The Portland, Oregon debacle, in which anonymous Federal officers are randomly arresting peaceful protesters, holding them for a few hours, and then releasing them – while sometimes putting black bags over their heads – is appallingly reminiscent of other incidents of barbarism in recent American history. I speak, of course, of the incidents of torture during the Iraq occupation, undertaken as Americans faced IEDs and other resistance, as well as pressure to find Saddam Hussein. Black hooded men, forced into pressure positions, or water-boarded, all while American politicians pettily argued whether particular interrogation techniques were torture, was a black blot on American honor. The references are unmistakable.
A scene from a John Lewis retrospective. I can only guess that is actually Lewis submitting to the policeman’s baton.
Fortunately, Americans, properly informed, are not snowflakes. We have many examples of meeting barbarity head-on, as the tragic passing of civil rights titan Rep John Lewis reminds us. The barbarity of the right-fringe currently in power, so long as it’s met as peacefully as possible, will discredit itself, its progenitors, and its agents so thoroughly that only in their own minds will they consider themselves justified or honorable. These folks are certainly full of spunk.
It’s not too soon to offer analyses of the pathological currents in society that has led to these contretemps.
First up is an old theme for this blog: the mistaken belief that amateurism is good in critical affairs. Amateurs are great in many things, even indispensable in such non-critical pursuits as astronomy, but I’d never want one to fix my car, eh? Similarly, letting amateurs at the controls of government will lead us towards the cliffs of doom – as we’re seeing now.
Second, recklessly attempting to import the processes of the private sector into the public sector, along with people whose vision is limited to private sector practices, leads to events which are ineffective and even corrupt in the public sector, but if they’re not in the private sector, well, those people don’t even get it. For them, if it worked over here, surely it will work over there. Multiple reports exist of elements of the Federal response to the pandemic being approached in just this manner – and we can see the results from here. It’s a fiasco.
Third, the ceaseless rattle of religion within the GOP. There was a reason the Johnson Amendment was made into law so many years ago. It traded tax-exempt status for the various churches which promised not to preach concerning politics, and it was important because houses of worship inject an element of absolutism into a political world, whose nature during successful times is marked by compromise – anathema to the blindly religious and their leaders. When one religion or another is in control, they employ unrebuttable, yet ludicrous, arguments to bolster their positions, no matter how nutty – and, for those who don’t submit, they threaten terrible, if imaginary, divine punishment – and sometimes physical punishments as well. As Barry Goldwater noted long ago,
Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.
The deadly combination of certainty of Divine intentions, no-nothingism and its concomitant disdain for experts and knowledge, and all the general arrogance that goes along with it has proven fatal to the Republican Party’s ambition to be a governing Party. They cannot compromise, as Goldwater noted, and when corruption grips the upper reaches, there is no process for eliminating the pus that is Trump and his Evangelical Advisory Board.
Who are the latter? It’s surprising difficult to find out the current list of members. I see former Rep Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was at least once on the board, and having watched her pronouncements on high, I would not want her to be in a position of advising the President. My Arts Editor, a former Baptist, remarked during research that they seemed to be mostly “prosperity megachurch” pastors, which makes sense: the celebration of money is a mark of corruption.
But here’s Paul Brandeis Raushenbush of Auburn Seminary, relaying the judgment of Dr. Robert Jones, in reaction to the Charlottesville riots earlier in the Trump Presidency:
One person who isn’t surprised is Dr. Robert Jones, CEO of the polling and research firm PRRI and whose book The End of White Christian America is crucial reading for understanding the reaction of White Evangelicals to this President. Jones told Voices:
“With regard to Trump’s evangelical advisory committee, the views he espoused this week are consistent with views he expressed in the campaign. So the evangelicals on his advisory committee knew this was the president they were agreeing to serve. And like most things in the Trump orbit, the committee is mostly setup to be a Trump fan club rather than a committee that broadly represents the major entities in the evangelical world.
Also note: Given white evangelicals’ own checkered past supporting segregation and remaining silent about white supremacy groups (something I covered in my book), there may in fact be widespread agreement with the remarks. For example, we conducted some recent analysis of perceptions of the Confederate flag, and found that 72% of white evangelicals say that they see the Confederate flag more as a symbol of southern pride than as a symbol of racism.
It’s fairly damning. The mixing of politics and theology is, as ever, a potent and poisonous mixture.
If the organization that succeeds the Republican Party as representative of the conservative wing of the country wishes to do better than these last dregs of the GOP are doing, those are just some of the principles to keep in mind. Negative, even exclusionary, that’s how it’s reading to me: toxic proposals deserve to be tossed in the trash and never seen again, no matter how much prestige the proposer has.
And it’s up the press, unbiased media, to bring these bad practices to light.
