Well certain political theologies have deliberately argued that the Gospel has no impact on political technique, which establishes many of the nihilistic conclusions.
I mean, I recognize my own attitudes around politics as faults, and I think that ultimately I'm trying to believe in a kind of hopeful, invitational view of the world, in the sense that I'd like to be a hopeful Christian universalist who believes God reaches everyone - but that's sort of shifting that beyond the present and beyond what I can imagine now. But the thing is, while she shouldn't have said it like that, I think history has sort of borne out what Hillary was saying about Trump supporters. If we're never allowed to lodge moral responsibility with voters, then I think we're not taking democracy very seriously. And if we're just unwilling to do that because it makes one unpopular, then that's just salesmanship and pandering, in which case we're no better than the people who only say things that will sell and not offend their customers, which is another way of saying we have no integrity and deserve no respect. If we come away from this whole national crisis somehow intact, and we don't internalize the idea that some voters were responsible, we're just going to keep repeating it. That's a huge part of what went wrong after the Civil War, there was a collective faltering when it came to the hard part of holding people responsible.
You need to understand that Hillary Clinton is not part of the progressive left. The progressive left rejected her completely. She is left-centric on some issues but very right on others. She's a corporate candidate and a hawk. So she represented professional class people in the middle looking at Trump supporters, who are far right working class, and seeing deplorable people.
And Trump and his supporters demonize their political opponents here, not just immigrants. It really bothers me that you didn't mention that at all - how many times have you heard the word libtard?
Part of that is also calling people like Hillary Clinton far left and progressive and Marxist when they are not - the attempt to dishonestly associate them with authoritarian communism in the Soviet Union and in China is a demonizing lie when Hillary Clinton represents authoritarian capitalism just like Trump does, just with a little bit more sympathy for unions.
The real progressives, whether they're annoyed in tone or inviting in tone, will actually present facts and data to support their opinions, which is always an invitation.
We need to take seriously the fact that Trump represents fascism in America: he lied about the 2020 election and continues to lie about it, and his supporters continue to believe that. This is not a both sides problem. Trump is not a conservative versus liberal problem or a Republican versus Democrat problem. Trump represents a true fascist third position outside of those positions.
Jan. 6th was a direct attempt to overthrow the Constitution of the United States. I am not demonizing him. This is a literal and factual description. His followers violently attacked the Capitol building and erected a gallows to execute of all people Trump's own Republican vice president.
I've been studying fascism since the 80s and I'm telling you it is rabies for humans. It can't be eliminated. Since the only thing these people respect is strength, so you have to make them believe they can't beat you.
If you try to reason or negotiate with them, they'll think you're weak and that they can beat you. If they're talking to you, it's because they don't think they can beat you yet, but they're getting there, they think, because you're talking to them.
There is plenty of disagreement among people who are not fascists. The language of invitation can be used on all sides among them.
But if you use that with fascists, they're going to think you're weak and stupid and they will just lie to you until they're pretty sure they can beat you - and then they'll come after you.
At that point, the only thing left to do is to kill people. We didn't beat the Nazis with flowers and balloons or discussions. It took a horrifying world war running alongside a holocaust to beat them. We don't want that to even start here. We don't want to get to that point.
Biden beat Trump by 7 million popular votes in 2020 because he used the language of invitation to reach out to everyone from progressives to moderate Republicans. That is where we should focus.
Well certain political theologies have deliberately argued that the Gospel has no impact on political technique, which establishes many of the nihilistic conclusions.
I mean, I recognize my own attitudes around politics as faults, and I think that ultimately I'm trying to believe in a kind of hopeful, invitational view of the world, in the sense that I'd like to be a hopeful Christian universalist who believes God reaches everyone - but that's sort of shifting that beyond the present and beyond what I can imagine now. But the thing is, while she shouldn't have said it like that, I think history has sort of borne out what Hillary was saying about Trump supporters. If we're never allowed to lodge moral responsibility with voters, then I think we're not taking democracy very seriously. And if we're just unwilling to do that because it makes one unpopular, then that's just salesmanship and pandering, in which case we're no better than the people who only say things that will sell and not offend their customers, which is another way of saying we have no integrity and deserve no respect. If we come away from this whole national crisis somehow intact, and we don't internalize the idea that some voters were responsible, we're just going to keep repeating it. That's a huge part of what went wrong after the Civil War, there was a collective faltering when it came to the hard part of holding people responsible.
You need to understand that Hillary Clinton is not part of the progressive left. The progressive left rejected her completely. She is left-centric on some issues but very right on others. She's a corporate candidate and a hawk. So she represented professional class people in the middle looking at Trump supporters, who are far right working class, and seeing deplorable people.
And Trump and his supporters demonize their political opponents here, not just immigrants. It really bothers me that you didn't mention that at all - how many times have you heard the word libtard?
Part of that is also calling people like Hillary Clinton far left and progressive and Marxist when they are not - the attempt to dishonestly associate them with authoritarian communism in the Soviet Union and in China is a demonizing lie when Hillary Clinton represents authoritarian capitalism just like Trump does, just with a little bit more sympathy for unions.
The real progressives, whether they're annoyed in tone or inviting in tone, will actually present facts and data to support their opinions, which is always an invitation.
We need to take seriously the fact that Trump represents fascism in America: he lied about the 2020 election and continues to lie about it, and his supporters continue to believe that. This is not a both sides problem. Trump is not a conservative versus liberal problem or a Republican versus Democrat problem. Trump represents a true fascist third position outside of those positions.
Jan. 6th was a direct attempt to overthrow the Constitution of the United States. I am not demonizing him. This is a literal and factual description. His followers violently attacked the Capitol building and erected a gallows to execute of all people Trump's own Republican vice president.
I've been studying fascism since the 80s and I'm telling you it is rabies for humans. It can't be eliminated. Since the only thing these people respect is strength, so you have to make them believe they can't beat you.
If you try to reason or negotiate with them, they'll think you're weak and that they can beat you. If they're talking to you, it's because they don't think they can beat you yet, but they're getting there, they think, because you're talking to them.
There is plenty of disagreement among people who are not fascists. The language of invitation can be used on all sides among them.
But if you use that with fascists, they're going to think you're weak and stupid and they will just lie to you until they're pretty sure they can beat you - and then they'll come after you.
At that point, the only thing left to do is to kill people. We didn't beat the Nazis with flowers and balloons or discussions. It took a horrifying world war running alongside a holocaust to beat them. We don't want that to even start here. We don't want to get to that point.
Biden beat Trump by 7 million popular votes in 2020 because he used the language of invitation to reach out to everyone from progressives to moderate Republicans. That is where we should focus.