As apparently there's another Whisenant-style Rosh Hashanah Rapture Panic ongoing in what is apparently now a yearly tradition in "NAR-lineage" Christian Nationalist circles, here's my thread on last year's Rapture Panic

1/xthreadreaderapp.com/thread/1574364…
And Rapture Panics are a phenomena that honestly has gone on since almost the time "Rapture Doctrine" became a Thing in Dispensationalist circles, and the original "Great Disappointment" that spawned Seventh Day Adventism

But today we'll focus on NAR-lineage flavor

2/x
So at least *historically* (and likely to avoid another Great Disappointment) Christian Nationalists in "NAR Lineage" circles have tended to shy away from setting a date, but starting around the early 80s you started seeing some rather odd cultural appropriation...

3/x
This was a particular point where NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists were starting to particularly aggressively target Jewish people (especially from Russian emigre communities) and engage in a lot of cultural appropriation of facets of Ashkenazi Jewish religious culture

4/x
And, interestingly, this is also right around the time that you started having a phenomena of "we're not gonna say it outright but here's a whole bunch of reasons that because Rosh Hashanah and years Israel has been around that the Rapture Is Extremely Nigh"

5/x
NAR-lineage Christian Nationalism has always had...a rather eccentric interest in numeric symbolism (a trait it shares with its parent movement Lanhamism) and so there's huge importance put to 3, and 4, and 7, and 40, and 49, and 50 (the jubilee year)

6/x
And the combination of Israel hitting its 40th year of existence as an independent state (which is considered a sacred and religiously significant number in NAR-lineage Christian Nationalism) which was causing a lot of Rapture Speculation as it was seen as a Sign...

7/x
combined with the increasing apocalypticism around Rosh Hashanah (you were having "outpourings" effectively being manipulated into existence around Rosh Hashanah which were seen as Signs and Wonders too)...led to a fairly major Rapture Panic in 1988

8/x
So in 1987, a guy by the name of Ed Whisenant published "88 Reasons Jesus Is Coming Back In 1988" which effectively claimed the Rapture was going to happen around Rosh Hashanah in 1988 because...of, well, a Crapload Of Reasons

And people kind of went guanopsychotic

9/x
People literally quit their jobs, sold their belongings or even gave them away, and were preparing to be lifted up to Glory in late September 1988.

This....did not happen, and a lot of people ended up destitute and even a few ended up homeless as a result

10/x
This unfortunately didn't stop Whisenant, this didn't stop Rosh Hashanah Apocalypticism (as we'll get into), and if anything Rosh Hashanah Rapture Panics have turned less into a schadenfreude festival and more as...a decidedly nastier thing in NAR circles

11/x
One of the things that's little appreciated is that at least SOME of the push to elect The Former Guy in NAR-lineage Christian Nationalist circles actually stems from a Rosh Hashanah Rapture Panic. (Yes, seriously.)

So, let's go back to 2015-2016, folks...

12/x
So, again, you had a combination of how (by this point) NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists were whipping themselves into a froth pretty much *every* Rosh Hashanah at this point, combined with Israel approaching its 49th anniversary of existence as an independent state...

13/x
and, well, a particular astronomical phenomena in which in 2014 and 2015 there were a sequence of four consecutive lunar eclipses...the fourth of which was to happen on Rosh Hashanah in 2015

This was HEAVILY promoted by NAR preacher John Hagee



14/xen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_moo…
And to make things even more toxic, this "blood moon prophecy" that was being pushed HEAVILY in NAR circles and even NAR-adjacent "NAR Lineage" Christian Nationalist circles (even Pat Robertson egged it on) was based on a specific context in Joel...

15/x
which *meteorologically* speaking can describe the results of a volcanic eruption, but...which NAR-lineage sorts interpreted this in terms of the prior branding of the NAR ("Joel's Army"), and the general pattern of interpretation of verses out of context,

16/x
and the whole pattern of stitching unrelated Bible verses together that's kind of the core of the theology of NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists since the Scofield Reference Bible, and a tendency to see "signs and wonders" in literally everything

17/xdailykos.com/stories/2007/8…
Well...this, TOO, caused a bit of a Rapture Panic, and not just a Rapture Panic but even one of those Rapture Panics that ended up having enough exposure outside of the NAR community that actual astronomy sites were writing on it

18/xspace.com/25409-four-blo…
And--importantly for US politics--this was also a period where a *segment* of NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists were starting to embrace the idea that *they themselves* were the Second Coming as a "Corporate Christ" and thus they had to take control;

19/x
and even the majority of NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists (who weren't thinking of themselves as the Jesus Juhumuriya) had also gotten the idea that the whole reason Jesus hadn't returned is that the US had not been sufficiently "Named and Claimed" yet

20/x
THIS is why there was SO much apocalypticism and Weirdness regarding Trump among NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists, so much calling him out as Cyrus, all but deifying him at points

And it ultimately paved the way for a much worse Rosh Hashanah Panic

21/x
Yes, The Former Guy being essentially elected in a wave of literal apocalypticism by NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists convinced he was going to pave the way for what they REALLY wanted...literally set up the stage for #J6.

Yes, the Great Sedition is involved in this.

22/x
On Rosh Hashanah 2019, Christian Nationalists started priming the pumps, and as early as March 2020 the Jericho Marches were organized...to start the day after Yom Kippur, and 40 days before election, and 400th anniversary of the Mayflower's landing

23/x
And by Rosh Hashanah 2020, NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists were already whipped up in another apocalyptic frenzy...claiming the election had already been lost, and they had to violently (if necessary) secure their position of power

This led DIRECTLY to #J6 folks

24/x
I've written a much longer thread on how #J6 was (at its core) a violent NAR-lineage Christian Nationalist revolt against the constitutional republic, and how it was effectively the culmination of a series of Rosh Hashanah Rapture Panics

25/xthreadreaderapp.com/thread/1546663…
So it's a little harder for me to laugh at some of it, though I'd love to--I do remember (even though I was breaking free from cult programming) even being kind of Scared in 1988 of "what if I'm wrong", and I knew people who pretty much lost it all back then

26/x
And more to the point: This particular flavour of apocalyptic cultural appropriation (and it is, very much, cultural appropriation) is, increasingly, radicalizing NAR-lineage Christian Nationalists with every Little Disappointment, because it is essentially eliminationist

27/x
So it's pretty much a good thing for political activists and community organizers--and, yes, public safety officials and others who would like to protect the constitutional republic against enemies foreign and domestic--to learn re Rosh Hashanah Rapture Panics

28/x
So the best lessons we can learn are the bits of loaded language that signal a threat (like #J6) and...being willing to listen to some old war stories and some advice from some of us who grew up in our own private Gilead before we got the hell out

29/end
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More from @dogemperor

Nov 4, 2024
Some gentle reminders for the coming week, because I know people are going to be nervous as hell

My first reminder: IGNORE THE POLLS, NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY, AND *VOTE* IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO

1/x
Polls don't vote. People do. Today and tomorrow is where we seal the deal and bring it home and that only happens when we vote in NUMBERS.

It looks good so far, but it's always better to get MOAR and make it OVERWHELMING--important in light of GOP lawfare threats

2/x
So the things important for y'all voting on Election Day:

a) Many states require businesses to give you off time to vote
b) Need a way to get to polls? Most public transit agencies give free transportation, and Uber/Lyft give discounted rides, also Urban League can help

3/x
Read 22 tweets
Nov 3, 2024
@Politics_Polls @MorningConsult And here, I'm going to remind folks of my First Law of Political Polling:

Never, ever, *ever* trust any political polling group that refuses to publish its crosstabs freely and not locked up behind a paywall (including a paid subscription wall).

1/x
@Politics_Polls @MorningConsult Yes, there's a VERY SPECIFIC reason I say Never Trust Anyone Who Won't Share Their Crosstabs Publicly And For Free.

Almost without *exception*, any group refusing to publish a breakout of basic things like "size of pool", "composition of pool", and so on is Hiding Something

2/x
@Politics_Polls People talk a lot now about "herding" in polls. Probably THE most common way "herding" occurs is through issues of weighting members of a poll, and I'm going to lay out the many ways that just *weighting* the people in a pool can seriously fuck with a result

3/x
Read 38 tweets
Nov 1, 2024
So digging through the state-level Marist polls, and we are seeing more evidence (already indicated by both the CES national poll with 78k respondents AND previous Marist polls) of a "Dobbs Effect" that is reaching strongly even into white evangelical Christian pops

1/x
So Marist is one of two polls that tend to be less hot garbage than most, and tend to go into some deeper details like sub-surveying of self-identified white evangelical Christians. And this is a MAJOR barometer for a Dobbs Effect, as I'll explain below

2/x
Something like 15% of Americans self-identify as "white evangelicals" in larger religious surveys by PIRR and Pew Forum, and these populations (in deeper studies of Christian Nationalism and New Apostolic Reformation/Seven Mountains theology) are extremely R-trending

3/x
Read 87 tweets
Oct 30, 2024
Potentially controversial take:

Even IF Biden had outright called MAGAts "garbage" he'd not have been wrong and he would have arguably been CHARITABLE to *merely* call them "garbage" after that "Daily Scheisser Live" three-sheets-short-of-a-cross-burning Hate Rally at MSG

1/x
Like, literally, let's JUST go over what was pushed THIS WEEKEND AT AFOREMENTIONED HATE RALLY, and I will remind EVERYONE here that *all of this was explicitly approved to the point it showed up on teleprompters and in rehearsals* so they damn well KNEW what was up

2/x
a) Has a shock "comedian"--who was so infamously racist he got banned from Joe Rogan's club, and who was originally going to include a routine referring to the VPOTUS as a <C-BOMB>--does the infamous "PR is a floating island of garbage" routine

3/x
Read 42 tweets
Oct 25, 2024
@garymauney @matthewjdowd THIS THIS THISSITY THIS

And this is where I talk about a particular effect of WHY polling has gone to hell (and about all that you can get that's useful is things from crosstabs)

I have dubbed this the Straw Market Problem, and it's an issue even beyond political polls

1/x
@garymauney @matthewjdowd More properly, I should refer to this as the Nassau Straw Market Problem, because it relates to a particularly infamous straw market (which does not exist anymore in its older form) and is an example of how aggressive capitalism and marketing can shit up *everything*

2/x
@garymauney @matthewjdowd Up until 2 yrs ago, the Port of Nassau had its cruise ship terminal (1000s of ppl/day) empty its exit/entry into an outdoor vendor hall/outdoor mall you HAD to pass through to exit the port to get into downtown Nassau (the Straw Market in question)

3/x
Read 13 tweets
Oct 24, 2024
And just so people know I don't just look at GOP-friendly polls with a hairy eye, I look at ALL polls with a hairy eye: Big Village CARAVAN, which *is* looking good for Harris but STILL has methodology issues that can skew it rightward

A thread:

1/x
So looking at their polling they appear to gather from "opt-in online panels", which is a real fancy term for "Used paid-survey portals".

Which that introduces a risk of pool-poisoning, as we've seen from sites that use YouGov in particular

2/x
They also use some rather odd weighting for their grouping--in addition to ACS (which weights for population), it weights based on *vote in 2020*, which actually RISKS missing a lot of voters--much of GenZ and Gen Alpha only became registered voters in 2022 or this year

3/x
Read 40 tweets

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