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Post by the Scribe on Apr 9, 2020 10:27:42 GMT
know-your-enemy-1682b684.simplecast.com/ Know Your Enemy A leftist's guide to the conservative movement, one podcast episode at a time, with co-hosts Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell.Episodes
She's Got a Plan (w/ Rebecca Traister) Matt and Sam talk to Rebecca Traister of New York Magazine about sexism and and electoral politics....
NOVEMBER 27TH, 2019 | E12
We Could Be Heroes (w/ Will Arbery) Matt and Sam have a long chat with Will Arbery, the playwright behind "Heroes of the Fourth Turning," a riveting new play about conservative Catholics in the Trump era....
NOVEMBER 11TH, 2019 | E11
Trump Country (w/ Sarah Jones) Sarah Jones joins your hosts to discuss the myth of "Trump Country," the pitfalls of reporting on rural America, and...the End Times....
OCTOBER 29TH, 2019 | E10
KYE EXTRA: "Morning Hate" (w/ Hannah Gais) Sam's interview with journalist Hannah Gais on far-right media infiltration. [Unpaywalled bonus episode.]
OCTOBER 23RD, 2019 | BONUS
Working-Class Conservatism (w/ Max Alvarez) Matt and Sam talk with Max Alvarez, host of the Working People podcast, about blue-collar conservatism....
OCTOBER 7TH, 2019 | E9
Koch'd Out In honor of David Koch's passing, Matt and Sam delve into the world of right-wing money. How did ultra-wealthy families like the Kochs, Scaifes, Olins, and Bradleys use their fortunes to reshape American politics?
SEPTEMBER 9TH, 2019 | E8
Gunpower (w/ Patrick Blanchfield) Matt and Sam talk with author Patrick Blanchfield about gun violence and America's commitment to a social order predicated on human disposability. Patrick's book "Gunpower" is out from Verso in March 2020....
AUGUST 15TH, 2019 | E7
The Definitely-Not-Racist National Conservatives Matt and Sam discuss the inaugural National Conservatism conference in D.C (July 14-17) — and how the conservative movement is rebranding for the Trump era.
JULY 30TH, 2019 | E6
The Rise of the Illiberal Right From the recent Sohrab Ahmari-David French debate over liberalism to Republican gerrymandering and manipulation of the census, there's a lot happening on the right—and it's not good. In this episode, Matt and Sam connect conserv...
JULY 12TH, 2019 | E5
The Death of Conservatism? (Part 2) We pick up where we left off in our quick and dirty history of post-war American conservatism. Then we discuss the Big Question: is conservatism really dead?...
JUNE 26TH, 2019 | E4
The Death of Conservatism? (Part 1) How did a once-marginal movement of right-wing ideologues manage to take power in America, ascending to the highest levels of government? In the first of two episodes on Sam Tanenhaus's "The Death of Conservatism," we look at t...
JUNE 12TH, 2019 | E3
How Conservatives Argue How do right-wing arguments work? Why do they often succeed? And how should leftists counter them?...
MAY 16TH, 2019 | E2
Behind Enemy Lines Matt and Sam introduce themselves and the show.
MAY 6TH, 2019 | E1
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 9, 2020 10:28:08 GMT
CONSERVATIVE MEDIA AT ITS WORST WHICH IS ITS BEST Bombshell is an upcoming American drama film directed by Jay Roach and written by Charles Randolph. It stars Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, and Margot Robbie, and is based upon several women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. John Lithgow, Kate McKinnon, Connie Britton, Malcolm McDowell, and Allison Janney appear in supporting roles.
The project was first announced in May 2017 following Ailes' death, with Roach confirmed as director the following year. Much of the cast joined that summer and filming began in October 2018 in Los Angeles.
The film is scheduled to be released in a limited release the United States on December 13, 2019, followed by a wide release on December 20, 2019, by Lionsgate.companion thread ronstadt.proboards.com/thread/6673/bombshell-sick-culture-fox-news
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 9, 2020 10:28:41 GMT
Thanks for bringing this forward. It is applicable under both the Republican and Conservative threads. It amazes me how people...on the Left just don't get what has been going on in this country and still view conservatism as just a phase and those self-defined conservatives as benign because they are friends and family. An awful lot of these conservatives aren't conservative at all when you look at their values. In reality this is a well orchestrated take over of our nation and their real target is Liberals, Liberalism, Progressivism and anything perceived as LEFT of Right. Trans national corporations and their 1% cronies (Wall Street, Banks, Military Industrial Complex, Media outlets including corporate mainstream media and now IT companies) are behind the creation and perpetuation of modern day conservatism (their cult) in the USA. They have become more powerful than most governments. The United States is their crown jewel if they can get it. Linda herself has been sounding this alarm for decades. She is as much of a scholar on this subject as any highly regarded so called expert.
ronstadt.proboards.com/thread/1379/conservatism
ronstadt.proboards.com/thread/3320/republicanWeimar America Four major ways we're following In Germany's fascist footstepsROBERT CRUICKSHANK JULY 7, 2012 12:30AM (UTC) www.salon.com/2012/07/06/weimar_america_salpart/ This article originally appeared on AlterNet. What happens when a nation that was once an economic powerhouse turns its back on democracy and on its middle class, as wealthy right-wingers wage austerity campaigns and enable extremist politics?
It may sound like America in 2012. But it was also Germany in 1932.
AlterNet
Most Americans have never heard of the Weimar Republic, Germany's democratic interlude between World War I and World War II. Those who have usually see it as a prologue to the horrors of Nazi Germany, an unstable transition between imperialism and fascism. In this view, Hitler's rise to power is treated as an inevitable outcome of the Great Depression, rather than the result of a decision by right-wing politicians to make him chancellor in early 1933.
Historians reject teleological approaches to studying the past. No outcome is inevitable, even if some are more likely than others. Rather than looking for predictable outcomes, we ought to be looking to the past to understand how systems operate, especially liberal capitalist democracies. In that sense, Weimar Germany holds many useful lessons for contemporary Americans. In particular, there are four major points of similarity between Weimar Germany and Weimar America worth examining.
1. Austerity. Today's German leaders preach the virtues of austerity. They justify their opposition to the inflationary, growth-creating policies that Europe desperately needs by pointing to the hyperinflation that occurred in 1923, and which became one of the most enduring memories of the Weimar Republic. Yet the austerity policies enacted after the onset of the Depression produced the worst of Germany's economic crisis, while also destabilizing the country's politics. Cuts to wages, benefits and public programs dramatically worsened unemployment, hunger and suffering.
So far, austerity in America has largely taken place at the state and local levels. However, the federal government is now working on undemocratic national austerity plans, in the form of so-called "trigger cuts" slated to take effect at the end of 2012. In addition, there's the Bowles-Simpson austerity plan to slash Medicare and Social Security benefits along with a host of other public programs; and the Ryan Budget, a blueprint for widespread federal austerity should the Republicans win control of the Congress and the White House in November.
2. Attacks on democracy. Austerity was deeply unpopular with the German public. The Reichstag, Germany's legislature, initially rejected austerity measures in 1930. As a result, right-wing Chancellor Heinrich Brüning implemented his austerity measures by using a provision in the Weimar constitution enabling him to rule by decree. More notoriously, Hitler was selected as chancellor despite his party never having won an election -- the ultimate slap at democracy. Both these events took place amidst a larger backdrop of anti-democratic attitudes rampant in the Weimar era. Monarchists, fascists and large businesses all resented the left-leaning politics of a newly democratic Germany, and supported politicians and intellectuals who pledged to return control to a more authoritarian government.
Democracy is far older in the United States today than it was in Germany during the early 1930s. But that doesn't mean that democracy is actually respected in practice today; it only means that attacks on it can't be as overt as they were in Weimar Germany. From the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling to Republican voter ID laws to austerity proposals that bypass the normal legislative processes (remember the Supercommission?), American democracy is under similar direct threats now.
3. Enabling of extremists. Well before Hitler was made chancellor in 1933, leading conservatives and business leaders had concluded that their interests would be better served by something other than the democratic system established in 1919. During the 1920s, they actively supported parties that promoted anti-democratic ideologies, from monarchism to authoritarianism. Nazis were just one of the many extremist groups that they supported during the Weimar era. In fact, initially, many on the German right had attempted to exclude the Nazis from their efforts; and as chancellor, Brüning had tried to marginalize the Nazi party. However, his successor, the right-wing Franz von Papen, believed he could control Hitler and needed the support of the Nazi members of the Reichstag. Conservative German leaders ultimately decided their hunger for power was more important than keeping extremists at bay -- and their support finally gave the Nazi Party control of the country.
Tea Party activists aren't Nazis. But with roots in the 20th century radical right, the Tea Party's attack on the public sector, on labor unions, on democratic practices, and on people who aren't white mark them as the extremist wing of American politics; and they bear many of the hallmarks that characterize fascist movements around the world. In recent years, Republican leaders have been enabling these extremists in a successful bid to reclaim political power lost to Democrats in 2006 and 2008. We don't yet know where this enabling is going to lead the country, but it's hard to imagine it will be anywhere good.
4. Right-wing and corporate dominance. One of the the most prominent German media moguls in the 1920s was Alfred Hugenberg, owner of 53 newspapers that reached over a majority of German readers. The chairman of the right-wing German National People's Party, Hugenberg promoted Adolf Hitler by providing favorable coverage of him from the mid-1920s onward. Major German corporations such as Krupp, IG Farben and others spent money in the 1920s and early 1930s to support the rise of right-wing political parties, including the Nazis, as part of a strategy to undermine democracy and labor unions. Even if Hitler had never taken power, that strategy had already achieved significant returns on their substantial investment.
Here in the United States, one only needs to look at Charles and David Koch, Fox News and other right-wing funders and their media outlets to see the analogy. By funding right-wing politicians who promote austerity, undermine democracy and support extremism, they are active agents in the creation of Weimar America.
The Road Not Taken
None of this means that the United States is about to fall victim to a fascist coup d'etat as Germany did in January 1933. Remember that no outcome is inevitable. Nor would it be accurate to say that the United States is repeating the exact same events and taking the same course as Germany did during the 1930s, because many other important details are different. For example: Germany was a nation saddled with huge debts and lacking the global political power it needed to reverse its situation; but even with today's high unemployment rates, the United States remains the globe's largest economy, and therefore doesn't face the same fiscal constraints Weimar Germany faced. In fact, a better current analogy may be Greece, which is in a far more similar predicament now.
Yet the underlying similarities ought to be troubling -- and are enough to give us pause. The combination of austerity and well-funded right-wing political movements hostile to democracy destroyed Weimar Germany. And Spain and Italy both experienced a similar situation in their slide into authoritarianism in the 1930s. In those cases -- and in ours -- as people saw their own financial position weaken, and as their democratic rights were increasingly limited in favor of giving more power to the large corporations, the future of a democratic society with a strong middle-class was increasingly jeopardized. Fascism is what happens when right-wing plutocrats weaken the middle class and then convince it to turn its back on democracy.
Will Weimar America face the same disastrous fate Weimar Germany did? On our current path, democracy and shared prosperity are both in serious trouble. We owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to our world to look to the lessons of history, find a way to change course, and get to work building something better.
Robert Cruickshank is a political activist and historian, and a senior advisor to Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn. The views expressed here are his own.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 9, 2020 10:29:18 GMT
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 9, 2020 10:30:09 GMT
This isn't just a TRUMP thing. It is a CONSERVATIVE thing. Remember when the COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVES broke the law back during Bush Cheney by spying on Americans and then the crooked CONS in power changed the law retroactively to make it legal?Trump Considering Changing Law That Makes Foreign Bribes IllegalMary Papenfuss www.yahoo.com/huffpost/trump-illegal-bribe-law-changes-052319359.html HuffPostJanuary 18, 2020, 10:23 PM MST
Make bribes great again ... (Photo: krisanapong detraphiphat via Getty Images)
In the newest chapter on President Donald Trump and the rule of law, administration officials are considering changing the statute making it illegal for American corporations to bribe foreign officials.
Asked Friday about the possibility of changes to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow said it was under consideration, Bloomberg reported.
“I would just say: We are aware of it, we are looking at it, and we’ve heard complaints from some of our companies,” Kudlow told a reporter. “I don’t want to say anything definitive policy-wise, but we are looking at it.”
Trump’s reported push to make it legal to bribe foreign officials was raised in the new book “A Very Stable Genius,” written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig. The authors said that Trump clashed with former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as he pressed to scrap FCPA.
“It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas,” Trump is quoted in the book as saying, according to a passage published by The Washington Post. “We’re going to change that.”
Trump hasn’t responded to that passage, but on Saturday he lashed the “demeaning” book by authors he called “two-third Washington Post reporters.” He called it “Another Fake Book,” that has “already proved to be inaccurately reported.” He offered no details of that apparently false claim, however.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realdonaldtrump Another Fake Book by two third rate Washington Post reporters, has already proven to be inaccurately reported, to their great embarrassment, all for the purpose of demeaning and belittling a President who is getting great things done for our Country, at a record clip. Thank you!
103K 4:16 PM - Jan 18, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 39.1K people are talking about this The book is a scathing portrayal of Trump as an ill-informed, reckless, explosive bully. The passage published by the Post involves an attempt by military leaders and Tillerson to provide an extended briefing for the president early in his administration to educate him about such issues as American history, alliances and even the location of nations. Trump, who repeatedly barked during the briefing that other countries have to start paying up for American defense help, suddenly blasted the officials as a “bunch of dopes and babies,” the authors reported. It was after that meeting that Tillerson called the president a “fucking moron,” according to the book, which was reported at the time.
George Conway @gtconway3d So I’m reading a certain book. And ... oh my. I’ve never read anything like it. I’m almost at a loss for words. Almost.
17.8K 3:38 PM - Jan 18, 2020 · North Bethesda, MD Twitter Ads info and privacy 2,497 people are talking about this
George Conway @gtconway3d · 22h So I’m reading a certain book. And ... oh my. I’ve never read anything like it. I’m almost at a loss for words. Almost.
George Conway @gtconway3d Let’s just say, someone is not A Very Stable Genius.
16.3K 3:49 PM - Jan 18, 2020 · North Bethesda, MD Twitter Ads info and privacy 1,823 people are talking about this
Neal Katyal ✔ @neal_katyal Been reading @carolleonnig and @philiprucker new book #AVeryStableGenius.
Omg. The excerpts thus far are only the tip of the iceberg. Everyone should read.
8,089 4:15 PM - Jan 18, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 2,031 people are talking about this Also on HuffPost
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 9, 2020 10:31:01 GMT
Neoconservative Thinker Bill Kristol Says 2nd Term Of Trump Would Be 'Very Dangerous'11:04www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/02/04/bill-kristol-gop-trump-impeachment Play dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/traffic.megaphone.fm/BUR2884006151.mp3 February 04, 2020 Robin Young
Bill Kristol. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Neoconservative thinker Bill Kristol has been highly critical of President Trump for years, even while many on the right who were once disapproving came to support the president.
In the waning days of the president's Senate impeachment trial, he tweeted over the weekend his support for Democrats.
He says the tweet was meant to be time-sensitive to 2020 and “somewhat jokey,” but also to serve as a warning to Republicans that it’d be “foolish” not to rethink some conservative orthodoxies.
“I'm very honestly just agnostic about what the future looks like,” he says. “I do think in the short term, I think a second term of Donald Trump is very dangerous.”
Kristol has been an important figure in the Republican Party for decades. He served in the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, founded the now-defunct conservative Weekly Standard, was a fierce supporter of the Iraq War, and became an influential opponent of former President Bill Clinton's health care reform.
Now, he’s the editor-at-large of the Bulwark, a conservative news and opinion website.
What about the Republican Party he so fondly engaged with in years past? He says right now, the GOP needs to focus on whether the party can be saved after the Trump administration.
“Trump has to be defeated,” he says. “Even then, I think I'm much more pessimistic than I was a couple of years ago that it would be easy or even possible to get beyond Trump."
Interview Highlights On what he meant by his tweet on becoming a Democrat
“I mean that until November 3rd, 2020, at the presidential level, at least, the attempt which I was involved in to recruit a strong Republican challenger to Donald Trump has failed. So if you want to replace Trump as president, it's going to be by a Democrat.”
On his tipping point
“I think I had a series of sort of mini tipping points which added up to one big one. I mean, Trump turned out to have such a stranglehold on the party. And we saw that in the House on the impeachment vote where again, I thought, ‘OK, they're mostly going to stick with Trump, but 10 or 20 I think would desert as happened with Nixon.' [But that] didn't happen. Then in the Senate, I thought, ‘OK, you know, the people who are retiring, who have pretty distinguished careers, do they want to go down with this ship?’ And the fact that they're all rationalizing now a vote to acquit, pretty hard for me to look anyone in the eye honestly and say, ‘Hey, let's join me in the fight to save the soul of the Republican Party.’
“So the combination of what's happened in the country in terms of there being no credible challenger to Trump and what's happened with the congressional Republicans, especially on impeachment, but not only on impeachment, incidentally, the general justification of Trump and the acceptance of Trumpism is almost as bad as the acceptance of Trump, the kind of degeneration of everyone's rhetoric and to Trump-like rhetoric.”
On criticism that Kristol bears responsibility for Washington partisanship after he wrote influential memos telling Republicans not to work with Democrats on health care during the Clinton administration
"I mean at times I've been tactically, certainly against cooperation and who hasn't been in politics? And maybe in some of those times I was wrong, but I think I have a pretty good record on foreign policy especially, including under President Obama, of trying to find times to support Democratic presidents when they did the right thing. We supported Bill Clinton in Bosnia, we supported the surge in Afghanistan.
"There are times I went further than I should have I now think in retrospect, but I don't think I've ever descended to the level of personal invective that Trump routinely does."
On response to The Intercept article that said Republicans wanted to create a new establishment to prevent another Republican from ever stepping down like Nixon did, and whether the stage was set 30 years ago for Trump’s impeachment trial today
"No, ludicrous, I was 21 years old when Nixon was impeached and I was on the side of impeaching him so I don't know what I had to do with that. But no, the conservative counter establishment was mostly a healthy counter establishment, unless the left's view was that there should be no one on the other side. You want a conservative counter establishment. You don't want a bigoted, xenophobic conservatism. Maybe we haven't done as good a job as we might have in fighting that at every stage. But we certainly try to. You know, I was kicking Pat Buchanan out of the Republican Party. I said I would not support Ron Paul in 2008 or 2012 if he won the Republican nomination.”
On whether the Republican Party can be reconstructed without rethinking some larger infrastructure and media outlets
“I mean, it's a free country. And so I left Fox [News], but I can't shut down Fox. And I don't think we want a country where that would be easy to do. The Weekly Standard, the magazine I edited, basically was closed down by its owners because we were anti-Trump. So I don't think the problem is really the infrastructure at this point. The problem is Trump. The Trump problem is the base which has become infected with the kind of xenophobia, authoritarianism. And I will say this: The degree to which elite conservatives though have accommodated and rationalized Trump is very bad.
“So Fox News, they were not as crazy or as conspiratorial certainly 10 years ago, 15 years ago as they are today. They were just conservative, mostly with a sort of some Bill O'Reilly type populism that was mostly rhetorical and semi harmless, I would say, and certainly didn't have the kind of Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingram edge of real bigotry, I don't think. But The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which is a very respectable page, the degree to which it, for example, has rationalized conspiracy theorizing and Trumpism, that has been a bit of a shock for me. And so I don't disagree with what I think is kind of underlying some of your questions, which is that conservatism as a whole has more rethinking to do than just getting rid of Trump. The conservative elites have turned out to be much more susceptible to the appeal of a winning demagogue, much more driven by just hatred of the left than by affection for certain principles and a certain vision of the country. That has been a little startling to me and a little distressing to me and something we need to confront I think.”
Jill Ryan produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Ryan and Serena McMahon adapted it for the web.
This segment aired on February 4, 2020.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 9, 2020 10:32:02 GMT
I am a Black woman - Trump and his supporters are right. Democrats are destroying AmericaAlexiLaine Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.) Saturday February 08, 2020 · 6:11 PM MST www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/8/1917821/-I-am-a-Black-woman-Trump-and-his-supporters-are-right-Democrats-are-destroying-America?detail=emaildkre
As the impeachment "trial" wound down, I found myself perusing the comments section of various main stream news entities. By any standard, there is irrefutable, insurmountable evidence that, by withholding defense funds earmarked for the Ukraine, Trump put this nation at risk, for personal gain.
However, his supporters were unmoved.There in the comments section (rarely are they so vocal in real life), they cheered all the "progress" that has been made under Trump. Eagerly anticipate four more years of his occupying the White House. Rebuffed any factual offerings. And, accused Democrats of destroying America.
It felt as though I was in an alternate universe.What of our sacred Constitution - the founding principles of this nation, the living, breathing document that is to be protected above all else? Did they not see it eroding before their very eyes?
Then, it dawned on me. Trump, and supporters are right! Democrats are indeed destroying this country.
After all, in spite of all the talk of the glorious Constitution, America was not built on the Constitution. The Constitution merely guides the manner in which our government was/is organized and operates.
I would need to write any entire old school encyclopedia to support the premise of my next paragraph. For the sake of brevity, and, because those who disagree with the premise aren't likely to objectively analyze facts anyway, I will refrain from attempting to offer any such proof. Some things speak for themselves - res ipsa loquitur (or as the hip amongst us say in New York, facts B).
America was built on racism, nationalism, xenophobia, sexism, bigotry, classism, (insert negative noun here). And so, it follows, that anyone trying to move America away from these bedrock principles, is in fact, destroying this country.
How could it take me so long to understand this? For five years I have wondered why Trump and his supporters did not realize what they were doing to this country. This country that my immigrant mother moved to, to provide a better life for her children. This country which, for many, had long been considered the land of opportunity. Land of the free, home of the brave. Give me your tired, your poor…
I realize now though, that optimistic ideals as to what makes America great, are simply that - optimistic ideals, which have long masked the truth. Optimistic ideals which only the altruistic amongst us hold true. For every one else, what made/makes America great, is precisely the ignorant, degenerate and callous behavior that is now on display in the highest office in the land.
I was disappointed when the election results were announced in 2016. Still, I thought Trump being in office would be a net good for America. I thought that all the "good people" who for so long had claimed ignorance as it relates to laws and policies which adversely affect minorities (but were crafted to appear neutral) would finally see the light. After all, the White House was now occupied by a man who had all but openly announced his intent to pursue policies solely because they were to the detriment of minorities.
I was horribly wrong. There are no bounds to the mental gymnastics that these "good people" will exercise, to excuse injustice against others. In fact, these "good people" hardly even seem to care when newly instituted policies adversely affect their own lives (think tax cut for the rich). For them, destroying America means attempting to dismantle racism, nationalism, xenophobia, sexism, bigotry, classism, (insert negative noun here).
They have been right all along.
Now what?
About the Author: Alexi Laine* is a Jamaican immigrant who is stranded on a very different island, Long Island, New York. She makes the best of it by raising three future revolutionaries, working as an attorney, and, some times, finding time to write. Twitter: Gratefully Pres1 FIN
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Post by the Scribe on May 24, 2020 13:02:13 GMT
How Russian & U.S. Christians Fight Progressivism | The Russia Desk | NowThisWelcome the World Congress of Families conference: An international radical right wing conference that convenes to organize against the spread of progressive ideas. This is the backdrop by which American Christians learned to rationalize President Donald Trump’s behavior, take the red pill, and go down the rabbit hole that is the newly reformatted Republican party. » Subscribe to NowThis: go.nowth.is/News_Subscribe
For many of us Americans, understanding of Russian interference in the US begins with hacked emails and fake Facebook accounts, and ends with the election of Donald Trump in 2016. But that’s not the whole picture. As we now know, these efforts stretched back years (even decades)– and included coordination with some of the most heinous, regressive groups currently in the U.S.
One of those groups is the World Congress of Families, or WCF. You’ve probably never heard of the WCF. But over the past decade, they’ve become the leading international organization dedicated to rolling back rights for LGBT individuals across the world.
And, coincidentally, WCF has allowed Russian oligarchs, close to Putin, easy access to America’s Evangelical community via their events. Just a couple weeks ago, the WCF hosted sanctioned Russian politicians and American Religious Right figures for their annual conference in Moldova, with wonderful panels called things like ”The Challenges Facing the Sanctity of Life” and “Gender Ideology -- The Latest Attack on the Family.”
Not only have these events let these sanctioned oligarchs build their own relationships with America’s Religious Right, but they’ve helped convince American Evangelicals that Russian interference is actually not that big of a deal -- and that Russia is the Religious Right’s ally against so-called “godless liberals” in the U.S., even if it means subverting democracy here in the U.S.
The WCF got its start in a small Moscow apartment, just over 20 years ago. An American named Allan Carlson traveled to Moscow, and met with a couple Russian sociologists to plot out how Americans and Russians could organize a group dedicated to restore quote-unquote “tradition” to their societies. Just like that, the WCF was born. As Carlson wrote in his diary, which he sent to me, he quote “went to sleep content with the world.”
For years, the WCF kind of hung around on the fringe. Holding conferences dedicated to opposing abortion, same-sex marriage, and to supposedly protecting children. It became popular in certain circles, and ended up reportedly funded by people like Russian oligarch Vladimir Yakunin, who is one of Putin’s oldest confidants, and who’s now sanctioned by the U.S.
By the early 2010s, though, the group took on a new role. By then, relations between Russia and the West had soured. Russians were suddenly rising up against Putin, who was returning to the presidency in 2012 on the back of a fraudulent election. And in Ukraine, pro-democracy protesters toppled their thuggish president, which led to Russia invading southern Ukraine, claiming Crimea, and backing so-called “separatists” in eastern Ukraine. America led the efforts to sanction Russia -- freezing assets, and banning people like Yakunin from traveling to the U.S., citing them as the key players in Russia’s attempt to upend the post-Cold War order. Suddenly, the Kremlin was looking for ways to influence American policy – and to work with sympathetic Americans.
Enter, the WCF. Yakunin, the US sanctioned oligarch, was soon joined by another sanctioned Russian oligarch, Konstantin Malofeev, whose nickname is “God’s oligarch.” Both of them reportedly started funding WCF activities. Along the way, the WCF started becoming more involved in crafting anti-abortion, anti-gay policies in Russia – the group even took credit for crafting quote “the first package of anti-abortion laws in Russia” since the Soviet collapse.
Thanks to the WCF’s work, American Evangelicals started noticing Russia. Some began claiming that Putin was the quote “lion of Christianity,” while others like Pat Buchanan began suggesting that God was on Russia’s side.
#Russia #Christians #RightWing #ChristianRight #World #Politics
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