Civil Commotion

Just so’s you know, The Good Ol’ U.S. of A. is in no immediate danger of running out of morons.

A book that pushes the conspiracy theory Qanon climbed within the top 75 of all books sold on Amazon in recent days, pushed by Amazon’s algorithmically generated recommendations page.

“QAnon: An Invitation to the Great Awakening,” which has no stated author, ranked at No. 56 at press time, was featured in the algorithmically generated “Hot new releases” section on Amazon’s books landing page. The book claims without evidence a variety of outlandish claims including that prominent Democrats murder and eat children and that the U.S. government created both AIDS and the movie Monsters Inc.

In case you’re thinking this must be some kind of counterculture prank, as if it’s trendy to pretend to believe all this crazy stuff … No. I know a totally respectable middle-aged couple with three children who are totally convinced there is all sorts of X-Files type stuff going on just slightly beyond the corners of their eyes.

I doubt the average pew-sitter pays much attention to Biblical scholarship, or even to popular versions prepared for an educated but not-specialized audience. Nor, in fact, do most pastors want them to; they’d prefer their flock read clowns like Josh McDowell and gen-u-ine pseudo-historian David Barton. John Piper surely pays attention, however, so his claim has no more dignity than the lie of a plaid-suited carnival barker.

Probably the best single-volume introduction to the difficulties of the traditional Christian narrative is John Spong’s Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalism. Alternatively, read Bart Ehrman’s Lost Christianities. Both books offer a good survey of what bona fide Biblical scholars believe about the early Christian era — and it’s not what Pastor Bubba is telling you.

As a contemporary analogy of what happened at the dawn of Christianity, imagine that the Breitbart and World Net Daily and Renew America crowds succeeded in controlling the historical narrative about the early 21^st-Century; the result would be no more trustworthy than the New Testament.

Fox News spiked Stormy Daniels payoff story before the election

An explosive new report from The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer claims that Fox News spiked a story about Donald Trump paying off former adult film star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election because it didn’t want to hurt his candidacy.

I guess the sky is the limit when you have FOX News and the National Enquirer on your side.

Once, even those who disagreed with evangelical Christians and social conservatives conceded that they had a place in politics, that they deserved to be heard. But why should anyone listen to them now? They are hypocrites. They supported a man who allegedly consorts with porn stars, secretly pays them off, breaks laws on charity and defrauds the state.

Anne Applebaum, Washington Post

As I said soon after the election, the Evangelical Right has squandered its credibility and is finished.

The irony is that if they were ever to actually have read that Inerrant Bible they’re so proud of, they would have known that a deal with the devil never ends happily.

You might be wondering, What’s up with The Donald since he got humiliated by that pudgy North Korean delinquent?

Y’all will probably not be surprised to learn that the First Felon is still a corrupt madman enamored of Big Lies.

According to every publisher that the press have asked …

• Michael Cohen shopped around a proposed book about Trump, once upon a time.

• Nobody bit.

• There is no book deal or book about to be published.

• Nobody acknowledges ever seeing a manuscript.

Trump is lying — the claim is pure invention of a very particular sort, however. It is what used to be known as a Big Lie, something so garish and demonstrably false that some people would conclude there just has to be something to it.

Trump’s cultists regard him as a god-like figure — and they will believe it. You can count on hearing, from Trump supporters, about the conflicts between Cohen’s testimony and his book; it will be remarked as a universally recognized, acknowledged fact.

This is being done the same way that Trump lied about Lester Holt.

Andy Lack is still the President of NBC News, and Trump’s frank acknowledgment to Lester Holt that Comey was fired because of the “Russia thing” is still routinely broadcast; no “fudging” was ever discovered.

But notice how Trump’s smears, his Big Lies, are delivered — as though they are settled, established facts that everybody knows. This is how propaganda works; it doesn’t change minds, but gives permission to believe untrue things that people want to believe. Trump’s supporters want to believe that the “Russia thing” is a witch hunt, so they’re happy to believe that Holt is corrupt and “fudged” the tape somehow. They want to believe that Cohen lied Wednesday, so there is a mysterious manuscript which proves it.

We have a very dangerous man in the White House, and the Deplorable One-Third who believe him are no less dangerous.