“Yes, this is an age of moral crisis. Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil. But it is not man who is now on trial and it is not human nature that will take the blame. It is your moral code that’s through, this time. Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality—you who have never known any—but to discover it. “
-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
I had intended to address a certain article a couple of weeks ago, but it is amazing that in that time, it has actually become more relevant. On June 8, Andrew Sullivan had his weekly column in New York Magazine, discussing the Trump Administration policy of separating migrant families at the border, which he actually referred to as “state terror”, just before Samantha Bee blew things up with her comments on the subject, which was just before the whole thing metastasized this week.
Because while the first part of the column addressed the evil psychology of the Trump Administration, the second part of the column moved to a different subject that Sullivan didn’t seem to think was related. The same week, the Supreme Court rendered a decision in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, where the Court under Anthony Kennedy ruled for the plaintiff against Colorado, on the grounds that the opinion of the Civil Rights Commission in the original case constituted prejudice towards the baker. Sullivan referred to this quote by Kennedy:
“To describe a man’s faith as ‘one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use’ is to disparage his religion in at least two distinct ways: by describing it as despicable, and also by characterizing it as merely rhetorical — something insubstantial and even insincere.” Sullivan says, “a growing number of people, many of them exactly kind of person who sits on a civil-rights commission in a blue state, do actually and sincerely feel contempt for religion and religious belief. … When it comes to full-on fundamentalists, the capacity for some scrap of mutual understanding is increasingly remote. The more distant you are — socially, geographically, generationally, culturally — from anyone who practices religion in any serious way, the harder it is to empathize, and to see these cases as a conflict at all. It simply seems incredible that someone would hold these views faithfully. ”
The thing is, while a lot of coast people in blue states might not live next door to folks who practice religion “in a serious way”, their main exposure to fundamentalists and other “serious” believers is through their increasing attempts to influence the political sphere, which have become that much more obvious as the Evangelical community and Donald Trump have embraced each other. Such politicized religion may or may not be insincere or insubstantial, but it is definitely wielded with rhetorical purpose, and the results are often despicable.
For example, it was a bit of a surprise when evangelist Franklin Graham spoke out last week against the government’s child caging policy. I say it’s a surprise given his past history. In 2015, Graham got on Facebook to say: “Listen up–Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and everybody else. Most police shootings can be avoided. It comes down to respect for authority and obedience.” This got a negative response from many, including liberal Christians. Previously, Graham had broadly endorsed the Trump Administration, agreeing that Muslims should be “vetted” before being allowed to enter the United States. In 2010, Graham talked about Barack Obama, telling CNN “”I think the president’s problem is that he was born a Muslim; his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother.”
With regard to “respect for authority and obedience,” this sentiment was reflected recently in the position of the Trump Administration, in a statement by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who approved the official family separation policy at the border. As part of a public statement, Sessions told the press, “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” he said. “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”
The text in question is (King James Version):
“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”
It’s sort of like the Chinese Mandate of Heaven, where the existence of a dynasty was proof that it was favored by God (or the celestial hierarchy) and if a government fell, that was proof that the Emperor had lost his Mandate. Of course, the problem with such a theory in either case is that it is only “proven” after the fact.
But it’s one thing to go back to the context of an evangelist in Rome, speaking to Christians in Rome and counseling them how to live as a minority under a hostile government. But for a high government official to quote this passage to say we should obey the government is a too-convenient support of ulterior motives, much as it would be if the new Surgeon General told us that smoking is good for you even though he’s simultaneously the CEO of RJ Reynolds. This being the Trump Administration, I expect that scenario to play out over the next three months.
In his latest column, Sullivan actually says that the only way to end what two weeks ago he referred to as “state terror” is to just give Trump his border wall, which strikes me as giving in to the hostage taker after he’s lowered his gun. Not only is the wall (and the child caging) a wasteful boondoggle by fiscal conservative standards, by Sullivan’s own admission, neither of the two parties is organized enough to pass any bill on the subject. Recall that earlier this year, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi endorsed a plan to have a DACA bill that included funding for a wall, and Trump shot it down. And Sullivan says “what I’m proposing here is something bigger.” You never negotiate with a terrorist, particularly one who is less mentally stable than Heath Ledger’s Joker.
In Sullivan’s take, “Democrats need to accept that they lost the last presidential election for a reason, and that their opponent’s main campaign pledge was to tackle illegal immigration, with a wall at the southern border as the centerpiece. ” Uh, no. Granted, being anti-immigrant was a big part of the Trump appeal, but we know that the Republicans were no less nativist when a half-African president was running for re-election. To say that Trump had a central campaign pledge is to say that the campaign had a central premise besides Fuck Hillary and Make Liberals Cry. The Democrats lost because when they nominated Hillary Clinton, they sent a clear signal that they didn’t care about flyover country, or people “of color” or even women. But let us not forget (as if liberals will let you) that Clinton still won more votes than Trump. That implies that her voter base would have been that much stronger if she’d been, y’know, competent.
Because while the long-term problem is that neither of the two “real” parties has serious leadership or ideas, the short-term problem and immediate threat is that the “conservative” party is actively destructive to ideas, and to the political system, and to social norms. And it’s the social norms that conservatives are supposed to care about.
Earlier this year, there was a Politico article where the author compared Franklin Graham’s ministry to that of his famous father Billy Graham, and said that in comparison to his father,
“Franklin Graham seems blissfully unaware of the possibility that there might be even the slimmest of gaps between the words that come out of his mouth and the words written down in scripture. More damningly, he demonstrates no awareness of the ways in which his political pronouncements are breaking down the evangelical witness his father devoted so much energy to building up. … The most significant development in American religion in recent years is the shocking rise of the religiously unaffiliated (otherwise known as “nones”), who now account for roughly one quarter of all Americans. This increasing distance from religious institutions is accompanied by increasing distance from religious beliefs and practices. Today 27 percent of Americans describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” and another 18 percent as “neither religious nor spiritual.” There are many reasons for this decline in religious believing and belonging. But the most important in my view is the increasing identification of the Christian churches with right-wing politics. If you are among the 26 percent of eligible voters who voted for Trump, you likely applaud this development. But what about the other 74 percent? “
And I bring up Graham because, in his willingness to break with Trump in even one particular, he’s one of the better preachers. As opposed to the other prominent evangelicals who’ve said that Trump deserves a “mulligan” over his adulterous history.
PAHRUMP, Nev. (Reuters) – He styles himself as America’s best-known pimp, a strip-club owner who runs multiple brothels and looks set to win a seat as a Republican in the Nevada legislature with the blessing of many conservative Christian voters.
Meet Dennis Hof, whose political rise reflects fundamental changes in electoral norms that have roiled the Republican Party and upended American politics during the era of President Donald Trump.
“This really is the Trump movement,” Hof, 71, told Reuters in an interview at Moonlite BunnyRanch, his brothel near Carson City in northern Nevada that was featured on the HBO reality television series “Cathouse.”
“People will set aside for a moment their moral beliefs, their religious beliefs, to get somebody that is honest in office,” he said. “Trump is the trailblazer, he is the Christopher Columbus of honest politics.”
Because if you can’t trust a Nevada pimp and a four-time bankrupt Jersey casino boss, who can you trust?
If you’re a Republican and you actually care about immigration – and I may be presumptuous in assuming that – you have at least two choices. Do you want to create a serious guest worker program to handle those people whose reasons for emigrating are purely economic, do what Ted Cruz says and expand the court system to handle asylum cases and then toughen admission requirements once the bureaucracy actually has the manpower and facilities to handle the workload? OR, do you want to demonize migrants, change the goalposts on admission, tell them that they can only apply at official points of entry and then have the POEs say they’re too full to process, wait for the migrants to show up on the border to get arrested, make a big deal of separating the families and then put little cups in front of liberals so you can drink their tears?
Well, one course might be a long-term solution to the problem, but I know which course will make Trump and the little Trumpniks feel better about themselves.
I saw somebody on Facebook comment about this: “It is much worse than that. They’re doing it with the full knowledge of how vile it is, because they know that they can stomach it better than their political opponents can and so they think if they do it and tell them that they won’t stop unless they get their way that they’ll win.”
Again we see the classic psychology of the bully: using your own morality as a weapon against you so that they can gleefully defile it.
Of course this only applies to the extent that force and fear actually work. At a certain point, people become so sick of evil that they no longer fear reprisal. And with enough numbers on their side, even force may not be enough to stop them. The end result is that the thugs’ philosophy is completely discredited once force (government) is no longer on their side.
In regard to the immigration issue, it’s worth looking at a little clip from the days of Saint Reagan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmgPp_nlok where in 1980 during a primary debate someone raised the question to George H.W. Bush (later Reagan’s vice president) as to whether illegal immigrants should get to attend the University of Texas. Note that while Bush is not exactly articulate, he is still more so than pretty much anybody in the 2016 campaign, including the Democrats. Note also that while he doesn’t want illegal immigration to continue he thinks that immigrants have the same rights as everyone else. He actually calls them “honorable, decent people” who just happen to be in violation of a law that can be changed. Then note that Ronald Reagan, whom liberals loved to ridicule as an anti-intellectual, actually uses words like “we haven’t been sensitive enough to our size and our power” in relation to Mexico. And he is also able to articulate a practical, long-term value in creating a long-term work program as a “safety valve” for Mexico that would work better than “building a fence”.
I remember when Republicans talked like that. Do modern Republicans? I guess not. That’s one reason I’m not one anymore.
See, back in the old days, I remember when Republicans didn’t need gerrymandering and voter ID laws to win elections. Instead they found well-spoken, morally forthright candidates who could present reasonable ideas to the majority and get their party elected. But I guess that’s just too hard now. When you see that clip in relation to the Republican Party now, even tied as it was to “the Moral Majority,” it’s a difference of night and day. The decline in political standards – ultimately a decline in intellectual standards – reflects the decline of moral standards.
Nowadays Jerry Falwell Jr. and the other heirs of the Moral Majority tie themselves ever more tightly to the Republican Party even as its secular politics and their religious positions both become isolated from the mainstream of American thought. And the Good Christians tell themselves that they tie themselves to the Republicans because their morality is under siege from the secular Left. And they never consider that the reason for their isolation is because of the deal they made for political power. The dynamic is a vicious cycle in which each side of the political-religious complex festers in persecution complex and revenge fantasy, reacting not with Reagan’s “Morning in America” but Trump’s “American Carnage.” They claim to speak for the “real” America as Nixon spoke for the Silent Majority, when even a lot of white and right-wing people are not really on board. Their declaration of their own correctness is betrayed by their insistence on having everything their way and having the whole process of legislation controlled by them with no Democratic input whatsoever. If you can only get your way by chicanery and force you are projecting your own sense that your ideas would not survive debate. In the old days, Reagan, Goldwater and William F. Buckley knew that they were starting from an unpopular position, so they thought the goal was to make their ideas popular. Not anymore. Nowadays there isn’t even an intention of appealing to a majority of voters, but since the first-past-the-post election system doesn’t work like basic cable niche programming, Republicans have to engineer the voter base they want through their primary system. And now that the incentive of the Republican Party is to nominate the most ridiculous idiot, doing anything that the rest of the country would agree with is just a sign that you’re a “cuck” or a sellout. The more something offends the liberal media, the more Republicans love it, even if liberals aren’t the only ones who find the Republicans evil. And the downward spiral continues until the Republican Party becomes the political equivalent of Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious or G.G. Allin, dying in its own shit just for the sake of being “authentic.”
What so-called conservatives and Good Christians don’t realize is that their vicious cycle is only bringing about the very result they claim to fear. The result of identifying morality with force and fear is to discredit what you call morality and to empower what you call its opposite.
The more that religious conservatives feel threatened by sexual minorities, the more they insist on laws against trans and gay people, and the more likely it is that the law will respond by treating them as threats to trans and gay people. The more that “free market” conservatives let the already wealthy loot the public treasury, the more people think that socialism might be a good idea. And the longer the Trump Administration insists that the only course on immigration is state terrorism towards brown people, the harder it will be politically to find an alternative that isn’t just straight amnesty for all illegal immigrants now and in the future.
The “conservative” political-religious complex insists that they act as they do to stop the Cultural Marxists from stomping all over them, but they’re the ones who are forcing the culture war with their terrible infant mentality, stomping all over the rest of us. And when somebody else forces a war on you, you don’t care if it is over a Noble Cause, you just want to defend your own and put a stop to it.
All this is why anybody on the Right who does care about the long-term concerns – culture, liberty, capitalism – can only watch in horror as our self-proclaimed defenders disgrace the cause they claim to defend. Because of them, it will be that much harder to revive that cause once they have dragged it to defeat.
This all ties into why religion is not a guarantor of morality. It comes down to the fact that “good conservative Christians” have fused their religious identity with their political identity, and their political identity has in turn been fused with the most petty, profane, spiteful and stupid creature in American political history.
Now, if you are a Good Christian, you might resent this declaration. You might resent being swept up in this broad stereotype category. But let’s face it. When Republicans send us their candidates… they’re not sending their best. They’ve got a lot of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re racists. And some, I assume, are good people.
What you’re going to have to figure out is that you’re not the Body of Christ. Trump is Dorian Gray, and you’re his picture.
Trump can go from scandal to scandal completely unmarred, largely because the Republican Party covers for him, and that’s entirely because you, the Good Christians, love him more than any other Republican politician. But the more you enable him, the less it becomes a matter of his depravity and more a matter of yours. After all, most Americans had already seen The Apprentice and knew why it wasn’t a good idea to make Gary Busey’s dumber sidekick the guy with the nuclear launch codes. The only reason Trump is still where he is is because you want him there.
Of course, there’s a difference. In the fantasy story, Dorian Gray remained youthful and clean-looking as his picture became more and more soiled. Eventually, the truth of the portrait offended him so much he took a knife to it and he died of a heart attack. When his staff found him, his corpse was old and corrupted, but the picture was restored to its original appearance.
When Trump is gone, the corruption that you display will not go away. Because it was your corruption all along. He just made you feel comfortable in expressing it.
So maybe you think that description doesn’t apply to you. And maybe it doesn’t. Why then do you associate with those that it does apply to? Was it because Hillary was worse? Do you really think so now? In any case, she’s not running this year. Many “conservatives” tell us that the problem with liberals (‘liberal’ apparently meaning anyone who doesn’t kiss Trump’s ass) is that they hate Trump more than they love America. The accusation should be reversed: Do conservatives hate liberals more than they love America? Does the cult love Trump more than they love America? Do they love Trump more than they love God?
Because they’re going to have to make a choice soon.