I don’t know if this is a Florida quirk, or maybe it’s a thing in all states where Democrats don’t control the state government: our local daily newspapers sometimes scold the state and/or national Democratic Party and urge it to fix things to save us all from Republicans. I’ve written about it here before when the Tampa Bay Times did this, with some justification, as I wrote at the time.
This week, it’s the Miami Herald‘s editorial board, which is begging the party to figure out how to stop Republicans from consolidating the support of religious people and replacing democracy with a white Christian nationalist theocracy. The op-ed starts off by affirming that the U.S. is a secular nation and criticizing DeSantis’s use of Christian nationalism as a political weapon, then urges Dems to do more to counter that GOP strategy by appealing to moderate religious folks. Some excerpts:
It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that, at the same time the GOP ramps up its rhetoric on religious and culture wars, the party makes gains with Hispanic and non-white voters in places like Miami-Dade…Yes, Democrats appear in some church pulpits to rally their base during election season, and high-profile politicians like President Biden, who’s Catholic, have been open about their faith. But given the onslaught of religious talk in Florida — and the use of government to promote one conservative religious view — Democrats must find a better way to acknowledge the importance of religion and spirituality in people’s lives without crossing the line into proselytizing…
DeSantis and other conservative leaders are trying to erode the separation of church and state, a concept Thomas Jefferson wrote of in an 1802 letter and cited in landmark court rulings. Florida taxpayers are now paying for training sessions for public school teachers that deny the Founding Fathers wanted that separation. The Founding Fathers had very nuanced views about religion, as the Herald Editorial Board previously explained.
DeSantis is not alone in this. The majority-conservative U.S. Supreme Court chipped away at that wall of separation with a series of recent rulings. With Evangelicals proving to be such an important and faithful voting bloc for Trump, there’s incentive for our ambitious and savvy governor to continue to court them.
Whereas the governor’s Christian nationalist shtick only separates us, the Democrats need to counter it more boldly and bring back into their tent voters who feel that, on the issues of religion and faith, the party has nothing to say to them.
After reading it twice, I’m still not sure exactly what they want Democrats to do. Almost 90% of the people in Congress are Christians, which is far more than Christianity’s share of the general public. Every single president ever elected at least claimed to be a Christian, and I can’t recall either party ever nominating a presidential candidate who didn’t identify as a Christian.
Do you think either party would nominate an out atheist or agnostic for president? I’d like to think the Dems would, but I don’t know, even though about a quarter of Americans are unaffiliated. Based on this, my guess is that anyone who thinks the Democratic Party is hostile to religion is already a Republican and unlikely to be lured to the Dems by more professions of a candidate’s faith or acknowledgement of religion’s role in daily life.
In my opinion, the appropriate thing to say on the issue is that religious liberty means not imposing one group’s views on everyone else, and this is something most Democratic candidates already say. So do our founding documents, for what it’s worth, which is apparently nothing to the Republican religious fanatics on the Supreme Court.
One fruitful angle Dems here in Florida could perhaps exploit is the evangelical griftopia DeSantis and the Republican statehouse have built, where they funnel public education money to outfits like Michigan’s extreme right-wing Hillsdale College for charter schools and teacher training. Given a chance, Florida Republicans will shovel even more taxpayer dollars to hard-right “crisis pregnancy center” outfits as they impose more restrictions on reproductive health.
Anyhoo, the Herald may be barking up the wrong tree here. DeSantis is open about who and what he is, and Democrats are offering an alternative for voters who want to get off the autocracy expressway. It’s up to voters to take that exit. Or not.
Open thread.
cope
When I read that editorial I had similar thoughts. I don’t think the Democrats can gain anything by attacking religion or belief per se but should focus on the nasty shit that gets done in the name of religion as you suggest.
O. Felix Culpa
QFT.
It sounds to me like the newspapers are once again (always?) in “only Dems have agency” mode. Where are the calls for Repubs to fix their nasty selves and for Florida voters to vote the bums out?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Not sure what they’re actually suggesting Dems do but if religious nationalism really is helping Republicans win over Hispanics it’s a problem, if that is in fact happening.
SiubhanDuinne
Betty, I fear you may have summoned the Hate Troll. My finger is already hovering over that delicious-looking fruit-filled pastry.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as an atheist who doesn’t feel strongly about it (I could be wrong) but a secularist who does feel strongly about it (O-bot that I became, I cringed at “we worship an awesome god in the blue states!” in his first big speech), and an extremely lapsed Catholic who knows and respects a great many religious people who do the work and walk the walk, I get frustrated when I hear rightwingers described as Christian. I’m enough of a realist to get it and move on, but these fucking people aren’t threatening violence in the name of caring for the sick, feeding the hungry and welcoming the stranger
waspuppet
There’ll be a gay president before there’s an atheist president. In fact there’ll probably be a gay Republican president before there’s an atheist president. It’s stupid, but I think that’s the reality.
And yes, F this newspaper for their stance, which is straight out of domestic violence enabling.
Baud
Calling on Dems to do stuff has largely become a cop out to people who don’t want to advocate against something directly.
Old Man Shadow
The “only Democrats have agency” world view the media loves.
We cannot possibly expect Christians to reject white nationalism and rebuke those of their flock who embrace it.
We cannot possibly admit that in any other nation, the Democratic Party would already be considered a center slightly right leaning party.
Nope. We must demand that Democrats stop making Republicans go fash by becoming the Republican party circa 1990.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: The thought crossed my mind too, but I decided not to self-censor because one commenter is irrational about this topic. If he shows up with his bigoted blather, he’ll get the usual pushback, I reckon.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Same. If Jesus showed up in Texas, DeSantis would lure him onto a taxpayer-funded plane to Martha’s Vineyard and dump him at the airport, then go on Fox News to crow about it.
WaterGirl
Since we’re talking about Florida, let’s make DeSantis a one-term governor! Which in any sane world will dash his oh-so-obvious aspirations to be (shudder) president.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yup. Those fuckers. Again.
@Baud: well and concisely said. This is the tote-bagger cousin to the Green Lanternism
PaulB
Palate cleanser:
In Australia, this football team just won the league championship. Their captain went into the stands to get their waterboy, who has Down’s Syndrome, so they could celebrate together.
divF
In this case religion is a proxy for cultural values: traditional hierarchy, patriarchy, traditional sexual mores. The broader culture in the US doesn’t buy into these values. Popular culture follows demographics who spend more ie the affluent, the urban, and the young, all of whom want to see stuff that reflects the lives they live. So the traditionalists resent how they are being crowded out and the GOP latches on to that resentment, and dresses it up in moral values.
Betty Cracker
Regarding the Murc’s Law angle, the criticism is valid, but the Herald does regularly call out DeSantis and other Christo-fascists, though they’re lax on the voters/subscribers. I think they (and other FL dailies, including the Tampa Bay Times and Orlando Sentinel) are generally alarmed at where we’re headed and are desperate for someone to do something.
WaterGirl
@Old Man Shadow: I have added “Apparently Only Democrats Have Agency” as one of our snark tags.
O. Felix Culpa
@WaterGirl: Heh. See #2. :)
germy shoemangler
Betty Cracker
@germy shoemangler: DeSantis is more popular among FL Republicans than Trump is, but I’m still longing to see the two exchange insults in public.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy shoemangler: can’t remember on which podcast (I really need to cut back, at least on the politics) I heard yesterday that trump has noticed that thing where DeSantis tries to imitate his mannerisms.
I’ve been waiting for the time when trump would rather burn a Republican than beat a Democrat, to the point where I’ve almost given up hoping, but here’s hoping this is the race
ian
@waspuppet:
Many suspect James Buchanan was our first gay president. He lived for over a decade with an Alabama congressman named William Rufus King, who Andrew Jackson referred to as “Miss Nancy”.
Hopefully we can have a president who is openly out one day.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I don’t believe the country would elect an atheist president in my lifetime. I sometimes wonder about the Founding Fathers.
NotMax
Thing is it’s not so much urging Dems to be more proactive as it is convincing ostensibly otherwise sane voters to be more reactive.
germy shoemangler
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: I’ve recommended it a couple times here, but Jon Favreau’s podcast (I’ve already acknowledged I have a problem) The Wilderness, is a good window in the mind of the Normie, regular voters who almost uniformly “hate politics”. They’re a frustrating lot, hard for political junkies like us to understand, but that’s where the battle will be lost or won, when the hurly-burly’s done.
Baud
You know who was religious. Hillary Clinton.
wonkie
I fault the Democrats for being too ready to adopt Republican framing and for allowing Republicans to stake their claim on areas of our society by de facto conceding that area to them.
For example, why the fuck do Democrats use the phrase “pro life”? Republicans LOVE it that Democrats discuss abortion in terms of pro-life versus women’s right. That framing is a concession to them. It concedes the moral argument to them as if the moral issues with abortion didn’t exist and they do exist. Of course, WE know that, but the debate isn’t between Rs and Ds. It is a society wide debate and us Democrats have for thirty years now allowed Republicans to make the moral appeal while we make a legalistic one. That allowed independents and Republicans to vote R on abortion for the feeling of moral superiority they got while depending upon ROe to protect them from having their rights stripped away, We should never have allowed “pro-life” to take root. We are thirty years into that debate and still reinforcing the forced birther’s claim to exclusive occupancy of the moral high ground. Ironically, it was stripping Roe away that forced Republicans to reveal their real agenda, but we helped them hide their agenda by using their dishonest, self-aggrandizing framing.
Republicans have also been claiming to be Christians for a long time while many Democrats have been accepting their claim and even becoming anti-Christianity because of it While it is true that for decades there have been religiously-motivated progressives and Democrats, our side has largely conceded Christianity to the Republicans. Yes, it is important to defend separation of church and state, but we shouldn’t be afraid to speak about issues in moral terms, in terms of the basic values of Christianity and the other religions, because many Americans do understand issues better if presented that way. I’m an atheist, but I find myself saying over and over again to Democrats that Republicans are not necessarily Christians and Christians aren’t necessarily Republicans. When my sister became a Christian, the majority of her friends assumed she had gone rightwing Christian and she had to explain over and over that she had joined a liberal church.
Every time some Republican starts yapping about having Christian values, our response should be that no, the Republican does not have Christian values. Most are too materialistic and mean to be Christians. We need to be saying that. Over and over and over. ALso too materialistic to be any other religion. Yes, they should not be using government to force their religion on the rest of us because of separation of church and state but also their religion is not recognizably Christian. We need to be saying that.
wvng
Betty, how has the Herald been at covering Joe Biden and the Democratic congress’ may successes? If they are both sidesing this then they are to blame as much as any entity.
Baud
If it weren’t for the black church, Dems would be even more secular.
Big Mango
I taught at a school with a large immigrant population (most from Guanajuato)
the majority were full blown or nominally catholic….10 to 20% were fundamentalists…
those are the folks who are targets for the GOP ….
kindness
The most annoying part of this all is that what the fundamentalists & evangelicals practice looks nothing like the liberal protestantism I was raised with. These people’s Jesus is ass backwards to the one I was told about.
And Democrats are supposed to meet them half way or something?
Baud
I was reading an article on Bolsonaro the other day, and it said that ⅓ of Brazil was now evangelical.
Hungry Joe
@Dorothy A. Winsor: A fair number of the Founding Dads were Deists, which means (to me, anyway) that they were de facto atheists: Their attitude was, Yeah, some god created everything — just wound it up and let it go. Since this entity demands nothing of us and exercises no power, we can, and should, behave as if it isn’t even there.
Baud
@Hungry Joe:
So basically treat God the same way I get treated at parties.
germy shoemangler
I wonder what He’s up to now.
germy shoemangler
Hungry Joe
@Baud: Come sit by me. But don’t say anything.
Brachiator
Unlikely. Both parties think this would probably be political suicide.
I have been wondering whether the Democrats would have a candidate who is openly gay as a presidential or vice presidential candidate?
MagdaInBlack
@germy shoemangler: How far are they from just banning reading altogether?
Fair Economist
@Old Man Shadow:
Because it isn’t. The Dem party has been left of the majority of Euro center-left parties for some time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Hungry Joe:
I thought this was Washington’s quote, but I made a google, it was TJ again:
IIRC Washington could rarely be bother to attend religious services, and this was noticed by contemporaries. That and being a good horseman were two of the rare things he had in common with Reagan, I believe.
Pappenheimer
@germy shoemangler: If, as I suspect, He lost interest, once the Big Bang cooled down, He is probably working on his miniatures collection.
Ruckus
Republican religious fanatics on the Supreme Court.
I see 3 problems here.
First – republicans.
Second – religious fanatics.
Third – on the Supreme Court.
Because this is a country that is supposed to have freedom of religion, which includes those who desire freedom from religion there is a huge problem when laws and decisions are made by elected officials that are the absolute opposite of the concepts of freedom from religion.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Fair Economist: Magdi Semrau has pointed this out many times. I should be doing other things or I’d look for some of those tweets. Europeans tend to like their big government health care and Euro conservatives at least talk more about climate change than ours, but other than that, not so much. Anti-immigrant politics is at least as powerful in most of Europe as it is here.
Geminid
I often hear people say that in any other country the Democrats would be considered a center, leaning slightly right party. But the people saying this never name the countries where this would be true.
Sure Lurkalot
Frankly, I’m not willing to cede my country to fascism wrapped up in religious fervor. As many have already commented, a large swath of Republican voters are nowhere near Christian in thought or deed.
“….bring back into their tent voters who feel that, on the issues of religion and faith, the party has nothing to say to them?” Oh please at least be honest…you don’t mean voters, you mean Christian voters, not Muslim or Jewish or any other faith. I think we underestimate how “people of faith” as used in many contexts refers to Christians and no others.
This election season has shown crystal clearly what the Republican Party has to say (and has said for a long time) to people of religion and faith…hate with me. Hate LGBTQ, hate women, hate nonwhite people, hate refugees, hate science, hate history, hate hate hate. And there are some many millions of people who love this message as much as they profess to love Jesus.
Matt McIrvin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think “the Democrats would be a center-right party in Europe” (really, Western Europe) is one of those notions left over from the 1990s that used to be arguably true but didn’t change with the times.
And, of course, Western Europe is not the world. I often hear people speak of parliamentary democracy as the worldwide norm but really it’s more the European norm.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@wonkie: That “Republicans are the TRUE Christians(tm)” is why the GOP is in mess and why it’s doomed. The kids are all unbelievers and by making themselves the face of
Assholier than Thou Christianity everyone who loathes that ends up a Democrat. DeathSanta there in Florida is only speeding the processes up by trying to create a theocracy.
Evisor (sp?), that kid here who maintains that Christianity is the source of all evil in the world, is hardly an outlier.
I will also point out, speaking as an atheist, Joe Biden while clearly men of strong religious conviction, does a good job of empathizing his rational side. He’s got the model needed for this situation.
Subsole
So, essentially, it’s not enough that we have to carry American democracy on our backs, keep the air breathable, the water drinkable, the deliveries on time, the roads drivable, the various culture groups from slitting each others’ throats, the books balanced, the jobs coming, the borders stable, the news reported, the speeches stirring, and the profits soaring because the Republicans are too stock-stupid-useless to do so.
No.
We also have to make sure they nominate a functioning adult candidate, too.
We, the people this entire fucking planet, from socialist to fascist to the hopelessly clueless well-bred children of idleness who write this tripe never misses a chance to sneer down its nose at, are also responsible for electing the GOP’s candidates for them.
Anything else the editors would like us to handle while we’re down there?
Maybe lift the toilet lid for their GOP drinking buddies so the little Natural Aristocrats finally stop getting piss all over their shoes?
Jesus.
Sorry to fuss, folks, but ff6this is some bullshit…
Baud
@Geminid:
I also don’t know where the center left has power in Europe.
geg6
I’m curious as to why they think Democrats injecting more religion into politics solves the problem of Republicans injecting religion into politics. And, once again, apparently only Dems have agency.
Betsy
A lot of Republicans are Baptists of one ilk or another.
There are Baptist martyrs – people who were burnt because they didn’t follow the state religion.
Sometimes I do think it would be worth reminding even conservative Christians what happens when religion and government mix.
aliceinco
This is my first time commenting, but it is a topic I’m very interested in. I have a sister and her husband who went to a church college even though they are intheir 70’s, and now that the husband has graduated, he is going to use what he’s learned for politics. I think we should be very concerned how much money is going into these conservative churches specifically for the purpose of electing Republicans.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And.. why in the ever living fuck aren’t these Florida editors pointing how how fucked up Iran and Russia are because of theocracies and asking their readers do they really want that in their town? I know, the answer is “They are ossified boomers with their brains stuck in the ’60s, who’ve labeled the Left as godless commies, and refuse to let go of their Red baiting”.
Another Scott
“No religion” is at 30% in the GSS (orthodox (fundamentalist)-like Christian is at 20%). (The General Social Survey is kinda the gold standard on long-running social-science polling.)
WH.gov (from 9/22):
That’s kinda the bottom line for me too. Florida voters need to recognize that.
I understand the Editorial Board’s job is to keep people reading and to sell ads and subscriptions. Readers should recognize that too – if they were experts in running campaigns they would be doing that instead.
The issue isn’t that Democrats aren’t somehow campaigning properly – that if only the Democrats (who are the only people who have agency, after all) just said the magic words then everything would be fine again because the GQP would see the error of their ways (and return to keeping those dirty hippy liberal Democrats in check). It’s that the MSM and TPTB can’t make a clean break with the GQP and speak plainly about the dangers they represent to all of us.
Yes, 💯, religion should be kept out of politics. And vice versa. But that’s not the real issue here – it’s much deeper than that. As we know…
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@germy shoemangler: he has a nerve calling other people fat
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: It appears to me that FL papers in general, at least the metro ones I’ve seen, are far tougher on DeSantis et. al. than Our National Liberal Newsmedia.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: he’s had all the mirrors at mar-a-loco replaced with Ben Garrison drawings. Don Jr gets really confused when he’s trying to slick back his hair.
zhena gogolia
@Subsole: great comment
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: he made fun of Chris Christie too. You could fit DeSantis and Christie both inside one of his enormous butt cheeks.
Cameron
@zhena gogolia: Or phony or whiny, for that matter.
ian
@aliceinco: welcome to our happy little group.
eclare
@aliceinco: Welcome! Going back to college, a church college, in their 70’s? Huh. Wonder how much of their retirement funds that took.
Lapassionara
@Betsy: This! The story of Roger Williams and the founding of the Baptist Church is instructive here. How the Baptists moved so far from their foundational theology is mystifying to me.
Betty Cracker
@wvng: I can and do regularly find nits to pick in coverage in the Herald and every other major daily I read, but IMO, they aren’t egregiously biased. Like many serious news outlets, they seem to be more afraid of alienating subscribers than criticizing parties.
@Matt McIrvin: Agree on the “center right” issue. The Democratic Party has inarguably moved left over the past decade, just as the Republican Party has undeniably moved far to the right. It’s an outdated framework.
I don’t know enough about world politics to opine on its current state, but wasn’t Angela Merkel’s government considered center right, and yet it was pro-immigration, or at least Merkel was? That also doesn’t fit the U.S. mold. IIRC, Merkel’s party claimed to be both conservative and liberal, which boggled my mind, but maybe it makes sense there.
Fair Economist
@Baud: Center left parties lead the governments of Spain, Portugal, and Germany.
UncleEbeneezer
Most voters in the US are Christian. The GOP isn’t attracting these new voters with Christianity, they are doing it with a certain kind of Christianity: one that preaches Prosperity Gospel (f*** the poor), Male Supremacy, Homophobia, Xenophobia, Trans Panic etc. There’s simply no way for Dems to compete without alienating our base.
Matt McIrvin
There’s been this “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”-style analysis of politics for a long time that starts by pointing out, correctly, that the underserved quadrant of US politics is people who, if you ask them, actually favor “left” economic policies but are cultural right-wingers. And then they go on to claim that Democrats could get their votes just by cooling it on the cultural stuff. Quiet down a little about racism and sexism and religious bigotry, go easy on abortion and gay rights, etc. Push the pocketbook issues, or endorse Bernie Sanders socialism or whatever, while shutting up on the other stuff, and they’ll come right over.
I think it was Jamelle Bouie who pointed out that the essential flaw in this analysis is that the other side also gets a say. Liberals can’t just make the cultural issues go away by shutting up about them; the right will toot that horn as loud as possible. And generally speaking, these economically-left/culturally-right people actually care much much more intensely about the cultural stuff, unless some really extreme crisis happens.
sdhays
@germy shoemangler:
My goodness, it’s as if when he looks at DeSantis, he’s looking in a mirror.
kalakal
In Western Europe at least religions that get involved in politics haven’t ultimately done too well in the last century or so.
eg The Magdalene Laundries, stance on abortion, gay rights etc in Ireland, Franco & the RCs in Spain*, The Lateran accords in Italy, all these ultimately did enormous damage to the church in those countries and greatly diminished their power and influence.
*hard to tell who was pushing who with that one
Baud
@Fair Economist:
Thanks.
Betty Cracker
@Cameron: I agree 100% with that. Even the Orlando Sentinel, which used to tirelessly carry water for Jeb! and the Shrub, regularly trashes DeSantis and Trump. Not just the syndicated columnists — the editorial board too.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Dems should stop making Abott and DeSantis from engaging in human trafficking.
Josie
@zhena gogolia: Or phony or whiny….
ETA: Late with my comment but still true
NotMax
@sdhays
Pot. Kettle. Fuligin.
//
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Fat, phony, whiny. Holy cow, has Trump ever taken a moment of self-reflection in his entire life? Are all the mirrors covered up?
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: It’s coming.
Rooting for injuries, but we have to keep our eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@aliceinco: Welcome to commenting!
kalakal
@Matt McIrvin: One marker would be nationalisation. Most center left European parties are for nationalisation of utilities, transport etc, actually a lot of center right parties are too. And so you get the weird result that the British tories with the mantra “Public bad, private good” privatised all the utilities at give away prices, many of which are now owned by European states. Eg Electricitie De France, Deutsche Bahn, Nederlandse Spoorwegen who make a packet from the UK which they use to subsidise domestic services
WaterGirl
@Baud: And my right-wing evangelical christian sister voted for Trump because “Hillary doesn’t go to church.”
I don’t think I am every going to get over that.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Betty Cracker: I think that in Western Europe, “conservative” and “liberal” aren’t really antonyms, and for damned sure “liberal” and “communist” aren’t synonyms. Also bear in mind that the US definition of “liberal” and the European definition of “conservative” overlap (Charles Stross repeatedly claimed that Obama would have been a Tory in pre-Brexit Britain), and European conservative parties generally don’t invite full-blown fascists into their tent.
eclare
@WaterGirl: That hurts. She was old-school Methodist, and she spoke about it.
sdhays
@Fair Economist: Isn’t Finland’s PM center-left too?
Expat
The American experiment with freedom and democracy has been very short-lived. Some would argue that it started in 1964 and died in 2001. I would argue that for blacks, gays, Jews, Muslims, Latinos and Asians, it never existed in the form that white Christians enjoy. But we could, with little argument, at least fix the Great Society and 1964 as the official end of institutionalized racism. The Constitution, for what it was worth, was shredded in 2001 and has never recovered. So America has 37 years of freedom and democracy, at least domestically and notionally.
I don’t think it is surprising that this brief experiment is not “sticking.” Sane, rational, decent human beings are battling hundreds of years of prejudice and ignorance. I wish I had a solution short of lobotomies and selective breeding.
ETtheLibrarian
Maybe the papers in articles and op-eds can also spend time exposing more and more of the GOP’s corruption?
Mike in NC
I read that DeSatan was raised Catholic in Jacksonville, but like the vast majority of Republicans, does he now identify as Baptist? I know that Paul Ryan and John Boehner were Catholics, but never ever mentioned it in public.
caphilldcne
@ian: Buchanan unfortunately ushered in the civil war and is widely regarded as one of the nation’s worst presidents. So I personally don’t like to claim him.
Nicole
It’s not that the GOP is the party of Christianity; it’s that it’s the party of White Christianity, and that’s something the media really tiptoes around, because put that “White” in there, and suddenly everyone knows what you’re saying about what really motivates these GOP-voters (who identify as Christian). And that is what really motivates them, but since it HURTS THEIR FEELINGS when they get called on it, the media doesn’t call them on it.
UncleEbeneezer
Since OT: we’ve found a place for In-Laws to live once my MIL is done with rehab. They will be moving into an Independent Living place closer to UT Southwest (where MIL had her lung transplants) and it looks like a pretty good place. They will have 3 meals a day, transportation, on-sight medical staff. And the best part is that so far, they are both into it. My wife is going out there next week and will help them move in November 1st, and get settled. We are so thrilled to get them out of the sticks and closer to civilization, especially since they couldn’t really go back to their current home due to the long flight of steps. We were pleasantly surprised by how many decent programs Texas has for lower-income and elderly people. Once we got connected to a good social worker through the hospital, she helped us find several options. And the Inflation Reduction Act’s WiFi expansion policy will help save our in-laws a bit on their cell phone bills. Thanks Biden!!!
To celebrate (and treat ourselves after a couple VERY hard years) we just booked a campsite at Yosemite for late-November. Fall color will most likely be passed by then, and waterfalls may be mostly dry, but it still should be lovely and we haven’t been to Yosemite since 2016, so we are jonesing for our fix.
kalakal
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
That’s a really good point.
Varies from country to country. In the UK for the last 100 years the Liberals have been seen as the center party between Labour & the Tories. They’ve gone through various incarnations and are now called the Liberal Democrats. They’re something of a weird mix. Half of them are the old fashioned cliched English middle class liberal, amiable well meaning types. They knit their own museli and want change but nothing too radical. The other half are libertarian prats.
eclare
@Nicole: So true!
eclare
@UncleEbeneezer: Sounds like a lovely and much-needed trip! I’ve only been there once, but had a wonderful time.
cain
@Lapassionara:
There is a podcast about it .. see the podcast ‘Behind the Bastards ‘ it will open your eyes about the baptists. The short of it is that because of economic prosperity brought on by slavery the church compromised its values. It caused a schism breaking into the southern Baptist.
kalakal
@Mike in NC: He spent most of his youth in Dunedin, Fl which is about half a mile from me
trollhattan
Mags–cashing in with tell-all book in lieu of, you know, reporting reporter things.
Betty Cracker
@ETtheLibrarian: To be fair, the Florida dailies have exposed a ton of GOP corruption at the state level. I’ll never understand why it doesn’t gain more traction with the public because it seems like an incredibly compelling issue to me, but I’ve accepted that it doesn’t. Oh well.
I’m hoping DeSantis’s refusal to cough up the contract his admin has with a donor/contractor involved in the recent migrant plane stunts has reporters smelling blood. It’s fishy as hell.
Matt McIrvin
@kalakal: Since political issues have a lot of dimensions, it’s possible to get different results by highlighting different things. All of Europe, including many of the right-wing parties, is to the left of the US when it comes to public health insurance or public transit funding. Many European social democracies have an established church and publicly-funded religious schools, which is a reactionary position here. And West Europe has been way to the “right” of the US on immigration for a long time, though that does seem less true now than it was in the pre-Trump world.
Betty Cracker
@kalakal: Some outfit (maybe Rolling Stone?) tracked DeSantis’s father down in Dunedin and managed to get some quotes from him despite the father’s suspicion of reporters. Reading between the lines, I got the distinct impression the father doesn’t approve of the son’s current persona.
Kathleen
@Cameron: I have the same impression that local print media in Ohio are much tougher on Rethugs than national media.
germy shoemangler
Cameron
I sometimes have evil fantasies, which I try to ensure don’t take over my life. Such as the following:
This morning I was checking out the latest news on Hurricane Ian, which doesn’t sound too great for Florida. And I thought, “If Florida really takes a hit, will DeSantis request emergency funds?” And then, “Yes, of course, his alleged distaste for Federal intervention will disappear when it becomes apparent that sitting on his ass could cost him the election.” So, “FEMA authorizes $10 billion for Florida disaster relief. A check arrives in Tallahassee, but the moment it appears, it is seized by Federal marshals and put on a bus to Martha’s Vineyard. President Biden goes on Fox News and says he is doing this to show shiftless Floridians that they can’t mooch off taxpayer dollars and the hard-working wealthy of MV are more deserving. Pwnd again, libtards!”
There is probably some sort of medication I should be taking to prevent this sort of thing.
scav
@caphilldcne: I don’t know. I rather like claiming all the space possible. Got the full spectrum of human possibilities here, from outright fuckups to masses of the ordinary — we’re not limited to poster children always on our best behavior. Plus, we’ve been here forever.
trollhattan
@Cameron: Need to convert the disaster emergency dollars to # of rolls of paper towels.
Cheryl
@Brachiator: Thing is, does anyone think Orange Jesus is anything but agnostic or atheist? He got the nomination, so I’d say Political Christianity is more a cultural thing than an actual set of beliefs and values
UncleEbeneezer
@Nicole: Exactly. Like when they say “America” they really mean “WHITE America” the “white” is always implied in their love of Christianity. And sadly, White Christianity has a whole lot of appeal even for non-white voters.
CarolPW
@UncleEbeneezer: We went to Yosemite on our honeymoon (the weekend after Thanksgiving) and it was perfect. Neither of us minded hiking in the snow, the trails were well marked, and we could hike all day and not run into anyone else. Saw my first lynx.
ETA: the falls weren’t dry, they were frozen!
dnfree
The title of this post reminds me of a very old riddle.
What is the national anthem of Saudi Arabia?
“Onward, Christian Soldiers.”
WaterGirl
@eclare: Haven’t you heard? Facts don’t matter. The truth doesn’t matter. All that matters are things you have “heard”.
WaterGirl
@Cheryl: If you’re looking for an “a” word, let’s go with amoral.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker:
ooh, I missed that. do you have a link?
cain
@Matt McIrvin: and note in this case they are getting more and more extreme .. like they need to find a way to get people to react to them. They need to loudly proclaim their victimhood.
Even when they hold all political power they still are victims and demand utter subjugation. It still won’t be enough.
Brachiator
@Cheryl:
Evangelicals and others have tied themselves into knots in order to see Trump as religious. Some fall back on declaring that the Lord is working through Trump despite his sinful flaws.
Things like Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel sealed the deal with some of these people.
And of course Trump refuses to acknowledge that he might not be a sincere Christian.
kalakal
@Matt McIrvin: Most established churches in western Europe tend to stay clear of politics, they’re like European monarchies. Only 3 EU countries have an official state religion: Denmark, Greece, and Malta.
A lot of it’s historical, the CofE ( UK) is the state religion dating back 100s of years and pretty much ignored in a secular country.
Having said that some countries churches are closely involved in politics despite not being the state religion. The RCs practically ran Ireland before their sins caught up with them.
Immigration they are tough on that’s for sure.
LGBTQ rights in Europe basically come down to yes in the west and no in the east.
Abortion is legally available for something like 95% of EU women.
I agree it depends on what you want to highlight, the US and the Eu are both huge and attitudes and legislation vary in both. I find Europe far more relaxed about sex and nudity than the US. Without wishing to tempt a pie magnet a big difference is religion, Western Europeans are way more secular than Americans and that does have a big effect.
kalakal
@Betty Cracker: I’ll have to look for that, thanks
Geminid
@Geminid: I think the idea that the Democratic party would be a center, leaning right party in other countries is fueled by some people’s frustration that the US does not have a “left” party like many countries with parliamentary systems. Instead the Democratic party is a fairly amicable coalition of moderate and liberal voters and politicians. Some more liberal Democrats like those the Justice Democrats sponsor have won a few blue districts but their colleagues in the House Progressive Caucus show little interest in forming a “Freedom Caucus of the Left” that could control the larger Democratic majority. This may be because they saw how the actual Freedom Caucus helped Republicans lose their majority in 2018.
Speaking to the subject of the post, I don’t think the party needs to try very hard to accomodate church goers as a group or moderate or moderately conservative Independents either. Democrats are already on the right side of majority public opinion on basic issues like abortion rights, gun safety, climate change and infrastructure investment. Republicans are on the wrong side, and have now chosen to be be a Right party. Democrats just as they are can appeal to “center” voters to “come on over to the center left coalition, the water’s warm.”
Base mobilization is a stronger factor in elections that converting Republican voters anyway. Although, I think that in Florida Crist and Demings may need to convert at least a few, and in Ohio Ryan and Whaley will have to convert more than a few to win. But Republicans are doing a lot of that work for them.
Subsole
@Kathleen: Is that local print media city-based? Because most red states are actively, viscerally hostile towards their cities. Actually having to live under the charming little band of pirates whose PR flacks invite you to nerd-prom may lend a degree of clarity you just don’t find in wherever the hell Sulzberger parks his oxygen-thieving ass these days…
bbleh
Trying to put a positive spin on it, I’m guessing the editorial-writers feel like Dems have largely conceded the issue-space of religion (or maybe Christianity specifically) to the Republicans instead of contesting them more vigorously on it, similar to complaints not so long ago about “national security”: assigning at least some issues as being more or less exclusively the playground of one party and instead “playing to their strengths.” And I suppose the suggested solution would be not merely walking the walk but also pushing back, in reaction or on their own, eg, “well as a churchgoing Christian I DON’T think kidnaping people and sending them a thousand miles away is something Jesus would approve of; what *I* would do is” x, y, z mainstream thing of which mainstream Christians would approve, complete with chapter and verse citations. Or “so having just come from services myself, I see that” Republican opponent X “hasn’t bothered with church because he’s in Washington meeting with lobbyists to take their money and find out what he can do for them.” Like Howard Dean’s contest-every-election thing, if you’re (say) a nice Methodist Democrat, play it up, and also don’t miss an opportunity to take a WWJD shot at the fundie Republican.
Eh, what would I know. No Christian here, that’s for sure …
Brachiator
OT but related. Jazz saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders has died, age 81. Even though I have always been a rigorous agnostic, I appreciated his explorations of spiritual themes through his music.
Here is a nice selection of his music, Thembi.
Peace.
WereBear
💯% true. A lot of small town kids can flee that far.
Maybe red cities should secede.
Repatriated
Dead thread, but…
@Hungry Joe:
On the Origin of Species was published 70 years after the Constitution’s ratification, and plate tectonics accepted another 70 or so years after that. “And then a miracle occurs” was actually the “best” available explanation at the time…
Ruckus
@Sure Lurkalot:
“And there are some many millions of people who love this message as much as they profess to love Jesus.”
Loving jesus gives them the freedom to hate others who don’t agree with their religious doctrine. And this is one of the reasons that I am not religious, the concept that an idea with no basis whatsoever is the controlling doctrine for all behavior and there are numerous versions, often of conflicting concepts which are all supposed to be the only right and only correct version of a controlling concept of living, all the while billions of people live just fine with zero belief in said concepts of supreme beings.
UncleEbeneezer
@bbleh: It’s really the WHITE churches where the GOP dominates. There are a handful of non-Black, progressive churches, like UU but the people there are already voting Dem. Dems trying to crack into other predominantly-white, Latinx, Asian-American churches is a lovely idea, in concept, but in reality my guess is that those congregants choose those churches partly because those churches don’t push progressive values. My experience trying to organize locally on police reform, housing, immigration etc., is that it’s really hard to get any churches besides Black churches meaningfully engaged. I really wish I could find Latinx/Asian-American churches around here (San Gabriel Valley, with high % of both demographics) that are passionate about: Affordable Housing, Living Wages, Police Reform etc., but I’ve never been able to find any aside from the couple that I already know. My theory is that part of Whiteness is the idea that religion shouldn’t ask people to actually sacrifice for others and that a whole lot of non-White people are attracted to White-Adjacence and prefer their churches to be apolitical for that reason.
Luther
Are we really gonna sit here and pretend that the Republicans didn’t just nominate, elect, and then re-nominate an atheist to the Presidency? Because if that creature believes in God I’ll eat my own dick.
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
I wonder if his use of the word fat is valid, because he is himself just a bit rotund, flabby, flubbery, OK I’m just going to say it fat. Does that make him entitled to use the word?
Or is he just way too self entitled to utter any derogatory adjectives without any understanding of what he himself actually looks like?
Ruckus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I understood that Don Jr gets confused when there is any concept past autonomic functions anywhere near his semi conscious being.
zhena gogolia
@Luther: inorite?
Ruckus
@UncleEbeneezer:
“There’s simply no way for Dems to compete without alienating our base.”
I’m not sure that’s actually true. I think it’s possible to point out the parts of their “beliefs” that are harmful, hateful, horrible, without alienating our base. Most people seem to be at least somewhat concerned about people who believe that everyone needs to be the same, religion wise. They may think that some/most religions or parts thereof are bull and shit, but they also seem to believe that it is your right to believe bullshit.
Tony G
@Luther: I’m pretty sure that Trump’s idea of “God” is similar to his idea of everything else. In a situation in which it benefits his narcissism, he will pretend to believe in “God” and will actually convince himself that he believes in “God”. In situations in which this “belief” is irrelevant to his narcissism then he forgets all about that “belief”. I’ve known people like that. They take on or drop “beliefs” depending upon the circumstances. The fact that there are tens of millions of Americans in Trump’s cult illustrates something dangerous and repulsive about this country.
Geminid
@Luther: I think of atheists as having a positive belief that there is no god. I’m not sure if trump would go so far, or even wonder about the question.
But he is only nominally a Christian, that’s for sure.
smintheus
The “only Dems have agency” shtick loses any pretense of coherence when the argument becomes that Dems need to use their agency to persuade Republicans away from behaving like sociopaths although (or because?), we’re told, they can’t help but behave like sociopaths.
Jinchi
I’ve had the same thought. The religion these people preach is unrecognizable to what I grew up with.
“Freedom of religion” battles lately are just a vehicle for enshrining bigotry and enabling the morality police in daily life.
Jinchi
@smintheus: I don’t think the media actually want Dems to persuade Republicans. They just want Dems to clean up after them.
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator: Hell, I’ve seen multiple (well, two) people claiming that Trump is literally Jesus Christ returned.
Matt McIrvin
@smintheus: I think the idea is that Republican politicians and their core supporters are like wild beasts who just can’t help it, but that there is some center of reasonable people who hate those guys but still vote Republican just because the Democrats seem so extreme, and the Democrats could somehow get them by being less extreme. (Which completely discounts that they’re doing it because they heard some Republican telling them that Biden is Khmer Rouge.)
Matt McIrvin
@Tony G: And that God is a being who thinks Donald Trump is awesome, and wants to be his friend, and comes to him in tears saying sir, Mr. President, sir, I the big burly God support everything you are doing.
Geminid
@Repatriated: Scottish scientist James Hutton (1726-1797) was a contemporary of tge founders and may have had as great an influence on their generation as Darwin had on his. Hutton’s systematic observations of geological formations in his area lead to a well supported assertion that geological features could not be static but underwent continual transformation over indefinitely long periods of time. A corollary to this was that the Earth had been around one heck of a lot longer than 8000 years.
This seems common sense now and others besides Hutton had similar ideas, but Hutton’s work was influential among his contemporaries and seemed to support the Deistic world view.
I don’t know if Ben Franklin knew about Hutton’s work but it seems likely. Franklin was definitely a Deist, though. In one of the funnier parts of his Autobiography Franklin recounts how when he was a young printer and writer a man commissioned him to write a pamphlet refuting the novel and pernicious doctrine of Deism. Franklin fulfilled the commission, but in the process decided that the Deists had it right.
artem1s
@WaterGirl:
The Clinton’s were the only first family since the Carters that regularly attended services before and after they entered the WH. The Bushies were Episcopalians before they needed to clean up W for the Christian Taliban. He claimed to be born again but hardly ever set foot in a church before or after his term. Every GQP POTUS was only a Xtian when it came time to attack Dems in some culture war performance art malarkey.
James E Powell
@wonkie:
I’m not aware of any Democrats who are anti-Christianity.
I know that Republicans say that Democrats hate Jesus, America, and the troops, but don’t recall any Democrats saying any of that.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Here you go.
WaterGirl
@artem1s: That’s what was so maddening about it!
Another Scott
@Geminid:
NPR.org (from 1/2016):
Guess who they voted for in November? (The first guess doesn’t count.)
It’s all just mouth noises to TFG and his enablers.
Cheers,
Scott.
catclub
@Pappenheimer:
 
remember the one:… if the preferences of God are to be seen in nature, then they indicate a deep interest in beetles. {paraphrased}
Anyway
@Matt McIrvin:
Western European countries have generally been more accepting of refugees even the (reviled-on -BJ) homogeneous Scandinavian countries. Merkel was very welcoming of Syrian refugees. European union countries accepted Bosnian and Sri Lankan refugees in large numbers. France has a lot of North and West African immigrants. They may not have a 1965 law like we have and that’s due to historical reasons.
Geminid
The Bills and the Dolphins have a good football game going. Almost makes me want to have a TV.
Urban Suburbanite
I think there might be some desperation about DeSantis and his underlings actually running anything. The people who obsessively rage about fighting the woke and protecting the childrens aren’t just obsessed with harming the focus of their fixation, they’re also incompetent when it actually comes to running anything.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anyway:
Reviled by whom?
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
An oddly specific number given the huge border, but who knows.
(via Oryx)
Cheers,
Scott.
Subsole
@WereBear:
They’d never let us. We’re often the only thing keeping their asses solvent…
Omnes Omnibus
@Subsole: Any talk of secession is just talk.
Ruckus
@artem1s:
rethuglicians
One lie, a million lies, if your political concepts are lies what’s the difference?
Subsole
@Betty Cracker:
Why do every last one of these people look like some mid-grade KGB apparatchik trying to figure out more entertaining ways of beating confessions out of people??
Good lord, the sullen, piggish cruelty stamped on that face…
Anyway
@Omnes Omnibus:
A popular take on BJ is contesting the lefty-progressive bona fides of Scandinavian countries — schrodingers does it all the time. Scandinavian countries had a generous attitude to refugees — don’t know if they count as “immigrants”.
James E Powell
@WereBear:
No disrespect, but can we stop saying things like this?
Omnes Omnibus
@Anyway: I know s_c does it, but is it really common here? I hate mayo, but does that make it correct to say that mayo is reviled on Balloon Juice?
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
When everything that comes out of a mouth is lies, then really, how could you expect anything different?
Besides they said they were sending bodies, they didn’t say they’d be armed or have any ammo, or any idea whatsoever of even crappy military concepts. Just bodies that Ukraine has to kill and dispose of along with all the detrimental BS of killing/capturing 1/4 of a million people. And it’s likely that most of that 1/4 mill do not want to die for putties war.
Anyway
@Omnes Omnibus:
Exaggerating for effect. Mea culpa.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anyway:
Cool.
Subsole
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, I know. We got tons of that crap here. Granted, opposite side of the political hall, but still. Utter foolishness
Why on earth should I leave because those jagoffs can’t handle being part of a big, strong, developed nation?
Like, sorry America’s too much for you, bro. You ought to talk to someone ’bout that.
Matt McIrvin
@Anyway: It’s kind of a reaction to constantly hearing “You Americans are so dumb you only have two parties and they’re exactly the same,” etc., etc.
Geminid
@Anyway: I know exaggeration is often thought to advance an argument, but there is a difference between criticizing someone or something and “reviling” them.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I assume all decent jackals hate Scandinavian mayo.
bbleh
@UncleEbeneezer: Again I’m only interpreting, but I think (1) there’s a lot to be said for Just Showing Up — Matthew 6 notwithstanding, Dem politicians ought to feel perfectly comfortable doing a little bit of wearing of their churchgoing on their sleeves — and I think they’re saying not enough Dem politicians do enough of that, and (2) one can push nominally Christian values, and point out the contrasts with what Republicans are saying and doing, without advocating overtly “progressive policies,” and the more militant and crazy-ass Republicans get, the more room there is to publicly be a Good Christian without demanding much in the way of personal sacrifice.
@UncleEbeneezer: Now, ain’t no way Dems can compete for the Christianist Bigotry vote, aka the Republican Morality Police, and they shouldn’t even bother to try; those people are unreachable. But there are a lot of other “nice” church-going white and Latino voters who don’t necessarily subscribe to the nasty stuff the Republicans are selling, who might, if the contrasts were made clear, and if the Dem were seen as enough of a Nice Christian, at least think about voting Dem (if they lean that way) or staying home (if they lean the other way) rather than voting automatically for the crazy Republican.
Geminid
@Baud: Mayo does ruin avocado toast no matter where it comes from!
I read once that you can’t make mayonnaise during a thunderstorm. Something to do with emulsions and electrical charge. I would test this but I don’t make my own mayonnaise.
bbleh
@Geminid: OMG, who would put mayo on avocado toast? I mean, the whole point of avocado toast is it’s a big glob of (vegetable) fat, right? Maybe with some other goodies mixed in? Who needs fat-sauce with your fat?
Then again, not an aficionado here, so maybe I’m missing out on something really amazing …
scav
@Anyway: Like all real-world countries, I assume those in Scandinavia have a rather mixed performance on refugees. (Only one I’ve personal information on involves communist Czechoslovakia to Sweden and they found it tough. Still, made it in and live there still.) If only the world behaved as tidily as our theoretical assumptions and rhetorical needs require. That is an eternal plaint. Actual human institutions are so messy and inconsistent.
Geminid
Oafkeeper Stewart Rhodes goes on trial in a DC federal district court this week. Jury selection will begin Tuesday morning.
Also, I read that a federal district judge in Tallahasee, Florida has ruled that there will be a civil trial to determine whether Governor DeSantis rightfully fired the Hillsborough County District Attorney.
Another Scott
PSA: If you use uBlock Origin on Chrome on Windows, do not have a Twitter account, and have tried adding rules to uBlock Origin over the years to get rid of Twitter’s annoying Login box that appears every few minutes, you might try what I just found out – as it seems to be fixed:
Click on the uBlock Origin icon near the URL bar.
Click on the 3 gears icon to open the Dashboard.
Click on the My Filters tab.
Scroll down for the list for twitter.com
Highlight and delete every line that has a red twitter.com rule that you’ve added
Click the Apply Changes button.
You’re done with the uBlock Origin settings.
Refresh any Twitter tab you have open. Everything should work as it should without the Login screen appearing. (It will also get rid of various blue bars and so forth that you may have had trouble getting rid of in the past.)
What seems to have happened is that one of the gurus updated the rules lists for Twitter that uBlock origin loads by default and one of the auto updates took care of it for us. At least in my case, various rules I tried to add ended up messing up the fixes.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
They don’t know what they want Democrats to do. It’s an acknowledgement that sunlight and shaming isn’t working against republicans, and that they’re worried that voting may not work either.
Solving this via violence is increasingly showing up on the wheel of potential solutions as all other approaches prove useless. But maybe this other political party, by virtue of being a political party, can do something – magic legislation, magic judges, magic impeachment, etc.
So they don’t have an idea, but they’re desperate for someone to have one. I’ll be honest, if there’s a non-violent solution, it either eludes me, or it requires rolling a nat 20 to work and I don’t really have faith (hope, sure…) that the pachinko ball will bounce in just the right way to avoid violence.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: What kind of violence are you talking about? Individual actions, armed rebellion, or something in between?
Dan B
@Baud: I like Japanese Mayo and Vegenaise. (And, please don’t hurt me: Homemade / made from scratch Mayonnaise.)
Will I be buried under tons of Jackal Pie?
Dan B
@bbleh: I agree. I’m a dedicated non-believer but worked for years with many very progressive white Christians. They tend to shy away from judging conservative Christians. I find this to be a fatal flaw. People like to know what your principles are and what beliefs you cannot accept. Being nice or polite to the cultists makes you appear to be uncaring about the cruelty and horrors they support.
Brachiator
@Anyway:
In the most recent elections in Sweden, a right wing anti-immigrant party won a huge number of votes and may be included in the new coalition government.
Scandinavian countries are not a monolith, and are not necessarily a great model for any one.
ETA. Mon Scandinavian Italy might elect a fat right leader today. This may put unexpected pressure on the European Union and gives hope to the BREXIT crowd in the UK.
Geminid
@Anyway: An interesting fact concerning immigrants in Scandinavia: the Speaker of Norway’s Parliament was born in Tehran. I learned this in a Reuters report on the protests in Iran. The Iranian Foreign Minister called in the Norwegian ambassador to chew them out over Speaker Masud Gharkani’ criticism of authorities regarding the death of Mahsa Amini. Mr. Gharkhani was fairly restrained in his comments but Iran’s leadership is very touchy now. Consciousness of guilt, I’d say.
Layer8Problem
@Another Scott:
Regarding uBlock Origin:
You can alternatively just deactivate those twitter.com rules by prefixing them with a ‘!’ (exclamation point) as the first character on each of the “twitter.com” lines, making them non-executing comment lines, and then delete them sometime later.
I should qualify that that works in Firefox on Linux.
evodevo
@eclare: If our local Baptist college here in Ky is any indication, a LOT. $20k/semester, tuition ONLY…
Another Scott
@Layer8Problem: Thanks muchly.
Cheers,
Scott.
Anyway
@Geminid:
Last few months there have been many posts putting down Scandinavian countries without nuance or pushback.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anyway: Some non s_c examples?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
is that the stuff that comes pre-mixed with herring purée?
Geminid
@Anyway: Yes, I’ve noted that too. It’s part of a wider debate on twitter that, as another commenter pointed out, is conditioned by arguments over the relative value of US and European parties.
But this will surely come up again and you’ll have your chance to push back. I wouldn’t have said anything except that I think Ms. Cat’s been getting scapegoated some lately (I’m not saying by you) and I wanted to stand up for her.
Another Scott
@Layer8Problem: Decided to try FF with uBO on my Android phone. All the settings seem roughly the same as for Chrome on Winders but I still get the annoying Twitter login thing on my phone. Maybe something else is going on…
Grr…,
Scott.
Another Scott
In case you were wondering, Afghanistan is no longer officially a major non-NATO US ally.
(The US Government moves slowly when it comes to official paperwork.)
Cheers,
Scott.
livewyre
@Martin: I’ll level with you, something about your case is troubling me. Maybe it’s how bare and unspecified the mention of “violence” is in the same breath as darkly hinting at the potential necessity of some form of it. Maybe it’s the flat unquestioned assumption of its ability to work as a “solution”, that presumably would do what we want, but that we’re holding back from out of decency or comity or timidity.
I’m not quite convinced that this comes as a result of any kind of analysis so much as a conclusion in need of a justification. What is it that violence is meant to solve in your scenario, exactly, other than a regrettable lack of violence?
edit: Maybe this is one of those “good guy with a gun” things where one proposes that it’s not so much the potential for harm as who’s wielding it. More good harm equals less bad harm. Something like that? Not that I agree, just asking.
Layer8Problem
@Another Scott: I had suddenly started seeing the login/signup box again five days ago and figured Twitter had screwed around with their code making my single filter rule useless. Bill Arnold, Ken, and Zhena Gogolia mentioned the “click the signup button then hit the ‘X’ button” fix, which I had never known and seemed to make the problem actually go away for a few days. Then it came back, then it went away again. I just tried commenting out that single rule entirely and the popup box is still gone, but we’ll see.
Grr, indeed.
lowtechcyclist
@Martin:
They could start by telling the truth about Republicans, and not sugarcoating how horrible they are, or always finding air time for the remaining two or three semi-civilized Republicans and pretending they’re still representative of a significant faction within the party.
I mean, if they’re genuinely worried, they can use some of their agency.
Urban Suburbanite
@livewyre: It’s not great. In fact, it’s pretty bad. There are multiple paramilitary groups operating with the blessing of not only law enforcement, but the Republican party. These are organized and violent groups, and they’re not discreet or quiet about who they want to kill and why. And other people are going to take that as a need for themselves to get strapped. That’s not an unreasonable reaction. It would be great if that weren’t the case, but this is the nature of our present hellscape.
livewyre
@Urban Suburbanite: But what part of that is a solution to be proposed, rather than a failure state to cope with? Are we resigning ourselves to an armed society being as polite of one as we can get? That seems premature, even now.
In fact, I’ll go even further – it seems to presume that Trump and Putin are winning, that Zelenskyy is moving his mouth in vain, and that our future looks like Russia. Not only do I not accept that, I’m staggered that we don’t seem to know better. But then, if we did, there wouldn’t have been a problem to talk about in the first place. I guess that’s what makes the ground fertile for disinformation.
different-church-lady
“Dear Democrats, please fix our electorate” is a hell of a take.
glc
@germy shoemangler: He’s still trying to understand quantum mechanics. Wasn’t in the original plan. There’s a reason why he didn’t want people asking inconvenient questions.
No One You Know
@wonkie: This. Exactly this.
RaflW
Late to this, but FFS the Reverend Raphael Warnock is the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and you’d never know it from most political coverage, would ya?
The press is always in the doghouse in my book these days, but they are part and parcel of ignoring the many ways Democrats still do engage religious voters. Reporters have, IMO, accepted the right’s frame that the left are heathens, many many examples to the contrary notwithstanding.
I worked on the very earnest and I thought quite effective, well staffed and trained faith-based campaign to defeat the anti-gay, anit-marriage amendment in MN a decade ago, and we got barely any earned media. We didn’t fit their frame, and journos and editors seemed to have little interest in having their frame changed. Dammit.
Urban Suburbanite
@livewyre: It’s not any of that. There are a lot of people in this country who are really stoked about the prospect of killing a bunch of Americans. And over the last decade, they’ve been escalating. Arming yourself is not an unreasonable response to people who are very enthusiastic about wanting to harm you and those around you. Plus I have some doubts that the West Coast is going to be part of this country for much longer, but that’s a longer discussion.
None of this is a good thing. And if you have some suggestions on how to dial things down, I would love to hear them.
El Cruzado
@Betty Cracker: In Europe “liberal” is understood as “economic liberal” aka classical liberal aka economic conservative.
The identification of “liberal” with “left wing” is a purely US phenomenon.
livewyre
@Urban Suburbanite: Short answer: historical context. We’re not in a civil war; we’re in a civil-rights backlash complicated by runaway complexity in climate and communication. From a normative demographic perspective, it’s the end of comfort, i.e. the end of the world. From a more intersectionally marginalized point of view, things are changing that needed to.
With this in mind, a way to dial things down would be to dial down one’s perspective of them. There have always been armed mobs baying for blood, just with the tacit approval of respectable society. Now that’s not working anymore. The West Coast states are less secessionist than before their founding. We’re fighting for something that hasn’t happened before. We’re winning.
Let the fall of privilege appear as an improvement. Let the way of Putin die with him.
Brian
@catclub: I believe I memorized this one. The great British biologist JBS Haldane was seated next to an Anglican clergyman at dinner. The clergyman asked Haldane what his scientific studies had revealed to him about the nature of the Creator. Haldane replied that “He has an inordinate fondness for beetles”.
Mimi
@ian: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln were all deists.
SteverinoCT
After months of me yelling at the TV, making sarcastic comments to her about the endless vile commercials, talking to the folks going door-to-door, my wife yesterday asked me, “Is there voting coming up?” I yearn for adult conversation (but come here instead).
Paul in KY
@wonkie: We’re not supposed to use ‘Pro-Life’. Anti-Choice is what we say.
The person saying Pro-Life might not be a Democrat.