William Trollinger and Susan L Trollinger , Professor of History, University of Dayton | Professor of English, University of Dayton - Alter Net
Stephan: I don't think it is possible to really understand Trumpers without understanding that a large number of them do not live in a fact-based world, and you cannot reason with them. They don't believe in evolution, but they do believe the world is only 6,000 years old, and that dinosaurs and humans once co-existed together on the earth, and that the Bible is inerrant. That, I think, is why they believe Trump and not the world's entire scientific establishment. It makes no sense, but good sense is not the operative factor.
Among those destinations that have recently reopened is, as of June 8, is the Creation Museum, a museum dedicated to promoting the Biblical story of Genesis as historic and scientific fact.
More than this, the Creation Museum offers a window into the ideas and workings of the American religious right.
The Creation Museum, about which we wrote a book in 2016, promotes a very specific version of this belief, which holds that God made the universe in six 24-hour days about 6,000 years ago.
The first four chapters of the book of Genesis tell the story of Adam and Eve, who were created on the sixth day and given two jobs: to obey God and populate the Earth. When they […]
Steve Waldman, Editor-in-Chief - Beliefnet - PBS - Frontline
Stephan: I am running this piece because my experience has been that many people do not know the difference between Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. So here is an explanation that does a good job laying out the differences.
Evangelical church service
People often get confused between the terms evangelical and fundamentalist. They mean two different things. Evangelicals are a very broad group. It’s probably a third or 40 percent of the population of the United States. Fundamentalists are a subset of that. They are very conservative politically. Have a literalist view of the Bible.
Evangelicals have a much wider range of political views. A lot of them are conservatives, but not all of them. About a third of evangelicals voted for Al Gore. So it’s a pretty broad range.
And you tend to think of evangelicals as being fundamentalists because the most well known evangelicals are people like Jerry Falwell who are fundamentalists and are very conservative. But in fact, the evangelicals who are part of Bush’s inner circle are not all fundamentalists. They are often very devout evangelicals. But their approach to politics is much more nuanced than the fundamentalist approach. …
photo of green john c. green Author, Religion and the Culture Wars
read the full interview
The differences between fundamentalism and evangelicalism are a bit subtle, and oftentimes difficult to understand […]
Stephan: Fascism in the United States is my top concern, followed by the radical diminution of America's standing in the world. Watch this video; it completely accords with the emails I am getting from my non-U.S. readers. Repairing what Trump and the Republicans have done to America's standing in the world is going to take years.
This is truly sad to watch.
Under Donald Trump, our country has been reduced to a laughingstock, a curiosity, and a pitiable mess. All of that is on display in this video from The New York Times. If you don’t feel like watching the whole thing, at the very least skip ahead to 6:05 to see just how much sympathy the world has for us — trapped as we are on Asshole Island.
This is America. That used to mean something. No longer.
Our only chance to recapture our status and earn back the respect of the world is to elect Joe Biden. There is simply no other option.
Stephan: The United States, in my opinion, has a psychotic fixation on guns and gun ownership. We are also a country where about a third of the population are in a racist fear fugue, and an even larger percentage have poor impulse control, and a lack of empathy. So it is not surprising that we also have more gun shootings and deaths than any other developed nation in the world. And, as this report lays out, based on the facts, things are getting worse.
Many large U.S. cities, including New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, have been plagued by a recent surge in shootings and subsequent fatalities, escalating the debate over gun violence, which has disproportionately impacted communities crippled by the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing recession.
KEY FACTS
There have been a total of 777 recorded shootings in New York City from Jan. 1 through the end of July, which is more than NYC had in the calendar year of 2019.
More than 240 people have been killed, and more than 1,000 shootings have been recorded thus far this year in Philadelphia.
According to statistics released Saturday by the Chicago Police Department, through the first seven months of 2020, there have been 440 homicides and 2,240 people shot (which accounts for 150 more gun deaths and 760 more shootings in Chicago compared to the same period last year).
A review of crime statistics among the nation’s 50 largest cities by the Wall Street Journal found that reported homicides were up 24% this year.
Stephan: This article by Naomi Wolf was published in the British Guardian 13 years ago, long before Donald Trump was even a political figure. Republican George Bush (43) was President and the seeds of fascism in the U.S. had already been planted. The tragedy is that her assessment is truer today in 2020, under Republican Trump than it was when it was first published in 2007.
Nazis storm troopers on the 9th of November 1938, Kristallnacht
From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them allPublished onTue 24 Apr 2007 15.02 EDT
They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy – but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.
As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush […]
