I commend to your attention this essay from Dan Froomkin on the willful blindness of the corporate media to the reality of right wing politics in the U.S. today. (Even Froomkin doesn't seem to notice that the Republican party generally is driven by dispensationalism, that most of their voters really do believe in Biblical inerrancy and literalism, and the imminent apocalypse. But that's for another day.)
I was particularly interested in Froomkin's example of opposition to solar farms in rural Ohio.
Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein really stepped in it with his remarkably naïve article headlined “Small-town GOP officials are torn over Biden’s clean energy cash.”
Stein describes a “growing backlash in rural Ohio,” involving “hundreds of activists” who are largely “nonideological.” He describes a county commission meeting “where more than 200 opponents of the solar project showed up in matching red shirts.”
But as climate journalist David Roberts tweeted: “Amazing. Yet another piece about rural opposition to clean energy that does not even *mention* the massive, coordinated, well-funded astroturf campaign of right-wing propaganda that has been marshaled against it….. Like where do you think that roomful of old people *got* those matching red t-shirts?”
Robert has reported on his podcast that “community groups receive organizational help and money from billionaire-funded right-wingers. Across the country and the Internet, there are hundreds of conservative think tanks, groups, and individuals working to stir up community opposition to renewable energy with misinformation and outright lies.”
Something like this happened in my town, which owns several currently unused acres of open land. We had a proposal from a solar power company to lease the land from the town for 20 years, pay us something like $25,000/year and more if they made more profit; and then dismantle the entire project and return the land to grass. The town meeting rejected it. By the way, we're in profound fiscal difficulty and the last thing these people want to do is pay taxes. I'm hoping we can try again, but that's what we're up against.
8 comments:
...Republican party generally is driven by dispensationalism, that most of their voters really do believe in Biblical inerrancy and literalism, and the imminent apocalypse.
I'm disappointed that you would make this false assertion, with no evidence, which is so easy for anyone to disprove. The numbers simply don't add up.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/394262/fewer-bible-literal-word-god.aspx
A record-low 20% of Americans now say the Bible is the literal word of God, down from 24% the last time the question was asked in 2017, and half of what it was at its high points in 1980 and 1984.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/39-percent-evangelical-republican-gop-voters-dont-believe-bible-literal-word-of-god.html
Nearly four in 10 Republican voters who identify themselves as "born again" or "evangelical" don't believe the Bible is the literal Word of God.
My only hope, when the scales finally fall from their eyes and these folks finally recognize the hell that they helped create for ourselves, is that they remember exactly who their groomers were.
I published MiniTruth's comment because it's worth discussing, but it's not that simple. First of all, according to the Gallup poll, only 20% of all Americans think the Bible is the literal word of God, 25% of all Christians believe this, as do 30% of all protestants, and 40% of those who say they identify as Evangelical or born again. Furthermore, 91% of people who identify as Evangelical say the Bible is either the literal word of God or divinely inspired, although not every passage should be taken literally. The latter reservation is actually essential to people who are very familiar with the Bible since as we have seen it is riddled with contradictions.
The other way to state the results of the Pew Research poll is of course that 61% of Evangelicals who vote Republican do believe the Bible is the literal, inerrant word of God and that would indeed be a large majority.
Of more direct relevance is the question of how many people are dispensationalists. That is surprisingly difficult to answer, I can't find any direct polling on this. The best I can do is quote from David W. Opderbeck:
Why did so many Christians treat the January 6 rally at the Capital
as an event about salvation? Why did so many of these Christians believe the
lies promoted by President Trump and his followers about a conspiracy to
steal the election, even to the point of participating in political violence? And
why does rhetoric from Christians about these events so often slide into
themes from the QAnon conspiracy? . . .[There is] a set of core beliefs that motivate many of these Evangelicals, whether explicitly or implicitly: that these are the “end times,”
that the “Antichrist” is presently orchestrating a conspiracy to establish a
Satanic global government, that the world is on the cusp of a great
apocalypse, and that American Christians have a pivotal role to play in these
cataclysmic events.
These sound like fringe beliefs, not unlike those of the Aryan
Brotherhood or followers of QAnon. In one sense this is true. The specifics
of this eschatological system were developed in the late nineteenth century,
are not part of historic Christian teachings, and are not espoused by most
academically serious Christian Biblical scholars and theologians.
These beliefs, however, are enormously influential at the popular
level. They sustain multi-million-dollar church, television, and publishing
efforts, and inform the core message of many influential televangelists,
preachers, and public figures. And there are theological schools in some
powerful American denominations where these beliefs are commonplace
among faculty, giving them a veneer of academic respectability. Even
thinkers such as Metaxas, who present as cultured intellectuals, play into
these themes. For example, on June 18, 2020, in response to an
announcement that the Boy Scouts of America would require Eagle Scout
candidates to earn “diversity and inclusion” badges, Metaxas Tweeted “End
Times stuff, people.”
Minister of Truth is correct.
The numbers don't add up to "... that most of their voters really do believe in Biblical inerrancy and literalism."
Pew says only 20% of Americans believe that. That means that same 20% would have to comprise more than half of the Republicans for this to be true.
That's just not possible since this same Pew Research article says that three out of ten (30%) of Democrats identify as Evangelicals.
I think your emotions are getting the best of you, Cervantes.
Most of the Democratic Evangelicals are non-white actually, in any case they aren't nearly as likely to be fundamentalists. The dispensationalists are crowded into the Republican voters. As I noted, 25% of Christians are Biblical fundamentalists, as are 40% of Evangelicals, and they are nearly all Republican voters. So yes, my numbers do add up -- maybe not an absolute majority, but close to half anyway, and they are very likely to vote.
They are very likely to vote.
It's interesting that voting your religious convictions is somehow not a legitimate position to the Progressives. Probably because they don't give a shit about other people's religion. It's just not important to them.
Well, it seems to be important to a whole lotta voters. Numbers big enough that you are very concerned that they might actually vote!
Innocent, I'm afraid I do not take your point. My point is exactly that yes, people who believe that the end times are coming and the Bible is the literal word of God will vote based on those convictions. But no, I don't think that's a legitimate position, I think it's completely nuts. You're right, that's what I think.
Innocent -- Give me a break. Of course people have a constitutional right to vote and they can vote based on whatever criteria they like. But I don't have to like it, even if I have to put up with it. You aren't actually making a point.
Post a Comment