All this radical conservative shit is because of "The Family." Ever heard of them?

[librechik]

Few people have. They stay on the DL except for the National Prayer Breakfast.

Check out this Netflix documentary series

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/08/the-family-netflix-review-religious-political-group/596035/

or the devastating 2009 book by Jeff Sharlet: "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power"

These "christianists" own Washington DC and they think Jesus put them alone above the law.

Mark my words, they did this.

[SheltieLover]

1. Is this the C-Street "Family?"

[Ilsa]

3. Yes, even if they no longer live there. nt

[SheltieLover]

5. They are terrorist, nutjobs, imo

[NullTuples]

22. Known members have included Hillary Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush

...along with Russian nationals. members of Congress and an army of other conservative Christians.

[spooky3]

29. Do you have a cite? This source doesn't claim HRC was a member, only

That the group “maintained relations” with her, and she said she never gave them $.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/secrets-of-c-street

[wnylib]

30. Thanks for bringing up the same

question that I had. I know that Hillary attended a yearly prayer meeting. That is not the same as being a member of this group. Hillary is a religious person (Methodist). That does not mean that she is a member of this cult.

[SunSeeker]

34. Hillary was NEVER a member. It's bullshit misinformation like this that gaveTrump the win in 2016.

And why we have an extreme right wing Christianist Supreme Court right now.

[librechik]

4. yes, those assholes.

[SheltieLover]

8. Thx. They should be declared a terrorist org.

[Ilsa]

2. I watched it. What a cult! And it lives on while the architect

of it is dead. They wrangled Democrats, too, and they still have power in DC.

[librechik]

7. Yep, Democrats too. Those Dems need to wise up. It is a cult and they need to leave.

[ret5hd]

11. Well, that kinda sounds like...

christianity as a whole…right?

[Ilsa]

13. No, these people are extremists and misogynists. Not all

Christians are like this, and many are quite progressive.

[ret5hd]

14. I was referring to the...

“…while the architect is dead...” part.

[wnylib]

28. Isn't that true of many organizations, and

even governments?

The architects of the US are dead but we still follow the constitution that they wrote. There are many people today who adhere to principles established by ancient (non religious) philosophers. Musicians still play symphonies written centuries ago. Doctors still swear to the Hippocratic Oath. People still celebrate Halloween in similar ways to ancient Celts.

It is the nature of humans to pass on ideas and customs from one generation to the next.

[H2O Man]

6. Recommended.

I've known about them for many years. They have indeed played a huge role in this. I appreciate you posting this!

[librechik]

9. my pleasure. Nothing I like better than bad-mouthing a bunch of narcissistic hypocrites!

Thanks H2Oman!

[Raven]

10. Thank you for this!

[jmbar2]

12. Thanks for posting

This needs to be reupped periodically.

Christofacists have been on a decades-long campaign to destroy democracy. They are ALLLLMOST there, unless we stop them. Now!

[electric_blue68]

15. Yeah. Probably through (RIP) Air America Radio.

[certainot]

36. democracy was designed to deal with fascists and their orgs and money - the difference is the radio

monopoly that they used to short circuit the feedback mechanisms democracy needs, to sell big lie after big lie, and to create made-to -order constituencies for any issue.

because the left and dems ignored talk radio, and still do, media and others look for blame all over the place and give way too much credit to those who piggybacked 1500 coordinated unchallenged radio stations, as if they were reflecting popular opinion instead of, in reality, repeating the buzz from a few hundred coordinated assholes parroting limbaugh, who was more and more fed by the kremlin since at least 2008.

for instance they had no clue when they were calling trump and branding genius that limbaugh would regularly spend hours repeating "trump" 50 times/hr, or that the giuliani/powell press conference was timed to start with the limbaugh show and he played much of it and agreed with what they were saying live, to many millions more than would have caught it.

[OneGrassRoot]

16. Ginni Thomas is probably knee deep...

in that fuckery.

K&R

[erronis]

17. There will be a high overlap with those members of the CNP - RW christo-fascist org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_for_National_Policy

The Council for National Policy (CNP) is an umbrella organization and networking group for conservative and Republican activists in the United States. It was launched in 1981 during the Reagan administration by Tim LaHaye and other right-wing conservative Christians, to "bring more focus and force to conservative advocacy".[1][2][3] The membership list for September 2020 was later leaked, showing that members included prominent Republicans and conservatives, wealthy entrepreneurs, and media proprietors, together with anti-abortion and anti-Islamic extremists. Members are instructed not to reveal their membership, or even name the group.[4]

The CNP has been described by The New York Times as "a little-known club of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country", who meet three times yearly behind closed doors at undisclosed locations for a confidential conference.[5] The Nation has called it a secretive organization that "networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to plan long-term movement strategy".[6] The organization has been described by Anne Nelson as a "pluto-theocracy" (plutocracy/theocracy).[7]

[spike jones]

18. I recently gave my copy to a friend to read. n/t

[Ohio Joe]

19. K & R

That book should be required reading.

[JCMach1]

20. Not just, there is a whole nexus of Xtian Dominionists working to overthrow

American Democracy

[Hortensis]

21. Would all our "LW shit" be because of some LW group? The family reflects,

in times of great change and anxiety, and has helped bring out what've always been important traits in a very large minority of the right. But what's happening isn't just them. It's enormously bigger and it's happened before. Like in Germany in the 1930s.

"The Family" are certainly worth knowing about. But to understand the dangerous millions who've come to believe they're in an existential fight to save their way of life and "things they hold sacred" from liberal Democracy, this unusually informative article from Politico is a very good one to start with.

“The earlier culture war really was about secularization, and positions were tied to theologies and justified on the basis of theologies,” says Hunter. “That’s no longer the case. You rarely see people on the right rooting their positions within a biblical theology or ecclesiastical tradition. [Nowadays,] it is a position that is mainly rooted in fear of extinction.” ...

2008 was a really important year, insofar as the Great Recession accentuated an important distinction within the white middle class. It drove a wedge between the middle and lower-middle or working class and the highly trained, professionally educated managers, technocrats and intellectuals—basically, between the top 20 percent and the bottom 80 percent. And that meant [there] were now class differences that were overlaid upon some of these cultural differences. ... So now, instead of just culture wars, there’s now a kind of class-culture conflict. With a sense of being on the losing side of our global economy and its dynamics, I think that the resentments have just deepened. That became obvious, more and more, over the four years of Trump, and part of Trump’s own genius was understanding the resentments of coming out on the losing side of global capitalism. ... And they [white non-college-educated voters] voted en masse for Trump. ...

On political matters, one can compromise; on matters of ultimate moral truth, one cannot. ... Part of our problem is that we have politicized everything. And yet politics becomes a proxy for cultural positions that simply won’t brook any kind of dissent or argument.

You hear this all the time. The very idea of treating your opponents with civility is a betrayal. How can you be civil to people who threaten your very existence?

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/20/culture-war-politics-2021-democracy-analysis-489900

For the authoritarian MAGA mentality that went looking for tRump and was in turn harnessed by him (and to learn it's right to be scared of it!), The Authoritarians free downloadable book at https://theauthoritarians.org/

[Gore1FL]

23. We should refer to them as CHRISIS.

It's Christ, ISIS, and Crisis all in one.

[dchill]

25. Used in a sentence: We are in a CHRISIS of government.

[dchill]

24. I remember Rachel having Jeff Sharlet on her show...

...to talk about his book.

[DemocraticPatriot]

26. In my neighborhood, "The Family" was a biker gang

[Kaleva]

27. There's a 2007 Mother Jones article about Hillary being a member

[TheRickles]

32. Here's the link (below). Quite a few names are named, so it's a bit troubling.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clintons-religion-and-politics/

Check it out and see what you think.

[Kaleva]

33. Thanks!

[SunSeeker]

37. OFFS. That article does NOT establish Hillary was a member of the Family.

Instead, it is a typically Hillary bashing hit piece, with no "there there," like all the "her emails" news stories that helped Trump win in 2016.

All that article confirmed is that Hillary was in a DC prayer circle with some conservatives, participating in prayer breakfasts:

These days, Clinton has graduated from the political wives’ group into what may be Coe’s most elite cell, the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast. 

It turned out to be good politics, improving many high profile Republicans' view of her (as the article notes). This allowed her to get these conservatives to work with her on initiatives that helped us all.

[SunSeeker]

39. That article did NOT say Hillary was a member of the Family. nt

[Kaleva]

41. The article says the Fellowship and Family are the same

[SunSeeker]

42. It does not say Hillary was a member of the Fellowship, nor the Family.

Instead, it is a typically Hillary bashing hit piece, with no "there there," like all the "her emails" news stories that helped Trump win in 2016.

All that article confirmed is that Hillary was in a DC prayer circle with some conservatives who were members of the Fellowship, and she was participating in prayer breakfasts:

These days, Clinton has graduated from the political wives’ group into what may be Coe’s most elite cell, the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast. 

It turned out to be good politics, improving many high profile Republicans' view of her (as the article notes). This allowed her to get these conservatives to work with her on initiatives that helped us all.

[Kaleva]

43. 5th and 12th paragraph

The prayer circles she attended were part of the Fellowship

It doesn't bother me one bit if Hillary was a member and associated with other members or not. The last Dem who represented my district, Bart Stupak, was a member.

[SunSeeker]

45. Some of the people in the prayer circles were part of the Fellowship.

Hillary joined the prayer circles, not the Fellowship.

[PufPuf23]

31. Have a "The Family" section on one of many book shelves.

The Family - Sharlet
The Family - by Kitty Kelley about the Bush Family
The Family - Ed Sanders (of The Fugs) about the Manson Family.

[jaxexpat]

35. One must be alert to the possibility that today's miscreant could be tomorrow's savior.

If for no other purpose than curiosity, one must be able to hear, see and feel without absorption into cultish shenanigans. Because what's a revolting cult to one is merely a curious clan to another. It's the long-term fruit of these things, essentially revealed through a dissection to provide the nature and potential, that define any benefit.

[ColinC]

38. Used to hear "focus on the family" as a kid. Same people?

[malaise]

40. There were lots of threads about them here on DU

during Dumbya’s time in office.

[uponit7771]

44. K&R,