It’s election time. My email is still flooded daily with GOP Trumpian stuff—so no change there. I let it come in because some of it is just plain funny in how pathetic it is; and it is a way of keeping direct tabs on the bullshit they’re selling. Home phone still rings about 10 times a day with various scammers which we allow to just go to the machine. Far easier to manage blocking the deluge of daily harassment with the cell phone, which we now use for serious communication without being driven crazy by all the POS’s of the world. But now we are getting cardboard flyers in the mailbox. O’ Joy.
These are two of the flyers showing up in the mailbox for the candidates we are supposed to decide who to vote for. Both Heidi and Joe claim to be ‘America First.’ This tells everyone that I’m in a rural district. I’ve said a few things in this blog about AFPAC, how it centers around white supremacy, with figures like Paul Gosar, MTG, and Nick Fuentes swimming about in its cesspool of Christian Nationalism—this is where we are at as a people. We white people are terrified. I cast my ballot.
We’re so twisted up in that fear that our political candidates, quite a collection of grovelers and panderers, pose proudly with a portrait of the most immoral man who has ever been President. Without any fear of ridicule, one of our ‘America First’ candidates would chastise the other for his past support of Bernie Sanders by listing some things Bernie has said about the most immoral man who has ever been President. I don’t understand and would want some clarification on ‘religious bigot,’ but all the other things Bernie said about Trump are true. But this where we are. Goodness and truth are inverted to assuage our fear.
Heidi is running her campaign directly on fear. These people take our existing fear and fuel it further for their own gain. It is utterly despicable. Very, very small people advantage themselves to use other people’s fears. But this is the white supremacist patriarchy, a collection of very insecure men creating their own ‘safe space’ by using guilt, shame, and lies to crush all who may challenge their moral supremacy. Paternalism requires eternal children.
The ‘Safe Space’ for white people in the US historically has been in numbers, but that has changed demographically. This is why the Christian Right has worked so diligently for decades to secure a path to political domination over those who, for a time, will remain as ‘the others.’ Patriarchy is explicitly about creating ‘Safe Spaces’ for the eternal children ever under the authority of the fathers. Heidi is just a useful tool in this system of thought parroting bullshit about Critical Race Theory, walls, and patriotism.
A small degree of knowledge of the Constitution and the Bible should put aside the notion that our nation was founded upon Christian principles. This common myth is so obviously false and is so destructive to both freedom and the Christian faith. Yet we bought it. It is a direct assault upon the truth; after decades of pummeling our wannabe politicians now openly kiss the ass of the most debased of liars for the ‘people’s’ endorsement—all under the banner of freedom. That liar feeds your fear and paranoia—we’re addicts, addicted to fear. This fear has dulled us. What should be obvious is not as our collective powers of reason have been beaten to a pulp. The only way out is sacrificing our desire to protect ourselves against those we’ve been taught to fear. Letting go of that fear is the beginning of the path to our way out of the trap.
Red, White, and Blue are the camouflage color to obscure a giant shit sandwich of lies and fear of the marginalized. Let go of that, and all the unprovable yet unfalsifiable Q bullshit, to start looking at the obvious paths of money and power. Grow a backbone. Listen to and consider the evidence. Do not look away from ugly things; do not cover them up. Question patriarchy. Consider equality. Have the hard conversations. Read the critical books. Do you really believe the ‘truth will set you free’? Then do not the men who have set themselves up to be lords over us all to dictate to us what the truth is.
(For fuck sakes, they gave us the most obvious liar to be the icon for forward our ‘truth’ making a total mockery of us all. This, along with all the revealed criminal and immoral activity should make it obvious to we’ve been duped. I’ll say again, truth is dead.)
Consider science. Scholarship. Due process. Chain of evidence. Peer review. Integrity without reference to some unassailable divine authority but accountability to equal, fellow human beings. Consider the possibility that your religion does not increase your standing with the Almighty one bit as such a notion has led to a plethora of evil and atrocity being committed against other image bearers in the name of God. Consider the possibility that any kind of authoritarianism is not the answer to any human problem.
But that is (largely) not what we do. The more desperate we can be made to feel, the more willing we are to surrender to someone who promises to fix everything. The collective genius of the authors of our Constitution has been exchanged for the well-financed lies of corporatists and religious hacks who brought the gaslighting wonders of a Christian Nation. We are building our Gilead—step by step, no shit. When men will not even listen to your concerns by shutting you out of the process by law, as we are presently doing, be you woman, atheist, or queer, the noose will continue to tighten until we all will have the appearance of righteousness. Think they won’t kill people to enforce the law? The Bible backs the idea. We surrender, they start killing for righteousness’ sake. Don’t believe them when they promise they won’t; history says otherwise.
The righteous lie when they say, ‘don’t worry’ about your rights. They depend upon short memories concerning their already broken promises. They have appointed themselves as God’s enforcers. The appearance of righteousness will be enforced through fear and violence—which will be in their minds justified because ‘some animals are more equal than others.’ Some have God’s grace, most do not. ‘We just need you to meet (our) Jesus, and all will be well.’ The evidence that the righteous gaslight is that they, in their patriarchal supremacy which fosters fear which necessitates and justifies any amount of gaslighting and/or brutality to maintain a safe space for the eternal children, refuse to hear any appeal to the recognition of any historically marginalized group. Heidi, our wannabe hero, is explicit about this. This is gaslighting. This is no different than any parent who beat their kids physically, mentally, and emotionally, when later confronted by the adult child say in response, ‘I don’t know what the fuck you are talking about.’ I’ve been there. I walked away from that relationship because gaslighting, so frightfully common in the human experience, extracts all dignity from those expected, by duty, to acquiesce to the demand of submission to the controller’s reality. This is evil. I fail to see how a good, almighty God would want us to submit to such evil for the purposes of promoting a greater good.
The Christian Right is gaslighting as a group. Any wrongdoing is to be framed and categorized by the organized and effective—all for the good of the eternal children. Slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, firehoses, dogs, mass incarceration, murder, theft, redlining, voter suppression, gerrymandering, even Rosita denying little black girls a hug at Sesame Place—for fuck’s sakes—are the tip of the iceberg of the oppression and indignity non-white (and queer) people have suffered at the hands of the chosen people. The white folk say to those who (finally) want full recognition, ‘I don’t know what the fuck you are talking about.’ Vote for Heidi and we’ll keep this up.
All the CRT stuff for grade school kids is bullshit anyway, but that doesn’t matter—it is just an effective trope to fire up white fear. Fuck confession. Fuck repentance. Fuck forgiveness. Fuck reconciliation. The Christian Right is clearly saying ‘eventually we will crush you’ to all who will not (willingly) bend the knee to them. This is about power and fear; love doesn’t have one fucking thing to do with it. Happiness, and especially the love of country, for the Christian Nationalist resides in patriarchal gaslighting and the lies perpetuated by those who claim to speak for God. Adding to this tragedy of a profoundly divided nation are millions of higher status Christian white folk who don’t have any idea of why this nation is so deeply divided having been fed so much ‘everything is fine with us, now get to work’ bullshit for so long. I feel for you too. However, once you go active you are an enemy of the Constitution and the freedom it guarantees. I swore an oath to defend that secular law which I believe in. Therefore…
Heidi, you are the enemy of the thoroughly secular Constitution (which truly guarantees freedom of religion) and the (non-Christian Nationalist) People along with that treasonous, lying motherfucker you pose yourself with. (What does it say about someone’s love for country when they grovel for the endorsement of a traitor? We call the people who rebelled against the British government Patriots.) I promise you, all your kind, and all the faithful followers cheering the coming fascism that I will never bend the knee to any of you. I will oppose you all, always.
I swear.