The moral majority has become the immoral minority

Update 8/10/23:  When church attendees attack an Evangelical pastor for spreading subversive lib ideology, and the pastor is only quoting the beatitudes, Christ's sermon on the mount,  the Evangelical movement has a big problem.  https://www.newsweek.com/evangelicals-rejecting-jesus-teachings-liberal-talking-points-pastor-1818706

With reports today GOP surrogates are flocking to Georgia to support Herschel Walker, their candidate for Senate, it reminded me that the Moral Majority has become an immoral minority. In the 1970's attempts to get religious conservative's faith and beliefs carried out by political action were born.  The Moral Majority was begun through the leadership of Jerry Falwell, a Baptist minister.   Top of the agenda then was the end of abortion and getting prayer into schools.  In the years since, the evangelical branch of Christianity, both Catholic, and Protestant, has attempted to spread their brand of religion to others or to make others bow down to their beliefs enforced by laws, government, politics, and the courts, if not by religious conversion.  The evangelical movement has become an influential political powerhouse to behold in spite their issues out of step with the majority of voters   It reached its goal this year with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade,  thanks to an eight-year project to get pro-life justices seated as the majority. Its work is not complete until it forces by legislation in Congress for the other half of the states to also get their views set in law,  overturning abortion full stop with no exceptions.   The evangelical religious movement has been so fixated on the abortion issue, an issue never directly addressed in any Bible, that it has become an apologist or acceptance of the immoral behavior of Donald Trump and candidates like  Hershell Walker because they have seen a pathway in Washington to achieve their evangelical goals of making all in the US observe their ideology.   The problem is that when we examine the politics of the nation as a whole, they are representing the  of the view of the minority of voters on abortion. Majority in U.S. Disapprove of Supreme Court Abortion Decision Overturning Roe v. Wade | Pew Research Center 

The end now justifies the means, it appears, even if a messenger of the cause is the epitome of immoral behavior. He is forgiven if he "accepts Christ" and the preferred interpretation of the good book, a latter-day conversion. If he is not repentant, he is still forgiven if he supports their issues so they can forgive him, too. The GOP as a political party has hitched its wagon to these two stars, Trump and the evangelical movement,  and is riding in it to achieve success with its other agenda items, generally opposing restrictions on big business and opposing the expansion of civil rights and government assistance to provide health and social services.  While the GOP has lost the popular vote tally in seven out of the  eight past last presidential elections, they have launched campaigns and supported racist candidates and others whose personal behavior and sexual escapades could never be described as moral. Many have been driven by personal aggrandizement and power grabs devoid of any ideology or religion that resembles service beyond themselves, or have they even attempted to give lip service to the golden rule.  Top of that list is Donald Trump, who was quite upfront from the beginning of his political life with a modus operandi that had no ethical or moral constraints: he boasted he was transactional and would get whatever deal best benefitted him (and maybe some others).  His most used power tool has been fear, fed by a  largely white demographic and fearful of their power being replaced by "others".  The percentage of those who follow Trumpism, regardless of any infractions of moral standards, depends on how the poll questions are asked and tend to be somewhere between 30 and 40 percent..

 GOP surrogaes to rally for Georgia's Herschel Walker in show of unyielding national party support | CNN Politics

Wheaton College's Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals estimates that about 30 to 35 percent (90 to 100 million people) of the US population is evangelical..   Amy Black - Wheaton College, IL

The 2020 Vote for President by Religious Groups – Christians – Religion in Public

Most White Americans who regularly attend worship services voted for Trump in 2020 | Pew Research Center

During Trump presidency, more White Americans adopted than shed evangelical label | Pew Research Center

Racist ‘Replacement’ Theory Believed by Half of Americans (splcenter.org)

Great replacement theory: Poll finds 7 in 10 Republicans believe it (usatoday.com)

Replacement theory is a danger to more than just African Americans ; it is a danger to democracy itself

 Replacement theory is a danger to more than just African  Americans. Victims in the past several years have included Jews, Hispanics,  and others.  It is also a danger to democracy and is a fuel that ignites the afterburners of autocracy. Yearning for autocracy and white domination are wedded and even promoted by influential elements in US media, like Tucker Carlson and FOX, and major conservative organizations. The embrace of Viktor Orban of similar racist policies also brings with it association with autocracy as a preferred method of governance instead of democracy.

 A recent Associated Press story began with a white older woman from Trinidad, Colorado, for over 400 years a corner of my state dominated by Hispanics.  She was held out as an example of a FOX Carlson fan who embraced the "replacement theory", a theory that Democrats were trying to replace white people with too many Hispanic immigrants and Jewish interests like George Soros were behind the effort. This theory, per a recent poll, is a belief that is held by one out of three Americans that those supporting more relaxed immigration policies on our southern border were promoting immigration because the goal was to replace white voters with brown ones at the polls. EXPLAINER: White 'replacement theory' fuels racist attacks | AP News

 The demographic shifts are due to a decline in white population growth, especially among the emerging new generations, and an increase in birth rates of those not white. . Theory or not, replacement theory is fueled by fear of loss of power by white people, who see demographics changing and it has become the tool of entertainers like Carlson and political movements like MAGA  dating to Tea Partiers to either gain advertisers or votes and or power from the like-minded.  I have long believed that such anger, fear, and hate supporting theories were embraced as the truth because the holders of fear, the angry, and the hateful, want to believe in them. This willfulness is fueled by dislike or fear of people who are not like them and exploited and enhanced by the power craven.   I have noticed there are times it has become more public, and other times it has diminished from the "breaking news" and media opinionists.It is raising its public voice again in the past few years.  President Biden said it best: about white nationalism  "It is a stain on the soul of America", in comments about those who have been victims of  a racist/replacement theorist mass killer in Buffalo,  It is wrongheaded thinking to think that victims are only African Americans, but Muslims, Jews, and Hispanics (of any Latin descent )The Decade's Top 10 Incidents of Hate (adl.org) 

 In the American past dating to the 1940s, the object of actions of hate has been directed to include Italians, Irish, and Catholics. Even in the midst of World War II, it existed, yet the rest of the nation saw the evil of tyrants who also exploited hate to rise to power and rationalize the aggression. This is one of those periods in American history that this undercurrent has risen to the surface from a fringe political movement to greater public acceptance and a degree of respectability. Nowhere is mainstream acceptance more evident that the outright embrace of those from CPAC of Vickor Orban, prime minister of Hungary.      https://www.vox.com/2022/5/19/23123050/hungary-cpac-2022-replacement-theory  

This update is also moved to a separate post Hungary: CPAC's fantasyland.:Such wide acceptance of replacement theory is becoming a threat to democracy itself.  This embrace of Viktor Orban of similar racist policies of anti-immigration and Hungarian ethnic domination also brings with it association with autocracy as a preferred method of governance instead of democracy. Hungary's Orban opens CPAC by telling conservatives "we need to coordinate the movement" of allies - CBS News    Tread lightly, CPAC.  You, too, will find yourself with not only the racist, anti-semitic white nationalism that is Orban's but saddled with his method of governing, which means no press freem ( or press only permitted that is approved by Orban) and what we would consider in the US, a corrupt alliance between big business and government with rewards going to friends of Orban.  Hungary is not like the US. Orban could be as racist and nationalist as he liked since 97% of the country is Magyar (HUngarian) and speaks Hungarian.  There are no large groups of minorities. That is not the US now and in the future. Takeover by someone like Orban appealing to white nationalists has not bee would not be and will be not be a peaceful process.  For US white naitonalists, Hungary is fantasyland.  The late Madeleine Albright, our beloved former secretary of state, tagged him as a fascist in the making in  2019. mostly because of his racism. 

The dishonesty and the use of fear of "others" of the Tucker Carlsons of this era, is the claim that Democrats want open borders to get more voters. This is illogical if you give it a minute of thought.  The demographic shifts we are seeing fueling this hate-filled racism are not because of some conspiracy to cause the demographic shift for political gain, It is the birth rate of those already here projected forward.. Immigration only speeds up the timeline  It takes years for even legal immigrants to achieve citizenship and vote. This is a long-term proposition at best and it does not mean such immigrants a decade from now will vote like Democrats.,  Democrats look at alarm now that Hispanics are leaving their camp today, though they are not becoming Republicans, either. More Hispanic Democrats in new poll considering leaving party than Hispanic Republicans | The Hill. The trend is like other immigrant waves that those assimilated into the existing population look to other concerns, including the economy, taxation,   religious, cultural,  and kitchen table issues to inspire their voting. Mass shooters do not stop first to ask if you are here for  400 years, voted for Trump in 2020, or if you arrived yesterday before firing away,  as those in El Paso learned. If you look Hispanic, you are their fair game.  Ginning up fear and loathing of Hispanics and others,, as the right-wing is doing, is no way to win new friends and gain supporters in the future.  It also makes the coming years of these demographic shifts bloody and full of friction with a population searching for a dictator/autocratic strong man to lead them out of such misery.  It has happened before and it is happening now.

Fascism: a warning from Madeleine Albright - Vox   Madeleine Albright on Viktor Orban : fascism is not an ideology; it’s a process for taking and holding power. A fascist is somebody who identifies with one group — usually an aggrieved majority — in opposition to a smaller group. It’s about majority rule without any minority rights. Which is why fascists tend to single out the smaller group as being responsible for or the cause of their grievances.

The important thing is that fascists aren’t actually trying to solve problems; they’re invested in exacerbating problems and deepening the divisions that result from them. They reject the free press and denounce the institutional structures within a society — like Congress or the judiciary.

I’d also add that violence is a crucial element of fascism. Whatever else it is, fascism involves the endorsement and use of violence to achieve political goals and stay in power. It’s a bully with an army, really.  (Her book was written before the violence of Jan.6)

Hungary: where editors tell reporters to disregard facts before their eyes | Hungary | The Guardian

Living With Corruption: An Examination of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary — COLUMBIA POLITICAL REVIEW (cpreview.org)

What the 2020 census will reveal about America: Stagnating growth, an aging population, and youthful diversity (brookings.edu)One reason for this is that the white population declines discussed above are more pronounced among the young. Since 2000, the under-18 white population registered absolute population losses. Meanwhile, millennials and their juniors were born during years of higher immigration. In many ways, from the 1980s through the early 2000s, immigrants and their children have contributed to both the growth and diversity of the nation’s younger population—however, more recently, natural increase rather than immigration is the primary source of Latino or Hispanic population growth. This has led to stark generational differences in diversity. About 60% of the U.S. population identifies as white alone; that figure reaches more than 70% for baby boomers and their elders, but only about half for the combined Gen Z and younger populations, with nearly two-fifths of those groups identifying as “Black or brown.”

The mass shooting in Buffalo is hitting home for some people in El Paso, Texas : NPR

Population: demographic situation, languages and religions | Eurydice (europa.eu)

How Viktor Orban Degraded Hungary’s Weak Democracy (thewire.in)

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Replacement theory revisited April 2021

 The following report inspired me to repost this  nearly prophetic August 12, 2020 blog posting on  April 11, 2021 when Tucker Carlson of FOX brought into the mainstream a slogan and the racist theory of replacement: Anti-Defamation League Calls on Fox News to Fire Tucker Carlson (businessinsider.com)

I remember Neo-Nazi chants in Charlottesville, "Jews will not replace us". The "replacement" word was picked up by many on the right and applied to Hispanics and immigrants. If this is not white nationalism, I do not know what is. The results: the words from right-wing media...and that includes Fox stars, ..inspired the El Paso shooter who used the same words to justify his murder of 22, targeting in his own words Hispanics. Those who approve or repeat such language are complicit in promoting white nationalism. ..and racism. The results will be the opposite of what they wished.

For those who protest this designation, think what the end result of their words means.  With or without "the invasion" of migrants, the demographic shift of the makeup of America to more brown and black citizens will happen anyway because of projected birth rates. So what is the goal now? Slow it down by scaring migrants off with acts of cruelty or by inspiring angry young men to kill them? 

 If the fear harbored by Republicans is that the impact of more black and brown citizens voting for Democrats,, the backlash could be much more immediate instead of farther in the future.  Not only are polls showing the important swing voters, suburban women, are more likely to vote for Democrats, because of the Trump administration's racial politics, Hispanic citizens traditionally have a large segment, 20 to 30%, who have voted Republican in past elections and that ratio could change..  The Republican party will for years be known as the party of white nationalists and enemies of Hispanics as a group.  If the RNC's goal is to suppress the growth of Hispanics voting Democrat, this strategy of embracing white nationalism and inspiring racism will backfire long term because even those Hispanics who are already citizens will be swept up in the hatred of them because of their color, race, name, and background regardless of their political philosophy or citizenship status. If the GOP fears a high turnout of African-Americans and Hispanics in 2020, they are doing all in their power to increase the turnout of those voices and voters they have attempted to suppress. It is a lesson they should have learned in the 2018 midterms. The historic turnout of minority voters turned red districts blue, including Colorado's 6th Congressional District and contributed to the House of Representatives flipping to blue.