Stu Rothenberg is one political commentator that I’ve grown to appreciate on twitter, partly because he is such an asshole for no reason and partly because he doesn’t pull his punches with Trump and Trumpism. The standard media line about the voting habits of evangelicals is “must respect their faith which informs their politics derp derp”. Rothenberg comes out and says the truth, that it’s the other way around:
I’ve been watching evangelical voting behavior since I worked for Paul Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation in the 1980s, and I’ve come to believe that, in most cases (though certainly not all), white evangelicals get their religion from their politics, not their politics from their religion.
That is, many evangelicals are first and foremost political conservatives drawn to a church (or a pastor) that confirms their worldviews and, in turn, their political views.
I’d forgotten all about this story:
Remember physician Scott DesJarlais (R-TN 4), the pro-life, tea party conservative first elected to Congress in 2010?
DesJarlais admitted pressuring his mistress to have an abortion and acknowledged he had multiple sexual relationships with patients and co-workers. His wife had two abortions. And yet, the Family Research Council, which promotes “traditional marriage and family and advocates for policies that uphold Judeo-Christian values” (according to the Almanac of American Politics, 2016), gave the congressman a 100% rating for 2014. Even more amazing, voters re-elected the Republican in 2012, 2014 and 2016.
Politically conservative evangelicals are assholes who use religion to justify their barbarism. The wrathful dudebro God they pretend to worship doesn’t exist, so they had to invent him.
Another Scott
One of the least surprising things I’ve come across in a long while. ;-)
Similarly, GovExec – Trump appointed judge backs Trump on CFPB:
Wikipedia says Kelly assumed office on September 8th.
Cheers,
Scott.
SRW1
Sort of funny thing is that evangelicals get their name from the New testament components, but in real live they disregard that Jesus reboot of Christianity for the tastier Old Testament stuff.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Rothenberg was a big promoter of Rubio.
What I don’t like is how he pretends to be neutral and the msm goes along with the masquerade.
Cheryl Rofer
This is a lot like many things the Republicans do. Say the right words, and it doesn’t matter what you do. Most glaringly at the moment, the tax bill which the words say will give everyone a big tax break and improve the economy, when all the evidence is otherwise. Is this a feature that appeals to some people? There may be a complex semiological analysis to be done here, but it’s too late at night for me to do it.
Calouste
@Cheryl Rofer:
Yes, the stupid ones.
They just listen to what someone says, and don’t think about what they do. Thinking is the most strenuous activity known to man.
Doug!
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
He’s been brutal with Trump and even calls out both siderism sometimes.
Adam L Silverman
@SRW1:
And they don’t even do that part well or even correctly because it is dogmatic fealty to the authoritarian demands of an omnipresent and omnipotent deity. Judaism is about orthopraxis – right behavior – not orthodoxy – right belief. There is no real statement of faith in Judaism. About the closest you get is the Shema Yisrael (Here or Israel, the Lord our G-d, the Lord is One), which is more a descriptive of the Deity than a statement of faith/fealty. And as a religion of right behavior there is tremendous diversity among and between Jews about what those right behaviors are, when and where they’re extant, and how to go about conducting them. So what you wind up with Evangelicals is a dogmatic adherence to divine authority as orthodoxy, which is the antithesis of what Judaism is about.
Another Scott
@Cheryl Rofer: I’m not sure they even need to ‘say the right words’. It seems to be a tribal thing, more than anything else. Bad behavior of almost any sort can be ignored or forgiven if the person is from (or claims to be from) their tribe. Roy Moore’s son was arrested for the 9th time (autoplay video), but Roy Moore is a Good Christian Family Man™ because something something. It takes a lot for too many people not to let political tribal identity trump (heh) almost any other consideration.
Jim Bakker is an infamous case, and yet even he seems to have rehabilitated himself enough to try again…
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
That’s funny. I like it.
KS in MA
@SRW1: And a very small number of cherry-picked, and distorted, lines from the Old Testament at that. As Adam said better at #7.
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
True enough. But Christianity filters Judaism through its understanding of Jesus, and the various theologians who established Christianity. So it’s like the Old Testament without Judaism.
Growing up in the South, I rarely encountered lay people or ministers who had a clue about Talmudic tradition, for example, including people who had gone to divinity schools.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: And yet they were all susceptible to anti-Semitic dogwhistles about talmudism.
I grew up in the South too.
Juice Box
My atheist Republican family split while Reagan was in office. The ones who stayed Republicans decided that religion wasn’t so ridiculous and the ones who stayed atheists became liberal to moderate Democrats. The racists were the ones who “found God”, but they’re still super racist.
James E. Powell
I know we’re supposed to celebrate every time some one finally sees the light, but who didn’t know that fundamentalist & evangelical weren’t just shields for bigotry and radical right-wing politics? Seriously? Who didn’t know?
That’s why the established Christian churches – Protestant and Catholic – with all their Matthew 25 attitudes – have been steadily losing members. They just are right-wing enough. They don’t preach hatred of others. They don’t comfort bigots and selfish assholes.
Major Major Major Major
Nonsense. There are plenty of gods out there. They just don’t call theirs by the right name.
Mike J
Utah
Jazz
Dance
Cam
Adam L Silverman
The Twink for Trump has been arrested after attacking a woman at U Conn. He’s not going to do well in jail with that self given sobriquet.
Adam L Silverman
Here’s a better angle:
Villago Delenda Est
This entire little sect is derived from those who split with their northern counterparts over slavery, and have been basically racist assholes ever since. There are always exceptions (Jimmy Carter, Bill Moyers) to this, who actually have bothered to read the New Testament and taken the teachings of Jesus to heart, but for most of them “Christianity” is just a tribal maker, not a way of life.
Villago Delenda Est
@Adam L Silverman: This maggot should rot in jail forever, but won’t, because white, and because reactionary cause celebre.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: He’s a gay white supremacist with little common sense and a big mouth. I’d wager even money that he mouths off to some guy of color and gets the crap beaten out of him before he can be arraigned and/or bailed out.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: @Adam L Silverman: Wow, that’s some thin skin. I was expecting something a little less cut-and-dried, but nope, he just walks up there without any (physical) provocation.
Steve Crickmore
The woman grabbed his speech or papers on the podium and he was trying to wrestle it back
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Well she seems to have snatched his notes off the podium while he wasn’t looking. But given that there were two cops standing right there, he really didn’t need to run up to her and grab her from behind. This wasn’t exactly grand theft auto.
patrick II
@Major Major Major Major:
It makes me wonder what was written on the paper she took.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah I meant that she didn’t do anything that could have been considered provoking an assault.
Adam L Silverman
@Steve Crickmore: I’m aware of what she did. It was silly. His response was seriously out of proportion, which is why he was arrested.
Adam L Silverman
@patrick II: From Lachlan Markey’s reporting it appears to have been some/all of his notes.
Mart
@Adam L Silverman: I think she was dumb to grab this asshole Nazis prepared remarks as the Nazis snowflakes will cry, “but she stole his prepared remarks” till the end of time. That would have set me off. But I am not a good speaker. Assume he was rattled by protesters. He forgot to attack the leftist criminal commie scum that stole his prepared remarks. And then scream all the hateful shit he had in his little brain on the wall. He could’a been a major RNWJ hero, expect he will be a minor one for standing up to the audacity of the left.
eemom
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
See also, the endless parade of idiots gushing over Jennifer Rubin and David Frum.
You know Doug!, the bottom line is that posts like this and your earlier one are like handing out free suicide enhancement pills to an already depressed population. That tax bill is going to destroy the lives of millions and millions of people if it is enacted.
How the fuck is baseless speculation about the Russia probe and gushing over hypocrites like Rothenberg helping anything — or anybody — exactly?
Duane
Wiht their support of Trump, the evangelicals claim to moral highground is laughable. Support for Moore is no surprise. They worship the dollar.
Rob Lll
Thanks, Stu. But us LGBTQ folks got wise to this decades ago. We’ve been trying to tell the country ever since.
Mike in DC
Party now correlates with a dozen demographic tags–gender, race, education level, region, rural/urban/suburban domicile, orientation, religion, racial resentment, economic status, age, capacity for empathy and even field of employment.
Redshift
It’s certainly true about abortion. One of the founding myths from Falwell et al is that evangelicals were driven to get involved in politics by Roe v. Wade, but the reality is that they didn’t have much of an opinion about abortion, and the grifters ginned up a “moral” outrage to gain political power.
Villago Delenda Est
@Redshift: Falwell’s true “moral outrage” was Jimmy Carter applying the teachings of Jesus to “Christian Academies” set up to fight desegregation, by taking away their tax exemptions.
Fuck these people. They’re racist scum.
Patricia Kayden
@Adam L Silverman: He was arrested at an “It’s okay to be white” speech. It has always been okay to be White so I don’t get his point. His whiteness isn’t going to help him get out of this predicament though.
patrick II
To justify, but also assert unquestioned authority. If you question their actions you question their religion — something people are loathe to do.
Kay
For God’s sake can we stop with this bullshit about these people caring about the deficit?
We know how this goes. They gut funding and then they embark on Stage Two, which is pretending to care about the deficit. Then they cut programs for poor and working people.
They’ll be some bullshit Harvard study, they roll out the Right wing economists and it becomes essential to cut Medicare and Medicaid. They planned this. They are deliberately busting the budget.
This is the Kansas experiment taken national. It’s a disaster for 90% of the people in this country and we still have to allow them to pretend they are “deficit hawks”? It’s A LIE. They are nothing of the sort.
Baud
@Kay: I see Nina Turner isn’t too thrilled about Cordray.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: This is my shocked face.
Amir Khalid
@Kay:
The Kansas experiment failed: it has nearly bankrupted the state government. The Kansas Republican party has disavowed it, and the perpetrator Sam Brownback is fleeing the scene by accepting a sinecure “ambassadorship” from Donald Trump. A rational Congressional Republican caucus, or at least one not in thrall to billionaire donors, wouldn’t be foolish enough to take it nationwide.
rikyrah
Where is the Morning Thread?
rikyrah
@Baud:
And?
So?
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: Conservatism never fails, it can only be failed.
Baud
Via LGM
Baud
@rikyrah: Just gossiping.
Baud
@rikyrah: And good morning.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid:
We don’t have one of those. Do you have one that might barrow?
satby
@rikyrah: Must be running late. Good morning!
Feathers
The fact that women who are “anti-abortion” are just as likely to have an abortion as women who support legal abortion shows that there is no moral compass involved. Theoretically, Evangelicalism is about spreading the gospel to others, but it also appears that behaving in a Christian manner is something to impose on others rather than any sort of personal requirement.