While shopping three days before Christmas, I saw a group of 3 or 4 young men walk by a large display of Christmas wrapping paper that was on sale. One of them said, gleefully, “I’d like to take all the Democrats and wrap them all up in a ball and throw them away!” I was … Read more
Many Americans will be basing their voting decisions this year on strongly held beliefs that are complete nonsense. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that voters are stupid. I am saying that they often don’t do their homework thoroughly and are therefore easily deceived by simplistic slogans, false conspiracies, and fake outrage. Even worse, … Read more
The Republican Party has encouraged and exploited bigotry, extremism, and paranoia for decades. They have done this deliberately and unashamedly in order to acquire and keep power (and gain). Rather than present practical, useful, well-considered, policy proposals to better the lives of the American people, they have found it much easier to attract votes by … Read more
The world is full of lies. Deliberate, insidious, corrosive lies. They come from many quarters: commerce, politics, the media. They have many sources: the evil, the manipulative, the selfish, and the ignorant. The “very elect” have been, and are being, deceived by these lies, which have been carefully constructed to masquerade as the truth. Those … Read more
Incumbent Utah Senator, Mike Lee, currently running for re-election, has a scary-looking TV commercial out that shows a bleak, photoshopped image of the President and starts, “This is Joe Biden’s America.” The voice then goes on to whine about “Inflation” blah, blah blah, “immigrants,” blah, blah, blah. The first lie here is that President Biden … Read more
As long as I can remember, I have been hearing in church about how we know we are living in the “last days” because the world is getting “increasingly wicked.” Obviously, we thought, the end times were imminent because there were so many “bad” people in the world doing such “bad” things. And, of course, … Read more
The most telling symptom of fascist politics is division. It aims to separate a population into an “us” and a “them.” … Every mechanism of fascist politics works to create or solidify this distinction. Jason Stanley Fascists lure honest conservatives into fascism by constantly telling them that “the left” is an existential threat to their … Read more
Fascism is a cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by immigrants, leftists, liberals, minorities, homosexuals, women, in the face of what the fascist leader says is a takeover of the country’s media, cultural institutions, and schools by these forces. And that’s why you need a really macho, … Read more