Thread by @mattsheffield

Thread: Liz Cheney, Trump, and the epistemic collapse of fundamentalism

Liz Cheney was expelled today by House Republicans from their leadership. The defenestration has been rightfully construed as a byproduct of Trumpism in the GOP, which is true, but there's much more to it.

People have observed that Cheney was defrocked for the supposed crime of questioning Trump's election lies, but this is untrue.

Mitch McConnell has repeatedly said as much while also working to block Trump. Cheney's real crime was repeatedly speaking against Trump.

You won't get expelled in Trump's Republican party for disagreeing with him. You'll only get expelled if you do so publicly.

Big Lies are incredibly powerful but they're also incredibly fragile. They crumble at the slightest challenge.

This disingenuous and oppressive political environment is actually an outgrowth of a similar one that's emerged among Christian fundamentalists in which secular truth is impossible to obtain.

This is the last and inevitable redoubt of religious literalism because sacred texts are not historical. Nor were they meant to be.

Biblical inerrantism is a modern-day fabrication that becomes ever-more ridiculous by the day.

Instead of returning to traditional metaphorical heuristics in which scripture is not literally true, Christian fundamentalists have instead begun attacking the very idea of secular knowledge at all.

They would rather implode their entire epistemology than admit it was faulty.

The urgency of their errand has been greatly hastened by the growing sense of loss fundamentalists feel daily as they see their sons leave religion, their daughters come out as bi, and Muslims move in down the street.

In this suffocating intellectual climate, truth is not what you can prove, but that which you can force others to accept.

This mentality is why Trump's pathological lying and malignant personality has been so deeply embraced by fundamentalist conservatives.

Trump is thus not only useful because he hates the same people (racial justice activists, academics, journalists, feminists), he is a personal instantiation of willful ignorance.

If Jesus was the Word made flesh, Trump is fundamentalists' will to power made flesh.

Right-wing Christians don't literally worship Trump, but he is actually seen by them as God's personal instrument. He is a modern-day King David or King Cyrus, a flawed human who must always be deferred to because of his divine imprimatur.

Thanks for reading! For a more extensive version of this argument, please see the following essay I just published at @DiscoverFlux flux.community/matthew-sheffi…

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Thanks!

Good additional point below.

Trumpism is a great example of the unique ability of the stupid to command the ignorant.

https://twitter.com/EyedHexe/status/1392677710766297089?s=20

One last addition. My @DiscoverFlux colleagues @eaton and @kristinrawls have done some great work on how Trump's disregard for truth derives from Christian author Norman Vincent Peale.

Worth a listen if you want to visit the other side of this wormhole rightcast.substack.com/p/episode-4