https://www.salon.com/2023/11/02/maga-and-christian-nationalism-bigger-to-america-than-hamas-could-ever-be/
Even Mitch McConnell is trying to push back against Mike Johnson and the MAGA lunatics. It isn't working
It honestly worries me how many people roll their eyes when you say this. When it's blatantly fucking obvious. Where are all the patriots to scream " THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IS THERE FOR A FUCKIN REASON"
They truly unironically believe that America is a Christian nation and intended to be one by the founding fathers. I don't know how they believe something with such a massive contradiction as if that's the case why is separation of church and state something the founding fathers included. Doesn't have to make sense to people living in reality.
That's just the thing- they've got church-funded groups churning out historical revisionism in which the Framers were really trying to found a Biblical version of Sparta but the wicked usurpers got power and ruined it with their War of Northern Aggression
Reality? LOL they're trying to replace reality with their version, which tells you to bend your contemporary knee to them
They also act like the founders are gods whose supposed wishes need to be followed unquestioningly forever.
Well, ironically just like with the bible, they pick and choose on that one. For example, 2A is considered to be a natural law equivalent to gravity by them, but the founding fathers also intended for the constitution to grow and change and be amended (eg: the 'A' in '2A') but that doesn't ever really come up...
I always think of this comedian pointing out the irony. IT'S CALLED AN AMENDMENT!!! The 2A group make me sick. And I don't mean people who support it in general or like guns or whatever but... the people who make it their identity, the key issue.
What? Like THAT is what American rights are to you? Getting to own a mini cannon??
The red scare propaganda really didn't help by putting, "In God we trust," on the dollar bill and the, "[one nation,] under God," part in the pledge allegiance.
What was the propaganda used to include "In God We Trust" on our currency in the mid 1800s?
It was to boost morale in the civil war or something speculative like that. "Out of many, one" was so much better.
Because MAGAs deny they've aligned themselves with religious extremists because Gregg who goes to church every Sunday likes football and guns so he's probably not a fascist.
I suspect if you paraphrased or converted to more generalized language things like Sharia law and what the ChristoFascists want, they wouldn't be able to tell them apart.
I think the risk is more in the way of Hamas getting recruits in the US and inciting terrorist acts here.
That said it’s a vague possibility compared to the certainty that christofascists will absolutely incite terrorist and insurrectist acts.
It's like people forgot all the men, women and children McVeigh and Nichols killed. And just ignore all that came after. They fucking assassinated Dr Tiller, at his church on a Sunday morning. As he filled duties as an usher. Simply because they didn't view him as the right kind of Christian. The assassin is still celebrated to this day in their circles.
My mom gave me a couple boxes of bullets because she's worried about Hamas.
Hamas is not the threat I'm worried about, but I'm happy to have more ammo all the same.
My mom is sweet and is a good grandmother, but politically she's completely brainwashed and driven by irrational fear. I'm genuinely glad your mother hasn't fallen for the same shit.
If only we could get more people, especially young adults, to care about politics. Those asshats would get eradicated in the primaries.
A big part of the problem is that the damn DNC doesn't have anybody worth anything. They're all a bunch of geriatrics whose platforms are so uninspiring that the only reason people vote for them is because of how vile their GOP opponents are.
If there were no possible way that anybody in the GOP could win and two DNC candidates were running against each other, I'm not sure I could even be bothered to vote, they're all equally bland and useless. They're practically the embodiment of "business as usual".
On one side you have a party whose entire platform is essentially "we're going to burn everything down and in the ashes rebuild all the worst parts of the 20th century, from robber barons to slave plantations with a little neo-nazi spice for flavor". Then on the other side you've got "we'll slightly improve things, but not too much because we don't want to step on the toes of the ones signing our paychecks, and we'll actively oppose anyone who makes too big a wave".
As a lifelong democrat, I have to agree. The DNC is running scared, just like the RNC, but for different reasons. And yes I could be called a geriatric.
But I believe the problem is that we need to stop worrying about stepping on toes, maintaining a status quo that has never really worked, and has always favored the rich. I think we need a real, true blue, dyed in the fur ass-kicking braying Donkey to shake things up and say, "to hell with pleasing the moderates, we're gonna lead this nation into the 21st century whether it likes it or not." We need someone willing to be extremely far left enough to shake up people and wake them up and get truly progressive on their asses.
But I believe the problem is that we need to stop worrying about stepping on toes, maintaining a status quo that has never really worked, and has always favored the rich
That's not a voter problem, that's an elected representative problem...
But it's almost impossible for an incumbent to lose a primary. It was only like a decade ago that the DNC was openly threatening to black ball any organization/business that worked on a primary campaign against a Dem incumbent.
While they no longer (at least openly) make those threats, they still say they're a private party and can pick sides. They can also use PAC donations meant for the general and instead use it to keep Dems like Manchin safe from more progressive primary challengers.
We need a fundamental change to our political system, because an insane amount of control is in the hands of private organizations beholden to absolutely no one with zero oversight.
To circle back to the status quo comment, the richest people at the top of the status quo keep giving a shit ton of money to those private organizations. It's an uphill fight, because "winning" isn't just Dems controlling the government. It's also replacing the vast majority of them, not just in office, but the ones behind the scenes running the party too.
I think they get that, and that's why they fight progressives in primaries harder than Republicans in generals.
We also need to change funding for elections and elected officials. Most of us could never run because we're too poor and so that only leaves the most wealthy/properly supported of us to take the time and risk to run for any office which just entrenches the "wealthy establishment control" of all political parties.
Do you think a new party further left would gain serious traction, particularly with the youth? I'd love to see it happen but I have my doubts.
Yes, but it's not possible with first past the post. We desperately need proportional voting, it's the only way we'll break the stranglehold that the DNC and GOP have on US politics.
The lack of Ranked Choice has likely caused untold damage. It has to happen before any other real change can occur.
That and the DNC just barely tolerates Bernie. They like him because he attracts actual progressives to the DNC, but if they think he might actually get any kind of control they throw everything they have at crushing him. Look at how many dirty tricks they pulled when he was running against Hillary. I strongly suspect they would kick him out of the party before they actually let him win a primary.
Right. We need a democratic party who would elevate a Bernie Sanders type and not isolate him.
A third party will never work.
That's why Bernie spent like half a century telling people that and motivating younger generations to get involved in the entire political process on a grass roots level. Then slowly replacing the people who are currently running the party.
If that works, then maybe someday that new party would have the votes to fundementally overhaul our political system and get rid of the bullshit private parties.
But until that happens, both the major parties will always care about donations more than anything else.
A new party will always fail in the US, especially when the choice is always against a party that wants to destroy the country
It's happened before. It can happen again. Nothing happens for decades, then decades happen in weeks.
A third party hasn't had a legitimate chance at winning an election in over 100 years.
The US is pretty much a bad election or two from becoming a fascist theocracy, so I sure as hell hope no third party tries to split votes for the democrats.
We're in survival mode now, but hopefully we can ride out the cult and actually have some breathing room to look at other options.
This is true. It's depressing but true. We have to hang on for a few more years. Maybe 2 cycles at the most. The hardcover right wing base is dying. And it is dying fast. I did the math awhile back because nobody else did.
Every single day 8,000 boomers and above die, and 12,000 people turn 18 and those numbers are actually accelerating. If you use existing data to estimate conservative/liberal and likely voters within those groups it works out to a delta of 10,000 per day on a national scale. That's 5,000 votes switching every single day. That might not seem like alot but it's 300k a month, 3.6 million per year, and 7.2 million since the 2020 election. And that pace is accelerating. Between 2020 and 2024 it's a 15 million vote difference. By 2028 it's 30 million. It used to be that people age into conservatism. But that is not happening with millennials. The demographics are changing, and changing quickly.
Their days are numbered. We just have to hold on for a few more years.
Blaming young people is a great way to convince them to vote for you.
In case you didn’t know… Boomers held the largest voting block for all but the last election or two. So if your gojng to play the generational blame game, why don’t you blame people who’ve been creating policy for the last 60 years or so.
I didn't see anyone blaming, I read that comment as saying that younger people significantly disagree with the Christian right, so if we could get more of them voting we'd be able to trounce the generally older folks who vote GOP.
It's a little oversimplified though. If you look at the demographics of the last presidential election, there were lots of older people voting for Biden and younger people voting for Trump. Not the majority, but the difference isn't as stark as a lot of people think.
Of course it’s far more complicated.
The reality is “young people don’t vote” has been a dog whistle for blaming “kids” (gen z haven’t been kids for a while now.) for the way things are.
Lamentation about young kids not voting is just another way boomers have passed the buck on issues that have been a problem since before my parents were alive, and in any case, millennials and gen z have been voting at unprecedentedly high levels when we were “the kids” compared to prior generations when they were.
The reality is that boomers have dominated politics relative to other generations and a lot of the disengagement perceived comes from being outright ignored- nevermind being told that one is ignorant and should just shut up and vote the way they tell me to.
You want young people engaged, then engage them and expend effort on advancing their interests. Corpo dems always act like Bernie was a fluke. It wasn’t. He’s one of the few voices we have in the senate that doesn’t look at us as a means to collecting more bribes from corporations.
This. I wasn’t blaming anyone.
I really am talking about primaries. There is a huge gap between who votes in primaries and general elections.
I think that even Republican primaries would be different if they had to cater toward a younger group.
And all the people that have responded are right. Boomers are a huge chunk of the voting bloc. But they don’t care about us and they won’t live long enough to see the repercussions. Overwhelming them in the primaries would help us more in the short term. I’m not sure we can make it another twenty plus years.
The only part I'll take exception to is the "they don't care about us" part. I'm a very liberal boomer, and I'm not at all alone. If you look at the election demographics, more boomers voted Trump than Biden, but the percent difference was small. Lots of boomers do care about housing costs, environment and climate change, living wages, etc. And it's not just the ones who have trouble making ends meet.
I'm just using that data to show that the notion of boomers as overwhelming MAGA supporters is very far off.
They've been saying that the whole time, just like "people don't want to work".
So sadly I don't think that's going to work and that the system is more fundamentally broken.
Hamas has no airforce, no navy, no modern army. They shouldn't even make our top 100 issues list
Hamas has no airforce
Tbh neither did Al-Qaida, until they hijacked a couple of planes. That's the sort of threat being talked about, not like Red Dawn shit
Yeah but Al-Qaeda was ranting about attacking the USA for years and had actually already done terror acts by 9/11
Hamas basically doesn't exist outside Israel. Technically, they're Hezbollah's little brother according to the US. They really only care about whatever happens in Gaza. Kind of like the Taliban in Afghanistan
Oh they're for sure not on the same level, I just meant that the worry is about terrorist attacks and not like Invasion USA
Ya if only our intelligence agencies spent more time looking for terrorists and not trying to overthrow brown peoples governments or trying to root out "socialist."
Does the US feds still care about socialists? Well I'd imagine they're full plate sorta people
Yeah I don't think Hamas is any threat to us in any serious way. But I do think so called "Christian" and Maga ethics of banning books, hurting others, limiting people's healthcare rights, and taking away social programs is doing more damage to our country than any third-world outside terrorists could ever dream of being capable of doing. Like most countries, America has failed, and is crumbling away from within. Ignorance is the real threat to our continued existence.
You don't need to be nuanced about it. MAGA extremists have actually killed people on American (and Canadian) soil, planned bombings, and attempted to overthrow the government.
And particularly chilling: they have the police on their side. When the maggots all show up at your neighborhood or place of work to vandalize and harass and assault, the cops will arrive late and they will be turned to face against you
Well - and don't take this as criticism - I'm very much allied with the police in most situations. I've seen instances were our local police have gone after MAGA extremists, so I've seen a different side of it. They shot and killed a man here (in Utah) who had threatened to target Biden when he visited us. What I've found is, if I'm not doing anything criminal I usually am not bothered by the police. Our local police walk kids home safely from school and help out families in need here.
True. There's nothing nuanced about MAGA extremism to be sure. It makes me truly question the mentality of those who willingly join in it.
Maybe you can ask /r/conservative. Those snowflakes were frothing from their mouths at this headline.
The title is 100% correct. The FBI rated homegrown terrorism from radicalized right wing a bigger threat way back under the Bush regime, even. And of course the cons got all butthurt about this simple fact.
This article was barely about the headline. It was far worse and I'm actually afraid of 2024
“Has the White House considered the possibility that a terrorist could be in the country right now after crossing the southern border?”
What a bullshit question. The core question is valid, “Has the White House considered the possibility that a terrorist could be in the country right now."
But the rest is a bullshit political talking point, “...after crossing the southern border?”
As if we only have one method for a terrorist to get in. Nevermind the northern border, the shores, air flights, and then the truly scary threat that the terrorists were born here and are citizens. But, screw all that, WhAt AbOUt tHe MeXiCaNs!?
This framing shows that the asker has more interest in building support for a Republican talking point into the coming elections than giving a shit about terrorist threats within our borders (all of them).
Hamas, over in Palestine, focused on Israel occupation of Palestine vs American conservative Christians on American soil. Comparing how big of a threat they're to the US seems weird. It's a comparison that I wouldn't have thought about
You have to be young because post 9/11 the us was filled with fears that the biggest threat to our safety was Islamic terrorists. Understandably due to the scale of the attacks, but that's why it's important to point out to us citizens that our own terrorists are a bigger threat to us than those across an ocean.
I apologize for the assumption, but we are talking about American politics and sentiments, so it probably would have been prudent to point out that the fact you didn't think about the comparison might be because you aren't American. As an American who was an adult when 9/11 happened, it's seems pretty obvious.
Can I ask how old you are? I only do so because I "remember" things like the challenger explosion, but didn't quite grasp what it fully meant because I was so young.
Early 30s.
The idea that I'd have to specifically mention not being American seems funny, but in context, fair enough I guess
It's totally a perspective thing. Being a full on adult (well as much as an early 20 year old can be. Lol) it seems like a no brainer that they would make this comparison based on how much the fear was at that time that Islamic terrorists were all over the country ready to kill people at random. I can easily see why someone younger from another country might not be as aware of that
However, even at that time, I believe, right wing terrorists still had killed more over a period of something like 20 years, even with the 3k from 9/11.
Ah alright. In the context it makes more sense, it just hadn't occurred me to make such comparison
The warning from the FBI was not about potential for attacks by Hamas, it was about attacka against America that might be carried out by Islamic extremists potentially from anywhere in the world. Basically, the word is that they're hearing more chatter about attacking American in the homeland than at any time since September 11th.
This I thought was in response to people on the right dear mongering about how dangerous Hamas is, and reminding Americans that people riding around the desert in pickup trucks with rocket launchers are not and never will be an existential threat to America.
You know, most of these violent extremists want America out of the middle east, usually with reference to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They are religious fanatics, and right now it's more or less about America's patronage of Israel which people from which version of sky daddy get to control the hours of operation and P.A. announcements at each other's shared holy sites. More or less.
We hope it's the last breath of the religious right. If they succeed in imposing minority rule by invalidating any election they lose, then we could be dealing with them for a long time.
No it is not, not by a long shot.
They currently control the lower house in the legislature and the Speaker of the House, 2nd in line for the presidency, is a lunatic that is one of the the worst.
They also control the Supreme Court. The fact that all it took for one geriatric woman to die is all it took for them to overturn over 50 years of reproductive rights for women in the U.S.
To paraphrase Tom Clancy: These fucking lunatics are a clear and present danger to everyone in the United States. They will not go away any time soon.
Wtf dude. Are you serious? First of all, no it didn't. They never targeted people, even when things got bad. They targeted buildings at worst.
Second, "terrorism" isn't the issue. Cops use "terrorism." Terrorism is just when methods normally reserved for the state are used by other groups. It's what they're trying to accomplish that matters. If they're trying to enforce their fundamentalist religious ideals, it's bad. If they're trying to promote something most people would call good, then it's good.
The American Revolutionaries aren't called terrorists. They're usually called "patriots" or "freedom fighters" because they won. Most people think all actions taken were good, because they were working towards something we generally see as good. Terrorism is just a set of tools the establishment wants to reserve for itself.
You are wrong. I don't need a 3 paragraph narrative to make my point. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
If only saying like that actually made them true. Oh, I wish I lived in your simplistic world...
You don't need three paragraphs to make your point. You'd likely need far more. Refusing to actually defend your position informs me more that you haven't thought about it enough to defend it though. You've heard someone else say they're terrorists and took their word on it without considering why that would be true or not.
How would you defend rioting, property damage, and street crime? You imply there is justification.
Most of the protests nothing happened. Frequently, cops targeted them and antagonize them. Sometimes cops infiltrated them and acted as agent provocateur to get people to commit these acts (there is video evidence of this).
Regardless, it doesn't undermine anything. Any sufficiently large group will have these things happen even without provocation. It doesn't change the fact that there are fundamental issues that still haven't been addressed.
Calling every group you don't like terrorists doesn't tell you anything. In the civil rights era, MLK's peaceful protests were frequently called riots because people who benefitted from the status quo didn't like them. Meanwhile police were beating them, shooting them with fire-hoses (or worse), and doing whatever they could to them and they weren't called terrorists because they are the state.
Terrorism is a loaded word intended to draw an emotional response. It doesn't give any information on the morality or legitimacy of a group. Discuss their actions and their goals if you like. The word terrorism is mostly useless.
Do you think they didn't? I can provide evidence they did if you like. Can you do the opposite?
Riots are not terrorism. Terrorism is a specific type of tactic used by organized groups to wage asymmetric warfare against a state actor whereas rioting is a spontaneous type of crowd violence that can be motivated by a number of different factors from sports to politics to religion or racism/ethnic tension.
You want to blur the distinction between the two because like terrorism BLM scares you and is therefore "bad," but that's not a good reason to throw away what is in fact a meaningful difference.
If you need more evidence that rioting and terrorism are not the same thing, you need only look at the fact that law enforcement takes very different approaches in how it seeks to prevent rioting vs terrorism. Were they essentially somehow the same thing, this would not be the case.