There was a brief panic a few years ago over the AP Stylebook as a Tool of Oppression, I wonder if it belongs here? Possibly outdated. But campus protests definitely deserve an entry.
This is spot on. If I could share an image, I would. But imagine it: there are two kids in the corner with the word "conservatives" overlayed, and they are screaming in terror at a rabbit in the corner, next to a bucket, that is overlayed with "things that don't happen." It's perfect.
Yes, you are correct: all of those leaders of social change were people of faith. But it’s a false corollary. Their abilities to enact social for the benefits of a greater good did not come from god. It came from the good natures of those individuals themselves. To ascribe the actions of good people to a divine entity actually makes human beings themselves incapable of good deed without a fake being in the sky.
And not all communists are atheists. And not are socialists are atheists either.
And more people have been slaughtered in the name one Christ and Mohammed than atheism.
I can tell that you grew up in a family of god believers. One of the ways I know is based upon the numbers. If you grew up with family members who believed in god, you are 92% likely to adopt those same beliefs.
This is true across all denominations of hokum. And no one can point to one single reason why faith is so good for all us, that the costs of its deceptions, manipulations and bloodshed make it worth its costs.
The only negative I have about Rick Wilson's project is that he does it (exquisitely and enjoyably well) as entertainment -- albeit entertainment at a rhetorical and intellectual level on a par with a Mencken or Hitchens. The problem is that the fireworks and hyperbolic spectacle is not going to breach what he so accurately described as an impermeable membrane sealing off now half or more of the population, not only from reality, but from the ability to even grasp that there is a difference between public policy and the circus of stupidities and idiocies.
I'm afraid we may come to the Rick Wilsons (and the Bulwarks, and the Dispatches, and all the other little bands of beleaguered partisans trying to forestall the final defeat and extirpation of the American republican experiment) for the comfort of the entertainment. Which ultimately may amount to pulling in a delusional but comforting rabbit hole around ourselves. Unfortunately I have no idea how to stop the nightmare brewing outside... and it may well be ineluctable. But I don't think we're reaching whatever audience might yet not have been captured by the Shelob MAGA-mind monster. And that remnant, if indeed it even remains, since it is presumably still open to reasoned appeal, must see the hyperbolic entertainment on both sides as disqualification for attention.
But I did sign up because, frankly, I'm at least as angry and sick at heart as Mr. Wilson, and I want some emotional release from the agony of how intensely horrible all this is. And if our doom is to perish in any event -- whether out in the open or in our rabbit holes -- at least underground is a chosen locale. And what is the point of saving a few subscription dollars? After they come for us we won't have any use for the money anyway.
I love that you not only point out the theory, but also the facts. Also, could someone point me to similar stories on the left? There have to be some here too… and I would like to see them, and try to change my mind.
You should absolutely write this as a book; it's genius, perfectly describing the contagious disease that has afflicted the late Republican party. However, like other communicable illnesses it's not just confined to MAGA. Today I saw a picture of RFK, very Junior, and his equally unqualified, if fabulously wealthy VP, yucking it up with two sterling characters, Roger Stone and Comrade Michael Flynn, who is so far gone he might as well pack it in and move to the Motherland, Russia or any other totalitarian state of his choosing. I'm surprised that the kept man of the international crime syndicate, Bannon wasn't there, but maybe he was off on some kleptocrat's yacht. Of course, both Stone and Flynn have dual interests in this candidacy: the spreading of disinformation through what they imagine is a revered member of a family who spurns him, and taking votes away so that their sandwich board candidate, crazypants can open the door to the vault again.
All of this to say, yes, the MAGA party and its treasonous back up liars and rat**ckers are poisonous, paranoid and sadistic, but they have created a contagious frame of mind that can travel and alight just about anywhere. It's really imperative to rid the nation of this plague of thuggery in defense of stupid.
Sure. I hear what you are saying. And you are correct to point out that science does not yet conclusively know what preceded the Big Bang. The most likely answer is that nothing preceded the Big Bang but this has not been proven yet. As far as bad people are concerned, science does not define that. Evil is a human construct. A vain, foolish assumption that right and wrong are universal values ascribed to to human worth. I see no such evidence of evil. Only a lack of cooperation where one group is ceaselessly trying to out compete the other. Agnosticism, sure. I understand where it comes from. Variations the try to balance religious minimalism with atheism is, I Think, just a way to come to grips with atheism slowly and in a less painful path of ultimate acceptance.
The reason I have such a problem with religion, and its minimalist variants, it because it disincentivizes cooperation amongst our species to solve major problems like climate change. Intelligent minimalists such as yourself, grant a nod to the religious extremists because you have the intelligence and humility to admit that you don’t have all the answers.
But the religious whose feelings you protect while noble in your humanity do not, deep down inside feel the same about you. They see you as an enemy because to them you are possessed by an invisible demonic force that does not exist.
MAGA are afraid of their fictitious god. They fear that if they do not eradicate you, then they will spend the rest of eternity burning in a realm they does not exist.
So to appease their fears, the justify murder and demonization of agnostics and atheists alike.
It's nice to see Rick sounding like a party line Democrat. I'd love to know what he thought about the ACA when Obama was president, just sayin'. I love to josh my main man Rick Wilson ;)
Our first instance of transphobia as a political weapon happened in our very first contested election at the birth of political parties in 1800. Thomas Jefferson's campaign called John Adams a hermaphrodite, true story, I guess cuz he was short, pudgy and though an acclaimed defense attorney, not very comfortable on the hustings. Maybe Abigail's assertiveness on behalf of the ladies was seen as emasculating, although I don't know if that was known beyond private letters. This pained Jefferson greatly because he and Adams were lifelong close friends. But hey, Jefferson won the election. This was pushed by a broadsheet hawker, that era's idea of a political reporter. We think the press is biased and siloed now, but it was nothing like it was when all printed material was on behalf of a particular political party and everyone had chosen sides. "Objective journalism" is a postwar phenomenon.
Turns out our Framers loathed and feared political parties for a good reason.
My first memory of character assassination in the guise of political campaigning happened to poor Barry Goldwater. Now Goldwater was a crystal pure ideologue, a Western libertarian conservative so far right he made Ronald Reagan look like a sentimental New Dealer at heart. He wasn't personally bigoted but he argued against the Civil Rights Act on First Amendment (freedom of assembly) grounds and made some intemperate remarks that got out publicly. The Democrats ran with this and enlisted psychiatrists to paint him as a literal psycho, leading to the Goldwater Rule. Why the Democrats felt the need to do this when Barry got absolutely squashed in '64 I have no idea. Decades later he became an important Republican voice against the religious right. And he was not a nut.
Of course we Democrats have been tweaking amygdalae over entitlements forever. Any time a Republican so much as mouths the words "entitlement reform" and we cut an ad accusing them of wanting to roll Grandma's wheelchair off a cliff, LOL. I mean, there's an easy way to fix the Medicare and Social Security trust funds. Raise the contribution of the highest earners, well duh ;)
And Rick, my brother, how was paraplegic veteran Max Cleland in bed with Osama bin Laden because he wanted to let TSA workers organize a union? That was one of your most effective ads and is a total non-sequitur, impossible to defend on policy grounds. Pure amygdala masturbation ;). Of course, anybody who worked for Dubya in the '00 primary campaign has amygdala jizz on their hands after those windshield flyers in SC accusing John McCain of having an "illegitimate black baby."
Fear is a powerful force and for good or ill (mostly ill) has been in our politics forever, long before social media and the siloing of legacy media. And our Job One right now is to stroke amygdalae to a frenzy over the dystopian nightmare Trump 2.0 threatens our country with. Whether what we're saying is based on _truth_ or not is kind of beside the point because nothing about the future is true until it happens. So we just have to be better amygdala strokers than the other guys. Onward.
Good article and a more serious tone by Rick Wilson. He just missed one perceived Demon in all of this—atheism.
Beneath it all, beneath the claptrap yawpings about Antifa, the Left, the “invasion” at the southern border, Obamacare, AOC, Aunt Nancy, and Liberal Media Bias, is one basic fear that underscores it all—the Death of their fake god.
What MAGA fears more than anything else is a healthy, independent mind. And Elon Musk, for all his douchey cool-bro tech-lord edge case genius Schtick is just another example of a wealth nepo-baby who also cannot take criticism from others who just might be more intelligent.
A healthy mind rejects god and unquestionable Uber-genius because it understands that both stand as midgets against the towering literary cannon of The Origin of Species.
And now that any religious god from scripture has been shredded by the march of science, the MAGA base is forced to confront two basic truths. 1) There is no god. 2) Their parents, priests, and neighbors all lied to them. And now as they look back on their lives spent under the oppression of a lie and the fear of a flaming realm of fire and pain that never existed, the are furious at the people who had the courage and intellectual fortitude to break away from the knuckle dragging religious herd.
Beneath it all, this is what the Fox News, pro-life, Trumpian MAGA movement is all about. Using force to install a false god who allows these cowards to pretend to have a real one.
And if allowed back into power, it is they who will use violence to avoid facing their hangups about death.
From this entry forward, any ad targeting the Christian Right needs to mention that Trump had the chutzpah to "correct" to the Bible. No word yet on 2 Corinthians. [I don't know. Did they walk into a bar?]
There was a brief panic a few years ago over the AP Stylebook as a Tool of Oppression, I wonder if it belongs here? Possibly outdated. But campus protests definitely deserve an entry.
Great post Rick. I look forward to the next installment.
I've read Project 2025. I used to refer to it as "scary". Now I refer to it as terrifying.
I've stated a series of posts comprised of excerpts taken from each of its 30 chapters.
You can find it at POLYTRICKS.
This is spot on. If I could share an image, I would. But imagine it: there are two kids in the corner with the word "conservatives" overlayed, and they are screaming in terror at a rabbit in the corner, next to a bucket, that is overlayed with "things that don't happen." It's perfect.
I'm not getting older, I'm getting closer.
I’ll pre order 3 copies. lmk when the Stuart mug becomes available.
You know Bob, you’re an interesting guy. I live in New Jersey. Let me ask you, where do you live in the world?
Yes, you are correct: all of those leaders of social change were people of faith. But it’s a false corollary. Their abilities to enact social for the benefits of a greater good did not come from god. It came from the good natures of those individuals themselves. To ascribe the actions of good people to a divine entity actually makes human beings themselves incapable of good deed without a fake being in the sky.
And not all communists are atheists. And not are socialists are atheists either.
And more people have been slaughtered in the name one Christ and Mohammed than atheism.
I can tell that you grew up in a family of god believers. One of the ways I know is based upon the numbers. If you grew up with family members who believed in god, you are 92% likely to adopt those same beliefs.
This is true across all denominations of hokum. And no one can point to one single reason why faith is so good for all us, that the costs of its deceptions, manipulations and bloodshed make it worth its costs.
Another one for the As if there’s room. Alternative Facts.
The only negative I have about Rick Wilson's project is that he does it (exquisitely and enjoyably well) as entertainment -- albeit entertainment at a rhetorical and intellectual level on a par with a Mencken or Hitchens. The problem is that the fireworks and hyperbolic spectacle is not going to breach what he so accurately described as an impermeable membrane sealing off now half or more of the population, not only from reality, but from the ability to even grasp that there is a difference between public policy and the circus of stupidities and idiocies.
I'm afraid we may come to the Rick Wilsons (and the Bulwarks, and the Dispatches, and all the other little bands of beleaguered partisans trying to forestall the final defeat and extirpation of the American republican experiment) for the comfort of the entertainment. Which ultimately may amount to pulling in a delusional but comforting rabbit hole around ourselves. Unfortunately I have no idea how to stop the nightmare brewing outside... and it may well be ineluctable. But I don't think we're reaching whatever audience might yet not have been captured by the Shelob MAGA-mind monster. And that remnant, if indeed it even remains, since it is presumably still open to reasoned appeal, must see the hyperbolic entertainment on both sides as disqualification for attention.
But I did sign up because, frankly, I'm at least as angry and sick at heart as Mr. Wilson, and I want some emotional release from the agony of how intensely horrible all this is. And if our doom is to perish in any event -- whether out in the open or in our rabbit holes -- at least underground is a chosen locale. And what is the point of saving a few subscription dollars? After they come for us we won't have any use for the money anyway.
I love that you not only point out the theory, but also the facts. Also, could someone point me to similar stories on the left? There have to be some here too… and I would like to see them, and try to change my mind.
You should absolutely write this as a book; it's genius, perfectly describing the contagious disease that has afflicted the late Republican party. However, like other communicable illnesses it's not just confined to MAGA. Today I saw a picture of RFK, very Junior, and his equally unqualified, if fabulously wealthy VP, yucking it up with two sterling characters, Roger Stone and Comrade Michael Flynn, who is so far gone he might as well pack it in and move to the Motherland, Russia or any other totalitarian state of his choosing. I'm surprised that the kept man of the international crime syndicate, Bannon wasn't there, but maybe he was off on some kleptocrat's yacht. Of course, both Stone and Flynn have dual interests in this candidacy: the spreading of disinformation through what they imagine is a revered member of a family who spurns him, and taking votes away so that their sandwich board candidate, crazypants can open the door to the vault again.
All of this to say, yes, the MAGA party and its treasonous back up liars and rat**ckers are poisonous, paranoid and sadistic, but they have created a contagious frame of mind that can travel and alight just about anywhere. It's really imperative to rid the nation of this plague of thuggery in defense of stupid.
"GOP MASS PSYCHOSIS - How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL" and How to Prevent It
❤️ Discredit totalitarian propaganda everywhere
🤣 Mock GOP worship of dictators
❤️ Promote moral organizations
❤️ Actions by everyone creates freedom
https://youtu.be/09maaUaRT4M
Sure. I hear what you are saying. And you are correct to point out that science does not yet conclusively know what preceded the Big Bang. The most likely answer is that nothing preceded the Big Bang but this has not been proven yet. As far as bad people are concerned, science does not define that. Evil is a human construct. A vain, foolish assumption that right and wrong are universal values ascribed to to human worth. I see no such evidence of evil. Only a lack of cooperation where one group is ceaselessly trying to out compete the other. Agnosticism, sure. I understand where it comes from. Variations the try to balance religious minimalism with atheism is, I Think, just a way to come to grips with atheism slowly and in a less painful path of ultimate acceptance.
The reason I have such a problem with religion, and its minimalist variants, it because it disincentivizes cooperation amongst our species to solve major problems like climate change. Intelligent minimalists such as yourself, grant a nod to the religious extremists because you have the intelligence and humility to admit that you don’t have all the answers.
But the religious whose feelings you protect while noble in your humanity do not, deep down inside feel the same about you. They see you as an enemy because to them you are possessed by an invisible demonic force that does not exist.
MAGA are afraid of their fictitious god. They fear that if they do not eradicate you, then they will spend the rest of eternity burning in a realm they does not exist.
So to appease their fears, the justify murder and demonization of agnostics and atheists alike.
It's nice to see Rick sounding like a party line Democrat. I'd love to know what he thought about the ACA when Obama was president, just sayin'. I love to josh my main man Rick Wilson ;)
Our first instance of transphobia as a political weapon happened in our very first contested election at the birth of political parties in 1800. Thomas Jefferson's campaign called John Adams a hermaphrodite, true story, I guess cuz he was short, pudgy and though an acclaimed defense attorney, not very comfortable on the hustings. Maybe Abigail's assertiveness on behalf of the ladies was seen as emasculating, although I don't know if that was known beyond private letters. This pained Jefferson greatly because he and Adams were lifelong close friends. But hey, Jefferson won the election. This was pushed by a broadsheet hawker, that era's idea of a political reporter. We think the press is biased and siloed now, but it was nothing like it was when all printed material was on behalf of a particular political party and everyone had chosen sides. "Objective journalism" is a postwar phenomenon.
Turns out our Framers loathed and feared political parties for a good reason.
My first memory of character assassination in the guise of political campaigning happened to poor Barry Goldwater. Now Goldwater was a crystal pure ideologue, a Western libertarian conservative so far right he made Ronald Reagan look like a sentimental New Dealer at heart. He wasn't personally bigoted but he argued against the Civil Rights Act on First Amendment (freedom of assembly) grounds and made some intemperate remarks that got out publicly. The Democrats ran with this and enlisted psychiatrists to paint him as a literal psycho, leading to the Goldwater Rule. Why the Democrats felt the need to do this when Barry got absolutely squashed in '64 I have no idea. Decades later he became an important Republican voice against the religious right. And he was not a nut.
Of course we Democrats have been tweaking amygdalae over entitlements forever. Any time a Republican so much as mouths the words "entitlement reform" and we cut an ad accusing them of wanting to roll Grandma's wheelchair off a cliff, LOL. I mean, there's an easy way to fix the Medicare and Social Security trust funds. Raise the contribution of the highest earners, well duh ;)
And Rick, my brother, how was paraplegic veteran Max Cleland in bed with Osama bin Laden because he wanted to let TSA workers organize a union? That was one of your most effective ads and is a total non-sequitur, impossible to defend on policy grounds. Pure amygdala masturbation ;). Of course, anybody who worked for Dubya in the '00 primary campaign has amygdala jizz on their hands after those windshield flyers in SC accusing John McCain of having an "illegitimate black baby."
Fear is a powerful force and for good or ill (mostly ill) has been in our politics forever, long before social media and the siloing of legacy media. And our Job One right now is to stroke amygdalae to a frenzy over the dystopian nightmare Trump 2.0 threatens our country with. Whether what we're saying is based on _truth_ or not is kind of beside the point because nothing about the future is true until it happens. So we just have to be better amygdala strokers than the other guys. Onward.
Good article and a more serious tone by Rick Wilson. He just missed one perceived Demon in all of this—atheism.
Beneath it all, beneath the claptrap yawpings about Antifa, the Left, the “invasion” at the southern border, Obamacare, AOC, Aunt Nancy, and Liberal Media Bias, is one basic fear that underscores it all—the Death of their fake god.
What MAGA fears more than anything else is a healthy, independent mind. And Elon Musk, for all his douchey cool-bro tech-lord edge case genius Schtick is just another example of a wealth nepo-baby who also cannot take criticism from others who just might be more intelligent.
A healthy mind rejects god and unquestionable Uber-genius because it understands that both stand as midgets against the towering literary cannon of The Origin of Species.
And now that any religious god from scripture has been shredded by the march of science, the MAGA base is forced to confront two basic truths. 1) There is no god. 2) Their parents, priests, and neighbors all lied to them. And now as they look back on their lives spent under the oppression of a lie and the fear of a flaming realm of fire and pain that never existed, the are furious at the people who had the courage and intellectual fortitude to break away from the knuckle dragging religious herd.
Beneath it all, this is what the Fox News, pro-life, Trumpian MAGA movement is all about. Using force to install a false god who allows these cowards to pretend to have a real one.
And if allowed back into power, it is they who will use violence to avoid facing their hangups about death.
Vote Blue No Matter Who.
It’s Trump or Democracy. You cannot have both.
From this entry forward, any ad targeting the Christian Right needs to mention that Trump had the chutzpah to "correct" to the Bible. No word yet on 2 Corinthians. [I don't know. Did they walk into a bar?]