Too many to comment about in much detail.
Salon, 10 July: When evangelical snowflakes censor the Bible: The English Standard Version goes PC, subtitled, “How a Bible edition aimed at right-wing evangelicals has quietly scrubbed references to slavery and ‘the Jews'”
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Alternet, Valerie Tarico: These 10 thought processes trip up former Bible believers
Namely: All or nothing thinking; Good guys and bad guys; Never feeling good enough; Hyperactive guilt detection; Sexual hangups; Living for the future; Bracing for an apocalypse; Idealizing leaders; Desperately seeking simplicity; Intrusive what-its.
From #9:
Biblical Christianity tells a story about us as individuals and about human history that is clear and simple. Multi-dimensional causality? Moral ambiguity? Conflicts with no good side and bad side—just sides? Problems with no right answer? Blurry boundaries between human beings and other sentient species? No thanks!
One of my themes here: reality is complex; conservatives prefer simple-minded answers to complex issues.
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Slate, Dahlia Lithwick: The Lies Were Always the Point, subtitled “The GOP has abandoned truth. Trump is ancillary to that choice.”
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Salon: Why it’s (almost) impossible to argue with the right, subtitled “The right only debates with itself: their view and their version of the left. Fighting with that is near impossible.”
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Salon, Amanda Marcotte: Fox News treats its viewers as fools with latest vaccine disinformation campaign, subtitled, “No one has more contempt for everyday GOP voters than the smirking conservative elites at Fox News.”
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NYT: Why many of the unvaccinated insist on going without
Their “caution” feels almost neurotic, based on little more than the thrill of contrarianism. The “I’m so unique and different” of it all. … Like the pompous hipster who says, “You wouldn’t even know the bands I listen to.”
Part of conspiracy thinking is the self-satisfaction in thinking you know a truth that ordinary people are unaware of; makes you feel special.
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Slate, Mark Joseph Stern: Why Did a Republican Senator Ask a Biden Nominee if He Believes in God?
Compare Republican outrage at Democrats questioning Amy Coney Barrett’s “dogma” as an “unconstitutional religious test.”
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NYT: Republicans are blaming Nancy Pelosi for the Jan. 6 attack. Their claims don’t add up.
This is rich: blaming Nancy Pelosi, not Donald Trump’s mob, for the attack on the Capitol. It’s an “Your nose got in the way of my fist, so it’s your fault” argument.
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The Week: Fertility is the real culture war, subtitled “What the pandemic baby bust reveals about our fears.”
See recent news about census results, and the continued shrinkage of the white population in the US.
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NYT, Paul Krugman: Return of the Family Values Zombie
In which certain conservatives are suggesting that adults with children deserve to vote while childless adults do not. (Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others, as in George Orwell.)
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Salon: Josh Hawley’s deranged “Love America Act” is a testament to racist hatred, subtitled, “White supremacist Republicans like Josh Hawley don’t want your kids to know the true history of America.”
The white-washing and simplification of history is generally a conservative project; per the #9 thought process above.
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Washington Post: It’s a good thing Republican election-stealers are so incompetent
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The Atlantic: Delta Is Ruining the Summer, and It’s Anti-vaxxers’ Fault, subtitled, “The vaccines promised freedom, but political opportunists have spoiled that.”
Again: the pandemic of the un-vaccinated; the covid virus is mutating in the bodies of the unvaccinated.
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Washington Post: As many Republicans try to rewrite history of Jan. 6 attack, Sen. Ron Johnson suggests FBI knew more than it has said
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Salon, Amanda Marcotte: The Republican strategy to sabotage Biden’s vaccine rollout is backfiring, subtitled, “New polling shows Americans know exactly who is to blame for the COVID-19 surge.”
Republican seem to be like conspiracy-theorists: they just *make things* up, knowing that many of their followers will believe *anything*.
Reality check: Republicans would have you believe it’s all about Fauci and Democrats enforcing draconian mandates on freedom-loving patriots. How then to explain the entire rest of the world, which is taking the virus, the mask-wearing, the vaccines, just as seriously, if not moreso, than the US? Is Fauci a comic-book (or James Bond) villain who can control the entire world?
Actually, I imagine, Republican followers simply dismiss the rest of the world as unimportant, because they aren’t Americans. Nothing the rest of the world does can possibly apply to America, because America is special.
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Right Wing Watch: Michele Bachmann Insists Trump Supporters Had Nothing to do With the Jan. 6 Capitol Insurrection
One of most prominent of loony Republicans.
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AlterNet: New poll finds that the most devout Christians are more likely to fall for QAnon.
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NYT: The South Must Teach Its Children the Truth
“For so many of them, history isn’t the story of what actually happened; it is just the story they want to believe,” writes Dr. Smith. “It is not a public story we all share, but an intimate one, passed down like an heirloom, that shapes their sense of who they are. Confederate history is family history, history as eulogy, in which loyalty takes precedence over truth.
How stories are more important that truth, for so many.
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The Atlantic: Unvaccinated People Need to Bear the Burden, subtitled, “Beyond limiting the coronavirus’s flow from hot spots to the rest of the country, allowing only vaccinated people on domestic flights will change minds, too.”
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The Atlantic, Tom Nichols: The Myth of the Golden Years, subtitled, “Whether economic times are good or bad, the lament for the old days of factories and mills never changes.”
Another tendency of conservatives, per Jonathan Haidt.
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NYT, Bret Stephens: What Should Conservatives Conserve?
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Slate, William Saletan: The Immoral Lifestyle Republicans Won’t Condemn, subtitled, “They’re excusing the reckless behavior of COVID vaccine refusers.”>
The party of personal responsibility. Simple-minded and mean-spirited (see conservative pundits’ reactions to Simone Biles).
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NYT, Jamelle Bouie: If You Skip the Vaccine, It Is My ‘Damn Business’
The unvaccinated either don’t understand they can be passing the virus on to others, who might then die, or they don’t care.
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Salon, Amanda Marcotte: It’s OK to blame the unvaccinated — they are robbing the rest of us of our freedoms, subtitled, “In a choice between mask and vaccine mandates, only one can restore our sense of normalcy.”
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And today:
The Week: GOP takes down 2020 page touting Trump’s ‘historic peace agreement with the Taliban’
Biden was implementing Trump’s plan (which Trump didn’t get around to); conservative politicians have developed abrupt amnesia about this.
