"Conservative" Republican Fascists & Christo-Fascisism

[jfish26]

Trump's cabinet in his next administration will hit the ground running:

Randy will be the Minister of Information.

[japhy]

Well this don't sound good, but I ain't no lawyer so maybe it's not as big a deal as it sounds.

https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-go ... R3DlFxxEF0

[Sparko]

Well this don't sound good, but I ain't no lawyer so maybe it's not as big a deal as it sounds.

https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-go ... R3DlFxxEF0

It only seems corrupt if you believe in facts and corruption.

[Shirley]

[jfish26]

https://x.com/gtconway3d/status/1692571 ... q_-8Yt1KMA

[Shirley]

https://x.com/gtconway3d/status/1692571 ... q_-8Yt1KMA

I almost posted that earlier but decided not to, because reposting outrageous right-wing crap all the time takes a toll. That post said the picture was taken by a father who was there for his 13 y/o son's baseball game. The white Christo-Fascist republicans have no bottom.

[jhawks99]

At least they didn't see a guy wearing a dress. Think of the children.

[jfish26]

Everyone At The Christian Influencer Convention Was Trapped

https://defector.com/everyone-at-the-ch ... as-trapped

No one’s heard of the Christian Influencer Convention (CIC); how the few people who showed up to the inaugural event, held on July 26 at the South Point hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nev., apparently did is a mystery. I found out about it thanks to an ad online (perhaps my attendance at Matthew McConaughey’s virtual life-coaching session put me in the sights of the right online marketing algorithm). What was promised was communicated more in the design of the ad, and by extension the convention’s website, than any out-and-out mission statement. As with most sites pulled together quickly in the age of Squarespace and Wix, there was a boilerplate aesthetic neatness to the CIC landing page that conveyed nothing immediately specific about its reason for being. A dark blue background, red buttons for contrast, badges with “As seen on Fox News, CBS, NBC, ABC,” along with a 30-second YouTube video made up entirely of stock footage asking if I wanted to meet up with like-minded influencers using their platform to spread the gospel. No, but obviously yes.

Then there was the lineup, a group of terminally online Protestants who specialize in nothing except their own enthusiasm. One woman, an interior designer named Anh Lin, appeared by herself, while the rest, Hannah and Sarah and Devin and Sophia and Chenoa, appeared as wives to husbands named Regal and Hunter and Taylor and Micah.

Christian influencers are a peculiar breed, straddling the line between bland defenders of the gender binary, domesticity, and “values” on the one hand, and visibly ardent evangelicals on the other. The visible aspect is key given that these are people—mostly young couples with children, but also self-appointed culture warriors who argue with people on Twitter about vaccines and deconstructionist philosophy (not worth your time)—who, like any other influencers, seemingly spare no aspect of their life from their cameras. White teeth, shining brown and blond hair, white walls, prefab floors, grass lawns, cursive decor, cross-shaped earrings, bad Christian rock. Christian influencers are like youth bible camp counselors trapped in stasis.

Because so many of them are white, barely out of their early 20s, and utterly uninterested in reaching audiences who don’t already agree with them, engaging with these people, watching as they mug for the camera with bright teeth and blissful self-assuredness, feels like having a child tell you about the sanctity and importance of having children. These are people who have lived limited yet widely viewed lives of conspicuous virtue and faith, who lecture without lecturing on the sacrament of the family, the importance of scripture, the danger of sin. They also do a lot of unrelated TikTok challenges and trend-chasing because, though they don’t want their audience to think otherwise, they are just as beholden to the algorithm as anyone else.

[…]

What the CIC advertised and what it actually put on seemed diametrically opposed. On one hand, a pitch deck for a game-changing interactive faith experience that would, as these things hope, start a movement. On the other, a room full of strangers whose relationship to each other was that of passengers on a stranded bus, spending the middle of the week in a hyper air-conditioned room, letting the buzz of lights and the sheepish, vaguely Christ-inflected offerings of a few sheltered young people mix together. There was no sense that a passion project was finally being realized. The CIC felt perfunctory, a matter of due diligence. Charitably, it could have been an attempt by concerned parties to arrest a younger audience, to inject a sense of relevance and newness into the routine of church and everyday life. By the end, it seemed more like a tax write-off pulling double duty as a rallying cry for conspiracy-friendly conservatism.

The culture wars once existed in a weird corner, not so much lurking as beside the point. Now they bleed onto the nightly news, social feeds, and regular conversations. The fourth panel of the convention, unfortunately the most interesting and the one that the audience actually perked up for, featured three guys named John and a YouTuber from the former Soviet Union named Ruslan. All four men, bearded or attempting to be, were self-styled apologists. Apologists for what, one might ask. In that context, it was rhetorical, though I don’t think they realized that it would behoove them to specify that they were Christian apologists. Anyway, the panel was overrun with testosterone. Here were the culture warriors, the Twitter pundits just asking questions about the vaccine, praising Elon Musk, paying extra for their too-long tweets, defending Andrew Tate, crying about Sound of Freedom’s suppression by the liberal media, getting into fights with deconstructionists (still don’t know what this means) trying to water down the Bible’s message, vociferously agreeing with actual evil person Matt Walsh about the relative insignificance of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki compared to the deaths of the unborn. Idiots need community, too.

Safe behind their overconfidence and self-important intellectualism, all four panelists praised each other’s work, their bravery in fighting the Lord’s fight. Talking about heresy, they reminded us that the Bible says members of the LGBTQ+ community deserve our love even if they are an abomination. Answering a question about loved ones who don’t believe in Jesus, they recapitulated their commitment to saving as many people as possible with the strength of their belief. One particularly Aryan panelist warned that we wouldn’t be judged by our good works or our actions, but by our faith, which maybe explains why these specific evangelicals, bloviating and yet clearly accustomed to being listened to, love to hate the poor and believe in the sanctity of the free market. There was no shyness here. The men spoke directly to the audience, pointing their fingers, apologizing if they offended anybody even as they received applause. Disconnected in every way from the panels that came before, the conversation that shifted to politics and the damnation of sinners approached something like a victory lap. But then it was over.

The day closed out with a prayer, a plea to donate, a reminder to spread the word, to help the CIC make next year even bigger and better. The online donation ticker set up a $100,000 goal. Last I checked, they had only raised $100, which I suspect was really just the convention organizer trying to get the ball rolling.

Though many of the panelists kept urging us to think of ourselves as influencers, the message got muddled by their lack of sincerity. Wide-eyed youths trying to sell a perfect image can convince themselves of anything. Why we had to be there for it didn’t make much sense. These people have already latched onto a highly responsive, anxious network of Christians terrified of modern life, of being alone. Meanwhile, the bullish online fighters go to bat for the truth of genetic differences across race groups and traditional masculinity's ability to keep society from collapsing. These are foolish, arrogant, belligerent people, sure, but they have also figured out a way to finesse their so-called belief into something with the appearance of legacy and theological heft. It’s just that, when they do so disconnected from monied interests, from the conservative leaders unafraid to court provocation and hatred, little gatherings like the Christian Influencer Convention can appear tame, thankfully pointless. Still, if something like the CIC is underwhelming as a site of true oppositional insight, it’s because the thinking and convincing, the stoking of fear and disgust, have already happened elsewhere. All there was to be found here was a brief burst of joy, then boredom, then strident punditry meant to reinforce one’s feeling of superiority. It was a progression that should be familiar to anyone who's spent more than a few consecutive minutes scrolling on their phone.

[twocoach]

Reading that felt horribly familiar. Too funny.

[jfish26]

I’m just guessing this goes here. Happy to be wrong.

[KUTradition]

what in the absolute fuck?

[jfish26]

what in the absolute fuck?

What’s ever gone wrong in repressing sexuality?

[KUTradition]

what in the absolute fuck?

What’s ever gone wrong in repressing sexuality?

do adults really do that shit?

talk about snowflakes…

[defixione]

Well, she did have the fish sign tattooed on her wrist . . .

[jfish26]

Well, she did have the fish sign tattooed on her wrist . . .

Whoa whoa whoa.

[twocoach]

what in the absolute fuck?

Just another self-absorbed person using social media to show how virtuous they want everyone to believe they are. Social Media digital persona maintenance.

[Shirley]

What's the over/under they only do it with the lights off?

I'll take the "over" for $100, Alex.

[jfish26]

What's the over/under they only do it with the lights off?

I'll take the "over" for $100, Alex.

I would guess that, broadly speaking, the guys in relationships like these are significantly more likely than average to later be in the news for very bad reasons.

[Shirley]

Fuck republicans:

(Why? Among other things, watch the two videos and get back to me. Because apparently, republicans are OK with that, threatening judges, grand jury witnesses, poll workers, etc., etc.)

[Shirley]

White people react to the first Black family moving into an all-white suburb in 1957 — Levittown, Pennsylvania. A new community of 60,000 people.