As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.
The malignant seditionist was the star of last weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference (NutPac), where, as Stephen Collinson writes, the cult vibe was strong:
Nothing can destroy former President Donald Trump in the eyes of those who love him, one reason why his hold on American politics remains formidable.
The ex-President showed this weekend that defeat after a single term, the disgrace of his insurrection against American democracy and the deaths of 400,000 Americans on his watch in a pandemic he downplayed don't hurt his appeal to Republicans. In fact, the efforts of potential 2024 rivals to replicate his extremism show Trump's strange magic is only validated by his transgressions. [snip]There is an argument that a former President who is out of power but still desperate for attention should just be ignored. Certainly, a rambling, vain and lie-filled speech by Trump lacked coherence and any kind of aspirational appeal, instead highlighting his characteristic cocktail of racial demagoguery, personal swipes at enemies, mountainous falsehoods and desperate trawling for personal adulation. To an outsider, it may have come across as tedious and a pale imitation of the rollicking and sometimes even humorous appearances that paved Trump's path to power in 2016. But in hitting every sensitive hot spot in the conservative media canon — from law and order to "cancel culture" to immigration, to complaints that all the media speaks about is "race, race, race," Trump demonstrated his still unmatched capacity to sell outrage politics. But more than that, he demonstrated his ability to conjure an alternative belief system that is divorced from reality but that his supporters immediately adopt — the hallmark of strongmen leaders throughout history.
The church is called Mercy Culture, and it is part of a growing Christian movement that is nondenominational, openly political and has become an engine of former president Donald Trump’s Republican Party. It includes some of the largest congregations in the nation, housed in the husks of old Baptist churches, former big-box stores and sprawling multimillion-dollar buildings with private security to direct traffic on Sundays. Its most successful leaders are considered apostles and prophets, including some with followings in the hundreds of thousands, publishing empires, TV shows, vast prayer networks, podcasts, spiritual academies, and branding in the form of T-shirts, bumper stickers and even flags. It is a world in which demons are real, miracles are real, and the ultimate mission is not just transforming individual lives but also turning civilization itself into their version of God’s Kingdom: one with two genders, no abortion, a free-market economy, Bible-based education, church-based social programs and laws such as the ones curtailing LGBTQ rights now moving through statehouses around the country.This is the world of Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White and many more lesser-known but influential religious leaders who prophesied that Trump would win the election and helped organize nationwide prayer rallies in the days before the Jan. 6 insurrection, speaking of an imminent “heavenly strike” and “a Christian populist uprising,” leading many who stormed the Capitol to believe they were taking back the country for God.
Even as mainline Protestant and evangelical denominations continue an overall decline in numbers in a changing America, nondenominational congregations have surged from being virtually nonexistent in the 1980s to accounting for roughly 1 in 10 Americans in 2020, according to long-term academic surveys of religious affiliation. Church leaders tend to attribute the growth to the power of an uncompromised Christianity. Experts seeking a more historical understanding point to a relatively recent development called the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR. (our emphasis)
It gets worse as you read on. We need aggressive action by the IRS to relieve these grifting right- wing front organizations of their tax exempt status once and for all (but we're not holding our breath with the Republican Supreme Court waiting in the wings). These are not people to be reasoned with or bargained with. They seek the destruction of secular American democracy; they're the enemy.
Something highly unusual just happened in Cuba:
Thousands of Cubans marched on Havana’s Malecon promenade and elsewhere on the island Sunday to protest food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus crisis, in one of biggest anti-government demonstrations in memory.
Many young people took part in the afternoon protest in the capital, which disrupted traffic until police moved in after several hours and broke up the march when a few protesters threw rocks.
Police initially trailed behind as protesters chanted “Freedom,” “Enough” and “Unite.” One motorcyclist pulled out a U.S. flag, but it was snatched from him by others.
“We are fed up with the queues, the shortages. That’s why I’m here,” one middle-age protester told The Associated Press. He declined to identify himself for fear of being arrested later.
Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis in decades, along with a resurgence of coronavirus cases, as it suffers the consequences of U.S. sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.
An official in the Biden administration tweeted support for Sunday’s demonstrations.
We suspected, as we watched the shootout at the Euro 2020 final between England and Italy at Wembley Stadium that something like this might happen:
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday condemned the racist abuse targeted at some of England’s Black players following the team’s widely watched loss to Italy in the Euro 2020 final on Sunday evening.
Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka were all viciously targeted by trolls and angry England fans following the defeat at London’s Wembley Stadium. The team lost, 3-2, to Italy amid a nail-biting penalty shootout in which all three players missed their shots.
A wave of online abuse soon followed, with monkey and banana emoji and racist comments posted underneath photographs of the players on their personal Instagram accounts.
“This England team deserve to be lauded as heroes, not racially abused on social media,” Johnson said Monday, adding: “Those responsible for this appalling abuse should be ashamed of themselves.”
It's a shame either of these fine teams had to lose, and to lose in the way England did, after so many decades of frustration, was particularly painful. But, Johnson is right -- the team should be lauded as sports heroes, not attacked by a small but vocal bunch of racist shitgibbons.
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