But the ascendant Christian nationalists in today’s Republican Party not only want credit for their willingness to tolerate at least some of those who are not like them, they claim that tolerance is the limit of what Christians should extend to everyone else.

In other words, their political vision is one in which Christians and Christian ideas rule, and all other Americans should expect no more than to be tolerated in a country that does not belong to them.

Conservative Christians unbound


It was a big week for the religious right in politics, since it also saw the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference in Washington.

The gathering of Christian political activists featured appearances by a parade of Republican members of the House and Senate, multiple Trump cabinet members, and the president himself. As usual, Trump’s speech rambled almost incoherently from topic to topic, but he did return multiple times to the supposed oppression of Christians, both past and future.

“These ruthless communists,” Trump said — by which he meant Democrats — “will attack all religions, but in particular, Christianity. They always do. They’re after Christianity more than any other religion. It seems to be more and more throughout the world, maybe because we’re doing so well.”

However well “we” are doing vis-a-vis “them,” in Trump’s description, the threat liberals pose to Christians is positively genocidal.

“They will close your churches in this country,” he said. “They go communist, and they’re trying to. They will kill your people. And that’s what they’re about. They want to end religion. They have to end religion because their ideology doesn’t work if you have strong religion.”

Afterward, some participants gathered in the Oval Office, where Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — who once said “we were a nation founded upon not the words of our founders, but the words of God because He wrote the Constitution” — insisted that “the separation of church and state is not in the Constitution.”

It actually is — the First Amendment’s establishment clause and free exercise clause create that separation — but the Christian right believes it has never had a better opportunity to weave support for Christianity into all levels of government policy and make its tendentious reading of the Constitution a reality. Not only do they have a president happy to do so, but the Supreme Court has for years been waging an attack on church-state separation — as long as Christians are the ones being protected.

A long succession of cases has defined ever-more ways that Christians can exempt themselves from laws they don’t like, and required government to fund their ideas, their expression, and their institutions. With each new religious liberty case, the court makes its perspective clear: If you are a football coach who was punished for holding Christian prayers at the 50-yard-line at games you’ll find a court eager to defend your rights, but if you’re a Rastafarian whose dreadlocks were forcibly shaved by prison guards, don’t expect sympathy.

Certain that the court’s conservative supermajority will continue dismantling that wall of separation, red states are seeing how far they can push their own policies. Four states — Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas — have passed laws in the last few years requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms, and other states may follow. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the posters have produced an upswing in the virtue displayed by their students. Though in fairness, it’s difficult to know whether middle schoolers in these states are now less likely than they used to be to make graven images or covet their neighbor’s wives, asses, oxen, or slaves (the coveting is all part of the Tenth Commandment).

Will Democrats become the party of faith?


Meanwhile, the Trump administration is stocked with unapologetic Christian nationalists like OMB Director Russell Vought, the architect of the administration’s dismantling of the federal government.

“Part of being a nation is a shared religious heritage. And in America, that historical heritage is, of course, Christianity,” Vought wrote in a 2021 column defending Christian nationalism. The secretary of defense has multiple Crusader tattoos, and has instituted monthly Christian prayer services featuring far-right clerics, including at least one who advocates the establishment of a Christian theocracy. Official government social media accounts regularly send out sectarian Christian messages.

And as Vice President JD Vance said at a Turning Point USA event in December, “the only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been, and by the grace of God, we always will be, a Christian nation.”

A rejection of pluralism


What all these efforts amount to is an emphatic rejection of religious pluralism, the principle that was embedded in the founding and has defined the American religious context for 250 years.

America, today’s right says, may include people of many religions, but is fundamentally of, by, and for Christians — and only Christians. Everyone else is merely tolerated, here at the sufferance of those who believe in the country’s true religion.

It’s the same way that Vance implicitly describes immigrants and their descendants in the multiple blood-and-soil speeches he has given over the last few years, insisting that the heart of America lies not in its ideals but in those who have been here, as his family has, for multiple generations. They are the truest Americans, Vance wants us to believe, and those who came more recently can at best expect only to be tolerated.

But the whole point of establishing religious pluralism — one of the things that made the American experiment so radical in the late 18th century — was that people of various faiths would not merely be tolerated by the Protestants who ran the country. Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or followers of any other religion — or no religion at all — would be full citizens in every sense, because the country belonged to everyone.

That may have only sometimes been true in practice. But the ideal of religious pluralism — and the labor of those who would force the country to live up to it — not only helped the country survive, it’s the primary reason why America today has higher rates of religiosity than most similar countries that watched their moribund state churches steadily lose adherents.

How MAGA learned to love Christian persecution


In August 1790, Moses Seixas, leader of the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, wrote a letter to President George Washington expressing his gratitude for the Constitution which guaranteed people of all faiths an equal place in this new nation. Washington replied a few days later, reiterating to Seixas the importance of that equality, and specifically rejecting the notion of toleration.

“All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship,” Washington wrote. “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”

Today, toleration is spoken of plenty, by those who view it as a generous favor they do for the Americans who do not share their beliefs. They know well that the country is growing more religiously diverse all the time; Christians now make up around 63 percent of Americans, while just a few decades ago they were over 90 percent.

So the religious right claims to be oppressed victims, while pushing harder every year to give their religion official government status. They seek the power not just to worship as they wish but to impose their beliefs on the rest of us. If only they understood what the tradition of American religious liberty is actually about.

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Funny, I thought Madison wrote the Constitution but now I learn from Dan Patrick that God did. God didn't even write the Bible!! By the way Mr. Patrick, the Founders left England to escape religious persecution. As for JD, I can trace my ancestry back to the beginning of the US. I guess that makes me super special. I am a white woman and I reject their bigotry!! I am sick and tired of old, white men telling us that they're f*cking special and the rest of us must bow down to them.

“Intolerance is evidence of impotence.” -Aleister Crowley (1875-1947)




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JohnRussell
Professor Principal
1  seeder  JohnRussell    4 months ago
But the whole point of establishing religious pluralism — one of the things that made the American experiment so radical in the late 18th century — was that people of various faiths would not merely be tolerated by the Protestants who ran the country. Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or followers of any other religion — or no religion at all — would be full citizens in every sense, because the country belonged to everyone.
 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
1.1  devangelical  replied to  JohnRussell @1    4 months ago

nothing like the old tried and true red scare to bring out most of the thumper morons on the right ...

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
1.1.1  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  devangelical @1.1    4 months ago

The Christian right is emboldened and on the march

Not like we haven't seen them on the march before...

3000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none bigots-get-boost-from-bully-pulpit.jpg?branch=production nazi-official-heinrich-himmler-taking-the-salute-at-a-parade-he-was-later-appointed-head-of-all.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=5ID6JR5H0ePeLLYCLPAhZ4ydJ7-Watk0Bnwa1SdkIVs=

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
2  Trout Giggles    4 months ago

Every one stay away from Texas. And if you live there, get out while you can

 
 
 
evilone
Professor Guide
2.1  evilone  replied to  Trout Giggles @2    4 months ago
Every one stay away from Texas.

No... more moderates need to step up and take accountability and stop the populist hijacking of their politics.

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
2.1.1  Trout Giggles  replied to  evilone @2.1    4 months ago

Yeah...but if the US continues with its moderate policies (if we can get them back), Texas won;t have any choice but to secede. And to that I say...good riddance. There's nothing in TX worth saving anyway.

I lived in West TX for almost 7 years. I know what I'm talking about

 
 
 
evilone
Professor Guide
2.1.2  evilone  replied to  Trout Giggles @2.1.1    4 months ago
Yeah...but if the US continues with its moderate policies (if we can get them back), Texas won;t have any choice but to secede. And to that I say...good riddance. There's nothing in TX worth saving anyway.

Except the US isn't continuing with it's moderate policies, it's being torn in two by extreme ideologies. 

I lived in West TX for almost 7 years. I know what I'm talking about

I have family there and my son is talking about moving his family to the Dallas area too. 

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
2.1.3  Trout Giggles  replied to  evilone @2.1.2    4 months ago

West TX isn't the ass end of the world but you drive to it from there.

Except the US isn't continuing with it's moderate policies, it's being torn in two by extreme ideologies.

of course you're right

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
2.1.4  devangelical  replied to  Trout Giggles @2.1.3    4 months ago

[deleteed][✘]

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
2.1.5  Trout Giggles  replied to  devangelical @2.1.4    4 months ago

They're not gonna meet Jesus.

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
2.1.6  devangelical  replied to  Trout Giggles @2.1.5    4 months ago

once they realize that, it'll be too late anyway ...

I don't care whether they meet him or not, I just want them to get in line ...

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
2.1.7  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  devangelical @2.1.4    4 months ago
look at the bright side, they all want to meet geezus, and we can help them do that ...

All I'd like to help them do is pull their heads out of Trumps ass. After that we can work on cleaning the sticky residue their off heads, necks and faces and turning them back into patriotic Americans. I mean, my cousins in Arkansas have always been a bit slow and stuck in their ways, but they weren't such complete raging bigoted morons, or at least they didn't express that side of themselves much, until Trump came to power. Once they metaphorically 'stuffed their heads up his ass' as so many hardline rightwing Christian conservatives did, I haven't had one normal conversation with them since. And while I am ashamed of them for what they have supported and done to this nation, I would still like them back to the way they were before Trump.

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
2.1.8  devangelical  replied to  Dismayed Patriot @2.1.7    4 months ago
I would still like them back to the way they were before Trump

theocrats, neo-nazis and white supremacists without representation in the oval office ...

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
3  Sean Treacy    4 months ago

Another  race Communist who thinks America deserved 9/11 and who refuses to  condemn the fire bombing murder of a holocaust survivor as anti semitism defeats a 30 year far left progressive and the deflection is to claim “the Christian far right is in on the march”

you almost have to admire the brazenness of the deflection.  Anything to distract from seeing what the Democratic Party has become.  

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
3.1  seeder  JohnRussell  replied to  Sean Treacy @3    4 months ago

Why do you call the writer a race communist?  Is that your new catchall insult? 

 
 
 
evilone
Professor Guide
3.1.1  evilone  replied to  JohnRussell @3.1    4 months ago
Why do you call the writer a race communist?

Marxist, socialist, communist... it's in the right-wing populist playbook under insults for liberals. They hijacked words and ideas and use them so interchangeably they hold no meaning any more.

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
3.1.2  Trout Giggles  replied to  evilone @3.1.1    4 months ago

It word be a more meaningful insult if they actually learned the definition of the terms they throat us. 

I'm still chuckling over communist fascist

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
3.1.3  Sean Treacy  replied to  JohnRussell @3.1    4 months ago

Becuase that’s what they are. Pay attention to what they say:


Darializa Avila Chevalier: "I came to my politics of democratic socialism through a race lens. I was doing a lot of reading of the black radical tradition... There is no economic justice without without racial justice.

race Communists who are obsessed  with destroying capitalism and avenging their race based grievances. It’s simply short had for the woke equity fanatics.

 
 
 
evilone
Professor Guide
3.1.4  evilone  replied to  Sean Treacy @3.1.3    4 months ago
Communists who are obsessed  with destroying capitalism and avenging their race based grievances.

When you call Democratic Socialists communists it totally destroys the credibility of your post. I personally think left wing populists are jumping on the democratic socialist bandwagon and are as unhinged as the MAGA right-wing populist Republicans. ...bur for god's sake use the terms properly.

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
3.1.5  Sean Treacy  replied to  evilone @3.1.4    4 months ago

DSA: we want to seize the means of production and destroy capitalism. 

democrats: how dare you call them communists!

 
 
 
evilone
Professor Guide
3.1.6  evilone  replied to  Sean Treacy @3.1.5    4 months ago
DSA: we want to seize the means of production and destroy capitalism.  democrats: how dare you call them communists!

Yep... All propaganda and no credibility.

 
 
 
Mark in Wyoming
Professor Silent
3.1.7  Mark in Wyoming   replied to  Trout Giggles @3.1.2    4 months ago
communist fascist

Likely would have made more sense if authoritative communist had been used .

 who really wants an authoritarian  government telling individuals what they can and cant do, no matter what the flavor politically is  or whatever reasoning they use for being so?

it is all about power and control , and who appears to have it , and who does not .

I think this line from , the Patriot " can explain it better ,  should i worry about the tyrant 3000 miles away , or the 3000 tyrants one mile away ? which is actually the greater danger in reality ?

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
3.1.8  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  evilone @3.1.4    4 months ago
but for god's sake use the terms properly.

They can't though. If they did, it would ruin their attempted insult. They don't really care about the actual definitions of 'communist' or 'socialist', they just see them as insults because let's face it, education and deeper learning isn't rightwing conservatives' strong suit. They prefer regurgitating rightwing media rhetoric and of course the way they repeat it reveals them as ideal Trump supporters, that is to say, very 'poorly educated' groveling followers.

"We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated," - Donald J Trump
 
 
 
evilone
Professor Guide
3.1.9  evilone  replied to  Dismayed Patriot @3.1.8    4 months ago

It's the educated propagandists that still just want to rage bait hyper-partisans, that really pisses me off. They can't make a cogent logical argument for the dumbshit they want so they twist it. 

If I call X, a bad thing my followers will be outraged and then X will be outraged and I feel so important and powerful. /s

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
3.1.10  Trout Giggles  replied to  Mark in Wyoming @3.1.7    4 months ago

I know I don't want to live under any authoritative government no matter the "flavor"

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
3.1.11  devangelical  replied to  evilone @3.1.9    4 months ago
They can't make a cogent logical argument for the dumbshit they want so they twist it.

... at what point is it a lost cause? he and his supporters are ideologically cornered ...

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
3.1.12  devangelical  replied to  Trout Giggles @3.1.10    4 months ago
I don't want to live under any authoritative government

they do because they still believe they'll be unaffected, the number of maga vets used to being ordered around bear that out ...

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
3.1.13  Trout Giggles  replied to  devangelical @3.1.12    4 months ago

We weren't told to blindly follow orders. But wait...I was Air Force. We were expected to use our brains. And think for ourselves. Tho there were a few officers who didn't like the enlisted to think for themselves

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
3.1.14  Sean Treacy  replied to  evilone @3.1.6    4 months ago

Lenin’s useful idiots has never been more accurate.

they litteraly tell you what they are and what they want to do and the progressive  response is “propaganda”

perfect.

 
 
 
evilone
Professor Guide
3.1.15  evilone  replied to  devangelical @3.1.11    4 months ago
... at what point is it a lost cause?

At conception? 

 
 
 
evilone
Professor Guide
3.1.16  evilone  replied to  Sean Treacy @3.1.14    4 months ago
Lenin’s useful idiots has never been more accurate.

MAGA 'influencers' work out of the Joseph Goebbels playbook.. 

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
3.1.17  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  Sean Treacy @3.1.14    4 months ago
they litteraly tell you what they are and what they want to do and the progressive  response is “propaganda”

Well, here is what they "literally" tell us they are:

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) platform advocates for democratic control of the economy and society to meet human needs rather than maximizing corporate profits. Their core political and economic policies span several key pillars: [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]
Economy and Labor
  • Workplace & Wages: Mandating a 32-hour work week with no reduction in pay.
  • Unionization: Strengthening labor laws to make it easier to form and join unions, and protecting the right to strike.
  • Taxation: Implementing a wealth tax, heavily taxing large inheritances, and increasing taxes on top earners and for-profit corporations. [ 1 , 2 ]
Social and Environmental Policy
  • Green New Deal: Transitioning away from fossil fuels through massive public infrastructure investments, creating green jobs, and placing energy and transportation under public ownership. [ 1 , 2 ]
  • Medicare for All: Establishing a single, government-run national program providing comprehensive healthcare for all Americans. [ 1 , 2 ]
  • Housing & Education: Guaranteeing housing as a right via universal rent control, and eliminating tuition for public higher education and childcare. [ 1 , 2 ]
Foreign Policy & Justice
  • Non-Interventionism: Reducing the U.S. military footprint, cutting defense budgets, and ending global economic warfare.
  • Abolitionist Framework: Shrinking and ultimately eliminating carceral forces—including police and prisons—while reinvesting in community self-governance and care. [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) -

I see nothing in their mission statement that says they " want to seize the means of production and destroy capitalism".

I see some pie in the sky desires that are never going to pass like the wealth tax, "heavily taxing inheritance", Medicare for all, universal rent control and eliminating college tuition, but I support strengthening labor laws to make it easier for workers to unionize, transitioning from fossil fuels, creating green jobs, cutting defense budgets and reducing/eliminating for-profit prisons.

It's easy for some ignorant conservatives to reduce anyone who says they're a 'socialist' to a simple uninformed stereotype, and perhaps they do so because they're either lazy or not very smart. But the reality is that both understanding the different forms that socialism can take as well as the motivations behind the people who are self-identifying as socialists can give one an actual leg to stand when attempting to be critical. Otherwise, it just makes a person look stupid.

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
3.1.18  Sean Treacy  replied to  Dismayed Patriot @3.1.17    4 months ago

[deleted][✘]

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
3.1.19  seeder  JohnRussell  replied to  Dismayed Patriot @3.1.17    4 months ago

MAGAs dont want a better life, they want an angrier, more grievance filled life. 

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
3.1.20  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  Sean Treacy @3.1.18    4 months ago
Do you only cite offical republican position papers when you start your unhinged rants attributing beliefs to republicans?

Anyone is free to post Republicans official position to refute any of the beliefs I may have attributed to Republicans, just as I posted the DSA's. I don't think it's going to help much because I don't believe I have falsely accused Republicans of some specific belief. It's likely you're thinking of beliefs I've attributed to 'rightwing conservative Christians' and 'rightwing Christo-fascists', and 'rightwing religious conservatives' or 'confederate loving neo-Nazi's', so if you can find an official position from those groups, or manifesto or whatever, by all means, please do post it. But I can understand the confusion since those are all groups and types of people that, at least in America today, consider themselves republicans.

But the fact is, I only posted the DSA's position in this case because you essentially asked for it. You were the one who claimed they literally said something which I literally couldn't find when I looked. Although, to be exact you said they "litteraly tell you what they are" so perhaps you were giving us a clue as to the origin of your claim.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
3.1.21  seeder  JohnRussell  replied to  Sean Treacy @3.1.3    4 months ago
"I came to my politics of democratic socialism through a race lens. I was doing a lot of reading of the black radical tradition... There is no economic justice without without racial justice.

big effing deal

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Guide
3.1.22  MrFrost  replied to  Sean Treacy @3.1.3    4 months ago
woke equity fanatics.

What are they aware of that you feel they should not be aware of?

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
3.1.23  Trout Giggles  replied to  MrFrost @3.1.22    4 months ago

reality

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
3.1.24  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  MrFrost @3.1.22    4 months ago
What are they aware of that you feel they should not be aware of?

When a white nationalist or white supremacist spends so much of their time trying to obfuscate their deep-seated racist hate and weak fearful xenophobia out of concern of being ostracized by society, there's nothing that pisses them off more than someone bringing attention to it.

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Guide
3.1.25  MrFrost  replied to  Trout Giggles @3.1.23    4 months ago

True

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Guide
3.1.26  MrFrost  replied to  Dismayed Patriot @3.1.24    4 months ago
there's nothing that pisses them off more than someone bringing attention to it.

Bingo. 

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Guide
3.1.27  MrFrost  replied to  JohnRussell @3.1.19    4 months ago
they want an angrier, more grievance filled life. 

Well, to be fair, they want whatever get's the billionaires more money.

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.2  bugsy  replied to  Sean Treacy @3    4 months ago

I will wait for one of these leftist members post an article about the rise of Socialism in the democratic party.

When these three communists won in New York a couple of weeks ago, leftists started calling Mamdami the ‘king maker’

I guess ‘no kings’ is allowed in republican party, but the democratic party is all in for one. 

 
 
 
TᵢG
Professor Principal
3.2.1  TᵢG  replied to  bugsy @3.2    4 months ago
When these three communists won in New York a couple of weeks ago, leftists started calling Mamdami the ‘king maker’

Show us all that you know the difference between a communist and a social democrat.   What are the defining characteristics of a social democrat and what are the defining characteristics of a communist?   I will assume that by 'communist' you are referring to the meaning established by the former USSR, Chairman Mao, etc.

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Guide
3.2.2  MrFrost  replied to  TᵢG @3.2.1    4 months ago
Show us all that you know the difference between a communist and a social democrat. 

You are in for a long wait...mostly because they have no idea. 

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Guide
3.2.3  MrFrost  replied to  bugsy @3.2    4 months ago
but the democratic party is all in for one. 

List them.

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
3.2.4  devangelical  replied to  MrFrost @3.2.2    4 months ago

... stuck on stupid.

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.2.5  bugsy  replied to  MrFrost @3.2.3    4 months ago
List them.

Pay attention.

The democratic socialists (now leaders of the democratic party, named Mamdami a "kingmaker"

Mamdani becomes New York's political kingmaker after stunning primary sweep

Why is your party OK with openly making kings but have poutrage over Trump who has never indicated he wants to be a king?

Your party embraced a group of people who want to abolish the police, reopen borders to anyone and everyone, close down prisons, steal private property to give to the lazy, etc, etc, etc

What 80/20 or 90/10 issue has the democratic (socialist and communist) party been on the 80 or 90 side?

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
3.2.6  devangelical  replied to  MrFrost @3.2.3    4 months ago

he can't, it's deflection time ...

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.2.7  bugsy  replied to  devangelical @3.2.4    4 months ago

[✘]

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.2.8  bugsy  replied to  devangelical @3.2.6    4 months ago

[✘]

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
3.2.9  JBB  replied to  bugsy @3.2.5    4 months ago

original

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
3.2.10  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  devangelical @3.2.6    4 months ago
it's deflection time ...

Not just deflection, complete bullshit time where they drag out the tire stupid claims of Democrats giving money to the 'lazy' or 'Cadillac driving welfare queens'. It's what low IQ bigots do when they get backed into a corner. And as long as you know what it is and that they're not really being hurt by anything but their own ignorance, it can be amusing to watch them bare their tiny teeth and shriek in impotence.

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.2.11  bugsy  replied to  Dismayed Patriot @3.2.10    4 months ago

So prove me wrong....

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.2.12  bugsy  replied to  JBB @3.2.9    4 months ago

Whatever you want to call them, the DSA is a party of socialists and communists. They have members that have admitted to it.

I posted a survey yesterday that showed approximately 80 percent of DSA members identify either as Maoist or Marxist, with the remainder identifying as socialist.

The end result of socialism is communism, and there a many already there. 

BTW...without going strictly by feelings, point out EXACTLY why Trump is a fascist

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
3.2.13  devangelical  replied to  bugsy @3.2.12    4 months ago
Trump is a fascist

you remember what the commies did to the nazis in WWII, right? is the bunker under the new ballroom done yet?

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.2.14  bugsy  replied to  devangelical @3.2.13    4 months ago

[✘]

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
3.2.15  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  bugsy @3.2.11    4 months ago
So prove me wrong....

Don't need to, you haven't proven you're right so there is nothing to disprove. Besides, that's like trying to catch a fart and paint it green. And frankly I'm too busy laughing at conservatives trying to catch Trumps farts so they can sniff them or save them in a jar on their doublewide's fake fireplace mantle. But you can try and prove yourself right anytime, perhaps after you get some of that "fresh air" you've been seeking off Fox News.

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.2.16  bugsy  replied to  Dismayed Patriot @3.2.15    4 months ago

Every post I have made on this thread includes a fact.

Prove any of them wrong

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.2.17  bugsy  replied to  Dismayed Patriot @3.2.15    4 months ago

[✘]

 
 
 
Dismayed Patriot
Professor Quiet
3.2.18  Dismayed Patriot  replied to  bugsy @3.2.12    4 months ago
without going strictly by feelings, point out EXACTLY why Trump is a fascist

Fascism is an authoritarian, far-right political ideology that prioritizes the nation and race over the individual . It relies on dictatorial leadership, militant nationalism, and the forcible suppression of opposition. The term originated with Benito Mussolini in Italy and is characterized by strict societal and economic control.

Core Characteristics of Fascism
    • Ultranationalism & Hierarchy: Fascism promotes an aggressive sense of national or racial superiority and emphasizes a rigid social hierarchy. [ 1 , 2 ]

White conservative Christians who believe they're superior to minority groups and religions.

How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics - Center for American Progress

The Republican Party and Racism - Democratic Erosion

The Radicalization of the Republican Party: How We Got Here

    • Authoritarianism: Power is typically concentrated in a single, dictatorial leader who commands supreme authority without democratic oversight or individual liberties. [ 1 , 2 ]

Is there any question after watching Trump supporters grovel before their criminal dear Leader?

U.S. is sliding toward authoritarianism, hundreds of scholars say : NPR

    • Suppression of Dissent: Free speech, a free press, labor unions, and opposition political parties are strictly banned or forcefully dismantled . [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]

All under attack in the Trump administration.

Trump’s assault on the First Amendment | International Bar Association

Trump attacks Democrats as ‘godless communists’ in test of midterms message | Donald Trump | The Guardian

Trump urges justice department to prosecute political opponents

  • Militarism & Violence: The state glorifies military power, violence, and war as necessary tools for national rebirth and expansion. [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]

Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act to quell anti-ICE protests in Minnesota

Eight people have died in dealings with ICE so far in 2026. These are their stories | ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) | The Guardian

Trump expands targets for possible military deployment to more Democratic-led cities | PBS News

Now I know whiny little petulant rightwing conservatives aren't actually going to read most of those links that articulate a clear and obvious movement towards fascism among rightwing conservatism, but they could. But then that would mean they were getting educated and learning things and becoming aware of reality and, eventually becoming the very thing they've been taught to hate and fear, WOKE!!!!

jrSmiley_42_smiley_image.gif

 
 
 
TᵢG
Professor Principal
3.2.19  TᵢG  replied to  bugsy @3.2.12    4 months ago
The end result of socialism is communism, and there a many already there. 

The idealized result of socialism per Marx is communism per Marx.   

  • State the defining characteristics of socialism per Marx.
  • State the defining characteristics of communism per Marx.

I do not believe you can, so here is your opportunity to prove otherwise.

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
3.2.20  seeder  JohnRussell  replied to  Dismayed Patriot @3.2.18    4 months ago

TMI - /s

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Guide
3.2.21  MrFrost  replied to  bugsy @3.2.5    4 months ago
Trump who has never indicated he wants to be a king?

Trump said he wanted to be like Xi, president for life... Nice try. 

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Guide
3.2.22  MrFrost  replied to  bugsy @3.2.16    4 months ago

Prove any of them wrong

I just did....that was easy. 

 
 
 
MrFrost
Professor Guide
3.2.23  MrFrost  replied to  bugsy @3.2.5    4 months ago
Mamdami

I guess I missed the part where he was elected president. 

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
3.2.24  devangelical  replied to  MrFrost @3.2.23    4 months ago

funny how maga can so easily leap to the extremes when it's a democrat they're criticizing ...

 
 

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