A Few Things about Conservatives

 

• We'd like to thank the ten Republicans for their "compromise" bill. This makes it almost too easy to see exactly what working with Repubs gets us: nothing--just cut the original by two-thirds. The original $1.9 trillion was already too low, but was maybe another (!) attempt by Dems to try to attract GOP support. Not gonna happen. On to reconciliation. Might as well add more to it while they're at it.

• Most of the "reasonable" Republicans everyone is fawning over never used the phrase "President-Elect Biden" after the election. Such a low bar.

• Mike Huckabee once described himself as "I'm a conservative, but I'm not angry about it." The media went out of their way to describe him as the kind of guy you'd want to have a beer with. But he is just another incarnation of Donald Trump. He hasn't changed. He was always this. And now his daughter, too. The media keep wanting to present us with reasonable, principled conservatives (Rubio, Cruz, Walker, Haley, and on and on), but they aren't there. They try to invent them but sooner or later they expose themselves for what they are.

An Open Letter to the WELS

Even among those few people who seem to come across this blog now and then, most won't be interested in this post. It involves a church body of which I was once a member: the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (hereinafter referred to as WELS or the WELS). Indeed, I initially started this blog, and decided on the name Leftist Lutheran, as a push-back against things I was seeing in the WELS and some of its affiliated organizations that were of concern to me (and my spouse). So if you have no interest in the esoterica of Lutheranism, you might want to skip this.

The things that concerned us started pretty much when Barack Obama was elected, and that should have raised even more of a red flag at the time as to some of the motives behind what we were seeing. WELS has an officially-affiliated organization called Christian Life Resources (CLR), whose primary purpose is anti-abortion. If you read my blog in its earliest days in 2010 and onward, you saw that I spent a considerable amount of time challenging this group's activities. They were contrary to the doctrines and teachings of the WELS, and I wrote about that. (I also pushed back directly at both CLR and the WELS leadership, but to no avail.) What was concerning was that moral relativism was creeping into their activities, as well as out-and-out falsehood.

For example, they bought into and encouraged the false allegation of death panels in the ACA. They used the edited and discredited tapes of supposed Planned Parenthood selling of body parts. For many years they had the Life Wire News on their website, a highly questionable advocacy news source with questionable journalistic standards. In short, as long as something "served the greater good" it was deemed "true". There were lots of other issues, but you'd have to go back and read posts from the first few years of the blog. It was disturbing at the time but we never dreamed of where we'd be today.

Later on in the Obama presidency, the Synod itself started putting out public statements concerning Obamacare and same-sex marriage that were misleading at best and untruthful at worst. When we challenged the WELS President the response was basically "you are probably technically correct but we still think that generally what we said is true." The WELS had become openly political. This was the point at which we decided we could no longer be a part of that church body.

Fast forward to the Trump years. This embracing of untruth in order to justify social or political or cultural beliefs has become a central tenet of the majority of WELS people we know (also Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, which has a lot of similarities to the WELS). We know quite a few members of these two church bodies, and anecdotally the impression we have is that many or most have gone full QAnon. And these people believe they are living their religion. And some of these people were preaching from pulpits or teaching our kids in Lutheran schools. I have come to believe that you tell the beliefs of a church body by what people in the pews believe, not what is written in some tomes in the Synod archives. These people believe this stuff. And I don't think they would if they weren't getting some sort of validation (or more) from the pulpit and other church leadership. What started as fudging the truth to help along in the culture war in the Obama years has metamorphosed into total QAnon conspiracy craziness. It is sad and scary to see people I though I knew being a part of this.

Hank Aaron, RIP

Hank Aaron was one of the best, in so many ways.

As a kid who spent his early childhood in Milwaukee in the 1950s, just after the Braves moved there, I think my earliest and most enduring memory concerning Hank Aaron (his rookie year was 1954) is that none of the white suburbs wanted him to live in their city. 

It was probably my first time experience with the fact that the America I was taught in school wasn't the America that actually existed in lives of many people. And this is still the false America that conservatives want to teach our kids today.

Some Inauguration Day Thoughts

 

• Red states hate the coastal elites, but they do almost everything they can to get those elites to move to their states.

• I guess I am okay with this "get tough with China stuff." As long as we also get tough with Saudi Arabia and Israel and India and Turkey and all of our other authoritarian "friends".

• Matt Walsh on Twitter today said that with Biden we have our first president with full-blown dementia. That's an interesting take. I saw two speeches today--Trump's "farewell" and Biden's Inaugural Address. I agree that one of our last two presidents might be suffering from dementia, but it's not the one Walsh thinks.

• Biden is changing the name from "Ambassador to Israel" to "Ambassador to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza". I like it!

 

Tweet of the Day

GOP traded 400,000 American lives for 234 Trump judges & tax cuts for the rich

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) January 19, 2021

Friday Opinions

 

• I'm a big fan of contrarian journalism, but Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi have gone to such an extreme, it's like they've become clowns. Their journalism today does a lot of judging the motives of the left, to such an extent that I now question theirs. It's possible that they have discovered a niche in the anti-anti-Trump world that is very lucrative for them, so they're going to milk it for all it's worth.

• The latest Washington Post poll shows wide margins of disapproval for the riot in Washington. The problem is that--to the extent that Republicans actually disapprove--it's only to the extent that they blame antifa infiltrators for the riot. Most of these people haven't changed their minds about anything. Not a hopeful sign for the future of this country.

• President-elect Biden presented a vaccine distribution plan (in an effort to rescue the country from the Trump disaster). The actual President met with the pillow guy about declaring martial law.

• I return to this every now and then: Donald Trump is responsible for a couple thousand deaths in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria. It turned out to be just a dry run for the deaths of hundreds of thousands he caused from Covid. And 80% of Republicans approve.

Don't Kid Yourself

The Republican Party of the last four years will be the Republican Party of the next four years, and probably longer. It is more likely to be the party of Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kevin McCarthy and Lauren Boebert than to be the party of Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski or even Liz Cheney. It is Trump's party. The Trump of the last week or the last couple months since the election is the same Trump as always. The GOP can pretend it's something new but they know that's a lie. This is the same guy to  whom they've bent the knee for four years. We know their true colors.

Two-thirds of the House Republicans and a significant number of Senators voted a few days ago to overturn the election. Republican state legislatures are already talking about messing with the Electoral College to further disenfranchise Black voters. You can be certain that all around the country, states will be enacting laws to further suppress the votes of those they regard as less worthy. And there is a Supreme Court ready to give its stamp of approval.

The fact is that the Repubs are fully on board with the racism, xenophobia, mysogeny, and general awfulness espoused by Trump. They prefer that it is done a more acceptable dog-whistle sort of way but they are fine with it. The insurrection at the Capitol is simply an annoyance they are trying to work through, but you can tell by their milquetoast condemnations of the attack (with a few notable exceptions) that they just want to get past it and get on with their agenda.

The Religious Right is still on board and they are still a controlling partisan force. They've sold their souls. I include my former church body in this group: the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Church. It's membership has gone full QAnon. The Trinity they worship today is God, Guns, and Trump. They even wear t-shirts bragging about it.

Many have characterized the events of January 6 as a deflection point. I think it was Ta-Nehisi Coates who said it in a different context: I am hopeful but not optimistic. There have been a lot of platitudes the past few days with sentiments like, "This is not who we are." I guess we need to hear that at times like these, but I'm afraid it's likely that this is exactly who we are.

I hope everything I have written in these paragraphs turns out to be wrong.

Tweet of the Day

This is actually from October 2016, but is awfully prescient and relevant for today.

Nothing about Trump has ever looked kinda bad at first but turned out OK. He's always worse than you thought.

— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) October 8, 2016

What a Country

• It turns out that "deplorable" was the correct descriptor after all.

• Max Berger on Twitter: "I would bet on the Bannonite wing of the Republican Party over the Romney wing of the Republican Party." I think this is the correct take.

• I decided to do a DuckDuckGo on what pretend-Christian Franklin Graham was saying about the Trump/QAnon riot at the Capitol. From a couple tweets I saw, what do you think he was saying? You guessed it. Both parties are responsible. Oh, and antifa, too! What an awful man.

• I actually know someone who traveled all the way to DC to take part in the riot. Then she claimed that she was at the Capitol and it was peaceful except that antifa infiltrated the peace-loving deplorables and became violent. And then they couldn't get out of town because Black Lives Matter was there tying up traffic. I am not making this up.

Tweet of the Day

Thinking about all the excuses being made for the grown adults who stormed the capitol (they've been having a hard time, they got brainwashed, they saw no future) and how they apply to 16 year olds in gangs but you don't often hear it applied to them when they get arrested

— Danny Gold (@DGisSERIOUS) January 8, 2021

Just a Quick Reminder

I am as disgusted as anyone about the riot in Washington yesterday. Attempting to overturn or undo a fair democratic election is a terrible thing. It is also something the US has done many times in other countries.

Tweet of the Day

Former General John Kelly just said on TV that he wasn't fully aware of President Trump's flaws before becoming chief of staff, and this is why you should never listen to a general when they tell you about how great the wars are going.

— Dario DiBattista (@DarioDiBattista) January 7, 2021

White Guy Entitlement

Josh Hawley's tweet about Simon and Schuster's decision to cancel publication of his book is the height of elitist white boy entitlement grievance. Your First Amendment rights do not require that Simon and Schuster provide a forum for your drivel. Oh and also: if your book is as full of banal right-wing cliches as your statement and tweet, then maybe that's the reason for S&S's decision.

My statement on the woke mob at @simonschuster pic.twitter.com/pDxtZvz5J0

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 7, 2021

Just Another Day in Trumpworld

• I am suspending my normal no-name-calling self-edict for twenty seconds so that I can add myself to the list of people telling Josh Hawley that he is a wimpy snowflake.

• Seems like not many antifa in DC today but plenty of pro-fa.

• Also seems like a bunch of rioting white people are treated a little different. This is what white privilege looks like.

• I can't wait for Thiessen and Abernathy to tell us how this is the fault of the radical left.

Now Here's a Good Political Ad

A political ad at Georgia Democratic candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock Labor Canvass Launch at IBEW Local 613 on January 5, 2021 in Marietta, Georgia. (Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)

Quoting George Will

This is probably the first time I've ever quoted George Will. It is testimony to how bat-shit crazy the Repubs have become that the once far-right Will now almost sounds moderate (or something).

Anyway, here are a couple quotes from his op-ed in The Washington Post.

For many years, some people insisted that a vast conspiracy, not a lone gunman, masterminded the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy near the grassy knoll in Dallas’s Dealey Plaza. To these people, the complete absence of evidence proved the conspiracy’s sophistication. They were demented. Today’s senatorial Grassy Knollers — Hawley, with Cruz and others panting to catch up — are worse. They are cynical.

 And:

But for scores of millions of mesmerized Trump Republicans, who think the absence of evidence is the most sinister evidence, this proves that the courts, too, are tentacles of the “deep state.” Hawley and Cruz, both of whom clerked for chief justices of the Supreme Court, hope to be wafted into the White House by gusts of such paranoia.

I don't think this ends after the inauguration. This is now today's GOP.

The Real Aim: Voter Suppression

 

I think I agree with a lot of folks I've seen online: maybe the big endgame for the Repubs here is voter disenfranchisement. They know that they will lose in their seditious behavior in Congress this week, but are hoping to lay the groundwork for "reforms" to address the nonexistent ''irregularities" that they have created in their QAnon alternate universe. The easiest way to not lose Georgia and other states again is to make sure that certain voters not be allowed to vote again.

The Courts have come out of this looking pretty good. But never forget that the Courts--and SCOTUS in particular--are not opposed to voter suppression. They just aren't allowing this kind of voter suppression, i.e., after-the-fact throwing out of votes. They will be more than eager to be complicit in more "respectable" forms of disenfranchisement and suppression. Indeed, they have a long and consistent track record of doing exactly that.

Just watch.

c

• Trump's call to Raffensperger is surely an impeachable offense (although nothing will come of it). But don't forget that for something like 40% of Americans--and maybe a majority of White People--Trump is doing exactly what they want him to be doing.

• If you spend any time on Twitter, one of the things that jumps out at you is that a lot of people totally lack a sense of irony.

• Liz Cheney has actually said some good things lately. I never expected to say that anytime in my lifetme. Now that it's happened, I fully expect the earth's magnetic field to flip next week.

• If I see one more piece on "Covid wasn't all Trump's fault", my head is going to explode. (The latest was in Vox). Of course it wasn't. But guess who the President of the United States was in 2020? Only one guy, and he was a disaster. Fifty governors wouldn't have been able to rescue us from that. So just stop it already.

2020 Reading List

Books I read in 2020. Quite a few more than a normal year, thanks to Covid. On the bright side, I discovered some new and amazing authors. The world keeps producing more and more of them all the time.

Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings

Henrik Pontoppidan, Lucky Per

Ella Cara Deloria, Waterlily

Gail Tsukiyama, The Samurai's Garden

Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons

Téa Obreht, Inland

E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime

Alia Trabucco Zerán, The Remainder

Zadie Smith, Swing Time

Mario Levrero, Empty Words (trans. Annie McDermott)

Esi Edugyan, Half-Blood Blues

Han Kang, The Vegetarian (trans. Deborah Smith)

Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel

Mohsin Hamid, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

John Mauceri, Maestros and Their Music

J. M. Coetzee, Foe

Bernadine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other

Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang

Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

Robert Hicks, Orphan Mother

Paul Monette, Last Watch of the Night

N. K. Jemisin, The City We Became

Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Martin Riker, Samuel Johnson's Eternal Return

Anna Quindlen, Blessings

Sally Rooney, Normal People

Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Madhuri Vijay, The Far Field

Jennifer Ackerman, The Genius of Birds

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto

Esi Edugyan, Washington Black

Julia Scheeres, Jesus Land

Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries

Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice

Fatima Farheen Mirza, A Place for Us

Sandra Newman, The Heavens

Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August

Ursula Hegi, The Vision of Emma Blau

Nell Zink, Doxology

Only in America

Here's an article in the New York Times about China's (largely successful) program to eliminate extreme poverty in some of its poorest rural provinces. What is striking to me is that the general tone of the article is negative, stressing how expensive and "unsustainable" the program is. There are plenty of things in China about which to be skeptical, but only in America would a program that has successfully helped tens of millions of people out of poverty be presented as something negative.

On a macro level, the US is the richest country ever. But one reason for our incredible income inequality is that subsidies that help the poor are described--even by liberals--as unsustainable, when at the same time much greater (and more permanent) subsidies to the richest individuals and businesses are not questioned. China seems to actually be serious about eliminating extreme poverty, and has devoted real resources to accomplish it. If only America had the same commitment.