Fuck it, Thread time. If you don't understand how this is a culmination of the last 60 years of the American Evangelical and The Moral Majority as a socioeconomic movement let me offer some insight.
As a good primer I suggest reading @C_Stroop 's piece on the Christo-facsist McCarthyism of the Graham's dating back to the 50s as they explain the foundation for TMM better than I ever could. chrisstroop.com/2018/05/30/aut…
In 76 Falwell went on a series of jingoistic rallies further conflating American patriotism and conservative fundamentalist Christianity. By 79 he founded The Moral Majority, an organization designed to solidify the religious right as THE branch of Christianity in the states.
TMM spouted many authoritarian principles and like Graham before them conflated conservatism with godliness and progressivism with godlessness. Among these principles was working to repeal the Equal Rights Amendment. Their HQ was located in (no joke) Lynchburg, Virginia.
Lynchburg is home to the now infamous Liberty University as well. TMM even had a legal arm of their organization (Moral Majority Legal Defense Fund) for specifically for combating The ACLU. Others associated with TMM had an impact on the culture even after it was dissolved in 89.
Two that hung over my childhood throughout the late 80s and the 90s were Pat Robinson (who ran for President in 88 but was snubbed by TMM for Bush Sr in part due to rivalry between he and Falwell and his roots in a more charismatic tradition) and Tim Lahaye (of Left Behind fame).
(I'm skipping over their push for Reagan and all the damage done by that administration because frankly if I didn't I'd be here all day. Needless to say it had an effect on deregulation and saying fuck you to the queer community during the AIDS crises. Fuck Reagan.)
Robinson's network (hell propaganda arm) CBN along with TBN (founded by Paul and Jan Crouch) hung heavy over my early childhood. I was inundated with this stuff. Maybe you don't know what CBN was but you probably know about The 700 Club.
Well, CBN became The Family Channel in the 90's and after several buyouts is now Freeform which is why among an otherwise fairly progressive set of programming (as far networks run by multinational corporations go) The 700 Club still airs there today.
Growing up in the midst of the culture wars in the 90s was odd. From here things are going to get more personable and less academic. As a result of everything that had come before I lived under the thumb of an authoritarian interpretation of Christianity for 18 years.
The Jingoism and Christian Revisionism was fucking everywhere around me. When I was young our church was Freewill Baptist and they marched a Christian Flag and an American Flag down the center aisle on Sundays. Christian and American identitarianism was the way it was.
I don't use the term identitarianism lightly either. The church was entirely white and as insular and racist as one would assume a baptist church in rural Oklahoma would be. My grandparents were so conservative that even Disney movies were a toss up in terms of acceptability.
I was taught my entire upbringing that Christians were under constant attack, I was groomed for a culture war on the spiritual plane from birth. I watched the homogenization of evangelicalism take place right in front of me.
When I was about 11 or 12 a friend of the family became our new pastor. This split the church with most of the old guard leaving and moving on elsewhere as things became more "contemporary".
The message was mostly the same but people were upset you were clapping on the downbeat instead of the upbeat... basically imagine the bar scene from The Blues Brothers. We eventually lost the Freewill Baptist identifier as we became mainline evangelical.
Tongues were a funny sticking point for people during this time period. A deal breaker for much of the old guard as it was "too Pentecostal" and "made a mockery of the Holy Spirit". I was too afraid of this being blasphemy to take a stand either way.
"But Dellis isn't this a thread on authoritarianism?" I'm getting back to that. The pastor's words were quickly conflated with God's words. Those that left were possessed by evil spirits. Any amount of your humanity trying to break through the spiritual gaslighting? The devil.
So a group of insular, authoritarian leaning, theocratically minded revisionists with persecution complexes are mounting a culture war. Fighting tooth and nail against progress because it stands in direct opposition to their entire worldview and identity.
things are already at a fever pitch... then 9/11 happens. A surge in jingoism and an appeal for a messianic political strongman is cemented into the conservative identity. There's a brief surge in American capital
L "Libertarianism" and it gets swallowed by the religious right.
L "Libertarianism" and it gets swallowed by the religious right.
The doublespeak of not wanting the government in your business but then using the government to enact your policies on others is totally fine because "It's not me that wants this, it's God!" is nothing new as I hope this thread has illustrated.
TL;DR if you grow up singing "Onward Christian Soldier", brainwashed into thinking that God wants you to "return" the US to a Theocracy and anyone who opposes you is under the influence of Satan and combine that rhetoric with an authoritarian strongman. This is what you get.
Forgive my spelling and grammatical errors as I am sure they are numerous.
