Christian Nationalists are excited about what comes next.

[pnwmom]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/05/opinion/dobbs-christian-nationalism.html?smtyp=cur&smid=fb-nytimes&fbclid=IwAR1g6K_9OZ-Aika9oy4h651czmh6TK-aWk8slvLJWphKDE0SGwsj2roYMqs

The Supreme Court’s decision to rescind the reproductive rights that American women have enjoyed over the past half-century will not lead America’s homegrown religious authoritarians to retire from the culture wars and enjoy a sweet moment of triumph. On the contrary, movement leaders are already preparing for a new and more brutal phase of their assault on individual rights and democratic self-governance. Breaking American democracy isn’t an unintended side effect of Christian nationalism. It is the point of the project.

A good place to gauge the spirit and intentions of the movement that brought us the radical majority on the Supreme Court is the annual Road to Majority Policy Conference. At this year’s event, which took place last month in Nashville, three clear trends were in evidence. First, the rhetoric of violence among movement leaders appeared to have increased significantly from the already alarming levels I had observed in previous years. Second, the theology of dominionism — that is, the belief that “right-thinking” Christians have a biblically derived mandate to take control of all aspects of government and society — is now explicitly embraced. And third, the movement’s key strategists were giddy about the legal arsenal that the Supreme Court had laid at their feet as they anticipated the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

They intend to use that arsenal — together with additional weaponry collected in cases like Carson v. Makin, which requires state funding of religious schools if private, secular schools are also being funded; and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which licenses religious proselytizing by public school officials — to prosecute a war on individual rights, not merely in so-called red state legislatures but throughout the nation.

Although metaphors of battle are common enough in political gatherings, this year’s rhetoric appeared more violent, more graphic and more tightly focused on fellow Americans, rather than on geopolitical foes.

SNIP

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Yep, they intend the installation of a strongman President for life and a christian theocracy.

[gratuitous]

2. Wait, I thought the sensible centrists, like the New York Times said . . .

If we'd just give in on this one teeny tiny issue that nobody really cares about, then the religious authoritarians would be satisfied and leave us all alone.

[Hortensis]

7. Lol, I never heard ANYONE say that! By definition "religious authoritarians"

are never satisfied, least of all after achieving a victory. The only way to get them to leave their opponents alone is by breaking them and forcing them to scurry for cover.

I have heard many observers sounding the alarm for decades. Including in 2016 when they warned that that election was NOT about which of two progressive national healthcare plans people would like to have but about the survival of the rights of the people to decide anything, including whether they can have any national healthcare (no).

Btw, the NYT helps elect Republican majorities, so it was among the media that pushed that self-defeating delusion at the left as if it was a real thing. They did such a good job breaking belief in the Democratic Party instead that third-party voting increased for the first time in years and 100 M Americans didn't vote at all.

[pnwmom]

9. Considering that is generally a solid blue state, and went to Hillary in 2016 by 59%,

I don't see how it can be said that the NYT helps elect Republican majorities.

It also didn't seem to me that the NYT was pushing third-party voting.

[Hortensis]

11. Well, okay. Different for us because we'd subscribed for years

and knew what they were up to -- then and still are now. Dean Baquet, the managing editor who presided over this era, just handed things over to the managing editor last month. The NYT, along with the other RW powers, the Russians etc, and LW hostiles, was working to defeat Democrats by pushing disheartening disinformation about Democrats and puffing up Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, etc, to the left -- to splinter away enough votes to throw the nation to the Republicans. (For those who don't remember, the strategy worked. Again.)

During that election I used to open the NYT on-line political section and count the large number of negative-sounding headlines along the left margin about Democrats (seldom less than 6 or 7 EVERY DAY, almost all about Hillary), also the number that puffed a phony Bernie Sanders horse race even though experts KNEW that by the numbers he couldn't possibly win and was losing more with every primary, including those he won.

And of course the usual missing news and overall more positive (than HRC!) tone about tRump. On Halloween just before election day the NYT published their Big Blatant In-Our-Faces Lie that the Mueller investigation into tRump-Russia hadn't found anything and suggested that it was about to close down.

Btw, after the number of still-available electors fell below the number Sanders would have to win ALL of to stay in the race, the NYT headline was that Sanders got a big boost! from winning the last state the day before (he technically got a majority of the vote). Of course he'd been promising all along, if he lost the popular vote, to get the superdelegates to take the nomination away from the choice of Democratic voters and throw it to him, but the NYT barely if ever mentioned that interesting promise. Maybe they thought it didn't fit their strategy.)

Below that, in smaller font than all the other articles, was a headline for the electors, which readers had to open to learn what it was about -- that Sanders could no longer get the rest of the 270 electors needed to win because there weren't enough left. (It didn't confess they'd known this day was coming for months, just made it official.)

Lot more where this comes from. The NYT. Not that plenty of others weren't doing the same, including the AP, CNN, and MSNBC.

[keithbvadu2]

3. What will they say/do when it is not their version of Christianity in charge?

What will they say/do when it is not their version of Christianity in charge?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/?no-ist= ;

Madison also made a point that any believer of any religion should understand: that the government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion. "Who does not see," he wrote, "that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?" Madison was writing from his memory of Baptist ministers being arrested in his native Virginia.

[Bettie]

4. Yeah, there will be a knock-down drag-out when

the theocracy starts...all those varieties of Christianity will be all over being the chosen version.

[milestogo]

16. They will fight each other till the whole thing collapses.

Because none of it is really Christianity.

[BlueIdaho]

5. Christian Nationalists

Should not count their chickens before they are hatched.

[AntiFascist]

6. MAGAts like Michael Flynn have already gone way off the deep end...

not only does he now endorse a Christian theocracy, he also plead the fifth when asked if he believes in the peaceful transfer of power.

[Leith]

8. They should be careful what they wish for

For most of the reichwing, their sects are Protestant. The Catholics on the SC may have their own church in mind. Let them fight each other for supremacy.

[artemisia1]

10. Anybody down with me for a re-watching of "The Handmaid's Tale" TV series? Both the book and

the series could not be more appropriate to the present hour. Remember, a small vocal and militant minority can oppress an apathetic majority.

Praise be!
(sarcasm)

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

12. I think I'll wait for the documentary. n/t

[H2O Man]

13. Recommended.

Very important issue. Thank you for this.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

14. Fucking death cult

[keithbvadu2]

15. Would you like Christians like this in charge? Or Westboro Baptist Church?

We have Christians like this in our country... Let the child die as we pray.

https://www.newser.com/story/322567/14-cult-members-charged-in-girls-murder.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=uol&utm_campaign=rss_world_img_b

Members of Religious Sect Charged in Girl's Death

Parents of Australia's Elizabeth Struhs were previously charged; they prayed instead of providing insulin