A documentary on the Capitol riot

Mehdi Hasan has a documentar report on the Capitol insurrection of three weeks ago, Capitol Crimes: Inside the Insurrection 01/28/2021:

Dave Neiwert gives us an idea of the direction far-right terrorism will go over the next few months (Far right reeling from Capitol siege consequences, so it returns to ‘leaderless resistance’ tactics Daily Kos 01/27/2021):

Radical-right organizing works in cycles: There’s an initial buildup and recruitment phase, followed by preplanned direct action in escalating levels of violence, eventually resulting in an explosion of public violence that exposes them both to public approbation and prosecution by authorities. These bursts of violence tend to scatter their forces as they dissolve into factional squabbling. At this point, they begin to reorganize under a “leaderless resistance” strategy deploying small action cells and “lone wolf” terrorists, and begin rebuilding. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The most recent far-right explosion of violence—the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol—has had its predictable effect, particularly due to the stern law-enforcement response involving multiple arrests of participants as well as the subsequent bans on their presence in social media, dispersing their organizers and followers to the far dark reaches of the internet and inspiring internecine warfare. Moreover, as Ben Makuch reports for Vice, white-supremacist ideologues are now responding by preparing a fresh round of domestic terrorism deploying both paramilitary “action squads” and unaffiliated extremists capable of extreme violence.

He goes on to explain how this approach reinforces the media narrative of rightwing terrorist acts as being "isolated incidents," when often they are very much part of a broader network of fanaticism and hatred. When in reality, when the media report "that such events are committed by 'lone wolves,' without any recognition that such a designation actually indicates the opposite of an 'isolated' event."

Part of the larger political environment for the radical right is the Christian Right movement. While most of their leaders and ministers don't directly promote violence, they often do promote an apocalyptic attitude toward polices (the claimed war on Christianity), an anti-science bias (creationism), and general moral fanaticism, especially around abortion. And the obscure theology of Christian Reconstruction has played a major role in the formation of today's Radical Right.

As Chrissy Stroop notes (Where Were They Radicalized? Religion Dispatches 01/19/2021):

As I like to say, however, the Christian Right has been doing “alternative facts” since before it was cool. It would be remiss of us to approach the “where were they radicalized” question without addressing how the Christian schooling and homeschooling movement, along with many white churches and other evangelical, LDS, and ‘trad’ Catholic institutions, fostered the subcultures that created the demand for hyper-partisan “news” outlets like Fox News.

Any serious answer to the question of radicalization will have to address Christian nationalism’s own longstanding (dis)information and political ecosystem, taking into account the feedback loops between it; overt white supremacist and right-wing extremist groups; elite right-wing lobbies like the Council for National Policy; digital technology; and the rise of talk radio and right-wing cable “news.”

A Christian Right post-election repositioning on Trump. Kinda, sorta.

Traditions are important in politics. One of the best-established ones for the Democrats is that every Presidential election year, they fantasize that voters who identify with the Christian Right will start seeing the light and see that there's "Christian" stuff about Democratic policies, too.

Since it never actually happens, we get to rinse-and-repeat every four years. But rituals are important, you know.

Here's an example of a Christian Right true believer engaging in a beloved Republican political ritual: Hunter Baker, When Pragmatic Politics Goes Bad: An Apology to the Never-Trumpers Public Discourse 01/15/2021

After Bush I and especially after Bush II, the latter of whom Republicans including the Christian Right treated with quasi-religious and nationalist devotion while President, they immediately tried to distance themselves from them. Digby Parton calls it the principle that conservatism cannot fail, it can only *be* failed. The same happens when Republican Presidential candidates lose.

But Baker sticks to two notions that for the Christian Right are essentially infallible reasons to support Republicans over Democrats: opposition to abortion (main symbol for their hostility to women's rights more generally), and fear of the imaginary war on Christianity, a deeply dishonest pretense. And with the notion of Republican Presidents as "King Cyruses" or "Queen Esthers" who are chosen by God to save His people, they can easily justify supporting the next Trump, or even a 2024 Trump candidacy. After earnest prayer, of course!

That said, this kind of dubious "testimony" of repentance may create some emotional opening for people who are losing their emotional commitment to the Christian Right cause to rethink their approach.

And it's not exactly a full-blown repentance. I mean, isn't the idea that you repent of sins before you ask forgiveness? He writes:

When I voted for Donald Trump the second time, it was easier to do. I felt largely vindicated by his judicial appointments and much of the policy record, despite my strong disagreement with his tone and approach regarding immigration (including illegal immigration). The left’s treatment of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh also bolstered my sense that Trump was the only choice. From my perspective, he had also taken necessary steps to confront China on trade and intellectual property, had begun to roll back some of the power of the administrative state, and had repatriated offshore corporate profits by making the American tax rate more competitive.

Because Jesus was all about repatriating corporate profits, I get it. (The actual effect of Trump's tax cuts on repatriation of funds was much less that advertised, if it can be said to have happened at all in any meaningful sense.)

If you read Baker's statement all the way to the end, he tailors his repentance very specifically to apologize to the NeverTrumpers for not heeded their warning that Trump might at some time go too far. ("I find it entirely plausible [sic!] that Joe Biden won.") Baker thinks he finally did go too far by denying that Biden won the election. Note the date of his piece, a week and a half after Trump literally sent a murderous lynch mob to occupy the US Capitol. "The reason for this apology, then, is because the never-Trumpers were right about the president in a very precise kind of way."

But he doesn't exactly offer a ringing condemnation of the Trumpista lynch mob that stormed the Capitol with literally fatal results for five p0eople:

I knew I was wrong as January 6 approached and the president started calling for Vice President Mike Pence to reject certification of the electoral college results. This, of course, was on top of his disturbing phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State urging him to “find” additional votes. At the same time, he encouraged Americans to mass at the Capitol to support his cause.

I do not suggest that the Americans who went to the Capitol, the great majority of them peaceful, bore ill intent, but I do think that the president intended to create a spectacle that would put pressure on Mike Pence to take a dramatic and extra-legal step that would fundamentally betray the American political order and its traditions.

In fact, that doesn't sound like a condemnation at all to me!

So, being able to avoid paying taxes on corporate profits is the Lord's will? But it would be Christ-like to CONDEMN A MURDEROUS LYNCH MOB?!?

If you need something to bore you to sleep, you can check out Baker's pre-election endorsement of Trump, How Trump Has Transformed the GOP—and Why Conservatives Should Vote for Him Anyway 09/27/2020

The US Christian Right at the end of the Trump-Pence Administration

Recent articles by two of the best analysts of the Christian Right in America look at the current state of the Christian Right and what trends we should keep in focus.

• Frederick Clarkson; Still Here: The Christian Right in the 2020 Election Political Research Associates 01/13/2021
• Chrissy Stroop, Attack on the US Capitol ... Religion Dispatches 01/14/2021

Clarkson calls our attention to the "diversity" side of the overwhelmingly white Christian Right. "Overwhelmingly" does not mean "exclusively". He makes an observation that could be very relevant to the much-discussed increase in minority support for Trump in the 2020 election among blacks, Latinos, and Asian-Americans, which he describes here:

If the White evangelical demographic is all you look at, White evangelicals are all you see. But that’s not all that the Christian Right is. Conservative Catholics count, and the Christian Right and Republicans have been targeting minorities for a long time. Much of the diversity they’ve achieved to date comes from the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), an emergent regrouping of historically Pentecostal and neo-Charismatic leaders into a loose, but deeply theocratic religious network. Contrary to the stereotype of the Christian Right, many of the churches in this movement have been historically multi-racial and multi-ethnic. Some even have women leaders.

In December, The New York Times compared election results in 28,000 precincts in more than 20 cities between 2016 and 2020, finding that “many areas with large populations of Latinos and residents of Asian descent” experienced “a surge in turnout and a shift to the right, often a sizable one.” Republicans, the Times reports, claim that this “represents the beginnings of a realignment of conservative, religious working people in immigrant communities and communities of color into their party.”

To whatever extent this is true, the Christian Right - including the less-understood NAR [the conservative, Pentecostal New Apostolic Reformation] - is part of the trend. The Trump campaign made outreach to Latinx and Asian voters a focus in 2020, apparently to great effect. For example, the Times reports that while Biden won the Latinx vote overall, Trump improved on his 2016 performance by 61 percent in Miami, 49 percent in Chicago, 33 percent in Dallas, and by similarly large percentages in 15 other cities or metro areas studied by the Times. [my emphasis in bold]

What Clarkson adds to the story is the particular role of Christian Right groups in improving their own data-mining and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operations. Organization matters, and GOTV operations matter a lot. One big problem in Democratic losses among the heavily Latino voters in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas was the reported weakness of the local Democratic Party organizational efforts in that area in 2020.

Clarkson discusses some of the more significant players in the Christian Right's political operation, including the United in Purpose (UiP) organization. This is very important, because the Christian Right groups are extremely important in Republican GOTV. (The NRA has also been in past elections, but they have encountered serious internal problems more recently.)

For several election cycles, the strategic Christian Right organization United in Purpose (UiP) has sought to unite the various factions of the Christian Right in a common electoral direction, centered on sophisticated data analysis that is widely shared in the movement. Under the leadership of former realtor and ex-convict Bill Dallas, the California-headquartered UiP has engaged in deep data mining, and constructed databases and online tools to help the Christian Right meet its strategic goals in the 21st Century. In 2014, for example, the group launched a voter registration app that allowed pastors to compare church membership rosters with voter registration files, to identify which congregants could be recruited as voters.

By 2016, Dallas, who is a member of the secretive conservative leadership group Council for National Policy, had become such a powerbroker that he was tapped to organize the infamous meeting between Trump and evangelical and Christian Right leaders in New York City.

... Katherine Stewart [has] noted how the Christian Right had acquired various databases and integrated them into their own. This included files that were apparently obtained from the public release of a national computer file of 191 million voters in 2015. It’s a little unclear exactly how this happened, but it appears that UiP got a hold of those files. As Dallas told the Christian Broadcasting Network 2016, “We have about 200 million files, so we have pretty much the whole voting population in our database.” He added, “What we do is we track to see what’s going to make somebody either vote one way, or not vote at all.”

UiP was also a leader in the Christian Right effort to target evangelical voters of color in 2020. As an investigation by The Intercept noted, “UIP’s 2020 election plan” — named “Ziklag,” after a town referenced in the Bible — “is a multipronged effort to connect Trump with evangelical leaders and increase support among minority voters through appeals to faith-based messages and church outreach.” [my emphasis in bold]

Organization matters. GOTV matters. A lot. One long-standing media cliché about the Republican appeal to minorities is that they can win over voters of color through "family values". But it takes organization to make that happen. And we're seeing signs that groups like UiP are making some notable headway in that effort.

Clarkson knows this scene in depth, and he discusses here some important figures that don't get as much critical attention as one might wish in the mainstream press: George Barna, Brian Burch, Todd Lamphere, Cissie Graham Lynch, Guillermo Maldonado, Joseph Mattera, Ralph Reed, Paula White. Yes, Ralph Reed is still around, still working the Christian Right grift.

Both Clarkson and Stroop remind us that the refrain we hear from establishment pundits every four years after Presidential elections about how the Christian Right seems to be losing steam keeps turning out to be wrong. For 2016 and 2020, The shock of Trumpism at least seemed to tamp down a closely related trope that Democrats need to try to appeal to the Christian Right by pandering to anti-women's-rights sentiments.

Stroop complains about the lack of realistic attention and analysis of the Christian Right by the corporate press:

I’ve long lamented the general state of American religion journalism, which tends to whitewash evangelical authoritarianism, thereby enabling it. And in the aftermath of last Wednesday’s insurrection, in which the Christian flag and the Confederate battle flag were both among the symbols displayed by terrorists occupying the Capitol, some of the first prominent commentaries on the Christian nationalist character of the rioting continued in that pattern. They essentially painted the Christian terrorists as fringe—they are not — and pinned the blame for their actions solely on Donald Trump while allowing prominent white evangelical leaders to go unchallenged in distancing themselves from the events they had very much laid the groundwork for. [my emphasis]

The specific Christian Dominionist mode of thinking has been a major influence on the violent far-right groups, an influence whose effect is often ignored in major media reports on the radical right.

But Stroop finds some reason for optimism on the reporting:

Thankfully, some of the reporting and commentary that’s emerged since is more intellectually honest, giving me some hope that perhaps, at long last, the Trump years will force a reckoning with the ways in which conservative Christianity upholds white supremacist patriarchy in the United States. Not as a fig leaf, not as window dressing, but substantively, as religion. Christianity comes in many varieties, not all of which are benign, pro-social, or conducive to the embrace of pluralism and democracy among their adherents.

He offers example of what he considers solid reporting on the Christian Right, including recent articles in the New York Times and USA Today, as well as one from The Atlantic that he finds all-too-typically deficient.

Stroop's article provides its own rogue's gallery of bad actors among Christian Right leaders: Congressman Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, Eric Metaxas, Albert Mohler, and Pat Robertson.

Trump's Christian Right enablers

Trump's "very fine people" comment about the murderous Nazis in Charlottesville 2017 turned out to be one of the best predictors of what was to come. And as of today, he's still President.

This is an interesting report on the Sunday messages from pro-sedition pastors on the (ongoing?) insurrection: 'Wake Up, America!': What Trump-supporting Evangelical Leaders Told Their Flocks Sunday. Haaretz/AP 01/12/2021. Also at Yahoo! News 01/10/2021.

It's an authoritarian cocktail not restrained by facts or consistency.: we need to have "unity" with violent insurrectionists who attempted to murder Members of Congress less than a week ago; hey, so there were a few crazies cuttin' up, what's the big deal?; antifa was behind it all; and, we looove cops, yeehaw!!

Antifa was behind it, it's all Joe Biden's fault, and Blue Lives Matter - especially blue lives cops who colluded with the Capitol invasion and participated directly in it. If you can handle thinking in a muddle like that, you can support the coup attempt at the Capitol last Wendesday and oppose it at the same time! 

This article reminded me of another Sinclair Lewis story, this one from his 1943 novel Gideon Planish.about a rightwing preacher, who Lewis used to illustrate "Research." The example, set in the late 1930s, is the Rev. Ezekiel Bittery. Apparently, he had some problems with his formal credentials, because the narrator refers to him as the "ex-Reverend."

The first step in Research is to gather a bunch of stories from newspapers about Brother Bittery and then write him to get some of his pamphlets. Then you have a few people go listen to his speeches live. With this procedure, it becomes well established that:

... Brother Bittery is a flannel-mouthed rabble-rouser who used to be charged not only with stealing the contents of the church poor-box, but of taking the box itself home to keep radishes in, and who at present if he isn't on the pay-roll of all the Fascists, is a bad collector.

After considering the matter for a couple of years, a Congressional committee proceeds to investigation, establishing for the record that "Mr. Bittery used to be a hell-fire preacher and is now a hell-fire Fascist."

More Research ensues, with scholars applying themselves to the phenomenon, which reveals "that Mr. Bittery used to favor lynching agnostics and now favors lynching socialists."

And during all this time, the Reverend Ezekiel himself will, as publicly as possible, to as many persons as he can persuade to attend his meetings, have admitted, insisted, bellowed, that he has always been a Ku Kluxer and a Fascist, that he has always hated Jews, colleges and good manners, and that the only thing he has ever disliked about Hitler is that he once tried to paint barns instead of leaving the barns the way God made them.

Rev. Bittery never seems to go away.

Michael Mooney profiled one of today's leading Rev. Bitterys. Robert Jeffress, for the Texas Monthly in Trump’s Apostle Aug 2019:

He is also known, of course, as one of the president’s most avid and outspoken advocates. While other evangelical leaders were slow to get behind Trump—James Dobson, for example, wondered about Trump’s religiosity—Jeffress campaigned with him before the 2016 primaries even started, before Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio flamed out. If some evangelicals who now back Trump fret that they’ve entered into a Faustian bargain, for Jeffress it’s a wholehearted embrace. It’s become one of the most fascinating symbiotic relationships in modern politics: the pastor gets a national platform for his message and a leader who appoints conservative judges who will in turn restrict access to abortion; the president gets the support of evangelical voters he needs to win reelection, along with an energetic and effective promoter who can explain or excuse all manner of polarizing behavior.

The Christian Right evolved a Biblical theory to justify their idolatrous support of seditionist Donald Trump. A theory which from a Christian theological viewpoint looks even more blasphemous today than it did a week ago. Hamid Dabashi provided a description of it in Is Trump a King Cyrus or a Queen Esther? Aljazeera 04/11/2019:

Back in 2016, during a televised conversation on whether Trump has a “biblical mandate” to be a president, evangelical thinker Lance Wallnau opined: “America’s going to have a challenge […] With Trump, I believe we have a Cyrus to navigate through the storm.”

Then just a few weeks ago, during his visit to Israel, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked: “Could it be that President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?” To which he responded: “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible.”

Thamar Gindin gives a quirky scholarly take on the Cyrus-Esther narrative at the Atlantic Council website, Which biblical Iranian character are you? (2019).

The Cyrus narrative was already used by Christian Right Trump supporters during the 2016 campaign. (Rebecca Cusey, Trump as God's instrument: A fairy tale of biblical proportions The Hill 10/11/2016)

The Christian Right's political theology is heavily influenced by Christian Zionism, which adopts a reading of Biblical prophecy popularized by the 19th-century sect leader Charles Nelson Darby that gives Israel a central role in the End of the World, which they expect relatively soon. In practice, in US politics that means they support hawkish policies favored by neoconservative militarists in the US and by rightwing politicians in Israel. There's also a strong anti-Semitic component of Christian Zionism, though rhetorically it's "philo-Semitic," which contributes to its adherents openness to conspiracy theories.

There is a huge literature now - scholarly, journalistic, and popular - on Christian Zionism. A recent scholarly analysis is from Sean Durbin, "From King Cyrus to Queen Esther: Christian Zionists’ discursive construction of Donald Trump as God’s instrument" Critical Research on Religion 8:2 (2020). He makes a couple of central arguments about Christian Zionism. One is that "religious rhetoric that represents Trump as God’s instrument works because it fits within a preexisting binary apocalyptic worldview that circulates widely in American evangelical culture, and the actions of the Trump administration comport with this worldview."

His second central argument is that the Christian Zionist narrative "functions to advance and naturalize themes of Christian nationalism, American exceptionalism and empire." This means that Christian Zionists viewed Barack Obama as an enemy of God and a partisan of Satan: "the rhetorical construction of the Obama administration as anti-Israel and therefore demonic, contributed to an environment in which the reversal of Obama-era policies are easily constituted as acts of divine will."

Although Durbin doesn't stress it in that article, the American Christian Zionist worldview also has a big white supremacist element. Because especially after the Six-Day War of 1967, Southern segregationists began imagining Israel as a nation of white people successfully lording it over an inferior dark-skinned population.

Christian Zionism provides a framework for authoritarian rule, a framework that created the conditions for Trumpism in addition to Trump utilizing their beliefs for his own ends. But even if his Christian idolators turn on him after he leaves office, they will be in search of another authoritarian to succeed him. Trumpism doesn't end with the Trump Presidency this month. As Durbin observes, during the Obama-Biden Administration, the spent "eight years framing the Obama administration as anti-Israel, and thus anti-American and anti-God." Including presenting the nuclear arms-controls agreement with Iran "as evidence that Obama was in league with Satan."

There is no small amount of cynical hucksterism to the Christian Right appeals, following as they do in the tradition of the fictional Rev. Bittery and his real-life parallels.

But because they are an influential and well-financed political faction, it's worth taking note of this paragraph in which Durbin recaps the rhetorical strategy involving Israel, Iran, and American power that the Christian Right used against the Obama-Biden Administration:

During the eight years that spanned the Obama administration’s two terms, his critics and opponents spent a considerable amount of time and energy demonizing him as anti- Israel and anti-Semitic, due to his stilted relationship with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as his pursuit and successful passage of the Iran Nuclear Deal. The latter was construed as foolish diplomacy when what was really needed was raw military might. For Christian Zionists influenced by dispensational theology these critiques were injected with even greater urgency due to the theological lens through which they were interpreted. For them, Obama was quite literally demonized as an agent of Satan attempting to destroy Israel, inviting divine judgement on America in return. Within this cultural context the conditions to constitute Trump as God’s instrument were easily established. Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, his withdrawal from the Iranian Nuclear deal, verbal sparring with Iran, and, most recently, the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, have provided opportunities for Christian Zionists to constitute him as God’s instrument. For these Christian Zionists, God is using Trump to return America to its global position of power, and save Jews from destruction, thus paving the way for Jesus’ return—all of which hinge on the fact they are framed as reversals of the previous administrations’ intentions. [my emphasis]

The ritual post-election discussion of the Christian Right and conservative white Christians in US politics

Here we have Emma Green writing on The Evangelical Reckoning Begins The Atlantic 11/15/2020.

And here are Daniel "Pastor Dan" Schultz and Chrissy Stroop discussing Cherry Picking in the God Gap: A Post-Election Conversation on the Religious Vote and the Battle to Spin It Religion Dispatches 11/13/2020.

Articles on the topic have been a post-election ritual since 1978 or so, when the Christian Right as we know it emerged as a significant influence in American politics, attacking prominent Democrats as "anti-family" allegedly because of their support of abortion rights. And the ritual conversation typically turns around the notion that if Democrats would just oppose abortion rights and not be so picky about not providing public funds to racially segregated schools and colleges that operated with some kind of church imprimatur.

The main result over decades has been that the Democratic candidates spent much of that time repeating various versions of the formula, "I'm personally opposed to abortion (thus adopting the basic Republican/Christian Right framing of the issues) but I support a woman's right to choose." Jerry Brown is the only one I ever hear deliver a similar line convincingly without sounding like he was hedging his support of abortion rights. Hillary Clinton for years used the formula that she thought abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare," achieving the usual result of accepting Republican framing while coming off as hedging her position on legal abortion. To her credit, in her 2016 Presidential campaign, she straightforwardly defended a woman's right to abortion.

Chrissy and Pastor Dan discuss the current state of play of the question. The latter observes, "We’ll see different numbers floating around (there are as many measures of evangelicals as there are demographers), but preliminary indications are that the white evangelical vote for the GOP dipped little, if at all."

At this point, I'm hesitant to make sweeping judgments about changes in the behavior of subgroups of the electorate from the exit polls because of the (for the US) unusually large turnout of eligible voters for the November election. And apparently the Republicans had a better get-out-the-vote ground game nationwide than the Democrats did in 2020.But based on the polling for the last four years on Trump's support among white evangelicals, it would be a notable surprise to find that their actual voting behavior showed any significant shift toward the Democrats.

Chrissy calls particular attention to the lazy habits of the corporate media in covering the intersection of religion and politics:

And yes, I think that good religion journalism ought to be covering mainline and progressive as well as authoritarian Christianity, even though I believe we agree that there should not be, and cannot be, a “religious Left” in the same sense that there is a “religious Right” in this country. Journalists need to stop looking at white Christianity through rose-colored glasses, and when it comes to coverage of Christianity and politics, we need both greater diversity of representation and more nuance..

Of course, as a religious none and the ex-evangelical founder of the loosely organized #EmptyThePews movement, I think good religion journalism needs to cover youth secularization and include the perspectives of those who have left high-control religious traditions like evangelicalism. I also agree with you that we should be hearing a lot more about Black young people’s attitudes toward religion and secularism and the current generation’s relationship to the Black Church.

Emma Green's article is based around an interview with a megachurch pastor, Andy Stanley, who decided not to be a cheerleader for Donald Trump this year. He worries that Christian Right support for Republicans and for Donald Trump in particular is damaging the "evangelical" brand.

Green's article is an example of an effort by a reporter to get beyond the lazy media clichés about the Christian Right. But I think the key thing to understand about the Christian Right is that is a political trend based heavily on conservative cultural attitudes, including particularly white supremacist and patriarchal attitudes, with a strong authoritarian streak. Even under Trump, they remain as an important and highly visible component of Republican Party politics. That may change over time if the trend away from conservative evangelical churches continues. But there doesn't seem to be a significant reason to assume so right now.

The Democratic Party's politics are not only compatible with conservative Christians theological beliefs. But there is certainly no inevitability that someone taking the story of the Good Samaritan as a serious moral and spiritual example would be attracted to the kind of ugly bigotry and cruelty that Trump's politics have so prominently featured. In fact, it's a valid Christian theological question how such a person could not actively oppose it.

There is a "religious left" in the US. And has been, even before the terms "left" and "right" came into use in the French Revolutionary Parliament of the late 18th century. But Chrissy Stoop is correct in saying that it's unrealistic to expect a Religious Left in the US politics that would be an obvious parallel to the Christian Right. Because the Christian Right is an authoritarian movement that is, at best, less than comfortable with liberal democratic values. The religious left as we have know it in civil-rights, antiwar, and other social reform movements is very unlikely to present their case as authoritarian claim to know the explicit will of God.

A comparison of the sanctimonious authoritarian Christian Right devotee, Vice President Mike Pence, with the Rev. William Barber would provide copious evidence of the difference in their approach.

Brother Al (Albert Mohler, Jr.) on why he's now a faithful follower of Donald Trump

Brother Al, aka, the Rev. Albert Mohler, Jr., is considered to be one of the leading theologians, or even the leading theologian, of the Southern Baptist Convention, still the largest Protestant Christian denomination in the US.

In Christians, Conscience, and the Looming 2020 Election 10/26/2020 on his website, he lays out his justification for supporting Donald Trump's re-election. Warning: his prose is typically dreadfully boring, e.gl, Edmund Burke, mealy-mouthing clichees, blah, blah. But because of his prominence on the Christian Right, his position is worth noting. It's not surprising: he says he's voting for Trump because abortion.

For the Christian Right, this has hardened into something like a magical incantation. In Brother Al's vrsion here, "I have not always been satisfied, but I never doubted which party would defend unborn life and which would embrace the Culture of Death." He repeats the "Culture of Death" phrase again in the piece. Of course, what he means by that is the Democratic Party and all its nefarious allies: uppity women, feminists, nasty wimmin who use birth control, anything and anybody supporting LGBTQ people or issues - you get the picture.

Brother Al comes probably as close to sounding reasonable as a hardline Christian Right authoritarian can. He says he voted for an unidentified third party candidate in the 2016 Presidential race, supposedly because he didn't trust Trump the Chosen One to be anti-abortion/anti-women's-rights enough.

Now he writes, "There will be evangelicals who cannot in good conscience vote for Donald Trump. I understand their predicament. But not voting for Donald Trump, though a political decision in itself, is not the same as voting for Joe Biden. This is beyond my moral imagination." (my emphasis in bold)

Brother Al in this column models in his own dull, snooze-inducing way to Trumpists can use abortion as a fundamental cultural identifier for hostility to women's rights, white supremacy, hatred of democracy, and everything else that Trumpism represents. And how they can use it as an anathema against anyone who doesn't support their moral hero Donald Trump as being outside the pale of moral decency and an ally of the "Culture of Death".

Fanaticism is fanaticism. And no one whose head in is the place Brother Al models for us is going to be able to persuade them to change their minds in a few minutes' conversation. Dave Neiwert devotes a helpful chapter in his latest book Red Pill, Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us (2020) on how to approach people who you might want to pull back from crackpot political mindset that also has relevant to this particular twist.

For myself, I can believe that someone may genuinely think and feel that all voluntary abortions are wrong. I don't agree with them. But women have to decide themselves about what to do about the fetuses that are medically and physically part of their bodies. But there's a radical practical and political difference between that and the fanaticism of the view advocated by people like Brother Al who treat abortion as deliberate murder.

There's plenty to say about the hypocrisy of the anti-abortion hardliners. For this particular political moment, I'll mention only that anyone who can support the Trump administration deliberately cruel and sadistic policy of kidnapping children including newborn babies from the refugee parents is someone I just don't believe is even capable of having any genuine empathy for some else's unborn fetus. At least not for anyone outside their immediate families.

That may not be psychologically sound. And, of course, anybody can claim anything about what's in their own mind.

But no one else has to be suckered by transparent fanaticism. And Brother Al's column is an example of the latter.

Trump and the Christian Right in the home stretch to the 2020 election

Erin Prophet takes a look at some of the nominal justifications for supporting Trump that circulate among Trump's most loyal demographic voting bloc, white fundamentalist Christians. Fulfillment of prophecy? Yes, some evangelicals really do believe Trump is the "chosen one" Salon 10/18/2020.

"Evangelical" in the US is used to refer to conservative Christians who identified with some form of fundamentalism or "born-again" beliefs. In Europe, it's used to refer to Protestants generally.

Christian Right leaders and Republicans closely aligned with them currently cite the perennial "pro-life" (anti-abortion, anti-women's-rights) argument along with Trump's decision to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem. It is somewhat ironic that anti-abortion and support of conservative governments in Israel have become standard Christian Right talking points. Because condemnation of abortion is nowhere mentioned in the Christian Bible. And the "Christian Zionist" view that supports rightwing Israeli governments is based on a very imaginative reading of Christian Scripture, the current form of which dates back to John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), a Irish cleric who founded the Plymouth Brethren sect.

Erin Prophet's article focuses in particular on authoritarian tendencies among Pentecostals, whose religious practice includes "prophecy" and speaking-in-tongues rituals. (The term "charisma" he uses refers to Pentecostalism.) He writes:

The study of charisma, on the contrary, offers insight into his continuing popularity as well as to its potential end. Trump's appeal eventually came into focus for me when I realized that he had fashioned himself as the savior he knew such people were seeking by capitalizing on the charismatic potential of white Christian nationalism, which overlaps with evangelicalism. Although Trump and his inner circle view the prophets with some suspicion, there are clear resonances between the prophets and Trump's public image. His MAGA slogan ("Make America Great Again") echoes [Mark] Taylor's 2011 prediction that God would use Trump "to bring honor, respect, and restoration to America."

Other [charismatic/Pentecostal] prophets predicted that Trump would stand up to banking elites, and in 2015 [reality-show star Kim] Clement declared that the president elected in 2016 would be a "strong figure" who would "clean up the mess" in government. Like a canny charismatic leader, Trump sotto voce embraced the authority of these predictions, for example, by promising to "drain the swamp." The prophets have continued to support Trump through his presidency, even going so far as to predict a second term. They excuse his failings by portraying him as a morally weak and imperfect tool that is yet being used by God.

But charismatic authority is inherently unstable, and unforeseen events may expose a leader's weaknesses. The power of charisma ends when the leader's failures become so apparent that followers have no choice but to withdraw their identification. The events of spring 2020, including the pandemic, natural disasters and economic crisis, have whittled down his support, although the base remains energized. The mysterious "Q" at the heart of QAnon is using elements of the prophecies to shore up the president's charismatic authority. [my emphasis]

Christian Right groups really do stress the need to follow supposedly annoited leaders and actively discourages critical, fact-based thinking and resoning. Rebecca Klein discusses the role of fundamentalist sectarian Christian schools, which the Republican Party actively Voucher Schools Championed By Betsy DeVos Can Teach Whatever They Want. Turns Out They Teach Lies. Huffpost 12/20/2017.

Chrissy Stroop isn't optmistic that appeals from more moderate, non-fundamentalist religious leaders will directly sway the view of the authoritarians ('Respectable' Evangelicals Can't Rein in Evangelical Conspiracy Theorists Religion Dispatches 07/24/2020):

It’s easy enough for these high-profile, “civil” and “respectable” evangelicals to scold their followers for “gullibility” — which, according to [Christianity Today’s Ed] Stetzer is “not a spiritual gift” — or, similarly, to raise concerns about evangelicals’ “witness,” that is, how their reputation in society may bear on their ability to convert others. Not that they will listen — a solid majority of white evangelicals don’t see their support for Donald Trump as harming their witness at all.

It seems to be much more difficult, however, for these men to dig deeper into the theological roots of evangelical authoritarianism and abuse. Doing so would mean they would have to become aware of their own complicity in the very real physical and psychological harm done to those of us “raised up” to “take back this country for Christ” in the thick of the culture wars.

Take [David] French’s reference to schools. Early last year, I sparked a media firestorm by launching the hashtag #ExposeChristianSchools in order to highlight the extent to which evangelical and fundamentalist schools in particular, like the ones I attended as a child, perpetuate abuse, racism, misogyny, and anti-LGBTQ animus as they indoctrinate children in “alternative facts.” [my emphasis]

Stroop stresses the role that promoting irrational fear of specific outgroups of other people is often central to fundamentalist religious teaching and education:

... how can you expect evangelicals to listen to your exhortation to stop believing and spreading conspiracy theories when you [i.e., NeverTrumper evangelicals like David French] simultaneously defend the very institutions that teach evangelical children to be suspicious of any and all experts from outside the evangelical community (at least on matters like evolution, psychology, gender and sexuality, abortion, and climate science), which would, of course, mean the majority of genuine experts in most fields? And yet this is precisely what evangelical schools (which usually brand themselves Christian schools or Christian academies) do, along with promoting a heavy dose of Christian nationalism. [my emphasis]

Stroop has also been profiling the role of the evangelial bloc in the Republican Party in a series of posts in The Conversationalist, including “Jesus is my vaccine”: culture wars, coronavirus, and the 2020 election 04/30/2020:

White evangelicals have consistently been Donald Trump’s most supportive demographic since his 2016 victory. Even as the president’s overall approval numbers decline after the initial “rally ‘round the flag” effect from the COVID-19 pandemic that he is egregiously (and arguably criminally) mishandling, white evangelicals remain steadfastly by his side. The pandemic has itself become a site of the culture wars that the anti-democratic U.S. Christian Right has been waging relentlessly for four decades as it attempts to hold back the progress of civil rights and equality in America. And Trump, who has demonstrated his willingness to pursue their culture wars agenda, can count on unwavering support from white evangelicals in the upcoming presidential election. Our analytical focus should be on why and how authoritarian evangelicals have managed to gain so much power and what can be done to fight back, as opposed to hand wringing over their willingness to partner with an impious strongman. [my emphasis]

Stroop does seem to have a real sense of mission in his criticisms of his former brand of faith. But he also knows his subject:

[Trump's] evangelical base remains unwavering in its support for one simple reason: Trump gives authoritarian Christians practically everything they want. He validates their worst culture warring impulses and pursues the Christian Right’s agenda more comprehensively and vigorously than any previous president, including George W. Bush. Not only has Trump been stacking the federal courts and the federal bureaucracy with young far right ideologues; he also moved the United States Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to play to evangelicals “end times” beliefs. [my emphasis]

Fascism and authoritarianism, then and now

Because Donald Trump is such a clear and present danger to formal democracy and the rule of law, his time in office has produced even more scholarly and journalistic accounts of authoritarianism. Not that the theme was being ignored before that. A new German book on the contemporary far right and its narrative themes is titled Das Faschistische Jahrhundert: Neurechte Diskurse zu Abendland, Identität, Europa und Neoliberalismus (The Fascist Century: New Right Discourses on the West, Identity, Europe and Neoliberalism). The title is a reference to a statement of Mussolini, "We have every reason to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a fascist century." declaring the dawn of a "fascist century". He had founded his Fascist Movement in 1919.

The lead essay in that book is by Roger Griffin, author of A Fascist Century (2008). In that book, he argued that fascism "as a party-political force of any consequence, it effectively died in Hitler’s bunker, unable to operate as a ‘cultic’ or ‘ritual’ form of politics with a charismatic leader." But he also argued even in 2008 that there were discernable continuities between fascist nationalism and some prominent ideas in the European far right:

[There is a] strong element of continuity between interwar and post-war schemes of national regeneration, which sometimes nurtured a pan-European vision of rebirth. It also highlights the way an extreme right-wing form of ‘Europeanisation’ has become far more prominent since 1945 as a response to the Cold War, globalisation, and to the rise of a liberal-capitalist European Union fostering multi-culturalism.

Contemporary Eurofascism offers a motley group of ultra-nationalists, neo-Nazis, Third Positionists, New Rightists, and white-supremacists a way of dissociating themselves from the narrowly chauvinistic nationalisms of interwar Europe that were largely based on the nation-state – and hence from Nazi crimes against humanity – while smuggling nationalism into their policies in other guises, such as ‘ethno-regionalism’, or the war on ‘Americanisation’. [my emphasis]

As we know, far right politics can evolve fairly quickly. QAnon went within three years or so from being a demented fringe phenomenon on obscure online message boards to now being rapidly accepted by the Republican Party base in the US and even spreading to Europe. Just like the original fascism, even nationalistic ideologies can become an international trend. Yanis Varoufakis talks about the Nationalist International of far-right parties and movements in present-day Europe.

As always, defining fascism is a tricky business. Even people very familiar with the history wind up relying to some degree on a variation of Justice Potter Stewart's definition of pornography: I don't know how to define fascism, but I know it when I see it!

Historically speaking, since Mussolini called his movement and party Fascist, it would be difficult to argue that his politics were anything but fascist. And since Hitler saw himself as following Mussolini's model in his drive to take power in Germany, it's fairly obvious to see German National Socialism as a form of fascism. (Although among academics that has been seriously disputed!) The Dollfuss-Schuschnigg dictatorship of 1933-38 in Austria was even more explicitly modeled on Mussolini's regime.

Other far-right regimes of that period like those in Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Rumania, and Croatia were anti-democratic and authoritarian. But the definitional task is complicated by the fact that while explicitly ideological fascist parties may have supported or participated in those governments, the dominant leadership was not quite so explicitly aligned with a fascist ideology as were Mussolini, Hitler, and Dollfuss. Griffin notes that "Mussolini and Hitler recognised an affinity between their movements that they did not see, for example, in Salazar’s Portugal."

That's worth keeping in mind when looking at today's political situation. I'm inclined to an I-know-when-I-see-it approach when looking at Trump, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, or Narendra Modi in India. But as concepts like "red fascism" or "Islamofascism" remind us, a promiscuous use of the term may wind up obscuring more than it clarifies.

I've previously suggested that Hungary is a good example of how Trumpism could develop - with or without the Orange Clown in the White House. (Hungary as a model for American authoritarians 04/11/2020) The main far-right authoritarian party in Hungary had been Jobbik. The current Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had been a liberal leader during the post-1989 transition, and his current party is Fidesz, which has been affiliated with the conservative European People's Party, though it is currently suspended (though not expelled). But since Orbán became Prime Minister in 2010, he has pushed Hungary in the direction of authoritarian "illiberal democracy." As Zoltan Simon reports (Orban Says He Seeks to End Liberal Democracy in Hungary Bloomberg 06/28/2014):

“I don’t think that our European Union membership precludes us from building an illiberal new state based on national foundations,” Orban said, according to the video of his speech on the government’s website. He listed Russia, Turkey and China as examples of “successful” nations, “none of which is liberal and some of which aren’t even democracies.”

Orban, who was re-elected in April for a second consecutive four-year term, has clashed with the EU as he amassed more power than any of his predecessors since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, replacing the heads of independent institutions including the courts with allies, tightening control over media and changing election rules to help him retain a constitutional majority in Parliament.

Authoritarianism takes various forms. Despite his affinity for Putin's style of rule in Russia, Orbán is currently maintaining the outward forms of democratic institutions. We can and should expect authoritarian governments to become more so. But Orbán at this point is not arresting journalists or poisoning opposition leaders. He has established broad control over the press through oligarchs allied with him buying up media outlets, without resorting to formal censorship. Politicians and political parties can organize and campaign in regular elections, but through an extreme form of gerrymandering he has made it virtually impossible for opposition parties to gain a majority in Parliament to be able to form a new government.

All this is a way of saying what the famous apocryphal saying attributed to Mark Twain, that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. And the historical background and contemporary similarities can help us understand the very specific events and developments in the US or any other given country.

Radical Right in Real Time

There is a lot of coverage currently that looks at current developments among radical rights sects and the Republican Party in light of the current danger to democracy.

Dave Neiwert gives a detailed update on the Republican/far-right political narrative about "antifa§ in The right’s eliminationist narrative about antifa was borne of conspiracism and lives in it now Daily Kos 08/03/2020.

Mark Bray discusses the antifa-conspiracy narrative in Antifa: Terrorist Group or Trump Scapegoat? Amanpour and Company 06/04/2020:

Bray also writes about antifa in Antifa isn’t the problem. Trump’s bluster is a distraction from police violence. Washington Post 06/01/2020.

The historian Heather Cox Richardson has spent a lot of time this year on YouTube videos discussing her scholarly work and contemporary politics, and also posting political commentary on her Facebook page and at Bill Moyer's website. She has given particular history to American political parties in her professional work, including To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party (2014). She takes what I would call a realistic view of US political history that engages directly with how the longterm development and expansion of democracy has simultaneously been intimately connected with inequality and brutality. One of her recent essays is Democracy Under Attack 09/07/2020:

Democracy depends on the rule of law. Today, we learned that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who rose to become a Cabinet official thanks to his prolific fundraising for the Republican Party, apparently managed to raise as much money as he did because he pressured employees at his business, New Breed Logistics, to make campaign contributions that he later reimbursed through bonuses. Such a scheme is illegal. ...

Democracy depends on equality before the law. But Black and brown people seem to receive summary justice at the hands of certain law enforcement officers, rather than being accorded the right to a trial before a jury of their peers. In a democracy, voters elect representatives who make laws that express the will of the community. “Law enforcement officers” stop people who are breaking those laws, and deliver them to our court system, where they can tell their side of the story and either be convicted of breaking the law, or acquitted. When police can kill people without that process, justice becomes arbitrary, depending on who holds power.

Democracy depends on reality-based policy. Increasingly it is clear that the Trump administration is more concerned about creating a narrative to hold power than it is in facts. [my emphasis]

Sarah Churchwell takes a look at the real existing American fascism during the days when Mussolini and Hitler were practicing their versions of it in American Fascism: It Has Happened Here NYB Blog 06/22/2020.

Fundamentalist Christianity and its institutions are still critical links in the US between the Republican Party and the most fanatical far-right attitudes and conspiracy theories. Here are a few recent pieces focusing on that aspect:

• Adam Gabbatt, 'Unparalleled privilege': why white evangelicals see Trump as their savior Guardian 01/11/2020
• Paul Rosenberg, The Power Worshippers: A look inside the American religious right Aljazeera 06/02/2020
• Eric Eykel, Conservative Evangelical Eric Metaxas, Doing Twitter Theology, Claims 'Jesus Was White' Religion Dispatches 06/29/2020
• Eric Miller, Trump’s Unholy Alliances: An Interview with Sarah Posner Religion and Politics 07/29/2020
• John Stoehr, Sadism Is Still the Point for Most White Evangelicals Religion Dispatches 08/17/2020
• Michael Peppard, Mike Pence’s Idolatrous RNC Speech Commonweal 08/30/2020
• Michael Luo, American Christianity’s White-Supremacy Problem New Yorker 09/02/2020
• Bob Smietana, Video from priest says Catholics who vote for Democrats will go to hell. One bishop approves this message. Religion News Service 09/06/2020i>

The Christian Right and the radical Republicans (a perennial topic)

Adele Stan (When Money Meets Jesus Democracy Journal Spring 2020) reviews a new book by Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism (2020). Stan's review includes a nice brief sketch of the Christian Right that has such a prominent role in the Republican Party.

And she reminds us that the relationship between the Christian Right and the Trumpified Republican Party, which seems unlikely on its face to people who aren't particularly familiar with the kind of white Christian nationalism involved, is not especially hard to understand:

From the outset, Christian nationalism has always been a con, sold to its followers on the false claim that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. David Barton, Stewart shows us, is the foremost purveyor of this myth; she notes that the publisher of Barton’s 2012 book, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson, felt compelled to withdraw it after National Public Radio checked Barton’s biblical citations only to find that “not one of them checked out.” ... But that hasn’t put a damper on Barton’s career as the right’s favorite “historian,” or in his career with the GOP. For nine years, Stewart notes, Barton served as vicechair of the Texas Republican Party, and in the 2016 presidential campaign, he ran a super-PAC that supported Ted Cruz’s candidacy.

The con is in Christian nationalist and religious-right rhetoric that falsely describes common methods of birth control as abortifacients, routinely and falsely links Muslim Democrats to terrorist groups, claims that “homosexuals” seek to “recruit” your children to their “lifestyle,” and posits that the Earth is a mere 4,000 years old. There’s the rhetorical con that is effectively rewriting the First Amendment to advantage its own religion over all others and compares the social safety net to “slavery.” To a constituency already so distanced from any objective notion of truth, the greatest liar of all the U.S. presidents is a Moses to his people. [my emphasis]

Fundamentalist Christianity has a strong authoritarian component. The desire for safety and order can quickly overwhelm nominal moral and religious scruples.

Al Gore wrote a book called The Assault on Reason (2007) about the danger represented by the continually radicalizing Republican Party, then grimly embodied in the Cheney-Bush Administration, and the dangerously accomodating Democratic Party. That is the ugly and still ongoing situation of asymmetric polarization in Americana party politics.

It is simply no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. I know I am not alone in feeling that something has gone fundamentally wrong. ...

The single most surprising new element in America's national conversation is the prominence and intensity of constant fear. Moreover, there is an uncharacteristic and persistent confusion about the sources of that fear; we seem to be having unusual difficulty in distinguishing between illusory threats and legitimate ones. [my emphasis]

Gore was highly critical of the way the Cheney and Bush fear-mongered with fabricated "evidence" to invade Iraq:

Terrorism relies on the stimulation of fear for political ends. Indeed, its specific goal is to distort the political reality of a nation by creating fear in the general population that is hugely disproportionate to the actual danger that the terrorists are capable of posing. Ironically, President Bush's response to the terrorist attack of September 11 was, in effect, to further distort America's political reality by creating a new fear of Iraq that was hugely disproportionate to the actual danger Iraq was capable of posing. That is one of the reasons it was so troubling to so many when in 2004 the widely respected arms expert David Kay concluded a lengthy, extensive investigation into the administration's claim that Iraq posed an enormous threat because it had weapons of mass destruction with the words We were all wrong. [my emphasis in bold]

The tone of Christian fundamentalism in its various manifestations in the Christian Right relies heavily on a context of fear. Fear of Hell, fear of temptation, fear to punishment, fear ofd sex, fear of rejection. And they are particularly inclined to look for a Strong Leader and a political discourse of order and control to ease the fear.

And the sense that Trump is on Their Side is simply more important for the Christian Right than the actual religious adherence and personal conduct of the President. That fact stands out in the results of a recent Pew Research Center report, White Evangelicals See Trump as Fighting for Their Beliefs, Though Many Have Mixed Feelings About His Personal Conduct 03/12/2020:

On the whole, Americans care more about having a president who stands up for their religious beliefs than having one who personally shares those beliefs. Roughly seven-in-ten say it is either very (38%) or somewhat (31%) important to have a president who stands up for people with their religious beliefs.

White evangelical Protestants are particularly likely to hold this view. Two-thirds of white evangelicals say it is very important to have a president who stands up for their religious beliefs, about double the share who say it is very important for a president to have strong religious beliefs. And white evangelicals say Trump fits the bill: Fully eight-in-ten white evangelical Protestants say that the phrase “fights for what I believe in” describes Trump “very well” or “fairly well,” including roughly half who say this describes him “very well.” [my emphasis]

Yes, the political culture of Christian nationalism is white Christian nationalism.

And the "white" part of this sentiment is not restricted to fundamentalists:

White evangelical Protestants are not alone in their admiration of Trump. Among other groups of white Christians, smaller but still substantial majorities also express agreement with Trump’s policies and associate him with a number of positive traits, such as intelligence.

For example, roughly two-thirds of white Catholics say the phrase “fights for what I believe in” describes Donald Trump very well or fairly well, and 68% of white Catholics say “intelligent” is a fairly or very good descriptor of Trump. Similar shares of white Protestants who are not born-again or evangelical Christians say the same. And more than half of people in both groups say they agree with Trump on many, nearly all or all of the important issues facing the country.

The survey shows, furthermore, that growing numbers in all three of the largest white Christian groups (white evangelical Protestants, white Protestants who are not evangelical and white Catholics) think that their side has been winning recently on the political issues that matter to them. [my emphasis]

I take this as an encouraging sign, though, "Overall, just 5% of U.S. adults believe God chose Trump to become president because God approves of Trump’s policies."

There is a theological side to this, which is the idea that God in all-powerful (omnipotent) but that human beings have free will. But the entire concept of democracy and government by popular consent assume that individuals are capable of making free choices based on an understanding of their interests and desires. As Al Gore put it:

Our Founders rejected direct democracy because of concerns that fear might overwhelm reflective thought. But they counted heavily on the ability of a "well-informed citizenry" to reason together in ways that would minimize the destructive impact of illusory, exaggerated, or excessive fears. "When a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced that it is infinitely wiser and safer to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power," wrote Thomas Paine in his legendary pamphlet Common Sense, specifically warning that the Founders should not take the risk of waiting until some fear seized the public imagination, in which event their reasoning processes would be hampered.

So that is an interesting chink in the authoritarian psychological armor of the Christian Right. Most of them consciously realize that they are making conscious political decisions for which they have some responsibility. But the most striking finding of the Pew survey to me is how indifferent even Trump's Christian Right supporters are to his actual religious beliefs and personal conduct.

To conclude, I want to draw attention to the role the Christian Right has played in promoting a key authoritarian goal to weaken democracy, the attempt to replace actual judicial independence with pro-authoritarian idolgoical partisanship. Jimmy Carter wrote in his book Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis (2005):

Perhaps one of the strangest and most disturbing examples of this political effort by right-wing Christians has been to attack the federal court system itself, after Senate Democrats failed to approve a handful of the -most conservative nominees for federal judgeships. They ignored the fact that this was the same number as Republicans had successfully opposed among Bill Clinton's nominees. Senator Bill Frist, the highest-ranking member of the United States Senate, aligned himself in a public telecast with a fundamentalist religious group to promote false claims that Democratic senators who opposed a few judges were conducting "an assault against people of faith." The group's leader announced that the "activist" judiciary poses "a greater threat to representative government" than "terrorist groups." Dr. James Dobson, another sponsor of the event, called the Supreme Court "unaccountable," "out of control," and "a despotic oligarchy," and accused the justices of a forty-year "campaign to limit religious liberty." (At a subsequent press conference, President George W. Bush [ludicrously] disavowed the connection between religious faith and opposition to the appointment of federal judges.) [my emphasis]

Republican doubletalk on Trump and on the Senate convicting him on the impeachment charges

I've never been much impressed with the NeverTrumper schtick. It basically is a way for some Republicans to distance themselves from Trump's vulgarity and sleaze while still advocating for Republican positions and constantly criticizing the Democrats for not being Republican enough.

I've always distinguished John Dean from the NeverTrumpers, because he has been make substantive criticisms of the Republican Party's authoritarianism for a long time. Like in this article co-authored with Bob Altemeyer, who has done extensive research and writing on authoritarianism, Why Do So Many Americans Continue to Support Donald Trump? In a Word: Authoritarianism Justia 03/20/2019:

There are a lot of Americans who do not care for democracy (Altemeyer, 2006 at www.theauthoritarians.org). They do not mind that he fails to follow the Constitution, or that he poses a danger to democracy. In fact, surveys of these people show they would prefer a demagogic autocrat who will “stomp out the rot,” which they believe infects society. Because most Americans see the world differently, this finding may be difficult to accept. It is, however, based on solid science.

The research to which we refer began during World War II and has, over the decades, produced a clear understanding about Americans who are highly submissive to authority, how they became that way, plus a great deal about how they think and maintain their beliefs. This body of science is well known in academic circles, and it is essential to understanding the Trump presidency and his supporters. Yet it is being largely ignored.

I would note that a major body of systematic study on this problem precedes the Second World War, Studies on Authority and Family (1936), carried out and published in 1936 as one in a series of special publication by the Institute for Social Research, aka, the Frankfurt School.

But Dean is aligning himself with NeverTrumper Max Boot on what strikes me as a really bad tactical idea:

This is playing out so far like I dreamed it could, and it can get better if the House Democrats continue to sit on the articles. This is Trump’s nightmare because more can and will come out on his guilt. Mitch’s nightmare too, notwithstanding his pretending otherwise. https://t.co/LEH5KDXGHU

— John Dean (@JohnWDean) December 20, 2019

Not sending the impeachment to the Senate would be taken by virtually everyone as a lack of seriousness on the part of the House Democrats. And it would be.

Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss some other tactical considerations on the timing of formally sending the impeachment to the Senate. (Ana has been particularly sour about establishment Democrats the last week or so.) Nancy Pelosi's Impeachment Fakeout TYT 12/19/2019:

There was an interesting conservative endorsement this week of the need to remove Trump from office, from Christianity Today, a conservative evangelical journal (Trump Should Be Removed from Office 12/19/2019).

(Update 12/23/2019: The editorial was signed by CT's editor-in-chief Mark Galli but speaks in a collective voice of "we" and "our". In a follow-up piece supporting Galli's position, CT's president Timothy Dalrymple writes, "CT does not have an editorial board. Editors publish under their own names. Yet Galli has stood in the trenches for men and women of faith for over three decades. He has been an outstanding editor in chief. While he does not speak for everyone in the ministry — our board and our staff hold a range of opinions — he carries the editorial voice of the magazine. We support CT’s editorial independence and believe it’s vital to our mission for the editor in chief to speak out on the issues of the day." For whatever reason, CT does not formally call "the editorial voice of the magazine" an editorial board, but I've left the original references in this post. The Flag in the Whirlwind: An Update from CT’s President 12/22/2019)

I don't think their editorial board is made up of NeverTrumper types. But in a similar way, it's very tempting for Democrats to praise conservative pitches like this and distribute them on social media as a kind of "evidence against interest" argument.

But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone — with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused. [my emphasis]

But my guess is that this kind of argument will mainly function to give evangelical pastors and members of their congregations who are so inclined something to say that sounds thoughtful and critical while they explain why they support Trump against being removed from office, by Senate conviction or by the 2020 election.

The CT editors also include their arguments from two decades ago for impeaching Bill Clinton on far more frivolous excuses than the very substantial high crimes and misdemeanors that are well documented for President Trump. Because Republicans who are trying to sound thoughtful or prayerful about Trump's conviction still need a whataboutism argument against the Democrats. And readers can make their own judgments about whether their criticism of Trump is as passionate as their criticism of Clinton they quote. It's notable that the very substantial evidence of multiple instances of felony obstruction of justice on Trump's part documented in the Mueller report don't merit an explicit mention in the editorial.

The full editorial on Clinton in 1998 The Prodigal Who Didn’t Come Home 10/05/1998) is notably longer than the current one about Trump. And it doesn't offer any sympathetic alibi language for evangelicals who might want to sound like they disapproved of his affair with Monica Lewinsky but didn't support impeaching him and removing him from office. On the contrary, the 1998 editorial sneers at Clinton's admission that his affair was "inappropriate".

The following excerpts present an notable contrast. From the 2019 editorial:

Let’s grant this to the president [Trump]: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.

Did the 1998 editorial show similar understanding for Democrats' concerns about crass partisanship by Republicans? Um, not exactly:

On August 17, Bill Clinton acted like he was cornered. There was no mea in his mea culpa. He no sooner acknowledged an "inappropriate" sexual relationship with a female intern less than half his age, than he started blaming those who were doing their duty in pursuing the truth and upholding the law. Even his subsequent attempts at apology — to his cabinet, to party loyalists, to Democratic members of Congress — looked more like sandbagging operations to shore up crumbling support than like the fruit of personal reflection. For Bill Clinton, there was no openness to being found.

So, for Christianity Today, 1998: Clinton admits wrongdoing then criticizes rabid partisanship in the impeachment process - deserving of total contempt.

Trump and his supporters in Congress staunchly deny that Trump did anything wrong and dismiss the Democratic investigation, which were closer to reluctant and apologetic than rigidly partisan - Trump and his supporters obviously deserve generous Christian sympathy for their objections to Democratic partisanship.

I'm underwhelmed by this conservative kinda-sorta endorsement of a Senate conviction against President Trump.

Autoritären für Trump und gegen den "Deep State"

Diese Geschichte hat mich dazu gebracht, über Autoritarismus in der Praxis nachzudenken. Die Autoritären sind ungemütlich mit einer sachkundigen Reflexion über Dinge, die für ihre Weltsicht von zentraler Bedeutung sind. Aber Autoritären respektieren nicht alle Autorität im Allgemeinen. Sie suchen jemanden, der ihnen sagt, was sie tun sollen. Einige von ihnen werden von sehr hierarchischen Jobs wie Polizei oder Militär angezogen. Aber das bedeutet nicht, dass sie die Autorität des Gesetzes oder der Verfassung oder der bestehenden (vor allem einer demokratischen) Regierung über die Autorität der Gruppe und ihrer Führer stellen werden.

Das ist die oberflächlich paradoxe Situation, in der Autoritären gegen die offizielle legitime Regierungsbehörde rebellieren können. Ein klassischer Fall ist Hitlers Sturmabteilung (SA), eine hierarchische paramilitärische Gruppe, die die NSDAP unterstützte, sich aber gewaltsam gegen die demokratische Weimar Regierung stellte. Aber auch die Loyalitäten der SA könnten volatil sein. Bis 1934 betrachtete Hitler sie als potenzielle Bedrohung, indem er die Röhm-Putsch gegen die SA-Führung produzierte.

Die Bericht kommt von Isadora Teich, Christian radio host: If Trump is impeached, ‘gun-toting, bible-clinging, Walmart patriots will spark civil war’ Dead State 06/09/2019. Sie zitiert Todd Starnes von FOX News (übersetzt aus dem amerikanischen Stammtisch-Jargon:

Die Fakten sind klar – Präsident Trump wurde Opfer eines politischen Attentats. James Comey und Robert Mueller versuchten, ihn zu absetzen, aber sie scheiterten. Und nun stehen die Demokraten im Kongress bereit, um das zu beenden, was der Deep State [Staat im Staate] begonnen hat.

Die Anführer des Rolling Thunder [Biker-Clubs] sagen, dass sie bereit sind, nach Washington zurückzubrüllen, um den Präsidenten zu verteidigen — wenn die Demokraten zur Amtsenthebung übergehen.

Und wenn das passiert – nicht wundern, wenn die Bikers von Hunderttausenden Schusswaffen tragenden, bibeltreuen, stinkenden, Walmart-Patrioten anstoßen. Die schweigende Mehrheit in diesem Land ist wütend wie die Hölle – und wir werden es nicht mehr hinnehmen.

Vorrat für den Stammtisch und für alle, die sich vielleicht entscheiden würden, in dieser Richtung zu handeln: Wenn Sie mit dem Gesetz in Schwierigkeiten geraten, stellen Sie sich nicht vor, dass Todd Starnes oder seine Mitarbeiter bei FOX News sie unterstützten werden. Das werden sie nicht. So funktioniert diese Dinge nicht.

Tatsächlich ist die autoritäre Persönlichkeit in vielerlei Hinsicht starr und intolerant. Doch nicht alle Autoritären sind starr und intolerant in gleicher Weise. Und auch in sehr hierarchischen, autoritären Gruppen und Organisationen sind persönliche Ambitionen noch immer im Spiel. Und auch die Paranoia über Verrat spielt eine große Rolle. Rechtsextreme Gruppen sind für ihre interne Streitigkeiten und ihre Instabilität bekannt.

Starnes ürspringlicher Beitrag ist Anti-Trump Democrats Are Dragging the Nation Towards Civil War 06/01/2019 bei seinem eigenen Todd Starnes Blog.

Auch der Demagoge der Christlichen Rechten Franklin Graham erklärte in einem Interview mit der Hassgruppe Family Research Council: "Wenn der Präsident aus welchen Gründen auch immer gestürzt wird, könnte das zu einem Bürgerkrieg führen. Es gibt Millionen von Menschen da draußen, die für Präsident Trump gestimmt haben, die hinter ihm stehen, die wütend sind und sehr sauer sind. Wir leben einfach in einem sehr gefährlichen Gebiet und brauchen Gottes Hilfe." (Quoted in: Samuel Smith, Franklin Graham: Trump’s enemies will hurt America, could spark civil war if impeached Christian Post 05/21/2019)

Starnes und Graham bieten den rechten Autoritären einen Zwei-für-eins-Deal an: Die loyale Unterwerfung unter den geliebten Führer Trump und die Rebellion gegen „die da oben“, die böse Liberalen, die „Gutmenschen“ und den Deep State.

Es ist auch eine sichere Wette, dass Donald Trump und Franklin Graham denken, dass die Leute, die mit ihnen in dieser Frage mitgehen, die größten Traummännlein der Welt sind. Und in das irren sie sich nicht.

Authoritarian Bible-eaters for Trump and against the Deep State

This story made me think about authoritarianism in practice. Authoritarians are uncomfortably with actual informed reflection on matters central to their worldview. But authoritarians don't respect all authority in general. They are looking for someone to tell them what to do. Some of them are attracted to very hierarchical jobs like police or the military. But that doesn't mean that they will put the authority of the law or the Constitution or of the existing government (especially a democratic one) above the authority of the group and its leaders.

This is why we see the superficially paradoxical situation in which authoritarians can rebellious against the official legitimate government authority. A classic case is Hitler's Brownshirts (SA), which was a hierarchical paramilitary group supporting the Nazi Party but violently opposing the Weimar democratic government. But SA loyalties could also be volatile. By 1934, Hitler regarded them as a potential threat, producing the "Night of the Long Knives" against the SA leadership.

The story is from Isadora Teich, Christian radio host: If Trump is impeached, ‘gun-toting, bible-clinging, Walmart patriots will spark civil war’ Dead State 06/09/2019. She quotes Todd Starnes of FOX News:

The facts are clear – President Trump was the victim of a political hit job. James Comey and Robert Mueller tried to take him out – but they failed. And now Congressional Democrats stand ready to finish what the Deep State started.

Leaders of Rolling Thunder [biker club] say they are ready to roar back into Washington to defend the president — if the Democrats move to impeach.

And if that happens – do not be surprised if the bikers are joined by hundreds of thousands of gun-toting, bible-clinging, smelly, Walmart patriots. The silent majority in this country is mad as hell – and we’re not going to take it any more.

Hint to any good ole boys who may decide to take action along these lines: If you get in trouble with the law, don't imagine that Todd Starnes or his associates at FOX News will have your back. They won't. That's not how this works.

(I ran that quote through a translation program. If you translated the result's German version directly back into English, it would come out as "gun-carrying, Bible-eating, stinking, Walmart patriots." That's a remarkably good version, actually! It also renders "mad as hell" as "crazy as hell", which also works well for the people Starnes is talking about.

The "Bible-eating" is may favorite, though.)

In fact, the authoritarian personality is in many ways rigid and intolerant. But not all authoritarians are rigid and intolerant in the same way. And personal ambitions are still at play even in very hierarchical, authoritarian groups and organizations. And paranoia about betrayal plays a large role, as well. Far right groups are known for their factionalism and instability.

Starnes orginal post is Anti-Trump Democrats Are Dragging the Nation Towards Civil War 06/01/2019 at his personal Todd Starnes blog.

Christian Right demagogue Franklin Graham also stated in an interview with the hate group Family Research Council, "If the president was brought down for whatever reason, it could lead to a civil war. There are millions of people out there that voted for President Trump that are behind him that are angry and they are mad. We are just living in a very dangerous territory and we need God’s help.” (Quoted in: Samuel Smith, Franklin Graham: Trump’s enemies will hurt America, could spark civil war if impeached Christian Post 05/21/2019).

Starnes and Graham are offering rightwing authoritarians a two-for-one deal: loyal submission to Dear Leader Trump and rebellion against the gubment, the Mean Libruls, and the "Deep State".

It's also a safe bet that Donald Trump and Franklin Graham think the people who go along with them on this are the biggest suckers in the world. And they are not wrong about that.

What the Ilhan Omar flap says about establishment Democratic leadership and their brand of "identity politics"

The Ilhan Omar flap was a self-induced fumble on the part of the establishment Democrats that illustrated some unpleasant facets of the current Democratic Party. Such as, their unwillingness to challenge the rightwing Netanyahu government in Israel even when it works against the self-defined interests of the United States, and even less so leverage American civilian and military aid to demand changes in the settlement policies, for instance, that the US rightly recognizes as in violation of international law.

It also revealed the Democrats' unwillingness to challenge Islamophobia, and even a willingness to play on it. Ilhan Omar is a black Congresswoman who is Muslim, relatively young (37), progressive on most issues, and an immigrant from Somalia. By bashing her, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer could give a nod to conservative white voters who would never vote for a Democrat in 1000 years that Democrats, too, can be anti-Mulsim, anti-black, anti-immigrant, and against uppity young women - all in one package!

Is that a stretch? I don't think so. There are various kinds of people promoting anti-Semitism. White Christian Congressman Gym Jordan, for instance. (Zack Ford, Ilhan Omar’s critics have little to say about Jim Jordan’s anti-Semitic tweet Think Progress 03/04/2019) But the biggest group by far is made up of fundamentalist Christians. And this isn't a recent recognition. Michael Lind did a great review essay 24 years ago on Pat Robertson's book The New World Order (1991) that details how Robertson presents an anti-Semitic vision of history, Rev. Robertson’s Grand International Conspiracy Theory New York Review of Books 02/02/1995. Robertson did a follow-up book along the same lines, The Turning Tide: The Fall of Liberalism and the Rise of Common Sense (1993). Lind noted in 1995 that Robertson "is the founder and leader of the most powerful grass-roots movement in American politics today", meaning the Christian Coalition, then the most prominent Christian Right group.

Robertson is still around, though his personal influence is not so dominant among the Christian Right as it was in 1995. But anti-Semitic theology is just as present if not more so today as it was 24 years ago. Much of it centers around "End Times" theology, the most prominent versions of which look forward with happy anticipation to the day that all the Jews in the world will be "gathered" into Greater Israel where most of them will be slaughtered in a huge war. The remaining few Jews will then convert to Christianity and the Second Coming of Christ can occur. There are variations on the details. One of the fundamentalists in the following video has the unslaughtered Jewish remnant converting when Jesus returns to Earth. Why Evangelical Christians Love Israel Vice News 05/15/2018 (published on YouTube):

The establishment Democrats are willing to challenge Christian fundamentalist political positions. But they are not willing to directly challenge this kind of incredibly influential anti-Semitism directly. Because Democrats have been tiptoing around Christian fundamentalists since 1978. So when we see things like the Trump-Pence Administration flaunting with their friendship with John Hagee, leader of the group Christians United For Israel (CUFI), a large and prominent fundamentalist group that promotes an anti-Semitic End Times ideology (Kelsey Bradshaw, S.A. pastor John Hagee meets with President Trump to discuss international affairs San Antonio Express 04/05/2017), the Democrats don't rush to denounce them in public, much less try to pass censure resolutions against them.

But a black, immigrant Muslim Congresswoman criticizing the influence of the Israel lobby in promoting US support for the rightwing Netanyahu government, that's something Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer were willing to jump on right away, fecklessly dancing to the Republicans' tune, as they so often do.

Part of what establishment Democrats have done to appear at least critical-minded toward Republican and far-right Islamophobia is to urge that the national, state, and local governments work with members of the American Muslim community to combat extremism. One of the biggest American and European criticisms of Muslim extremism and even Islam generally is their hostility to women's rights. Far-right parties in Europe who are conservative or even hostile toward protecting women's rights, like the far-right Austrian FPÖ and their partners in the "turquoise" faction of the Austrian Christian Democratic (ÖVP) party, use women's rights as one of the main slogans for their Islamophobia and general hostility to Muslims. And as a cover for their own anti-women's-rights stances.

Congresswoman Omar would seem to be a good personal example and advocate for a women's-rights-friendly version of Islam, as one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress. This press release from her office in January is an example, Rep. Ilhan Omar Introduces First Bill Providing Childcare for Workers Affected by the Shutdown 01/24/2019:

Rep. Ilhan Omar (DFL-MN), along with over thirty members of the House Democratic Caucus, introduced the Federal Worker Childcare Protection Act of 2019 today—which ensures that federal employees affected by the shutdown are eligible for reimbursement of their childcare expenses. ... There are about 100 childcare facilities in federal buildings across the country providing care to 7,500 children a day, two thirds of whom are children of federal employees. As long as those daycares are closed, many parents are paying double – fees to their interim provider, on top of fees to the closed daycare to maintain their child’s place once the government reopens.

“What this bill does is simple: it makes sure that the people who are suffering because of the President’s manufactured crisis are at the very least able to cover their childcare expenses,” Rep. Omar said. “This bill is personal for me. I am a working parent with three beautiful children and I know firsthand the costs associated with child care.”

But the Democratic establishment isn't interested in Omar as a model of a small-d democratic and successful Muslim woman. (Much less a large-d Democratic one!) They are more interested in discrediting her as a progressive and a black Muslim immigrant woman. Even at the cost of stepping on the publicity for their own HR1 bill to secure elections and fight corruption. All while tip-toing around Republican white supremacy and anti-Semitism.

Even Chuck Todd was willing to (mildly!) press Congresswoman Liz Cheney on Republican anti-Semitism this past Sunday. (Ben Kamisar, Rep. Liz Cheney blasts House Democrats for 'enabling' anti-Semitic comments Meet the Press 03/10/2019)

Phyllis Bennis was present at the event that the Democratic establishment used to bash Congresswomen Omar, and she describes it in The Democratic Party Attacks on Ilhan Omar Are a Travesty The Nation 03/05/2019:

The most recent attacks on Representative Omar are based on her answer to a broad question about anti-Semitism during a recent town hall meeting at Busboys & Poets in Washington, DC. I was there, sitting just a few feet from Omar, asking a question during the Q&A. She never said that Jews have dual loyalty. She never expressed “prejudicial attitudes” or supported “discriminatory acts” against Jews or anyone else. And yet that is the language being proposed for a Democratic Party–sponsored resolution aimed at undermining Omar’s credibility, and likely that of Rashida Tlaib, the other Muslim woman just elected to Congress. Like Omar, Tlaib, who is Palestinian, stands forthrightly in support of Palestinian rights, against the power of the pro-Israel lobby and other lobbies that use money to influence Congress to support guns, environmental destruction, and Israeli violations of human rights—and she stands against racism and anti-Semitism.

These members of Congress understand that real anti-Semitism in the United States has been rooted in white supremacy since the Ku Klux Klan reemerged in 1915 and added Jews to the African Americans who had long been their primary target. That’s the real anti-Semitism we’re seeing — the violence of the Charlottesville march by Nazis and the Klan, the Pittsburgh synagogue murders, all of it rooted in white supremacy. Criticism of Israel, and of its human-rights and international-law violations and its lobbies, is simply not anti-Semitism. [my emphasis]

The white Christian fundamentalist anti-Semites are also among the whites most likely to support intense white supremacist ideas and practices. And Donald Trump. The prominent "Ex-Eveangelical" writer Chris Stroop (also a scholar of Russia) writes about the centrality of the Christian Right to the radicalization of the Republican Party and to Trump's grassroots supprt (#ChristianAltFacts, or, how the Christian Right Broke America 02/24/2017)

Fundamentalists–including the vast majority of white Evangelicals in the US–are inherently authoritarian. Authoritarianism, for its part, is a form of abuse on a social scale that depends on gaslighting, hence post-truth politics and “alternative facts.” And ... it is the Christian Right’s #AltFacts, post-truth ethos that has radicalized and overtaken the Republican Party. Having broken one of our two major parties, the Christian Right broke America. It’s been a long time coming, but here we are–and since those of ex-Evangelicals who grew up indoctrinated and mobilized to fight the culture wars have been well aware of the plan, many of us are particularly angered and even retraumatized by the white Evangelical backlash that, with 81% of the white Evangelical vote, has brought us the disastrous Trump presidency. [my emphasis]

Branko Marcetic at Jacobin Magazine argues that the Ilhan Omar flap shows that, Actually, the Democrats Don’t Care About Identity 03.09.2019:

The controversies around Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar are instructive. As numerous writers, a number of them themselves Jewish, have explained at length, there was nothing antisemitic or even particularly controversial about what Omar has said about the pro-Israel lobby in DC, which, contrary to what some pundits might tell you, is not synonymous with the Jewish community. Nonetheless, she received a torrent of attacks, much of it from the pro-Israel Right, casting her comments as antisemitic.

Given the prevailing rhetoric over the last few years, one would have expected the Democratic party and its boosters to close ranks around Omar. After all, they’ve spent the Trump administration celebrating women’s defiant voices in politics, urging others to listen and believe women, and making the defense of immigrants a key plank of the party, while valorizing black women and their pivotal electoral role. And here they were faced with a barrage of dishonest attacks on not just an outspoken woman, but an outspoken black, Muslim, refugee woman, whose voice her political opponents were trying to silence at the same time as they lobbed racist attacks at her and she faced death threats.

Instead of adhering to their self-declared principles, the party and its prominent loyalists instead quickly joined the right-wing pile-on against Omar, to the point of putting offensive, racist words in her mouth that she never actually said. In some cases, the same people who jumped to criticize her and silence her voice had previously expressed platitudes about women and girls persevering against adversity, and black women being the party’s backbone. [my emphasis in bold; internal links omitted]

And, of course, it remains the case that Israelis themselves seem to be far more willing to criticize Israel's most questionable policies than even Democratic Members of Congress in the US:

“When the hell will someone in this government let the Israeli public know that this is a country for all its citizens and that every person is born equal. And also, that the Arabs are human beings,” ⁦@GalGadot⁩ https://t.co/gt5Cc0dK4v

— Joe Cirincione (@Cirincione) March 11, 2019