He's right, it is long past time this happened, so the interesting question (and more interesting article) is why hasn't it happened? Anyone know of writing that offers answers? If the NYT is to...
It’s long past time for even the venerable pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post to start calling this what it is, and stop normalizing it as standard partisanship. It is deeply dangerous in a democracy whose constitution functionally guarantees a two-party system, for one of those two parties to become a conspiracy cult.
He's right, it is long past time this happened, so the interesting question (and more interesting article) is why hasn't it happened? Anyone know of writing that offers answers?
If the NYT is to adopt this hardline stance against the Republican Party, I hope they promptly fire all the moronic opinion writers that have lent legitimacy to the party through (crucial) recent years. People like David Brooks.
I haven't read any articles or anything on it (though I'd also love to if anyone wants to link a relevant one), but I think it's mainly down to the old paradigm for for-profit news. News media,...
I haven't read any articles or anything on it (though I'd also love to if anyone wants to link a relevant one), but I think it's mainly down to the old paradigm for for-profit news.
News media, since it's overwhelmingly funded by ads or subscriptions, has historically had a very strong incentive to try and target the broadest audience possible, which means going to pains to not alienate members of one political party or the other, regardless of how egregious their behavior. Fox is the exception that proves the rule there, since while it does operate for profit, it was built from the ground up, in an era of already balkanizing media, to spread an ideology, and to inhabit a particular niche doing so, whereas the old networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, et al. were not; they were built for a world of fewer choices and bigger audiences.
Even though fox has pretty much cornered the market for conservative viewers of TV news, there isn't really an equivalent in the newspaper world to my knowledge, and even in the TV market, whether it's through denial or inertia, networks continue to court conservative viewers, despite the futility. While there's probably at least some people with a misguided instinct for impartiality in the face of atrocity, I think most of it is to do with not wanting to alienate potential or existing customers, otherwise I don't think it'd be anywhere near as systemic a problem.
>post is tagged opinion lol More seriously though: I agree. I think there are 2 problems though: 1: Fox News is basically a propaganda outlet for the GOP, likely as intended given Ailes (Fox's...
>post is tagged opinion
lol
More seriously though:
Being a Republican now requires believing in a jaw-dropping series of claims that, if true, would almost necessitate anti-democratic revanchism. One has to believe that:
A cabal of evil scientists is making up climate science in exchange for grant money
There is rampant, widescale voter impersonation fraud carried out by thousands of elections officials nationwide
The “Deep State” concocted a scheme to frame Trump for Russian collusion but chose not to use it before the 2016 election
'Shadowy forces' are driving migrant caravans and diseases across American borders in the service of destroying white Republican America
The entire news media is engaged in a conspiracy against the Republican Party
Grieving victims of gun violence and their families all across America want to take away guns as a pretext for stomping the boot of “liberal fascism” on conservative faces
And so on.
That and much more is just the vanilla Republican belief system at this point (not even touching less explosive academic fictions like “tax cuts pay for themselves” or “the poor will work harder to better themselves if you cut the safety net.”)
I agree. I think there are 2 problems though:
1: Fox News is basically a propaganda outlet for the GOP, likely as intended given Ailes (Fox's founder) was a Republican media operative.
2:
"To destroy a democracy you need to:
Lie. A lot
Say everyone else is a liar
Do this so much anyone who tries to debunk everything you say is given an impossible, impractical and exhausting to listen to task
Watch everyone get completely confused, incapable and ultimately too tired or apathetic to figure out what's actually true."
Heavily paraphrased but Trump has basically created his own version of truth and reality (and its not like the GOP was playing some twisted narratives/stories before him at least since when Obama originally took power) and to get Republicans out of it is damn near impossible.
Hate to be the pedant, but do you mean: Trump is the worst recently, but they've been running this playbook since I was in diapers...and I would argue conservative movements as a whole are happy...
(and its not like the GOP was playing some twisted shit before this)
Hate to be the pedant, but do you mean:
(and the GOP has been doing this for a long, long time)
Trump is the worst recently, but they've been running this playbook since I was in diapers...and I would argue conservative movements as a whole are happy to gaslight if it suits their needs.
...Yeah. Admittedly it's mostly a reflection of just how bad Trump is and how I don't really remember any other form of conservatism other than this so W.Bush ends up looking like a sensible...
...Yeah. Admittedly it's mostly a reflection of just how bad Trump is and how I don't really remember any other form of conservatism other than this so W.Bush ends up looking like a sensible conservative and Reagan looks like a culturally conservative libertarian.
I would argue conservative movements as a whole are happy to gaslight if it suits their needs.
As a political practice and philosophy, conservatism is famously durable and flexible: hard to define precisely. For centuries, many conservatives have insisted that their politics is about preserving things and avoiding ideology. But in practice the most effective conservative politicians have often done the opposite.
Robin, who is on the left, argues that behind the facade of pragmatism there has remained an unchanging conservative objective: “the maintenance of private regimes of power” – usually social and economic hierarchies – against threats from more egalitarian forces. Once democracy arrived, conservatives were faced with a harder task, he argues. They needed “to make privilege popular” – or at least popular enough for them to hold office.
In the end the fundamental ideology of conservatism is "whoever has the power gets to keep it and noone is just given a place in society" so they will inevitably be far more willing to use rhetorical tricks and lying to win.
Under Reagan and Thatcher, conservatism’s solution to this conundrum was to promote a Darwinian but supposedly inclusive capitalism that was meant to keep the economy evolving while also preserving the social structures that conservatives favour, such as the traditional family. Yet since the 80s the economic benefits of this model have steadily become thinner and more narrowly distributed; meanwhile, its social costs have increasingly been felt by conservative-inclined interest groups, such as shopkeepers and people living in small towns.
In this unsettled, disillusioned political environment, conservatives have depended more and more on extraordinary means to win power: the narrow and partisan supreme court ruling that awarded Bush victory in 2000, the last-minute coalition with the Liberal Democrats that made Cameron prime minister in 2010, the Russian assistance that helped Trump narrowly squeak a win against Hillary Clinton’s lumbering campaign in 2016.
This alone speaks to me on so many levels. I have one friend in particular who frequently argues that poor people are poor because they are dumb. Smart people get rich, and dumb poor people will...
Darwinian but supposedly inclusive capitalism
This alone speaks to me on so many levels. I have one friend in particular who frequently argues that poor people are poor because they are dumb. Smart people get rich, and dumb poor people will always be so unless they 'go to college and get an education.' It's like there's this inexplicable connection made between 'biological survival of the fittest' and 'economic survival' and it results in massive blind spots like institutional poverty traps.
It’s the same group, or at least people with the same impetus, but only since Reagan has it been almost exclusively republican. Remember Lbj (apologies i can’t remember the exact quote) “tell an...
It’s the same group, or at least people with the same impetus, but only since Reagan has it been almost exclusively republican.
Remember Lbj (apologies i can’t remember the exact quote) “tell an unintelligent white man that he is better than intelligent black man and he will give you money and votes.”
If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
I think it really consolidated around Republicans specifically (around LBJ timeframe) with 'The Southern Strategy,' where they explicitly started to target racist voters.
I think it really consolidated around Republicans specifically (around LBJ timeframe) with 'The Southern Strategy,' where they explicitly started to target racist voters.
In a sane world, I would lean hard in the Republican direction, but for 30+ years now (my entire adult life), I've been stuck with supporting one bad Democratic candidate after another, because...
In a sane world, I would lean hard in the Republican direction, but for 30+ years now (my entire adult life), I've been stuck with supporting one bad Democratic candidate after another, because the Republicans have been, at least functionally and now, increasingly literally, batshit crazy.
When the US political process finally devolved to the choice of Clinton v Trump, I said 'screw this' and moved to Europe.
IDK what the solution is. Perhaps just have to let the US fully implode in some kind of ideological/theological civil war and then deal with whatever comes out the other side.
But journalists just explicitly calling out Republican fantasy-propaganda for what it is ... that might have worked 10-20 years ago, but not anymore. Too many people have been steeped in the Fox kool-aid.
There is no simple solution because the political process is locked down, and that's what needs to change. The simplest solution I can see is changing the process to fully support multiple (that is, >2) Parties. Even that is only a partial solution, and even that is utterly beyond the capabilities of the US political system.
Maybe that's something we should do more? I know it sounds rude and offensive, but if you think about the amount of damage religion and other irrational beliefs do, maybe being polite isn't the...
It seems similar to saying what you really think about someone else's religion?
Maybe that's something we should do more? I know it sounds rude and offensive, but if you think about the amount of damage religion and other irrational beliefs do, maybe being polite isn't the right way to approach it.
Religion, for all its foibles, is an important institution in human advancement. We are wired to long for the numinous (something accubens i believe). Religion is highly effective at helping us...
Religion, for all its foibles, is an important institution in human advancement. We are wired to long for the numinous (something accubens i believe). Religion is highly effective at helping us organize to act in ways beneficial to others, including promootong oeace and cooperation. No institution is perfect at preventing human corruption.
That said, particular religions, and particular groups of adherents can and should be judged harshly based on their actions. If we can feel justified in telling a group they can’t smoke weed regardless of its importance to their religion, we sure as hell ought to be able to tell groups that they can’t threaten people with guns or flagrantly refuse to cooperate with stemming a deadly pandemic.
I hope you realize how generous your description is. Religion is great at getting people to fall in line without having to use reasoning. Sure, you might call that peace if you ignore other people...
Religion is highly effective at helping us organize to act in ways beneficial to others, including promootong oeace and cooperation.
I hope you realize how generous your description is. Religion is great at getting people to fall in line without having to use reasoning. Sure, you might call that peace if you ignore other people outside your religion.
I agree with you. A while back someone said that one reason why people are OK with lifting COVID-19 restrictions in spite of the potential increase in deaths is that they think their theological...
I agree with you. A while back someone said that one reason why people are OK with lifting COVID-19 restrictions in spite of the potential increase in deaths is that they think their theological ideas are more important. I didn't respond, but I really wanted to reply, "at what point do we wake up to the fact that these people are running death cults and stop them for the public good?" But I already know that the answer for most people, even the nonreligious, is never. Look how many people were in denial after the Catholic sexual abuse scandal came out, and how many people decided to stay in the Church. Religion is untouchable, and that fact fucks up everything else.
It's been tried. People used to go war over religion. Religious tolerance was an important historical advance. More recently the New Atheists have said a lot of rude things, and it's not clear...
It's been tried.
People used to go war over religion. Religious tolerance was an important historical advance.
More recently the New Atheists have said a lot of rude things, and it's not clear what they accomplished by it.
New Atheism’s had a big problem of being so closely associated with this culture of old British Boarding School type dudes like Hitchens and Dawkins. They were rude because their leading lights...
More recently the New Atheists have said a lot of rude things, and it's not clear what they accomplished by it.
New Atheism’s had a big problem of being so closely associated with this culture of old British Boarding School type dudes like Hitchens and Dawkins. They were rude because their leading lights were just kind of smarmy assholes, which is just kind of a rhetorical style that seems to have been cultivated among a certain OxBridge generation. (One of them even happens to be running the country right now).
There's also those of us who didn't really tie with Hitchens and Dawkins, but were raised in strict religious households and shed religion of our own will. You know how the LGBTQ community...
There's also those of us who didn't really tie with Hitchens and Dawkins, but were raised in strict religious households and shed religion of our own will.
You know how the LGBTQ community struggles with discrimination and some feel the need to be closeted? Atheists deal with this too...rejection of your childhood religion can and does lead to oustings and shunnings from both households and communities.
I was closeted about my atheism (outside of some trusted friends) for 12 years, from when I was 11 until I was 23.
This builds a lot of resentment towards religion collectively. And there is plenty to shout about.
I guess, but rudeness on Twitter is a broader phenomenon. Also, arguments about religion were much more common in the early days of the Internet, when people hadn't learned to disengage and block....
I guess, but rudeness on Twitter is a broader phenomenon. Also, arguments about religion were much more common in the early days of the Internet, when people hadn't learned to disengage and block. Scott Alexander wrote an interesting article about this.
I don’t think disengagement or blocking has much to do with it. The movement itself splintered when the religious right spent itself out as a force in politics. When a movement defines itself...
I don’t think disengagement or blocking has much to do with it. The movement itself splintered when the religious right spent itself out as a force in politics. When a movement defines itself primarily as being anti-something and that something burns itself out, it doesn’t have much left to do.
They’re just the Right now, and the religion is just the plaster spread on top of garden variety ethno-nationalism. For the most part the important cultural battles have been won. The proportion of “nones” is higher, and growing, and most religious believers now subscribe to more deist or pantheistic expressions of their religions.
The real break happened around when culture war issues started to switch to matters of gender and sexuality. There was a whole thing about women being aggressively hit in and harassed at conventions.
Interesting question! On the downside, honesty would likely radicalize the Republicans. When confronted with facts that disagree with their world view, people tend to become more entrenched. On...
Interesting question!
On the downside, honesty would likely radicalize the Republicans. When confronted with facts that disagree with their world view, people tend to become more entrenched.
On the upside (for me), it might swing the election. American elections are driven by which side is more motivated to vote. The Republicans get heavy motivation from Fox News, Breitbart News etc... What motivates a loose coalition of democrats with varying political beliefs? I will tell you what is motivating to me. Seeing lies, propaganda and fabricated scandals pushing a political outcome I don't support. I think the more people who see how outrageous the Republican conduct that is, the more people will be motivated to vote.
Elections are also driven by crowd sourced opinion. The Wisdom of the Crowds suggests that crowds can be smarter than experts. One key assumption in the wisdom of the crowds is that the voting public has ready access to good data. Misinformation is one way to subvert the wisdom of the crowds.
The other key assumption that no longer holds true is that the majority wins. This hasn't been the case since Reagan, as the majority has been disenfranchised (see @kuromantis excellent posting on the corruption of the republican party.) I'd like to think if the anti-democratic behavior of the republican party was called out more clearly, the independents would be much less inclined to vote for them.
This is an interesting point. I think it's a pretty good explaination to why we keep yo-yoing between the two parties - at least if I had to choose just one factor. After all, it's a lot harder to...
What motivates a loose coalition of democrats with varying political beliefs? I will tell you what is motivating to me. Seeing lies, propaganda and fabricated scandals pushing a political outcome I don't support. I think the more people who see how outrageous the Republican conduct that is, the more people will be motivated to vote.
This is an interesting point. I think it's a pretty good explaination to why we keep yo-yoing between the two parties - at least if I had to choose just one factor. After all, it's a lot harder to be upset with the outrageous behaviour of the Bush Jr. Administration after 8 years of relative sanity with Obama.
Yeah, it's hard to say what's motivating. It seems like in the U.S, public opinion isn't moving much. My guess is that turnout will likely be decided by events closer to the election.
Yeah, it's hard to say what's motivating. It seems like in the U.S, public opinion isn't moving much. My guess is that turnout will likely be decided by events closer to the election.
Eh. Ish. In both it's a radical fringe becoming more and more radical until it's untenable for anyone to support them, but Jones didn't get embedded in government near to the degree that the GOP...
Eh. Ish. In both it's a radical fringe becoming more and more radical until it's untenable for anyone to support them, but Jones didn't get embedded in government near to the degree that the GOP has been subsumed. I daresay at the scale we're looking at it would be closer to rebellion or an attempt at military dictatorship as opposed to murder/suicide, but in both cases it's a reasonable-ish starting point that goes off the rails and takes a lot of people along with it.
Eh substitute Mormons, Baptists, Catholics, and all the other Christian sects and it's more or less the same. Jones might have been a bit extreme, but (especially the three named) religions have...
Eh substitute Mormons, Baptists, Catholics, and all the other Christian sects and it's more or less the same.
Jones might have been a bit extreme, but (especially the three named) religions have been pushing for closer and closer ties to the US govt and influencing policy.
They're all nutty, and religion is a poor foundation for a system of government. Especially given the authoritarian nature of most of them.
With respect to COVID-19, it's clearly not the case that they're all the same. The Mormons were the first to take it seriously, even before the lockdowns started, and Catholics stopped having...
With respect to COVID-19, it's clearly not the case that they're all the same. The Mormons were the first to take it seriously, even before the lockdowns started, and Catholics stopped having in-person mass soon after.
One of the reasons you see a few Baptist churches defying the law is that each church is independent. The more hierarchical churches seem to be more responsible.
It's not just about COVID...it's about their collective meddling in society. It doesn't matter if a church is independent of a larger organization...they are still extremely authoritarian...
It's not just about COVID...it's about their collective meddling in society.
It doesn't matter if a church is independent of a larger organization...they are still extremely authoritarian structures. The existence of a monotheistic God is authoritarian, suggesting that there is a higher power and we should be subservient to it. The church leader (high-level or not) is the representative and authority on interpreting God's will, which gives them a lot of influence on manipulating people.
Catholics are the biggest example, given theirs goes all the way to the Pope. And they preach hard against birth control and abortion. Also there's that really big institutionalized pedophillia problem. They also believe in transubstantiation, which is that communion is the literal conversion of bread and wine into Christ's body and blood.
Baptists are extremely anti-science, which makes them good targets for the 'anti-climate change' propaganda.
Mormons are flat out bonkers. Their belief system is roughly as crazy as Scientology, and just as dangerous and destructive.
It's no coincidence that religion rose dramatically with the rise of monarchies. The church and state have for an eternity been deeply entwined. The USA was one of the firat to enforce that separation, although religions have been working hard to subvert it ever since, and they seem to be winning.
Yeah, I'm not arguing that any particular religious beliefs are true; in general, I don't believe they are. I'm just talking about the behaviors of modern religious organizations in practical...
Yeah, I'm not arguing that any particular religious beliefs are true; in general, I don't believe they are. I'm just talking about the behaviors of modern religious organizations in practical terms. Religious organizations are still organizations, each with their own history, and they can do both good and bad things. They are worth studying as organizations, even for those of us who wouldn't join one.
There is more to it than debating whether religion is good or bad.
The very fact that no issue except Trump himself divides the Republicans today reflects the larger fact that issues hardly matter to today’s GOP. The media have largely glossed over the astonishing fact that the party neglected to adopt, propose, or even write a platform in 2020. All that mattered was affirming Trump, which basically meant affirming the continuation of the constant slander and vilification he heaped upon all whom he despised
He's right, it is long past time this happened, so the interesting question (and more interesting article) is why hasn't it happened? Anyone know of writing that offers answers?
If the NYT is to adopt this hardline stance against the Republican Party, I hope they promptly fire all the moronic opinion writers that have lent legitimacy to the party through (crucial) recent years. People like David Brooks.
I haven't read any articles or anything on it (though I'd also love to if anyone wants to link a relevant one), but I think it's mainly down to the old paradigm for for-profit news.
News media, since it's overwhelmingly funded by ads or subscriptions, has historically had a very strong incentive to try and target the broadest audience possible, which means going to pains to not alienate members of one political party or the other, regardless of how egregious their behavior. Fox is the exception that proves the rule there, since while it does operate for profit, it was built from the ground up, in an era of already balkanizing media, to spread an ideology, and to inhabit a particular niche doing so, whereas the old networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, et al. were not; they were built for a world of fewer choices and bigger audiences.
Even though fox has pretty much cornered the market for conservative viewers of TV news, there isn't really an equivalent in the newspaper world to my knowledge, and even in the TV market, whether it's through denial or inertia, networks continue to court conservative viewers, despite the futility. While there's probably at least some people with a misguided instinct for impartiality in the face of atrocity, I think most of it is to do with not wanting to alienate potential or existing customers, otherwise I don't think it'd be anywhere near as systemic a problem.
>post is tagged opinion
lol
More seriously though:
I agree. I think there are 2 problems though:
1: Fox News is basically a propaganda outlet for the GOP, likely as intended given Ailes (Fox's founder) was a Republican media operative.
2:
"To destroy a democracy you need to:
Lie. A lot
Say everyone else is a liar
Do this so much anyone who tries to debunk everything you say is given an impossible, impractical and exhausting to listen to task
Watch everyone get completely confused, incapable and ultimately too tired or apathetic to figure out what's actually true."
Heavily paraphrased but Trump has basically created his own version of truth and reality (and its not like the GOP was playing some twisted narratives/stories before him at least since when Obama originally took power) and to get Republicans out of it is damn near impossible.
Hate to be the pedant, but do you mean:
Trump is the worst recently, but they've been running this playbook since I was in diapers...and I would argue conservative movements as a whole are happy to gaslight if it suits their needs.
...Yeah. Admittedly it's mostly a reflection of just how bad Trump is and how I don't really remember any other form of conservatism other than this so W.Bush ends up looking like a sensible conservative and Reagan looks like a culturally conservative libertarian.
I agree. See this.
In the end the fundamental ideology of conservatism is "whoever has the power gets to keep it and noone is just given a place in society" so they will inevitably be far more willing to use rhetorical tricks and lying to win.
This alone speaks to me on so many levels. I have one friend in particular who frequently argues that poor people are poor because they are dumb. Smart people get rich, and dumb poor people will always be so unless they 'go to college and get an education.' It's like there's this inexplicable connection made between 'biological survival of the fittest' and 'economic survival' and it results in massive blind spots like institutional poverty traps.
It’s the same group, or at least people with the same impetus, but only since Reagan has it been almost exclusively republican.
Remember Lbj (apologies i can’t remember the exact quote) “tell an unintelligent white man that he is better than intelligent black man and he will give you money and votes.”
I think it really consolidated around Republicans specifically (around LBJ timeframe) with 'The Southern Strategy,' where they explicitly started to target racist voters.
In a sane world, I would lean hard in the Republican direction, but for 30+ years now (my entire adult life), I've been stuck with supporting one bad Democratic candidate after another, because the Republicans have been, at least functionally and now, increasingly literally, batshit crazy.
When the US political process finally devolved to the choice of Clinton v Trump, I said 'screw this' and moved to Europe.
IDK what the solution is. Perhaps just have to let the US fully implode in some kind of ideological/theological civil war and then deal with whatever comes out the other side.
But journalists just explicitly calling out Republican fantasy-propaganda for what it is ... that might have worked 10-20 years ago, but not anymore. Too many people have been steeped in the Fox kool-aid.
There is no simple solution because the political process is locked down, and that's what needs to change. The simplest solution I can see is changing the process to fully support multiple (that is, >2) Parties. Even that is only a partial solution, and even that is utterly beyond the capabilities of the US political system.
I'm skeptical about the idea that more "honesty" would do much good. It seems similar to saying what you really think about someone else's religion?
Maybe that's something we should do more? I know it sounds rude and offensive, but if you think about the amount of damage religion and other irrational beliefs do, maybe being polite isn't the right way to approach it.
Religion, for all its foibles, is an important institution in human advancement. We are wired to long for the numinous (something accubens i believe). Religion is highly effective at helping us organize to act in ways beneficial to others, including promootong oeace and cooperation. No institution is perfect at preventing human corruption.
That said, particular religions, and particular groups of adherents can and should be judged harshly based on their actions. If we can feel justified in telling a group they can’t smoke weed regardless of its importance to their religion, we sure as hell ought to be able to tell groups that they can’t threaten people with guns or flagrantly refuse to cooperate with stemming a deadly pandemic.
I hope you realize how generous your description is. Religion is great at getting people to fall in line without having to use reasoning. Sure, you might call that peace if you ignore other people outside your religion.
I agree with you. A while back someone said that one reason why people are OK with lifting COVID-19 restrictions in spite of the potential increase in deaths is that they think their theological ideas are more important. I didn't respond, but I really wanted to reply, "at what point do we wake up to the fact that these people are running death cults and stop them for the public good?" But I already know that the answer for most people, even the nonreligious, is never. Look how many people were in denial after the Catholic sexual abuse scandal came out, and how many people decided to stay in the Church. Religion is untouchable, and that fact fucks up everything else.
It's been tried.
People used to go war over religion. Religious tolerance was an important historical advance.
More recently the New Atheists have said a lot of rude things, and it's not clear what they accomplished by it.
New Atheism’s had a big problem of being so closely associated with this culture of old British Boarding School type dudes like Hitchens and Dawkins. They were rude because their leading lights were just kind of smarmy assholes, which is just kind of a rhetorical style that seems to have been cultivated among a certain OxBridge generation. (One of them even happens to be running the country right now).
There's also those of us who didn't really tie with Hitchens and Dawkins, but were raised in strict religious households and shed religion of our own will.
You know how the LGBTQ community struggles with discrimination and some feel the need to be closeted? Atheists deal with this too...rejection of your childhood religion can and does lead to oustings and shunnings from both households and communities.
I was closeted about my atheism (outside of some trusted friends) for 12 years, from when I was 11 until I was 23.
This builds a lot of resentment towards religion collectively. And there is plenty to shout about.
I guess, but rudeness on Twitter is a broader phenomenon. Also, arguments about religion were much more common in the early days of the Internet, when people hadn't learned to disengage and block. Scott Alexander wrote an interesting article about this.
I don’t think disengagement or blocking has much to do with it. The movement itself splintered when the religious right spent itself out as a force in politics. When a movement defines itself primarily as being anti-something and that something burns itself out, it doesn’t have much left to do.
They’re just the Right now, and the religion is just the plaster spread on top of garden variety ethno-nationalism. For the most part the important cultural battles have been won. The proportion of “nones” is higher, and growing, and most religious believers now subscribe to more deist or pantheistic expressions of their religions.
The real break happened around when culture war issues started to switch to matters of gender and sexuality. There was a whole thing about women being aggressively hit in and harassed at conventions.
Interesting question!
On the downside, honesty would likely radicalize the Republicans. When confronted with facts that disagree with their world view, people tend to become more entrenched.
On the upside (for me), it might swing the election. American elections are driven by which side is more motivated to vote. The Republicans get heavy motivation from Fox News, Breitbart News etc... What motivates a loose coalition of democrats with varying political beliefs? I will tell you what is motivating to me. Seeing lies, propaganda and fabricated scandals pushing a political outcome I don't support. I think the more people who see how outrageous the Republican conduct that is, the more people will be motivated to vote.
Elections are also driven by crowd sourced opinion. The Wisdom of the Crowds suggests that crowds can be smarter than experts. One key assumption in the wisdom of the crowds is that the voting public has ready access to good data. Misinformation is one way to subvert the wisdom of the crowds.
The other key assumption that no longer holds true is that the majority wins. This hasn't been the case since Reagan, as the majority has been disenfranchised (see @kuromantis excellent posting on the corruption of the republican party.) I'd like to think if the anti-democratic behavior of the republican party was called out more clearly, the independents would be much less inclined to vote for them.
This is an interesting point. I think it's a pretty good explaination to why we keep yo-yoing between the two parties - at least if I had to choose just one factor. After all, it's a lot harder to be upset with the outrageous behaviour of the Bush Jr. Administration after 8 years of relative sanity with Obama.
Yeah, it's hard to say what's motivating. It seems like in the U.S, public opinion isn't moving much. My guess is that turnout will likely be decided by events closer to the election.
If it didn't help with Jim Jones, will it help now?
I don't remember the details of how the Jim Jones cult happened, so I don't know what you mean. How good an analogy is this?
Eh. Ish. In both it's a radical fringe becoming more and more radical until it's untenable for anyone to support them, but Jones didn't get embedded in government near to the degree that the GOP has been subsumed. I daresay at the scale we're looking at it would be closer to rebellion or an attempt at military dictatorship as opposed to murder/suicide, but in both cases it's a reasonable-ish starting point that goes off the rails and takes a lot of people along with it.
Eh substitute Mormons, Baptists, Catholics, and all the other Christian sects and it's more or less the same.
Jones might have been a bit extreme, but (especially the three named) religions have been pushing for closer and closer ties to the US govt and influencing policy.
They're all nutty, and religion is a poor foundation for a system of government. Especially given the authoritarian nature of most of them.
With respect to COVID-19, it's clearly not the case that they're all the same. The Mormons were the first to take it seriously, even before the lockdowns started, and Catholics stopped having in-person mass soon after.
One of the reasons you see a few Baptist churches defying the law is that each church is independent. The more hierarchical churches seem to be more responsible.
It's not just about COVID...it's about their collective meddling in society.
It doesn't matter if a church is independent of a larger organization...they are still extremely authoritarian structures. The existence of a monotheistic God is authoritarian, suggesting that there is a higher power and we should be subservient to it. The church leader (high-level or not) is the representative and authority on interpreting God's will, which gives them a lot of influence on manipulating people.
Catholics are the biggest example, given theirs goes all the way to the Pope. And they preach hard against birth control and abortion. Also there's that really big institutionalized pedophillia problem. They also believe in transubstantiation, which is that communion is the literal conversion of bread and wine into Christ's body and blood.
Baptists are extremely anti-science, which makes them good targets for the 'anti-climate change' propaganda.
Mormons are flat out bonkers. Their belief system is roughly as crazy as Scientology, and just as dangerous and destructive.
It's no coincidence that religion rose dramatically with the rise of monarchies. The church and state have for an eternity been deeply entwined. The USA was one of the firat to enforce that separation, although religions have been working hard to subvert it ever since, and they seem to be winning.
Yeah, I'm not arguing that any particular religious beliefs are true; in general, I don't believe they are. I'm just talking about the behaviors of modern religious organizations in practical terms. Religious organizations are still organizations, each with their own history, and they can do both good and bad things. They are worth studying as organizations, even for those of us who wouldn't join one.
There is more to it than debating whether religion is good or bad.
https://prospect.org/blogs/tap/how-republicans-ceased-to-be-a-party-and-became-a-cult/