"The August 2020 US Politics Thread is highly thought of, but nobody likes me. It can only be my personality. That's all."

why do evangelicals vote for trump, part 10334: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/us/evangelicals-trump-christianity.html

typical stuff, but this conversation jumped out at me:

The years of the Obama presidency were confusing to her. She said she heard talk of giving freedoms to gay people and members of minority groups. But to her it felt like her freedoms were being taken away. And that she was turning into the minority.

“I do not love Trump. I think Trump is good for America as a country. I think Trump is going to restore our freedoms, where we spent eight years, if not more, with our freedoms slowly being taken away under the guise of giving freedoms to all,” she said. “Caucasian-Americans are becoming a minority. Rapidly.”

She explained what she meant. “If you are a hard-working Caucasian-American, your rights are being limited because you are seen as against all the races or against women,” she said. “Or there are people who think that because we have conservative values and we value the family and I value submitting to my husband, I must be against women’s rights.”

Her voice grew strong. “I would say it takes a stronger woman to submit to a man than to want to rule over him. And I would argue that point to the death,” she said.

She felt freer as she spoke. “Mike Pence is a wonderful gentleman,” she said. “This is probably a very bad analogy, but I’d say he is like the very supportive, submissive wife to Trump. He does the hard work, and the husband gets the glory.”

There's a photo in that article showing a family, heads bowed in prayer, about to eat. A gallon of milk rests on the table. It's the saddest photo I've ever seen.

I am never leaving the city (I know, I know)

From the start it appeared an impossible contradiction. Evangelicals for years have defined themselves as the values voters, people who prized the Bible and sexual morality — and loving your neighbor as yourself — above all.

Donald Trump was the opposite. He bragged about assaulting women. He got divorced, twice. He built a career off gambling. He cozied up to bigots. He rarely went to church. He refused to ask for forgiveness.

It has to be tough for the author to pretend he's never met an evangelical.

He gestured to his front door. “You don’t lock the doors,” he said. “I never take the keys out of the car.”

Then he patted the stainless steel Smith & Wesson .38 revolver carried in a tooled leather holster at the small of his back - "But you can't be stupid."

I couldn't read that because it wasn't reported from a folksy diner. I have standards.

Caucasian-Americans are becoming a minority.

Well, what's wrong with that? Are minorities treated badly or something?

tfw when you’re so worried that others, elsewhere, might be accorded one teenie tiny bit more respect and dignity than they have historically enjoyed that you find yourself voting for donald trump. hateful creeps. i hope they drown in a vat of black, gay, trans communist jism.

^ underrated Zappa album

Her voice grew strong. “I would say it takes a stronger woman to submit to a man than to want to rule over him. And I would argue that point to the death,” she said.

two options: submit or rule over.

yeah, the dichotomy is sorta telling there isn't it

lol this guy

"TikTok is not just China’s revenge for the century of humiliation between the Opium Wars and Mao’s revolution. It is the opium — a digital fentanyl, to get our kids stoked for the coming Chinese imperium."

— Niall Ferguson (@nfergus) August 9, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBssFzSx6sI

od'ing on the digital fentanyl that is the first 15 seconds of Lottery

Poor Niall, forced to say crazy bad things just to get noticed on Twitter.

So if TikTok is digital fentanyl, is twitter honest to goodness old fashioned heroine?

heroin makes you feel good

Finally, some serious action from Speaker Pelosi:

August 9, 2020

Dear Democratic Colleague,

On this Sunday morning as we pray for the American people, I wanted to share “A Responsive Prayer for Justice.”

Pray for those who are hungry.

Pray harder for those who will not feed them.

Pray for those who struggle each week to pay their bills.

Pray harder for the wealthy who do not care.

Pray for those who are homeless.

Pray harder for those who deny them shelter.

Pray for the sick and lonely.

Pray harder for those who will not give them comfort.

Pray for those who cry out for dignity.

Pray harder for those who will not listen.

Pray for those oppressed by unjust wages.

Pray harder for those who exploit them.

Pray for those who bear the yoke of prejudice.

Pray harder for those who discriminate against them.

Pray for those whose basic needs are denied.

Pray harder for the public officials who cater to the greedy and ignore those bound unjustly.

Amen.

best regards, (unsigned)

https://giphy.com/gifs/bojackhorseman-3o7aCVYdxJUQmWI0z6

https://media3.giphy.com/media/3o7aCVYdxJUQmWI0z6/giphy.gif

Some good-ass legislatin', right there

Finally, some serious action from Speaker Pelosi:

btw, just a reminder that Speaker Pelosi's powers do not extend far enough to pass whatever legislation she or you might consider necessary for the good of the nation. Gestures like this one are something you may have heard about: propaganda designed to strengthen the political basis for taking "serious action".

Or maybe you haven't heard about this kind of political behavior before now.

I'm familiar with the behaviour of stealing other people's words and pretending that you wrote them, in a completely empty act of ostensible virtue signalling that actually make you look like someone with no appreciation of fairness, sure. (Are... are we going to talk about Shia LeBouef's short films now?)

Anyway, I don't think this made it onto the thread?:

National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien on @FaceTheNation right now, in response to whether Trump has told Putin to stop meddling in US elections: “Unlike my predecessors, I don’t get involved in conversations the President has with foreign leaders.”

No kidding.

— Rudy Mehrbani (@RudyMehrbani) August 9, 2020

The former director of the CIA and NSA in response:

Holy shit. https://t.co/hrYMthaiJP

— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) August 9, 2020

xp yeah, definitely makes CHOP look pretty bad

btw today there was an anti-mask / pro-Jesus rally on the CHOP site, with hundreds of ppl gathering without masks and publicly baptising each other, and at least one baby, in a grotty tub. The mayor didn't send in one single cop to break them up, let alone hundreds of cops and National Guard to tear-gas them, though, so it'll probably look pretty... good? when the NYT writes it up.

cripes.

Ann Hathaway is Nancy Pelosi in....

PRAY HARD

That NYT article on Trump evangelicals in Iowa glosses over a key distinction: these aren't evangelicals, they are an incredibly small group of rural Dutch Calvinists. It mentions Dordt College, the site of Trump's 2016 rally being "named for a major church assembly in 1618 and 1619 that declared salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed", which is the exact opposite of the American Evangelical belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again". What difference does that make? It means that the people interviewed in this article believe that they are "God's chosen people" and live their entire lives attempting to demonstrate evidence that they are part of that chosen in-group, lest they be expelled from it. So, when they talk about their religious freedom being impugned, they're really saying that they've always lived in this insular environment where homogeneity = salvation, and the only way they can continue the faith of their fathers is to keep all outsiders out of it. It's telling that their ancestors fled the Netherlands over this same false sense of "persecution", the Dutch government wouldn't let them kick anyone who disagreed with them out of the country, so they came to these rural Iowa towns where they were left alone for 100 years, and now they're confronting the fact that embracing Trump's racism and misogyny is the closest thing they'll get to preserving their "religious heritage" in 2020.

That's a v good point.

I wasn't going to read that article but oh hell yes, Dordt College, I can attest the above is accurate.

That NYT article on Trump evangelicals in Iowa glosses over a key distinction: these aren't evangelicals, they are an incredibly small group of rural Dutch Calvinists. It mentions Dordt College, the site of Trump's 2016 rally being "named for a major church assembly in 1618 and 1619 that declared salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed", which is the exact opposite of the American Evangelical belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again".

i can see some disagreement about whether that congregation technically counts as "american evangelical" or not. i think their current state (bitter resentment and a false sense of overwhelming persecution) is roughly the same, though.

and i'd also argue that for most evangelicals, there is no contradiction between "belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again" and declaring that "salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed". the way they unify the two is like this: people can choose their own salvation, but god has already chosen who will receive. and on immigration, contemporary god is an angry righteous old testament god who chooses to bless or curse entire nations of evil nonbelievers. get born again or leave.

or...something like that. of course it's a hopeless jumble of contradicting ideas, but that's evangelicalism ime, and if the dordt college people ever feel too over-oppressed, they'd fit right in with thousands of other communities and churches that are virtually indistinguishable from them

Also, something that only a former Iowan Dutch Calvinist would likely recognize about that photo of the family praying at the dinner table: all three kids have forks in their food already during the prayer, revealing that they probably started to eat before the parents sat down to pray, which never would've happened when their parents were that age. Just a small detail, but I can tell you, having grown up in it (my sister actually went to Dordt College), those are the kind of things that Iowan Dutch Calvinists obsess about - you had to pray and read the bible at every meal and the church elders would come to your house for "visitation" to observe that your family accurately demonstrated that you were in fact, still part of God's chosen in group. Even this family is not managing to keep the outside world at bay, their kids aren't stopping to pray before touching their dinner. Re-electing Trump is not going to help them with that, and soon enough this tiny, insignificant demographic of Trump voter would go away on its own.

Oh god I clicked on it, and the article just clowns itself and its subjects over and over.

“I guess the biggest concern for me is trying to keep our country the way it was. Conservative. The values. For us, I mean, this is as good as it gets. We can do whatever we want,” said Mr. Driesen

They want the Christian education for their children “so we don’t have to have them indoctrinated with all these different things,” he said. “We are free to teach them our values.”

She worried that the school might be forced to let in students who were not Christian, or hire teachers who were gay.

“People in my circles, you don’t really hear about racism, so I guess I don’t know too much about it,” Mr. Driesen said of the protests.

I don't think either the CRC or the RCA are evangelical denominations, that is, I don't think they're committed either doctrinally or habitually to spreading awareness of salvation by conversion. They would probably be offended to be compared to Baptists, for example.

yeah baptists are total heretics! you think YOU can choose whether to be in god's elect?? pah!

calvinism has this real crazy edge of anxiety and paranoia to it. how will i know if i'm in the elect?? i mean, i can't, but surely someone in the elect would behave in a certain way.. so let's look for those outward signs.. in others... in myself... AAAGGGGHHH

and i'd also argue that for most evangelicals, there is no contradiction between "belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again" and declaring that "salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed". the way they unify the two is like this: people can choose their own salvation, but god has already chosen who will receive. and on immigration, contemporary god is an angry righteous old testament god who chooses to bless or curse entire nations of evil nonbelievers. get born again or leave.

Uh I think most evangelicals, particularly liberal ones, would loudly call bullshit on the idea that God would willingly exclude anyone who chose salvation.

Yeah but the point is these are Calvinists not evangelicals

Yes, and Karl's arguing that there isn't a difference between them.

Wait nevermind

Yeah i agree with you. Evangelicals evangelize—spreading the faith and saving souls is as important or more than personal virtue, the sole concern of the predestination folks

I attended a CRC church for several years (but that was 20 years ago, I married rather than was born into it, etc). The denomination reiterated repeatedly that it is an evangelical denomination, the church does mission work at a denominational level, etc. That's in obvious tension with its ethnocentrism, and this ethnocentrism will be the death of the denomination in a few years (my f-i-l is longtime C@lv1n faculty and has commented on declining enrollment, particularly of their "traditional" student, for many years).

Yeah, I've seen plenty of commentary over the past few years that these sorts are fighting for their way of life because their way of life is literally dying out.

My favorite part of the article is the mom talking about how she likes living in a bubble where she doesn't have to worry about her kids going outside to play with the neighbor kids, even though they go to another church, and then catches herself, "I don't know, maybe that's naive." - Yes, you absolutely need to be more concerned about your kids mixing it up with kids from other denominations, they might put dangerous ideas in their heads like it's okay to browse the Internet on Sundays.

Uh I think most evangelicals, particularly liberal ones, would loudly call bullshit on the idea that God would willingly exclude anyone who chose salvation.

― shout-out to his family (DJP), Monday, August 10, 2020 10:23 AM (thirty-two minutes ago)bookmarkflaglink

Yeah but the point is these are Calvinists not evangelicals

― treeship., Monday, August 10, 2020 10:27 AM (twenty-nine minutes ago)bookmarkflaglink

Yes, and Karl's arguing that there isn't a difference between them.

― shout-out to his family (DJP), Monday, August 10, 2020 10:29 AM (twenty-seven minutes ago)

i'm not arguing there isn't a difference between them. i'm arguing that to the outsider observer, in terms of actions and political beliefs, there is little to distinguish between the Dordt College crowd and white evangelicals.

i must admit i have never seen the words "liberal" and "evangelical" side-by-side, so i guess that speaks to my lack of perspective, for real. (i have to admit i googled it and found 18,500 results, heh). and not for the first time, i've said "evangelicals" when I really meant "white evangelicals". the overwhelming majority of white evangelicals i've known have been very conservative (and many are homophobic white nationalists to boot).

the seemingly incompatible doctrine thing is something else. i don't expect anyone to agree with me (a good indicator that i'm wrong), and my opinion on it is largely driven by my personal experiences with white evangelicals. all i can say is that in my experience, it is very, very possible to believe that anyone can be saved, and also that god knows who is going to be saved and counts them among his Chosen people.

and i'd also argue that for most evangelicals, there is no contradiction between "belief that people can choose their own salvation and be "born again" and declaring that "salvation was only for God’s chosen ones, and expelled from Dutch territory anyone who disagreed". the way they unify the two is like this: people can choose their own salvation, but god has already chosen who will receive. and on immigration, contemporary god is an angry righteous old testament god who chooses to bless or curse entire nations of evil nonbelievers. get born again or leave.

I grew up in an evangelical church in S. Illinois and agree 100% with Karl's take. Ime evangelical congregations believe in the doctrine that you choose your own salvation, but they have to square that with a totally omniscient god who already knows the choices you are going to make, so evangelicals get to profess that they are opening and welcoming to anyone choosing to join while at the same time critical and judging of anyone who has not. At least in my experience the prevailing mood for evangelicals is a sort of early-Christian New Testament belief in the end times and that they are a persecuted minority. A certain kind of paranoia justifying the other-ing of outsiders.

I mean in grade school I was lead to believe Catholics were a fringe religious cult that might steal your children.

tbf i think dutch calvinists in 1618 taught their kids the same thing

this is reminding me how much of my information about evangelicals comes from Chick tracts

Imagine growing up in Chick tract. My parents threw out an RPG book of mine when I was in high school because it discussed witches' spells" in it. I was quoted a bible verse about not suffering witches. This was in 1987, not 1697.

my dad make me quit taekwondo because there was a yin-yang patch on my uniform

sad lol, I think you have me beat. I'm sorry Karl, but that is cracking me up.