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Andrew Sullivan and Connie Willis on the current state of affairs; End-times thinking; Edsall on Two Americas; the crushing of American socialism; more items about politics and religion.<\/p>\n
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I mentioned Sullivan and Willis a couple days ago and so here are their links. (Sullivan’s is to his subscription site on Substack, but I think you can view an article or two there without subscribing. Willis’ is to a public Fb post.)<\/p>\n
Andrew Sullivan, The Weekly Dish, 7 Oct 2022<\/strong>: The GOP Is Herschel Walker<\/a>, subtitled “A clarifying glimpse into the values of the Party of Trump”<\/p>\n There are times, I confess, when I decide to pass on writing another column on how degenerate the Republican Party is. What else is there to say? It\u2019s not as if the entire media class isn\u2019t saying it every hour of every day. And it\u2019s not as if the depravity of the party hasn\u2019t been a longtime hobbyhorse of mine.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n But then you come across the Senate candidacy of one Herschel Walker, and, well, words fail. No magical realist fiction writer could come up with something so sickeningly absurd.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n Walker is, to start with, very dumb. I don\u2019t usually note this quality in a candidate and it doesn\u2019t make him a huge outlier in politics of course. Being brainy, moreover, can be a serious liability for some pols. But seriously: this<\/em> stupid?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It goes on and on.<\/p>\n \\<\/p>\n Connie Willis<\/strong>, via Lou Anders on Facebook<\/a>, 6 Oct 2022.<\/strong><\/p>\n Connie seems to be doing almost daily posts, rather like Heather Cox Richardson (example<\/a>), summarizing the current news. Here’s an excerpt from this one, non line-breaks intact:<\/p>\n The Herschel Walker scandal continued to get worse and worse: \\\\\\<\/p>\n Religion<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Slate, Molly Oldstead, 6 Oct 2022<\/strong>: Why Growing Parts of the Christian Right Are Convinced It\u2019s the Apocalypse<\/a>, subtitled “Even after Dobbs<\/i>, the end times are dominating bestseller lists.”<\/p>\n My impression: there are people who are by nature attuned to conspiracy theories, especially those that appeal to their personal vanity and that would validate their religious beliefs. That is, there have always been people who think they live in the end times.<\/p>\n But it seems an odd time for doomsday fervor, given the ascendancy of the religious right in American politics and the current makeup of the Supreme Court. Why, at this moment, when the Christian right should be feeling more empowered, would the end of the world be so trendy?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But then the article goes on to interview a person who “is an evangelical and personally believes in a coming rapture” who believes the 2020 election was stolen, and I can’t bring myself to read anything he has to say.<\/p>\n Then of course there’s this aspect to phenomena like end-times and conspiracy theories in general.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing about end-times theology is that it\u2019s the gift that keeps giving, for those peddling it as a way to make money”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \\<\/p>\n Salon, Troy Farah, 6 Oct 2022<\/strong>: Why some evangelical Christians trust their pastors more than their doctors on vaccines<\/a>, subtitled “Research has found Christian nationalism to be one of the strongest predictors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy”<\/p>\n \\\\\\<\/em><\/p>\n Politics<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n New York Times, Thomas B. Edsall, 5 Oct 2022<\/strong>: \u2018There Are Two Americas Now: One With a B.A. and One Without\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n Classic lengthy Edsall column combining and quoting from many sources, sort of like a much more comprehensive version of this blog.<\/p>\n The Republican Party has become crucially dependent on a segment of white voters suffering what analysts call a \u201cmortality penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n This penalty encompasses not only disproportionately high levels of so-called deaths of despair \u2014 suicide, drug overdoses and alcohol abuse \u2014 but also across-the-board increases in several categories of disease, injury and emotional disorder.<\/p>\n \u201cRed states are now less healthy than blue states, a reversal of what was once the case,\u201d Anne Case<\/a> and Angus Deaton<\/a>, economists at Princeton, argue in a paper they published in April, \u201cThe Great Divide: Education, Despair, and Death<\/a>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \\<\/p>\n Salon, Adam Hochschild, 6 Oct 2022:<\/strong> What you don’t have and why: The crushing of American socialism and the left<\/a>, subtitled “The never-ending impact of a forgotten blitzkrieg against the American left .”<\/p>\n How Europeans are astonished by conditions in America.<\/p>\n Why hasn’t our country done better,\u00a0compared to so many others<\/a>? There are certainly many reasons, not least among them the relentless, decades-long propaganda barrage from the American right, painting every proposed strengthening of public health and welfare \u2014 from unemployment insurance to Social Security to Medicare to Obamacare \u2014 as an ominous step down the road to socialism.<\/p>\n This is nonsense, of course, since the classic definition of socialism is public ownership of the means of production, an agenda item not on any imaginable American political horizon. In another sense, though, the charge is historically accurate because, both here and abroad, significant advances in health and welfare have often been spearheaded by socialist parties.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \\<\/p>\n Slate, Evan Urquhart, 20 Oct 2022<\/strong>: Why Jon Stewart\u2019s Humiliation of an Anti-Trans Official Is So Important<\/a>, subtitled “The right has it in for transgender people. We could use #resistance liberals\u2019 help.”<\/p>\n The issue here is that Jon Stewart interviewed the Arkansas attorney general about her promotion of a bill to ban gender-affirming care for minors, and she couldn’t come up with any actual *reasons* to promote the bill.<\/p>\n During the interview, Stewart does what journalists should be doing a lot more of: After he asks Rutledge to make the case for the state law she fought so hard to bring about, he asks her follow-ups. Stewart uses the basic knowledge of someone who prepared for the interview by reading the available evidence. He asks Rutledge, straight up, to defend a law which prevents the families of trans youth from choosing a treatment option with the evidence, and the most widespread support among expert medical associations. Rutledge cannot answer him convincingly, which is what makes the clip so shareable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \\<\/p>\n The Guardian (US), Steven Donziger, 6 Oct 2022<\/strong>: The most terrifying case of all is about to be heard by the US supreme court<\/a>, subtitled “If the court upholds the rogue \u2018Independent State Legislature\u2019 theory, it would put the US squarely on the path to authoritarianism”<\/p>\n A supermajority of six, unelected ultraconservatives justices \u2013 five of which were put on the bench by presidents who did not win the popular vote \u2013 have aggressively grabbed yet another batch of cases that will allow them to move American law to the extreme right and threaten US democracy in the process. The leading example of this disturbing shift is a little-known case called Moore v Harper, which could lock in rightwing control of the United States for generations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \\<\/p>\n AlterNet, John Stoehr, 5 Oct 2022<\/strong>: The GOP’s ‘Commitment to America’ contains Confederate solutions to made-up problems<\/a>.<\/p>\n We discussed this “Commitment” earlier on Sept 27th<\/a>.<\/p>\n The present is a product of the past. What the confederates did back then, the Republicans are doing now. For the confederates, white freedom was Black enslavement. Black freedom was white enslavement. For the Republicans, the pattern is the same. Victory for the Democrats, and hence for multiracial democracy, would be \u201catrocity and barbarism,\u201d \u201csubjugation or extermination.\u201d<\/p>\n Or \u201cwhite genocide,\u201d as Tucker might say.<\/p>\n The Republicans, like the confederates, do not have principles, policies and goals that are independent of the Democrats\u2019 (or Black people\u2019s) success. The problem, for the Republicans, isn\u2019t the problem. The problem is multiracial democracy taking care of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \\<\/p>\n Washington Post, Ruth Marcus, 10 Oct 2022<\/strong>: Opinion | Conservative judges\u2019 new gun-law rulings show \u2018originalism\u2019 beyond parody<\/a><\/p>\n New York State can\u2019t prohibit people from carrying guns at summer camps because \u2014 get this \u2014 there weren\u2019t any similar restrictions in place at the time the Constitution was written.<\/p>\n Of course, there weren\u2019t any summer camps back then, either. But such is the blinkered, history-focused approach to gun regulation imposed by the Supreme Court\u2019s conservative majority earlier this year and applied last week<\/a> by a federal judge to block the state\u2019s new gun law, at least temporarily.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \\\\\\<\/p>\n Headlines<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Ohio Republican: God Kills Those Who Oppose Me<\/a><\/p>\n Fox News Host: Clean Energy Will Lead To \u201cEugenics\u201d<\/a> (My comment: classic slippery-slope argument)<\/p>\n Slate, Donald Moynihan, 7 Oct 2022<\/strong>: A Study Finally Shows Just How Much Deadlier COVID Has Been for Republicans<\/a>, subtitled “And suggests that, yes, anti-vaccine rhetoric is to blame.”<\/p>\n Washington Post, Alexandra Petri, 8 Oct 2022<\/strong>: Opinion | To clarify, I meant ban abortion except for Republican politicians<\/a><\/p>\n New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman, 6 Oct 2022<\/strong>: Putin and M.B.S. Are Laughing at Us<\/a><\/p>\n
\n— it was revealed that Walker’s campaign knew about this from the beginning and was simply hoping it wouldn’t come out.
\n— Newt Gingrich called Walker “the most important Senate candidate in the country” because he’ll do more to change the Senate because of his “deep commitment to Christ” (Note: his opponent is a minister.)
\n— Newt then immediately followed this with, “He had a lot of concussions coming out of football.”
\n— Dana Loesch of the NRA took a different tack, saying the quiet part out loud: “I don’t care if Herschell Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n