As always, any marginalized community joining with the far-right needs to remember that they will eventually turn on you, no matter how much you support them. You WILL eventually outlive your usefulness and they'll give you every bit of their violence and hatred that they vented on other people.
I have no sympathy for Ben Shapiro because he's been courting the white supremacist contingent all these years, knowing full well that virulent antisemitism is baked into their beliefs. Just because you both hate Arabs doesn't mean they don't also hate you, Ben. You should've learned that lesson a long time ago.
I also hate Ben Shapiro, but they hate him because he's Jewish, and I hate him because he's a pathetic little prick.
I'll also never understand these people who hitch their wagon to white supremacy for money. Just like I'll never understand the millions of poor and working class idiots who vote Republican.
How come when I invite domestic terrorists on my network they target everyone indiscriminately and not just the very specific demographics I'd like to persecute while remaining out of the firing line????
-Whined the pathetic man child that has far too much wealth, power and influence for such a pathetic low-life personality
Make America great was always about keeping America white, straight and CHRISTIAN. Love of Israel was about some insane “the rapture will be happening in Israel” myth that I refuse to even google. I’m hoping the entire Republican Party and rightwing will just be a pile of smoldering ash in the next few years but I’ve lost a lot of faith in this country and it’s people ever doing the right thing. Anyway, let them fight on their blogs and social media and in Congress. #calexit.
It's that Jesus will come back and sit on a literal throne and rule for literally 1000 years in literal Israel, which can't happen if there is no Israel. (Apparently God is not powerful enough to do it unless Israel is actually listed on a map.) Plus it gives them "of course we're not anti-Semitic, we fight for Israel" cover. They never tell you the end of the story, which is that at the end of the 1000 years the Jews all get punished for not becoming Christian and REAL heaven starts, just with Christians.
(I'm oversimplifying, but that's the gist of it. Source: spent 10 years in a pre-tribulation, pre-millennial fundamentalist church that talked about the end times ALL. THE. TIME.)
I've thought about this for a long time, and I believe it to be a combination of things.
I was raised fundie, and heard all the time from my parents about how the Jews were God's Chosen People and under God's special protection. We would never have let the Holocaust happen! We'd lie down in front of trains. It was probably how we'd die during the End Times.
We were also rabidly pro-Israel, which could do no wrong. I assumed this attitude was a key part of Protestantism and went waaaaay back, insofar as I thought about its origin at all.
In college and after I was intrigued to read the novels and poetry and memoir of Marge Piercy, who is Jewish. She talks about the cultural sea change--how during WWII, she and her family knew something terrible was happening to their loved ones back home who were no longer answering letters, but mainstream America did not care. That was a revelation to me.
Then when Trump got elected and there were Nazis everywhere I and I was counter-protesting them--I was flabbergasted by how my vociferous family was disinterested in joining me. *They taught me these values*. How was I the only one who actually believed in them? How had their dead beliefs inspired my living one?
In mulling all of this over--
I think a lot of it was the cultural trauma of the aftermath of the Holocaust, which was being uncovered and broadcast just as television was widely entering people's homes. The medium is the message, and it shocked people into shame.
I think the fundamentalists constructed this view of themselves and made it retroactive to cover that shame; my parents were born in the early 1950s, and that is how they presented it to me, as of long standing. It also dovetailed neatly with some prophecies from Revelation (which don't seem to have had much traction prior to WWII) and also it was sure appealing and convenient to hawks to have an ally in the Middle East and be able to have US military bases in it.
So essentially I think it boils down to feeling shame and being pro-war/seizing global power. The prophecies from Revelation resonate--and they were sold to me HARD, I wish I'd kept my youth seminar handouts because what I remember is fucking INSANE--but I think they were justification and used to manipulate those who didn't know any better. They weren't the reason for these policies.
Did you know Jewish people or was the Israel love just about it’s ties to fundamentalism? I grew up in secular Hollywood and had many Jewish friends. Also very liberal parents who had jettisoned their religions (Catholic and Lutheran) long before I met them. My mom did find a very lefty minister at Hollywood Presbyterian church and dragged us a few times but we all rebelled. I’m constantly amazed by the stuff people believe in and sadly fight to the death over.
Oh, I meant to include that info in my original comment: we knew no Jewish people whatsoever, unless you count the one time when Jews For Jesus came and did a Sunday evening service presentation at our church, which I would not.
It was, as you correctly surmised, all about the ties to fundamentalism.
Bigotry is the only reason anyone votes republican in the first place. And hatred of LGBTQ people was the only thing holding the various bigots together. The Gaza war has opened cracks in that bond. Actual Nazis were always part of the republican coalition. Except now they can't pretend otherwise. Owens will be next. Conservatism will be reduced to two guys in a basement pointing guns at each other saying the other one isn't pure enough.
These grifters have always treated "politics" like professional wrestling. If it you at it through that lens, it becomes more obvious. What's sad is the toll it will take on people they will never know and never cared about from the start.
As I simultaneously get work done from home, clean house and start cooking for Thanksgiving (we host), having finished this post after working through it paragraph by paragraph in between tasks, my immediate thought when finishing was, "Why does Alberto feel sorry for Ben?" Not one iota of sympathy from me. So what if he's having a hard time dealing? My sympathy goes to the people he knows who are being ravaged by this situation. Eff Ben and his entire ilk.
Bigotry is the only reason anyone votes republican in the first place. And hatred of LGBTQ people was the only thing holding the various bigots together. The Gaza war has opened cracks in that bond. Actual Nazis were always part of the republican coalition. Except now they can't pretend otherwise. Owens will be next. Conservatism will be reduced to two guys in a basement pointing guns at each other saying the other one isn't pure enough.
"The way his fellow far-righters piled on him would be funny if it weren’t for all their subtle and not-so-subtle antisemitism."
I mean considering the pointedly unsubtle antisemitism contained in the mirth, gloating and glee from a whole lot of people worldwide on the 7th of October when the massacres, rapes, multilations and kidnappings happened, plus the global growth in antisemitism over the past decade, a lot of people do consider antisemitism to be funny.
"The right wing mon ey isn't hitting like it did . . . "
I've never understood Candace Owens' appeal. Her proximity to white supremacy is a painfully transparent grift. She is living proof the interent was a bad idea.
As always, any marginalized community joining with the far-right needs to remember that they will eventually turn on you, no matter how much you support them. You WILL eventually outlive your usefulness and they'll give you every bit of their violence and hatred that they vented on other people.
I have no sympathy for Ben Shapiro because he's been courting the white supremacist contingent all these years, knowing full well that virulent antisemitism is baked into their beliefs. Just because you both hate Arabs doesn't mean they don't also hate you, Ben. You should've learned that lesson a long time ago.
"I never thought the leopards would eat MY face!" sobs man who who voted for Leopard's Eating People's Faces party.
I also hate Ben Shapiro, but they hate him because he's Jewish, and I hate him because he's a pathetic little prick.
I'll also never understand these people who hitch their wagon to white supremacy for money. Just like I'll never understand the millions of poor and working class idiots who vote Republican.
How come when I invite domestic terrorists on my network they target everyone indiscriminately and not just the very specific demographics I'd like to persecute while remaining out of the firing line????
-Whined the pathetic man child that has far too much wealth, power and influence for such a pathetic low-life personality
"You cross a certain line when you come for Scripture and read yourself in it"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
If irony could kill, these assholes would all be dead.
Love this for them.
The worst people you know are fighting!
I say they're all right-wing assholes and I say to hell with all of them.
Make America great was always about keeping America white, straight and CHRISTIAN. Love of Israel was about some insane “the rapture will be happening in Israel” myth that I refuse to even google. I’m hoping the entire Republican Party and rightwing will just be a pile of smoldering ash in the next few years but I’ve lost a lot of faith in this country and it’s people ever doing the right thing. Anyway, let them fight on their blogs and social media and in Congress. #calexit.
It's that Jesus will come back and sit on a literal throne and rule for literally 1000 years in literal Israel, which can't happen if there is no Israel. (Apparently God is not powerful enough to do it unless Israel is actually listed on a map.) Plus it gives them "of course we're not anti-Semitic, we fight for Israel" cover. They never tell you the end of the story, which is that at the end of the 1000 years the Jews all get punished for not becoming Christian and REAL heaven starts, just with Christians.
(I'm oversimplifying, but that's the gist of it. Source: spent 10 years in a pre-tribulation, pre-millennial fundamentalist church that talked about the end times ALL. THE. TIME.)
And the punishment IIRC is being burned to ashes. Nice visual, there. :(
I've thought about this for a long time, and I believe it to be a combination of things.
I was raised fundie, and heard all the time from my parents about how the Jews were God's Chosen People and under God's special protection. We would never have let the Holocaust happen! We'd lie down in front of trains. It was probably how we'd die during the End Times.
We were also rabidly pro-Israel, which could do no wrong. I assumed this attitude was a key part of Protestantism and went waaaaay back, insofar as I thought about its origin at all.
In college and after I was intrigued to read the novels and poetry and memoir of Marge Piercy, who is Jewish. She talks about the cultural sea change--how during WWII, she and her family knew something terrible was happening to their loved ones back home who were no longer answering letters, but mainstream America did not care. That was a revelation to me.
Then when Trump got elected and there were Nazis everywhere I and I was counter-protesting them--I was flabbergasted by how my vociferous family was disinterested in joining me. *They taught me these values*. How was I the only one who actually believed in them? How had their dead beliefs inspired my living one?
In mulling all of this over--
I think a lot of it was the cultural trauma of the aftermath of the Holocaust, which was being uncovered and broadcast just as television was widely entering people's homes. The medium is the message, and it shocked people into shame.
I think the fundamentalists constructed this view of themselves and made it retroactive to cover that shame; my parents were born in the early 1950s, and that is how they presented it to me, as of long standing. It also dovetailed neatly with some prophecies from Revelation (which don't seem to have had much traction prior to WWII) and also it was sure appealing and convenient to hawks to have an ally in the Middle East and be able to have US military bases in it.
So essentially I think it boils down to feeling shame and being pro-war/seizing global power. The prophecies from Revelation resonate--and they were sold to me HARD, I wish I'd kept my youth seminar handouts because what I remember is fucking INSANE--but I think they were justification and used to manipulate those who didn't know any better. They weren't the reason for these policies.
Did you know Jewish people or was the Israel love just about it’s ties to fundamentalism? I grew up in secular Hollywood and had many Jewish friends. Also very liberal parents who had jettisoned their religions (Catholic and Lutheran) long before I met them. My mom did find a very lefty minister at Hollywood Presbyterian church and dragged us a few times but we all rebelled. I’m constantly amazed by the stuff people believe in and sadly fight to the death over.
Oh, I meant to include that info in my original comment: we knew no Jewish people whatsoever, unless you count the one time when Jews For Jesus came and did a Sunday evening service presentation at our church, which I would not.
It was, as you correctly surmised, all about the ties to fundamentalism.
Bigotry is the only reason anyone votes republican in the first place. And hatred of LGBTQ people was the only thing holding the various bigots together. The Gaza war has opened cracks in that bond. Actual Nazis were always part of the republican coalition. Except now they can't pretend otherwise. Owens will be next. Conservatism will be reduced to two guys in a basement pointing guns at each other saying the other one isn't pure enough.
These grifters have always treated "politics" like professional wrestling. If it you at it through that lens, it becomes more obvious. What's sad is the toll it will take on people they will never know and never cared about from the start.
As I simultaneously get work done from home, clean house and start cooking for Thanksgiving (we host), having finished this post after working through it paragraph by paragraph in between tasks, my immediate thought when finishing was, "Why does Alberto feel sorry for Ben?" Not one iota of sympathy from me. So what if he's having a hard time dealing? My sympathy goes to the people he knows who are being ravaged by this situation. Eff Ben and his entire ilk.
Oh I don’t feel sorry for him. He’s a POS who’s okay with racism and is now mad the “real Christians” have turned on him.
Bigotry is the only reason anyone votes republican in the first place. And hatred of LGBTQ people was the only thing holding the various bigots together. The Gaza war has opened cracks in that bond. Actual Nazis were always part of the republican coalition. Except now they can't pretend otherwise. Owens will be next. Conservatism will be reduced to two guys in a basement pointing guns at each other saying the other one isn't pure enough.
Your last sentence would make a brilliant New Yorker illustration.
"The way his fellow far-righters piled on him would be funny if it weren’t for all their subtle and not-so-subtle antisemitism."
I mean considering the pointedly unsubtle antisemitism contained in the mirth, gloating and glee from a whole lot of people worldwide on the 7th of October when the massacres, rapes, multilations and kidnappings happened, plus the global growth in antisemitism over the past decade, a lot of people do consider antisemitism to be funny.
"The right wing mon ey isn't hitting like it did . . . "
I've never understood Candace Owens' appeal. Her proximity to white supremacy is a painfully transparent grift. She is living proof the interent was a bad idea.
Ben has been told before he is not welcome in the conservative movement. They're going to come for you Ben. Sooner or later they always do.
https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-713128
And he wonders why he lost.
Ugh. She somehow more awful than him and my head hurts.
So punchable.