The book he references is on BARD. It's the first book of his that I read.
Miriam
Alternet
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > What Trump Owes America's Christian Fascists
What Trump Owes America's Christian Fascists
By Chris Hedges [1] / Truthdig [2]
July 24, 2017, 1:03 PM GMT
Donald Trump's ideological vacuum, the more he is isolated and attacked, is
being filled by the Christian right. This Christianized fascism, with its
network of megachurches, schools, universities and law schools and its vast
radio and television empire, is a potent ally for a beleaguered White House.
The Christian right has been organizing and preparing to take power for
decades. If the nation suffers another economic collapse, which is probably
inevitable, another catastrophic domestic terrorist attack or a new war,
President Trump's ability to force the Christian right's agenda on the
public and shut down dissent will be dramatically enhanced. In the
presidential election, Trump had 81 percent [3] of white evangelicals behind
him.
Trump's moves to restrict abortion, defund Planned Parenthood, permit
discrimination against LGBT people in the name of "religious liberty" and
allow churches to become active in politics by gutting the Johnson Amendment
[4], along with his nominations of judges championed by the Federalist
Society [5] and his call for a ban on Muslim immigrants, have endeared him
to the Christian right. He has rolled back civil rights legislation and
business and environmental regulations. He has elevated several stalwarts of
the Christian right into power-Mike Pence to the vice presidency, Jeff
Sessions to the Justice Department, Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, Betsy
DeVos to the Department of Education, Tom Price to Health and Human Services
and Ben Carson to Housing and Urban Development. He embraces the white
supremacy, bigotry, American chauvinism, greed, religious intolerance, anger
and racism that define the Christian right.
Click here [6] for a 2007 video of Chris Hedges speaking about his book
"American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."
More important, Trump's disdain for facts and his penchant for magical
thinking [7] and conspiracy theories mesh well with the worldview of the
Christian right, which sees itself as under attack by the satanic forces of
secular humanism [8] embodied in the media, academia, the liberal
establishment, Hollywood and the Democratic Party. In this worldview,
climate change is not real, Barack Obama is a Muslim and millions of people
voted illegally in the 2016 election.
The followers of the Christian right, like Trump and his brain trust,
including Stephen Bannon, are Manicheans [9]. They see the world in black
and white, good and evil, them and us. Trump's call in his speech in Poland
for a crusade against the godless hoards of Muslims fleeing from the wars
and chaos we created replicates the view of the Christian right. Christian
right leaders in a sign of support went to the White House on July 10 to
pray over Trump. Two days later Pat Robertson showed up there to interview
the president for his Christian Broadcasting Network.
If the alliance between these zealots and the government succeeds, it will
snuff out the last vestiges of American democracy.
On the surface it appears to be incongruous that the Christian right would
rally behind a slick New York real estate developer who is a very public
serial philanderer and adulterer, has no regard for the truth, is consumed
by greed, does not appear to read or know the Bible, routinely defrauds and
cheats his investors and contractors, expresses a crude misogyny and an even
cruder narcissism and appears to yearn for despotism. In fact, these are the
very characteristics that define most of the leaders of the Christian right.
Trump has preyed on desperate people through the thousands of slot machines
in his casinos, his sham university and his real estate deals. Megachurch
pastors prey on their followers by extracting "seed offerings," "love
gifts," tithes and donations and by selling miracle healings along with
"prayer clothes," self-help books, audio and video recordings and even
protein shakes. Pastors have established within their megachurches, as Trump
did in his businesses, despotic fiefdoms. They cannot be challenged or
questioned any more than an omnipotent Trump could be challenged on the
reality television show "The Apprentice." And they seek to replicate their
little tyrannies on a national scale, with white men in charge.
The personal piety of most of the ministers who lead the Christian right is
a facade. Their private lives are usually marked by hedonistic squalor that
includes mansions, private jets, limousines, retinues of bodyguards,
personal assistants and servants, shopping sprees, lavish vacations and
sexual escapades that rival those carried out by Trump. And because they run
"churches," in many cases church funds pay for their tax-free empires,
including their extravagant lifestyles. They also engage in the nepotism
found in the Trump organization, elevating family members to prominent or
highly paid positions and passing on the businesses to their children.
The Christian right's scandals, which give a glimpse into the sordid lives
of these multimillionaire pastors, are legion. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's
Praise the Lord Club, for example, raked in as much as $1 million a week
before Jim Bakker went to prison for nearly five years. He was convicted of
fraud and other charges in 1989 because of a $158 million scheme in which
followers paid for vacations that never materialized. As the Bakker empire
came apart, there also were accusations of drug use and rape. Tammy Faye
died in 2007, and now Jim Bakker is back, peddling survival food for the end
days and telling his significantly reduced television audience that anyone
who opposes Trump is the Antichrist.
Paul and Jan Crouch, who gave the Bakkers their start, founded Trinity
Broadcasting, the world's largest televangelist network, now run by their
son Matt and his wife, Laurie. Viewers were encouraged to call prayer
counselors at the toll-free number shown at the bottom of the TV screen. It
was a short step from talking with a prayer counselor to making a "love
gift" and becoming a "partner" in Trinity Broadcasting and then sending in
more money during one of the frequent Praise-a-Thons.
The Crouches reveled in tasteless kitsch, as does Trump. They sat during
their popular nightly program in front of stained glass windows that
overlooked Louis XVI-inspired sets awash in gold rococo and red velvet,
glittering chandeliers and a gold-painted piano. The network emblem, which
Paul Crouch wore on the pocket of his blue double-breasted blazer, featured
a crown, a lion, a horse, a white dove, a cross and Latin phrases among
other elements. The Crouches would have been at home in Trump Tower, where
the president has a faux "Trump crest"-allegedly plagiarized [10]-and has
decorated his penthouse as if it was part of Versailles.
The Crouches were masters of manipulation. They exhorted viewers to send in
checks for $1,000, even if they could not afford it. Write the check anyway,
Paul Crouch, who died in 2013, told them, as a "step of faith" and the Lord
would repay them many times over. "Do you think God would have any trouble
getting $1,000 extra to you somehow?" he asked during one Praise-a-Thon
broadcast. Viewers, many of whom struggled with deep despair and believed
that miracles and magic alone held them back from the abyss, often found it
impossible to resist this emotional pressure.
Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) is home to many of the worst charlatans
in the Christian right, including the popular healer Benny Hinn, who says
that Adam was a superhero who could fly to the moon and claims that one day
the dead will be raised by watching TBN from inside their coffins. Hinn
claims his "anointings" have cured cancer, AIDS, deafness, blindness and
numerous other ailments and physical injuries. Those who have not been
cured, he says, did not send in enough money.
These religious hucksters are some of the most accomplished con artists in
the country, a trait they share with the current occupant of the Oval
Office.
I wrote a book on the Christian right in 2007 called "American Fascists: The
Christian Right and the War on America." I did not use the word "fascist"
lightly. I spent several hours, at the end of two years of reporting, with
two of the country's foremost scholars on fascism-Fritz Stern [11] and
Robert O. Paxton [12]. Did this ideology fit the parameters of classical
fascism? Was it virulent enough and organized enough to seize power? Would
it go to the ruthless extremes of previous fascist movements to persecute
and silence dissent? Has our deindustrialized society [13] replicated the
crippling despair, alienation and rage that always feed fascist movements?
The evangelicalism promoted by the Christian right is very different from
the evangelicalism and fundamentalism of a century ago. The emphasis on
personal piety that defined the old movement, the call to avoid the
contamination of politics, has been replaced by Christian Reconstructionism
[14], called Dominionism by some. This new ideology is about taking control
of all institutions, including the government, to build a "Christian"
nation. Rousas John Rushdoony in his 1973 book, "The Institutes of Biblical
Law," first articulated it. Rushdoony argued that God gives the elect, just
as he gave Adam and Noah, dominion over the earth to build a Christian
society. Their state will come about with the physical eradication of the
forces of Satan. It is the duty of the church and the elect to "rescue" the
world so Christ can return.
This is an ideology of death. It promises that the secular, humanist society
will be physically destroyed. The Ten Commandments will form the basis of
our legal system. Creationism [15] or "Intelligent Design [16]" will be
taught in public schools. People who are considered social deviants,
including homosexuals, immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews,
Muslims, criminals and those dismissed as "nominal Christians"-meaning
Christians who do not embrace the Christian right's perverted and heretical
interpretation of the Bible-will be silenced, imprisoned or killed. The role
of the federal government will be reduced to protecting property rights,
"homeland" security and waging war. Church organizations will be funded and
empowered by the government to run social-welfare agencies. The poor,
condemned for sloth, indolence and sinfulness, will be denied government
assistance. The death penalty will be expanded to include "moral crimes,"
including apostasy, blasphemy, sodomy and witchcraft, as well as abortion,
which will be treated as murder. Women will be subordinate to men. Those who
practice other faiths will become, at best, second-class citizens and
eventually outcasts. The wars in the Middle East will be defined as
religious crusades against Muslims. There will be no separation of church
and state. The only legitimate voices will be "Christian." America will
become an agent of God. Those who defy the "Christian" authorities will be
branded as agents of Satan.
Tens of millions of Americans are already hermetically sealed within this
bizarre worldview. They are given a steady diet of conspiracy theories and
lies on the internet, in their churches, in Christian schools and colleges
and on Christian television and radio. Elizabeth Dilling [17], who wrote
"The Red Network" and was a Nazi sympathizer, is required reading. Thomas
Jefferson, who favored separation of church and state, is ignored. This
Christian propaganda hails the "significant contributions" of the
Confederacy. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who led the anti-communist witch hunts in
the 1950s, is rehabilitated as an American hero. The Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, along with the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and
Libya, is defined as part of the worldwide battle against satanic Islamic
terror. Presently, nearly 40 percent of the U.S. public believes in
Creationism or "Intelligent Design." And nearly a third of the population,
94 million people, consider themselves evangelical.
Those who remain in a reality-based universe often dismiss these malcontents
as buffoons. They do not take seriously the huge segment of the public,
mostly white and working class, who because of economic distress have primal
yearnings for vengeance, new glory and moral renewal and are easily seduced
by magical thinking. These are the yearnings and emotions Trump has
exploited politically.
Those who embrace this movement need to feel, even if they are not, that
they are victims surrounded by dark and sinister groups bent on their
destruction. They need to elevate themselves to the role of holy warriors,
infused with a noble calling and purpose. They need to sanctify the rage and
hypermasculinity that are the core of fascism. The rigidity and simplicity
of their belief, which includes being anointed for a special purpose in life
by God, are potent weapons in the fight against their own demons and desire
for meaning.
"Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or
even a duty," Simone Weil [18] wrote.
These believers, like all fascists, detest the reality-based world. They
condemn it as contaminated, decayed and immoral. This world took their jobs.
It destroyed their future. It ruined their communities. It doomed their
children. It flooded their lives with alcohol, opioids, pornography, sexual
abuse, jail sentences, domestic violence, deprivation and despair. And then,
from the depths of suicidal despair, they suddenly discovered that God has a
plan for them. God will save them. God will intervene in their lives to
promote and protect them. God has called them to carry out his holy mission
in the world and to be rich, powerful and happy.
The rational, secular forces, those that speak in the language of fact and
evidence, are hated and feared, for they seek to pull believers back into
"the culture of death" that nearly destroyed them. The magical belief
system, as it was for impoverished German workers who flocked to the Nazi
Party, is an emotional life raft. It is all that supports them. The only way
to blunt this movement is to reintegrate these people into the economy, to
give them economic stability through good wages and benefits, to restore
their self-esteem. They need to live in a society that is not predatory but
instead provides well-funded public schools, free university education and
universal health care, a society in which they and their families can
prosper.
Let us not stand at the open gates of the city waiting passively for the
barbarians. They are coming. They are slouching towards Bethlehem. Let us
shake off our complacency and cynicism. Let us openly defy the liberal
establishment, which will not save us, to demand and fight for economic
reparations for the poor and the working class. Let us give all Americans a
reality-based hope for the future. Time is running out. If we do not act,
American fascists, clutching Christian crosses, waving American flags and
orchestrating mass recitations of the pledge of allegiance, united behind
the ludicrous figure of Donald Trump, will ride this rage to power.
Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, writes a regular column for
Truthdig [2] every Monday. Hedges' most recent book [19] is "Wages of
Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt."
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [20]
[21]
Sign Up!
Get AlterNet's Daily Newsletter in Your Inbox
EMAIL:
+ sign up for additional lists
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/donald-trump-chrisian-fascists
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/chris-hedges
[2] http://www.truthdig.com/
[3]
https://www.thenation.com/article/eighty-one-percent-of-white-evangelicals-v
oted-for-donald-trump-why/
[4]
http://www.newsweek.com/johnson-amendment-trump-religious-liberty-594630
[5]
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/01/how_th
e_federalist_society_became_the_de_facto_selector_of_republican_supreme.html
[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeZadaJuzoY
[7] http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/magical-thinking
[8]
http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/2001/06/what-secular-humanists-believe.aspx
[9] https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/Manichean
[10]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-mar-a-lago-crest-a-scam-new-york-t
imes-finds_us_592c6f40e4b053f2d2ad7e75
[11]
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/books/fritz-stern-a-leading-historian-on-
modern-germany-dies-at-90.html
[12] http://history.columbia.edu/faculty/Paxton.html
[13] https://www.google.com/#q=define+deindustrialization
[14] https://carm.org/christian-reconstructionism-theonomy
[15] https://www.google.com/#q=Creationism
[16]
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ehrBzk9DQHAJ:www.slate.
com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2005/05/creationism_vs_intelligent_
design.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
[17]
http://www.thedailybeast.com/she-was-the-steve-bannon-of-the-great-depressio
n
[18] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simone-Weil
[19] http://www.truthdig.com/bazaar/wages_of_rebellion
[20] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=Typo on What Trump Owes
America's Christian Fascists
[21] http://www.alternet.org/
[22] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
