Just when @nytimes was starting to do better on their reporting about evangelical Christians, we get another classic, terribly-framed, schmaltzy and overly sympathetic piece about white Christians in middle America.
Every single excuse they bring up in this article is politicalhttps://twitter.com/rachel_w/status/1388242406609412105 …
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Conservative Christians like white evangelicals love to claim they’re being “apolitical” when they transparently are not. The rhetorical move is an eminently political power grab—using the appeal of being “above politics” and “not being divisive” to gain moral authority
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I wrote a bit about that dynamic herehttps://religiondispatches.org/christian-right-claims-to-be-above-politics-are-bogus/ …
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Also, how out of touch with middle America do you have to be up write a sentence like “Drug busts for heroin and methamphetamine sustain a humming cottage industry of lawyers and bail bonds services”?
A lot of unscientific bunk is also left unchallenged in this articlepic.twitter.com/wq4PeIGk6q
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In short, this is a terrible model for journalism,
@nytimes, and it is high time to retire it. Instead of having your reporters parachute into these places, you could, you know, have the relevant issues covered by people who know the regions and subcultures in question
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But even more important than that,
@nytimes, you’ve got to stop taking people’s stated motives for things like resisting the COVID vaccine at face value. And doing that well requires applying a more sophisticated understanding of concepts like politics6 replies 90 retweets 595 likesShow this thread -
It’s true that the people you cover in this article aren’t refusing the vaccine because they’re Republicans. It’s more the other way around—they’re Republicans because they’re the kind of unsympathetic (yeah, I said it) white people who won’t do their part for public health
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Replying to @C_Stroop
Basically, libertarianism and conservatism have become profoundly hostile to any public health interventions that require government action (that is, nearly all of them). It's why antivaxxers so quickly made common cause with
#COVID19 antimaskers and antilock down cranks.4 replies 26 retweets 78 likes
The thing is, antivaxxers have always been vehemently opposed to public health interventions, not just vaccines.https://respectfulinsolence.com/2020/12/02/antivaxxers-anti-public-health/ …
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