Just a note: I grew up in this. What I call the Cult of the Shining City has spread across America and has gained an incredible hold over our politics and culture, so much so that it's hard to wrap your head around. But it's necessary to understand them and their history. 2/
-
-
Show this thread
-
Make no mistake. It is a cult. It is suicidal in nature, obsessed with power and oblivion. They follow leaders with doubtless abandon because, like other cults, they demand fealty and reject any information, including experts and scientists, that might cause doubt. 3/
Show this thread -
Before we begin, it's necessary to say: they worship Donald Trump like a messiah. Honestly, they do. And the story of how Trump's cult, the Cult of the Shining City, came about is a wild, wild story, but all of it is completely true. It shatters the very myth of America. 4/
Show this thread -
We have to start at the beginning of America, the Christian influence that ran through our colonies. There was a perpetual myth that America was chosen by God to be a "Shining City." It was a unifying myth, a national myth used by preachers to carve a new path. 5/
Show this thread -
The problem with myths, however, is that they are used to manipulate and can be seized by anyone. In the 1860's the South took the national myth and made it its own. The Confederacy argued IT was the chosen nation God wanted, a racist, dystopian nation. 6/
Show this thread -
We don't study the Confederacy much in public education because to do so would be to look at our own twisted reflection and see how much of the Confederacy runs through us. The CSA was America, but with an explicitly racist identity instead of it being hidden. 7/
Show this thread -
In its documents and operations, the Confederacy was explicitly Christian. They claimed they were God's chosen nation, a nation with a divine white supremacy ordained by divine will. Their entire culture was based around this horrific ideology. 8/pic.twitter.com/G8S0KQfHVz
Show this thread -
In Confederate churches, Confederate preachers gave sermons about a racist God who carried out white supremacy as a universal belief and operation. It was a nationalistic religion that influenced everyday life and belief. Confederates worshiped a Confederate God. 9/
Show this thread -
When the Confederacy lost battles, it was because they had angered their racist God. They were called to humiliate themselves. Fast for the racist God's mercy. Their churches were temples to this racist, white supremacist God. It was the culture itself. 10/
Show this thread -
Here's the thing: when the Civil War ended, the racist Confederate God didn't just go away. The preachers continued preaching divine white supremacy. They continued the Confederate ideology for a perverse "second coming" - the South "rising again." 11/
Show this thread -
Now. We have to flash forward. To the 1960's and the rise of the Civil Rights Movement. Leaders like MLK start preaching the social justice nature of Christ, appealing to Americans to embrace the progressive nature of religion to expel white supremacy. 12/pic.twitter.com/65kPFmdqPl
Show this thread -
But Confederate-strain preachers like Jerry Falwell took obvious exception to MLK's Christian message. They preached that their God had "drawn a line" of segregation and white supremacy. To fight that would be an affront to their racist, Confederate God. 13/pic.twitter.com/UrpfendCdW
Show this thread -
Now. People always say Falwell gained power because of abortion. But that's only partly true. His original crusade was fighting desegregation. His and others kingdoms were built on a maintaining of white supremacy through religion and political purposes. 14/
Show this thread -
As MLK and Civil Rights leaders used Christ's social justice message to fight their battle, Falwell and other Neo-Confederates preached of the dysfunction as proof of Satanic forces at work. In this, liberal progressivism became the work of the devil. 15/pic.twitter.com/71VgumKtGa
Show this thread -
For a complete view, you need to find the work of Francis Schaeffer, who Falwell and others threw in with who preached that liberal activism was destroying the world and damning us to a new Dark Ages. It became a battle for the soul and fate of the world. 16/pic.twitter.com/5o9R2lUmpp
Show this thread -
Without saying it explicitly, white-identity evangelicals had a unifying message: Civil Rights & social progress were the projects of Satan in battling God. Troubling white supremacy meant troubling the racist God's plan. To do so would destroy the world and call God's anger. 17/
Show this thread -
It was during Civil Rights and the social revolution of the 60's that Neo-Confederate evangelicals began reestablishing their hold on politics. They would eventually embrace Jimmy Carter, but his religion was social justice-based and they needed...someone else. 18/
Show this thread -
Enter Ronald Reagan. The former governor of California who cruelly fought the counterculture and who embraced the Evangelical Right as a political maneuver. But here's the thing: Reagan wasn't really religious, but spiritual. His belief was steeped in the occult. 19/pic.twitter.com/ghljtx8y8s
Show this thread -
Reagan made an amazing partner though for Falwell and others. He knew the advantages of embracing this Neo-Confederate, white supremacist movement for votes and political power. They formed a partnership that would change the course of the country forever. 20/pic.twitter.com/E34vjwsypj
Show this thread -
Reagan became a religious idol and his problems and occult beliefs papered over. The Evangelical Right got power and influence. The white supremacist view was hidden behind rhetoric and a streamlined Southern Strategy. And the Evangelical Right embraced hypercapitalism. 21/
Show this thread -
What you need to understand is this: capitalism as it's enshrined in America is white supremacy made law. The people at the top from the beginning were white men. That has held throughout the centuries and capitalism stands as "proof" of white supremacy. 22/
Show this thread -
Through Reagan and the Evangelical Right, wealth and power denoted God's will. If you were rich, it was God's reward for being godly. If you were poor, obviously you were a sinner and had failed to find God's will. In this, the Confederate, racist God became a capitalist. 23/
Show this thread -
Surely you remember the Evangelical Right in the 1980's. They built theme parks. Flew private jets. Wore fancy watches and jewelry. The church was a temple worshiping white supremacy and the gospel of wealth and power. It corrupted them and damned the poor. 24/pic.twitter.com/QJhOqatLYT
Show this thread -
Here's something you need to understand: Republicans and the Evangelicals create these crises because of their policies and beliefs. But they blame it on society and then sell you the "solution." To say people were poor or criminals because of lesser morality is a scam. 25/
Show this thread -
The belief of the 1980's was that people who failed did so because of personal, moral failings. But it was because of Reagan's policies and the GOP's upending of the economy. The Confederate faith continued casting the blame on those suffering and again urged humiliation. 26/
Show this thread -
Aside: for anyone paying attention, surely you can see how Donald Trump comes in. He grew up in this, worshiped under Norman Vincent Peale and the prosperity gospel. He is this faith personified. But, more on him later. 27/pic.twitter.com/u4hLOYP7X3
Show this thread -
The evangelical cult of prosperity infected the church. It made them charlatans of profit and wealth. Like James Bakker, they embezzled. They committed idolatry. Falwell and others could only blame one thing: Satan. 28/pic.twitter.com/BG3LPm689i
Show this thread -
As televangelists and evangelical celebrities like Jimmy Swaggart were humiliated and exposed as frauds, people like Falwell didn't blame the religion or its perversion. They said it was a society run through with satanic forces corrupting everything. 29/pic.twitter.com/xTbbaOM9Mt
Show this thread -
Another aside: talking about James Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, brought down by corruption after building a base of personality and a cult of personality, I again point to Donald Trump. See how this runs through. See how it has evolved into this diseased cult. 30/
Show this thread -
Back to Reagan, who spent his time in acting circles in California. He trafficked in New Age ideas. He and Nancy depended on astrologers and mystics. The image Sean Hannity and other Fox News idolators create of Reagan is false and whitewashed for history. 31/
Show this thread - Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.