Civil Commotion

Though I badly misjudged and believed there was a sane backbone in the Republican Party that would shut down Trump’s bid for the nomination, I have an extremely difficult time believing he can win November 8^th; the country just isn’t that crazy, and going long against the common sense and decency of the American people is always a bad bet.

But: That strange sick pastiche of nutjobs who are now the Republican base — the evangelicals, the white supremacists, those wackos obsessed with the caliber of their pistol — are not going to be graceful losers. Evangelicals are intoxicated by the prospect of repealing the Johnson amendment and ending abortion, the gun nuts actually believe the NRA’s serial lies about Clinton’s desire to seize all their weapons, and the white supremacists truly believe their day is at hand, are even now are ironing their sheets in anticipation of the big invite to the inauguration.

If the prospect of a Republican base energized by victory is frightening, then imagine — if you can — what they are going to be like when they are enraged and humiliated by a broad defeat.

People like Tony Perkins will ramp-up the bellicose lie that good, decent, godly people are persecuted because they have to treat gays with ordinary decency. The sale of guns will increase sharply. The white supremacists will probably resume their outright terror campaigns against Jews, Catholics, Blacks … anybody who isn’t a white Protestant.

That is what they have done in the past in this country, and that is what has happened throughout history, all over the world, when a culturally dominant group finds its influence declining.

As I have said in the past, Hillary Clinton is a venal, unimaginative bureaucrat; expect no more from her than you’d expect from any other caretaker. She does not, at least, pose the existential threat to America that Donald Trump does. But Trump’s defeat does not end our problems; it will confront us with maddened loonies, a poisonous cohort convinced their triumph was stolen from them and no less determined to frustrate governance than it has been during the 8-years of the Obama administration — and no less willing to take down the country to do it.

Recall the myth about the multi-headed hydra — cut off one head, more appear. So, too, our prospect post-election.

Sometimes — actually, quite a bit lately — you really have to wonder if the entire country has gone crazy. Here is a prayer by the Family Research Council that our cartoon character governor, et. al., will find the fortitude to face down the onslaught of wickedness headed toward the Tarheel State, where all right-minded people are Southern Baptists and proud that they have never, ever, been tainted by the evils of modernity (excepting iPhones, which are cool).

May God give Governor Pat McCrory, Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest and the members of the entire North Carolina Legislature extraordinary wisdom, moral strength, courage, and steadfastness to stand and withstand what is nothing less than an onslaught of evil. May God protect his people and America from blind leaders who are destroying our nation from within! May our next president have the understanding, the grace, and the will to undo the evil transformation that has taken place in America during the past eight years. And may God snap millions of blinded men and women out of the delusion that moves them to elect and reelect men and women who advocate these things! (Lev 18:all; 1 Kgs 3:5-14; Josh 1:7; Lk 6:39; 2 Th 2:10-12)

“I don’t think there was any racism until Obama got elected. We never had problems like this … Now, with the people with the guns, and shooting up neighborhoods, and not being responsible citizens, that’s a big change, and I think that’s the philosophy that Obama has perpetuated on America.”

Kathy Miller, GOP Chair
Mahoning County, Ohio

Sheesh. In Detroit, in the late 1960s, it was possible to see poorly whitewashed-over signs reading “Negro entrance” on the side of stores; I passed one every day for years as I rode a bus to high school in the city’s downtown.

And here in the south the racism and de facto segregation are even more overt.

Never forget: Y’all are no damn good.

Seriously: A preacher’s livelihood relies upon a steady supply of insecure, self-loathing people. It is not in his interest that you be happy and satisfied with your life. How can anybody listen to this stuff and fail to understand that? The clergy are, necessarily, the implacable enemy of human happiness.

I haven’t paid much attention to Ken Ham’s recently opened Ark Encounter, because nobody with a lick of brains believes the Noah story is true, and the people who do are idiots that I keep at a distance; why should I care how they entertain themselves? But a reader sends a story that attendance is way below expectations, and that provoked my curiosity. After all, the success of the Trump candidacy tells us that America is in no immediate danger of running out of fools, so why can’t Ken Ham, who definitely belongs in the P.T. Barnum Hall of fame, siphon the budgeted number of them into Kentucky?

First, the story:

… the Ark Encounter has reduced their annual attendance forecast by 30%. But even the new number doesn’t hold up.

Let’s do some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations here: If the park has been open for 71 days and has had 300,000 people show up, that’s an average of 4,225 people each day. At that pace, they would get just over 1.5 million people visiting in the first year, which is roughly what Ham is estimating.

But that’s assuming the pace remains the same during the winter, when the weather is bad, and during the school year, when kids have other obligations. That’s not going to happen. The attendance figures will only go down for at least the next several months.

Watch this video tour.

Imagine it: Bubba Beauregard is there with his wife and kids. He’s spent more than $150 on tickets, and then there’s the gas and meals driving there; altogether, he’s out $250-$300. Bubba doesn’t brag about his education, but he’s done some roofing, worked on a couple of home-building crews, done some window-washing and knows a bit about scaffolding, and enjoys an occasional day in the woods hunting.

So Bubba is standing on the sidewalk outside the place, and do you know what he says to himself as he looks at that ridiculous immensity? He says, “Ain’t no way Noah and his boys built this mother. Did. Not. Happen.” And he looks at those rows and rows of cages — 3-levels worth — and recalls all the hours he has spent in a cold damp blind waiting for a deer to pass by, and he says, “Noah and his boys couldn’t have filled all those cages in a lifetime.” And, “How the hell did they snare a pterodactyl and bring it back to the ark alive?”

Then, “Damn. This is ridiculous. Those preachers have been lying all along, and just being here looking at this stuff, as though it’s true, embarrasses me.”

Ken Ham may be accomplishing what hundreds of years of education have failed to accomplish: He might be enabling even witless dullards to understand that there’s a lot of make-believe in the Bible.