Opinion

I have been writing letters to the editor for a long time in a desperate hope to change the direction of the evangelical Christian church as it relates to politics. It is difficult to express how hard it is to not be heard. In truth, this is why social media is such a popular thing. Being on Twitter or Facebook or TikTok allows millions of people to pretend they are being seen and heard. As I look back at my previous letters, I notice a progression that has led me into attempting a true reform of what we might call the "God vote."

This article first appeared in Salon.

Former Congressman Newt Gingrich (R-GA) was hammered on Saturday night for attacking Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) on Twitter, saying the Black lawmaker is participating in a "lynch mob" out to get controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Gingrich, a regular contributor to Fox News used the highly charged language in a tweet that read, "AOC (152,661 votes) and Maxine Waters (152,272 votes) are part of lynch mob trying to destroy Congresswoman Marjorie Greene (229,827 votes).they should calm down and read the history of John Wilkes in the 1770s and the principle that the people's vote matters more than parliament."

It did not go unnoticed that former Georgia politician cited only two women of color in his attack in his defense of the white Taylor Greene, which led to a furious backlash as you can see below:

There is ample blame to go around for the MAGA insurgency that has so far resulted in eight deaths and left the rest of us on a knife's edge. A number of those charged for storming the Capitol have made it clear that they believed they were heeding on Donald Trump's call to action. Every Republican who acted as if Trump's claims of a stolen election had more validity than when he accused Ted Cruz of cheating his way to a victory in the Iowa Republican caucus in 2016 or said the Emmy Awards were rigged after "The Amazing Race" edged out "The Apprentice" is culpable to a degree.

But we need to look deeper to understand why hundreds of people who saw themselves as law-abiding "patriots" not only ran wild through the seat of American government but felt sufficiently entitled to do so that they later shared their criminal exploits on social media. Whiteness alone doesn't explain it.

If the people you saw on your television in the violent mob outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 seemed familiar, that's because they were. You have seen them before — at Donald Trump's political rallies, standing in line behind you at the supermarket, driving the car in front of you at the drive-thru, in the pickup line at your kid's school. If you don't believe me, Google some videos taken that day. Look at their faces. They're from every walk of life: middle, lower and upper class, construction workers, shop owners, stockbrokers, husbands, wives, students, off-duty cops and soldiers, accountants, actors, writers, teachers, online media stars, even one recently elected state representative.

This article first appeared in Salon.

The deadly Capitol riot on Jan. 6 brought together a wide variety of right-wing militia groups and fringe conspiracy theorists, officially united by former President Donald Trump's false narrative that the 2020 election had been stolen. But the ideology that connected these groups in the first place was cultivated for decades by the National Rifle Association, gun violence prevention groups say.

"The violence that we saw at the Capitol, the firepower that they brought with them, may not have been part of the NRA's call. But they're responsible for getting us to this moment," said Nick Suplina, managing director for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety. "They should not be allowed to distance themselves from the Frankenstein monster that they've created. This is the NRA's handiwork. Years of conspiracy peddling, fear-mongering that the government is going to come take your guns and your freedom, and the call upon Americans to do something about it, to take action, that's what we saw on Jan. 6. That base of militia groups and white supremacist groups and other extremists has been listening to the NRA's talking points for years, and we saw it play out."

The sudden lurch from Trump to Biden is generating vertigo all over Washington, including the so-called fourth branch of government – CEOs and their army of lobbyists.

CEOs are being hailed – and hailing themselves – as guardians of democracy. That's after saying they will no longer donate to the 147 Republican members of Congress who objected to the certification of Biden electors, on the basis of Trump's lies about widespread fraud.

I mentioned Marjorie Taylor Greene in passing this week, just long enough to say people like her can be trusted completely to piss on the graves of murdered children. The representative from Georgia has since accumulated quite a news cycle, thanks to some great sleuthing by CNN and others. I'm compelled to return, though I'd prefer not to, because she's quickly taking on the form of an emblem, one capturing all in one person the essence of the Republican Party and its twin politics of sadism and masochism.

As you may know by now, Greene is the loudest and most prominent advocate for the QAnon conspiracy theory in the United States Congress. That's the idea that the Democrats, and pretty much anyone Donald Trump considered to be an enemy, are in cahoots with a global cabal of satanist cannibalistic pedophiles. Turns out, however, that QAnon lie was just for starters. A look at her long digital footprint before she took office last year reveals there was no smear, falsehood or lie she did not like, adopt, promote or advance. Like her mentor, the one-term twice-impeached former and fascist president, there's nothing Greene won't say to take power and keep it.

Until recently, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was an obscure part of the U.S. Constitution.

The amendment is better known for its first section, which guaranteed individual rights and equality following the abolition of slavery. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was created to tackle a different problem related to the Civil War: insurrection.

It stands to reason that in a politically divided country like the U.S., presidential hopefuls would run for office promising to bridge the divide and "bring people together." Polling always shows that if there's one thing the people want, it's for the two parties to stop fighting and "get things done." They may say they want compromise and bipartisanship as well. But when you drill down to what they actually mean by that, it's pretty clear that they really want their team to dictate the terms and by "compromise" they really mean they want the other side to capitulate. Bipartisanship is just another word for "my way or the highway."

All of this has gotten demonstrably worse in the last few years with the rise of social media and right-wing media. For Republicans to compromise with the Democrats today it would signal to a whole lot of their constituents that they are giving in to pedophile cannibals who wear the skinned faces of dead children as masks. They've left themselves very little room for good faith negotiations.

Donald Trump is out, but parts of the Republican Party warmly embrace his dark legacy of white supremacy, the crazy QAnon conspiracy and civil war wrapped in faux Christianity.

Like Trump, these fake Christians reject turning the other cheek in favor of threatening or promoting violence.

Gore Vidal once warned that Americans do not remember anything that happened before Monday morning. America is an amnesiac country that pretends it has no history.

This article originally appeared at Salon.

Former NRA TV spokesperson Dana Loesch weighed in on the threat to execute Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Thursday. But her false equivalency is drawing swift criticism.

It began with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) saying that she's happy to work with Republicans but not the ones who she says almost had her murdered three weeks ago. Loesch responded by comparing it to Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) being shot during baseball practice for the annual Congressional game.

Adolf Hitler used the "Big Lie" strategy to help kill democracy in his country. He had one Big Lie after another. Hitler used a Big Lie to explain away Germany's defeat in World War I and it set the stage for his meteoric rise in power. He blamed the Jews for Germany's loss, which was patently untrue. He promulgated that lie over and over. And it led to the biggest, and deadliest, lie in history — that Jews had to be exterminated.

Donald Trump used multiple Big Lies during his presidency. It was his propaganda technique. He took a page right out of Hitler's playbook — and it almost destroyed American democracy. The sad truth is that many Trump surrogates who remain within our government continue to stoke the remaining embers of the Big Lies. The goal of Trump's lies was to establish him as a dictator devoid of laws, rules or norms. He wanted absolute power. He wanted to amass greed with impunity. He wanted to be as corrupt and criminal as he wished.