ghost dance
mebbe redumbdent<div>
</div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">aha not mine xian is also bubble/ echo</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 4 23</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/trump-christianity-evangelicals/">https://www.alternet.org/trump-christianity-evangelicals/</a></font></div><div style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," author and evangelical expert Jon Ward was asked by host Joe Scarborough why it was that so many Christians came to wholeheartedly embrace the conspiracy theories of QAnon.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In response, Ward, who wrote the book "</span><a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/testimony-jon-ward/1141540005" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">," said there is a </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">fear among evangelicals that their way of life is fading away and they're looking for a lifeline.</b></p><div id="story_page_incontent_p2_target" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-5155643920455169" data-ad-slot="6339868799" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; text-align: center; margin-bottom: 20px; display: block;" /></div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">"I've never understood the victimhood, constant victimhood," host Scarborough began. "I'll just speak like evangelicals speak to each other. If you believe, then you're in on the greatest thing you ever have, the greatest story ever told. You've been taught the greatest story, the most extraordinary story ever told so why do you have to wallow in QAnon conspiracy theories? What are they compensating for?"</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">"Yeah, one of the most painful things for me, I think, in 2020 was seeing certainty about things that were, you know, lies," Ward told the host. "That was, I think -- I try to tell the story through my own life, <b>of growing up in a world in which we were pretty isolated from reality in a lot of ways. We were so far inside our church bubble, that I think we became vulnerable to manipulation; we were really in that church bubble for a lot of reasons."</b></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">"I unpack a lot of it, but we were busy getting blessed, seeking, you know, emotional experiences in church, learning how to love one another in our personal relationship," He elaborated. "There was not a lot of focus on, <b>in the evangelical church I grew up in, or think evangelicalism writ large, on how to be a good public citizen. It's public character versus private character.</b></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"So I think, you know, there's a lot of fear you've alluded to in evangelicalism," he continued. "People have been telling evangelicals for decades that, you know, Christianity is on the verge of extinction. I think because of that lack of stepping out of that church bubble, <b>that lack of becoming a stakeholder in the public conversation</b>, I think there's been more vulnerability to believe that sort of thing.</span>"</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Watch below</p></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">magical thinking:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha jeff sharlet guk: <b>the root of greivance is grief, </b>loss mourning --> // anger thus retribution The Storm:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">hurt ppl hurt ppl</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">amazed not ...<span style="font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> hasn’t been more violence.</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"> </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">I think we’ve had a shield from that violence for a long time and now that shield … I sound like Jerry Falwell saying the hand of God is being removed from America.</span></font></div><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Adam Fleming Petty at the Washington Post called the book a “form of travelogue</strong><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">”. This is likely due in strong part to The Undertow, the long title chapter about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/09/ashli-babbitt-capitol-mob-trump-qanon-conspiracy-theory" data-link-name="in body link" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Ashli Babbitt</a>, the pro-Trump </strong><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">veteran who died on the day of the storming of the Capitol. How did you write this section?</strong></font></p><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Because of my heart condition I’d been tucked in during Covid, and I live in a rural area. I remember sitting there at my kitchen table, watching January 6 on the computer, texting furiously. We heard about a white woman being killed. It was very soon after that we knew the cop was Black. And I thought, holy shit, it’s The Birth of a Nation</span> [a 1915 movie that justifies organized white-on-Black violence with a racist depiction of Black people, including them being sexually predatory toward white women; such accusations were the pretext for lynchings for decades, with echoes remaining today]. They just did a live re-enactment of their fantasy!</font></p><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They would say <b>Babbitt </b>wore an American flag, but it’s not true. She wore a Trump cape, which is the new American flag</span>. They would say she’s unarmed, but it’s not true. She was <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">carrying a knife. There’s a photo of [Babbitt’s knife] on the cover of the book.</span> You could say, well, it’s a small knife. Really? That knife is plenty big enough</font></p><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">th</span><span style="background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246); font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">is is my little piece of power: I can tell the story</span></font></p><aside class="dcr-q9zy3m" gh="GH" guardian="Guardian" headline="Headline" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" source-text-decoration-thickness:3px="source-text-decoration-thickness:3px" position="position" relative="relative" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" color="color" style="font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.75rem -38px; padding: 6px 10px 12px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-weight: 700; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 25px;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><footer style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="dcr-gu2lh8" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;" /></font></footer></aside><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">You write that, almost immediately, the right tried to diminish </strong><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Babbitt’s agency, to make her younger, smaller, quieter. It reminded me of <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/look-back-in-history-terri-schiavo-death/" data-link-name="in body link" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Terri Schiavo</a></span> [the 26-year-old woman who was found unconscious in 1984 and was the subject of a family battle for her medical decision-making, which became a national debate dominated by the Catholic church and the religious right until her death in 2005]. We see the efforts on the right to project a childlike acquiescence on to the adult woman.</strong></font></p><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Yes! Ashli Babbitt’s “martyrdom” is tied up in her remaking as an innocent.</span> You realize that the gun and the fetus, it’s an innocence cult. It’s not a death cult, people misunderstand this. It’s an innocence cult, which is to say, it’s also the erasure of history. It says, “No, no, no, there’s no original sin in American history. We were always good.<em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">”</em></font></p><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Babbitt was hurting. She was in her mid-30s, after serving eight tours of duty. She was in massive debt. </span>And she fell in love with Trump.</font></strong></p><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Babbitt resolved her grief by getting certainty. She could not mourn.</font></p><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You mean she was angry, hurting – but not reckoning with her circumstances, embracing her condition. What did she want? She wanted justice?</font></strong></p><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She just wanted to be a person and serve her country.</font></p><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">So what we’re talking about is a whole lot of unrealized pain, and about how we metabolize pain in different ways</span>. You write in the prelude that </strong><em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">“</strong></em><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">loss sometimes curdles into fury and hate or denial and delusion. Especially delusion.”</strong></font></p><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" color="color" rgb="rgb" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yes. I’ve been thinking about how we metabolize pain, about my own ability to metabolize pain. My new therapist is trying to figure out why I do the work I do. She thinks it must be so bad for me. But no, it’s fucking sustained me! It gives me agency. States everywhere, the forces of darkness, are moving against you. You are not imagining it, they are real. And I do not have any power.</font></span></p><p class="dcr-az7egx" guardian="Guardian" text="Text" egyptian="Egyptian" web="Web" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-optical-sizing="font-optical-sizing" inherit="inherit" font-kerning="font-kerning" font-feature-settings="font-feature-settings" font-variation-settings="font-variation-settings" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" source-text-decoration-thickness:2px="source-text-decoration-thickness:2px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color" style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5;" xmlns:source-text-decoration-thickness="source-text-decoration-thickness"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But this is my little piece of power: I can go tell the story</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFT PLUS GLOBALIZATION (RELATED) CORP MFG OUTSOURCING --> EXISTENTIAL THREAT/CRISIS</font></div><div>
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">also surprise $ donor for his BD?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/peter-popoff/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/peter-popoff/</a>
</font><h2 class="widgetheadline h2"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/peter-popoff/" aria-label="'Conning' their 'vulnerable' followers: Here's what Trump and a discredited televangelist have in common" data-type="text">Conning' their 'vulnerable' followers: Here's what Trump and a discredited televangelist have in common</a></font></h2><div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2653302658"><div class="body-description"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When
the Christian right invaded the Republican Party during the 1980s,
Peter Popoff was among the televangelists who made millions of dollars.
Popoff, a faith healer, was exposed as a major fraud — he wasn't really
curing cancer patients as he claimed. Journalist Michael Siegel, in a <a href="https://ordinary-times.com/2021/06/08/the-final-stages-of-the-con-donald-trump-stolen-elections-and-delusion/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">lengthy article published by Ordinary Times</a>
on June 8, <b>lays out the things that Popoff has in common with another
con man: former President Donald Trump, explaining why their deluded
followers have such a hard time accepting the truth.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Popoff and
Trump are the same age: 74. Popoff was born on July 2, 1946, and Trump
was born the previous month on June 14, 1946. Siegel's article is really
about Trump more than Popoff, although he offers plenty of details
about Popoff's embarrassing history — and Siegel stresses that when
people have been conned, they are often in denial about it. Popoff still
had his unwavering followers even after he was exposed as a fraud
during the 1980s.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As anti-Trump and anti-Popoff as Siegel's piece is, he does more than slam them and makes a point of explaining their appeal.</font></p><p><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Siegel
observes, "One of the things that con men rely upon is a certain
vulnerability…. Many are afraid of their nest eggs disappearing, which
ironically, makes them vulnerable to the very people who want to rob
their nests."</font></b></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><b>//CRISIS/ GHOST DANCE : According to Siegel, "Con men — whether they prey on
the rich or the poor, the powerful or the powerless — look for those
who are at a crossroads. </b>Those who want a chance to get ahead. Those who
fear falling further behind. Those who have lost their status and want
it back. A person comfortable in their life and their finances will
realize the Nigerian Prince is too good to be true. A person nervous
about their finances or desperate to move up in life may think this is
the chance they've been waiting for</span>.</span>" [vid] Popoff exposed - Part 1
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNl52deOZro" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a></font>
</p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump is much more dangerous than Popoff ever was, as Popoff
never became president of the United States — although the Christian
right movement that Popoff helped bring to the forefront of the GOP
during the 1980s (along with the Moral Majority's Rev. Jerry Falwell,
Sr., Jimmy Swaggart, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and
others) has been very damaging to the country. And Trump still has
millions of devotees seven months after being voted out of office and
four months into Joe Biden's presidency.
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many Trump devotees,
according to polls, still believe the Big Lie: Trump's false claim that
he was a victim of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. And
Siegel explains why they are so "vulnerable," not unlike Popoff's
followers.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The Trump election fraud claim is something far more
insidious than the standard-issue <b>'they stole our votes' </b>cry of the
defeated," Siegel warns. "It did, after all, culminate in an open attack
on the Capitol to try to overturn the election. It is a claim that is
not fading but being amplified by an increasing number of Republicans,
becoming a litmus test in primaries. The Republicans just ousted their
third most powerful Congress-critter because she had the temerity to say
that Donald Trump was full of it."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Siegel continues, "I can
certainly see why grifters like Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell are
making this claim. There's money to be made by promoting these claims </b>—
the Trump campaign itself pulled in a quarter of a billion dollars with
this scam. But why do rank-and-file Republicans believe this. Is it
because they're stupid? They're no more stupid than anyone else. Is it
because they're deluded by Fox News? Most of them don't watch it. No, I
think it's something more basic, something that goes back to Peter
Popoff and every other con artist that slithered down the pike. It's
because they don't want to believe they were fooled."</font></p><div class="around-the-web"><div class="around-the-web__headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Related Articles Around the Web</font></div>
<ul class="around-the-web__list"><li class="around-the-web__item">
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.gq.com/story/peter-popoff-born-again-scoundrel" class="around-the-web__link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Peter Popoff, the Born-Again Scoundrel | GQ ›</a></font>
</li><li class="around-the-web__item">
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://peterpopoff.org/" class="around-the-web__link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Peter Popoff Ministries – Dream Bigger ›</a></font>
</li><li class="around-the-web__item">
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Popoff" class="around-the-web__link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Peter Popoff - Wikipedia ›</a></font>
</li></ul></div></div>
</div></div>
<div id="col-center" class="col sm-mb-1" style="width:34.0%;"><div class="widget__head"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/peter-popoff/" aria-label="'Conning' their 'vulnerable' followers: Here's what Trump and a discredited televangelist have in common">
</a></font>
</div></div></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">===</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an 11 22</font></p><p><span style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Growing up in Greece, I spent my summers at my grandparents’ home in a small coastal village in the region of Chalkidiki. It was warm and sunny, and I passed most of my time playing in the streets with my cousins. But occasionally, the summer storms brought torrential rain. You could see them coming from far away, with black clouds looming over the horizon, lit up by lightning.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As I rushed home, I was intrigued to see my grandparents prepare for the thunderstorm. Grandma would cover a large mirror on the living room wall with a dark cloth and throw a blanket over the TV. Meanwhile, Grandpa would climb a ladder to remove the light bulb over the patio door. Then they switched off all the lights in the house and waited the storm out.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I never understood why they did all this. When I asked, they said that light attracts lightning. At least that was what people said, so better to be on the safe side.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Where do these kinds of beliefs come from?</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">My fascination with <a href="https://www.littlebrownspark.com/titles/dimitris-xygalatas/ritual/9780316462402/" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">seemingly bizarre cultural beliefs and practices</a> eventually led me to become an anthropologist. I have come across similar superstitions around the world, and although one may marvel at their variety, they share some common features.</p><h2 style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The principles of magical thinking</h2><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At the core of most superstitions are certain intuitive notions about how the world works. Early anthropologists described these intuitions in terms of principles such as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2021.2006294" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">similarity” and “contagion</a>.”</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>According to the principle of similarity, things that look alike may share some deeper connection, just as the members of a family tend to resemble each other both in appearance and in other traits. Of course, this is not always the case. But this inference feels natural, so we often abuse it.</b></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Case in point: The light reflected on the surface of a mirror is not related to the light resulting from the electrical discharges produced <a href="https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/239-lightning-explained" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">during a thunderstorm</a>. But because they both seem to give off light, a connection between the two was plausible enough to become <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=1Mc4qPiICvcC&pg=PT1100&lpg=PT1100&dq=mirrors+%22attract+lightning%22+superstition&source=bl&ots=LVd49J3fHl&sig=ACfU3U3sbqS-vHXpUTiXa-ytwQ9HJ_qShg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiPlYGxgp_7AhXEkokEHTcFAVg4FBDoAXoECD8QAw#v=onepage&q=mirrors%20%22attract%20lightning%22%20superstition&f=false" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">folk wisdom</a> in many parts of the world. Likewise, because our reflection on the mirror closely resembles our own image, many cultures hold that breaking a mirror brings bad luck, as if damage to that reflection would also mean <a href="http://www.mirrorhistory.com/mirror-facts/broken-mirror/" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">damage to ourselves</a>.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The principle of contagion is based on the idea that things have internal properties that can be <a href="https://theconversation.com/demolishing-schools-after-a-mass-shooting-reflects-humans-deep-rooted-desire-for-purification-rituals-184826" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">transmitted through contact</a>. The heat of a fire is transferred to anything it touches, and some illnesses can spread from one organism to another. <b>Whether consciously or unconsciously, people in all cultures often expect that other kinds of essences can also be transferred through contact.</b></span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For example, people often believe that certain essences can “rub off” on someone, which is why casino players sometimes touch someone who is on a winning streak. It is also why, in 2014, a statue of Juliet, the Shakespearean character who fell madly in love with Romeo, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/veronas-juliet-statue-damaged-beyond-repair-love-seeking-tourists" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">had to be replaced</a> due to excessive wear caused by visitors touching it to find love.</span></p><h2 style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A search for patterns</h2><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">These kinds of superstitions betray something more general about the way people think. To make sense of our world, we look for patterns in nature. When two things occur at around the same time, they may be related. For instance, black clouds are associated with rain.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But the world is far too complex. Most of the time, <a href="https://www.statology.org/correlation-does-not-imply-causation-examples/" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">correlation does not mean causation</a>, although it may feel like it does.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">If you wear a new shirt to the stadium and your team wins, you might wear it again. If another victory comes, you begin to see a pattern. This now becomes your lucky shirt. In reality, myriad other things have changed since the last game, but you do not have access to all those things. What you know for sure is that you wore the lucky shirt, and the result was favorable.</span></p><h2 style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Superstitions are comforting</h2><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">People really want their lucky charms to work. So when they don’t, we are less motivated to remember them, or we may attribute our luck to some other factor. If their team loses, they might blame the referee. But when their team wins, they are <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201504/what-is-confirmation-bias" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">more likely to notice the lucky shirt</a>, and more likely to declare to others that it worked, which helps spread the idea.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As a social species, so much of what we know about the world comes from common wisdom. It would therefore seem safe to assume that if other people believe in the utility of a particular action, there might be something to it. If people around you say you should not eat those mushrooms, it’s probably a good idea to avoid them.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This “better safe than sorry” strategy is one of the main reasons superstitions are so widespread. Another reason is that they simply feel good.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b>Research shows that rituals and superstitions <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-people-need-rituals-especially-in-times-of-uncertainty-134321" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">spike during times of uncertainty</a></b>, and performing them can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0431" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">help <b>reduce anxiety</b></a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0021-9029.2006.00116.x" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">boost performance</a>. When people feel powerless, turning to familiar actions<b> provides a sense of control, which, even if illusory, can still be comforting.</b></span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Thanks to these psychological effects, superstitions have been around for ages, and will likely be around for ages to come.<img alt="The Conversation" height="1" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193697/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%;" /></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dimitris-xygalatas-333091" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Dimitris Xygalatas</a>, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Psychological Sciences, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-connecticut-1342" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">University of Connecticut</a></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-magical-thinking-is-so-widespread-a-look-at-the-psychological-roots-of-common-superstitions-193697" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">original article</a>.</p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">===</font></p></div><div><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha note amplif; big lie stop steal are </font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">ghost dance</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">, magical thinking that will restore the dear leader to rightful place and //qanon banish the evil-doers?</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sparked by:</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/end-of-enlightenment/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/end-of-enlightenment/</font></a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">common dr robt freeman</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Enlightenment was a time of intellectual ferment in the Western world following the Middle Ages. Its ideas gave birth to the modern world.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">We know the Enlightenment from the names of its most brilliant expositors: Francis Bacon, John Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Adam Smith, and others. We know its ideas as the foundation of our social world: the social contract, the rule of reason, the rule of law, consent of the governed, natural rights, constitutionalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and others.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Republican agenda is a direct assault on all of that. It literally aims to return America to the pre-modern, pre-Enlightened darkness of the Middle Ages. If it succeeds, it will reverse more than three hundred years of human progress.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The most egregious of Republican assaults on the modern world is its rejection of Reason</b>. Reason is the way we know what we know. It is not through revelations from God, or the pronouncements of priests or monarchs as had been the case before the Enlightenment.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Reason as a process for discovering Truth started in the Scientific Revolution around 1550. I</b>t was so powerful a way of knowing the physical world, the philosophers of the Enlightenment adopted it for knowing—and improving—the social world. It became the foundation of all subsequent Enlightenment thought, and all modern institutions.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Republican broadside against Reason was on display in the first days of the Trump administration when Trump asserted that his inauguration crowd size was the largest in history. Presented with facts to the contrary, in photographic evidence, his assistant, Kellyanne Conway, proclaimed the existence of "alternative facts." It's been downhill since.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republican discourse is a never-ending torrent of lies, idiocies, and absurdities—the very antithesis of Reason. The Muslim invasion. The caravan bringing murderers, rapists, drugs, and disease. Democrats eating babies. A satanic cult of pedophiles running the "Deep State." A pandemic that would "disappear, like a miracle." The greatest economy in the history of the world. Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head being canceled. Biden's hamburger ban. A rigged election. Massive voter fraud. Terrorists who were really just tourists handing out hugs and kisses. It never ends.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Republican assault on Reason is an attack not just on truth itself, but on our very capacity to think at all. With their base, Republicans address not the neo-cortex—the thinking part of the brain—but the amygdala—the lizard-brain seat of fight-or-flight. The amygdala subordinates logic, facts, reason, and deliberation to deceit, conspiracy, hysteria, and fear.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>It's easier to trigger hatred and fear than thinking and logic. That's why Republicans do it. That's why their base—and increasingly, their "leaders"—sound like zombies, like robots, like members of a cult when they're interviewed for the evening news. They are.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> They've been programmed to fear and hate and blame, and the reinforcement is unending,</span> [feedback? amplif?] because, to work, it has to be. Otherwise, they become unprogrammed.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">It doesn't matter that none of the endless effusion of lies ever turn out to be true or that they are routinely, r<b>epeatedly abandoned in favor of newer lies for the next news cycle.</b> What matters is that the lies incite indignation, and that the dopamine high that follows gets its constant, programmed,</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"> ever-increasing reinforcement.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump's 35,000 documented lies are the embodiment of it all. </b>It is a leprous, insidious disease, an inability to deal with reality, but literally the one by which Republicans define themselves. Glandular excretions are the Republican formula for generating voter turnout: inciting Pavlovian rage based on a torrential fantasmia of lurid lies. It works, but it is the living, suppurating antithesis of Reason.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Another Republican assault on the legacy of the Enlightenment is the attack on Democracy.</b> It was John Locke who, in 1689, wrote that people who were able to think could not be bullied like ignorant people could. If government wanted thinking people's cooperation it could no longer rely on the medieval divine right of kings. It needed to obtain "the consent of the governed." This, of course, became a sacrament of the American political order.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The opening words of the Constitution are, "We the people of the United States…" That is not a paean to monarchy, or to dictatorship. It is a statement that the consent of the people—and only that consent—provides a government its legitimacy. But Republicans are working feverishly to overturn the consent of the governed, to destroy Democracy</span>.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Their assault on the Capitol on January 6th was the most conspicuous effort to overthrow the legitimately elected government of the United States but it was not the first and will certainly not be the last. </b>Republicans insist that their reason-denying mobs, their goons, their Brownshirts will tell the rest of us how we will be governed. No consent involved, only submission: ours. You can see this in their fevered efforts at voter suppression, explicitly preventing majority rule and the consent of the governed.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republicans cannot win power on the strength of their ideas and policies. They lost the presidency, the Senate, and the House. Large majorities favor policies backed by Democrats. So, they need to destroy Democracy itself to gain power. To do that, they need to destroy Reason as the way we know what we know. That is the core, the essence, the modus operandi of the Republican enterprise.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Constitutionalism is a third Enlightenment ideal that Republicans are intent on destroying</b>. A constitution defines how a country is to be governed. Before constitutions, it was autocracy that called the shots. Think of Louis XIV's notorious declaration: "I am the state." Decisions were made by caprice, by the rich and powerful, in their own interests, everyone else be damned. Constitutionalism embeds the Rule of Law—another Enlightenment ideal—into a society, making "equal treatment under the law" a modern treasure, however badly it may be realized.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Besides losing all of the branches of the federal government, Republicans failed over and over and over to persuade the judicial branch to sanction their usurpation of the Constitution. So, they resort to performative charades like the farcical ballot laundering farrago in Arizona to try to undo the Constitutionally-ordained process for the peaceful transfer of power. Now, they're taking it to other states. It will not end.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>We could go on. Republicans want to destroy the social contract—another Enlightenment ideal—that says you get ahead on the basis of hard work. They insist, instead, that privilege should be based on race, with the best spots reserved for whites. This violates the Enlightenment ideal of equality for all.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Remember the opening words of the Declaration of Independence? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Pure Enlightenment. In the Republican world, however, like in Orwell's Animal Farm which was an allegory of the degradation of Soviet totalitarianism, all men are created equal, but some—whites—are more equal than others.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">We should be clear. This is not about peripheral protests over policy preferences. It is a broadside against the foundation, the institutional undergirding of our civilization. It is an attempt to destroy the conceptual milieu that has survived for centuries and that, however flawed it may be, has delivered the greatest freedom, expansion of rights, material progress, and human opportunity the world has ever known.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The measure of our alarm should be that Republicans, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">with the help of a complicit media, have managed to normalize rampant public lying,</span> the unrestrained desecration of Reason, are carrying out an open, unabashed attack on our democracy, are carrying out notorious, savage assaults on Constitutionalism, the Rule of Law, Equality, and more. Our nation is literally under attack by anti-Enlightenment zealots determined to tear it down and it's not at all clear that they will not succeed.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>It is indicative that the Republican party's highest priest is a thrice-married pathological liar, an admitted sexual assaulter, a draft dodger, a six-time filer for bankruptcy, a man who inflicted hundreds of thousands of excess deaths on the country, was twice impeached, who lost two successive popular vote counts, and who then attempted to overthrow the government. Read that sentence again and think about its implication</b>.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Republican hero, the man they model themselves on, the one they want us to bow down to, is a failed business man, a failed reality TV star, a failed president, a career con man who is the most corrupt, certainly the most craven and creepy individual ever known to American politics. This is the best Republicans have to offer. That is who they are, and what they insist on inflicting on all the rest of us, our consent be damned.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Enlightenment helped the world replace monarchy with republicanism, a world ruled by theology with a world of science, autocracy with the rule of law, aristocratic privilege with the equality of all men, and feudalism with capitalism. No matter how imperfectly it may have been realized, it was as noble a vision as human beings have ever devised. <b>The two worlds are the difference between the "Dark Ages" that went before and the modern world. That is the Republicans' promise to America.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>More</b> regression. More destruction of beautiful ideals and noble institutions. More degradation of deserving people. More humiliation of undignified people, themselves being the examples. More carnage. <b>More chaos. More slime</b> spewed on everyone.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There's not a syllable of inspiring vision in anything they have to say, not a word of uplifting ideals in any of it. It is all pathetic self-victimization and a lust for vengeance against those who refuse to respect them. We must all be dragged into the sewer that spawned, that is, and that sustains Donald Trump. That is his and Republicans' retaliation against a people who once had the temerity to believe in majestic ideals, the audacity to strive for them, and who once imagined that they might even be worthy of them.</font></p></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/self-proclaimed-prophets/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/self-proclaimed-prophets/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Within evangelical Protestant Christianity, it isn't hard to find self-proclaimed "prophets" who are known for making political predictions. Journalist Ruth Graham takes a look at the growth of such "prophets" in an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/us/christian-prophets-predictions.html?referringSource=articleShare" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">article published by the New York Times</a> this week, stressing that some of them have turned out to be way off in their predictions.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"In recent years, self-described prophets have proliferated across the country, accelerating in stature over the course of the Trump era," Graham explains. "They are stars within what is now one of the fastest-growing corners of Christianity: a loose but fervent movement led by hundreds of people who believe they can channel supernatural powers — and have special spiritual insights into world events."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Such "prophets," according to Graham, are likely to promote political conspiracy theories.</font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"Many are independent evangelists who do not lead churches or other institutions,"</b> Graham observes. "They operate primarily online and through appearances at conferences or as guest speakers in churches, making money through book sales, donations and speaking fees. And they are part of the<b> rising appeal of conspiracies in Christian settings, echoed by the popularity of QAnon among many evangelicals and a resistance to mainstream sources of information."</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Graham points to 33-year-old Jeremiah Johnson as one of the many "self-described prophets" who predicted that President Donald Trump would be reelected in 2020 — only to be embarrassed when Joe Biden, now president of the United States, defeated him. Other evangelical "prophets," according to Graham, predicted that the COVID-19 pandemic would be long gone by April 2020.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"So many prominent prophets had incorrectly predicted the reelection of Mr. Trump that the apologies and recriminations now constitute a crisis within the movement," Graham notes.</b></font></p><p><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is within evangelical Protestant Christianity specifically that the "prophet" phenomenon has caught on in such a big way. Evangelicals are distinct from Mainline Protestants, who range from Lutherans to Episcopalians to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. While evangelicals have strict fundamentalist views and believe that salvation can only come through Christianity, Mainline Protestants tend to be more accepting of non-Christian faiths and are more likely to engage in interfaith activities.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump is wildly popular in the far-right White evangelical movement, and Graham notes that Johnson received death threats after Biden won the election and he admitted to being wrong about Trump winning a second term.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">After Biden was declared the winner, Johnson made an official statement and told his followers, "I was wrong. I am deeply sorry, and I ask for your forgiveness. I would like to </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">repent</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> for inaccurately prophesying that Donald Trump would win a second term as the President of the United States."</span></b></font></p><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="from-your-site__headline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></div><ul class="around-the-web__list" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="from-your-site__item"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2016/08/stretching-make-trump-gods-guy-25-religious-right-justifications-backing-donald/" class="from-your-site__link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; 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