Thread by @PnictogenHorses

this video has been making the rounds—a fairly typical sample of memetic #Christian nonsense, spewed forth on TikTok, meant to buck up the sagging spirits of other believers. "why am I unhappy? because of Satan, who's a loser anyway, &c."

https://twitter.com/i/status/1638203991522934785

(cont'd)

the young woman who's spouting the memetic Christian nonsense has more or less *memorized* this line of talk, from one of the countless thousands if not *millions* of sources of Christian propaganda that pervade American society: radio, TV, the Internet, print media...

(cont'd)

...a myriad propagandists and grifters of the @PastorMark / @pastorlocke / @Franklin_Graham sort make enormous amounts of money teaching children (of all ages) to talk in exactly this way. this is what keeps right-wing Christianity in business: memetic *self-pity*.

(cont'd)

an act of *doublethink* is central to the right-wing Christian pose of self-pity.

the self-pitying Christian bigot (@MattWalshBlog or @JerryFalwellJr or whoever) needs to believe two things at once: they're the winners of humanity, yet Satan's always beating them down.

(cont'd)

@MattWalshBlog &c. want to pretend that they've got the secret to "normality" and joy—and yet they're miserable, all the time, and they look out upon a world full of people who are happier than they are, even though they've supposedly mastered the secret to happiness.

(cont'd)

how to explain that contradiction? well, it's Satan of course—right-wing Christians in their way are far more devoted to exalting the superpowers of Satan than they are to God or Jesus. Christian extremists have lurched towards a kind of stultified dualism about Satan.

(cont'd)

one sees exactly the same pattern of behavior in George Orwell's "1984", with the treatment of official scapegoat Goldstein as both weak and strong at the same time: Goldstein and his minions are somehow invincible, even though he's constantly humiliated and exposed.

(cont'd)

attempting to embrace a self-contradiction can, paradoxically, lead to a sense of motivation and purpose in life. the true believer is, in a sense, forced to chase their own tails—they're constantly forced to pretend that their own God is both fragile and invulnerable.

(cont'd)

@MattWalshBlog thinks he's *always correct*, because his God and his faith are the strongest things in the Universe—yet the mere sight of a drag act is enough to send that same faith reeling, because Satan's wiles are *that powerful*—and that inspires Matt to action.

(cont'd)

the self-contradiction ends up becoming a source of purpose—an *eternal* one, because nothing can resolve a self-contradiction. no amount of government compulsion will ever be strong enough to prop up @MattWalshBlog's faith—so more and more and more is always needed.

(cont'd)

and thus does @MattWalshBlog have a career for life! and so does @PastorMark and @RonDeSantisFL and every other fascist Christian in the lunatic-fringe—every Jesus freak devoted to propping their own faith up with tyrannical Republican theocracy.

~Mona Drafter of Pnictogen