Originally published at: Traditional Media Never Took the Christian Right Seriously - TPM – Talking Points Memo
Back in the early 2000s, when we were outraged by the excesses of authoritarian dilettantes George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, a friend suggested I start a blog. I had been a lawyer, but was eager to change careers. Having studied the rise of the Christian right as a college student in the 1980s, I…
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Why would the media take the christian right seriously?
They’ve been satirized – deservedly – since Sinclair Lewis in the 1920s with Babbit and Elmer Gantry.
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“Of all bad men, religious bad men are the worst.” – C.S. Lewis
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System 1
Nice post. Definitive answer to the question why traditional media never took Christian right seriously.
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It is maddeningly possible for the country to be led by an authoritarian fundamentally at odds with the desires of the majority, owing to how this movement, fueled by deep-pocketed donors, has become the core of the Republican electorate.
The religious right has been far more influential than it should have been but how is the movement doing right now? My understanding is church attendance is down all over the bible belt.
There have been religious/political movements in the past that have all come undone. How is the current movement doing right now?
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It’s a paradox. I suspect that the hard-core Christian right never went away, sustained in part by their wish to create a theocracy of sorts.
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I took physical proof of a 50-state fraud on the education department by evangelical churches - going back 30 years - to the NY Times and CBS back in 2000. No takers.
The Christian Right have owned the confederate states since before the confederacy. They are the most powerful voting block in our nation, and have been for 249 years.
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Underestimating their influence has been a dripping lie for generations. They are out there, training their children to argue with your children over religion. I have seen the materials. And tax free.
They also have their own media, and it is profitable. For every musical act available in the secular world there is a rip-off in the Christian world.
They own the government because no Republican would ever be president without them.
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Does that need the sarcasm tag or font?
Sure they were satirized, but to a very great extent that just drove them underground and did not make them go disappear in a puff of logic. To some extent the satirizing of them and the Scopes Monkey trial wound up being a sop to the rest of us. “See, those silly folks aren’t serious don’t worry about them.” It kind of reminds me of a peculiar little German/Austrian corporal.
Like Sarah I watched these folks in the 1980’s you could see where it was headed and that it was gaining steam. The difference of opinion I have with Sarah is to say that these folks were fringe. In most respects they were the core. The better known Evangelical leaders were the fringe, the respectable facade to the mad house behind the doors.
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Working the refs works!
We know that all the majors give their news the Republican slant. Even news stories pointing out failures in the right wing world must have the obligatory “but Democrats…” sections. And editors have long bent over backwards and tied their reporters in knots to avoid the dreaded “Librul” label.
Coverage or reference to Protestant Christian religion is all part of that package. (These evies don’t regard Catholics or Mormons as “Christian”) You don’t want to be branded as a “godless” librul news source! Best way is to turn a blind eye.
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And don’t forget the cash prizes. These folks have been practicing boycotts and whitelisting of business for years probably centuries. Even folks like Bill Maher who skewers liberals for “cancel culture” either turn a blind eye to the brutal economic warfare practiced by the religious right or just assume it as “how society is supposed to work.”
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Plutocratic, religious extremists have the vampire advantage - few believe they exist. I had real history courses. I read Eightieth Century literature. A lifetime of power and wealth, inflates the ego. Speaking for God, being God’s will, with the evidence of unearned dominion in society will lead to arrogance, greed and cruel abuses of power. Established Churches, of England, of Rome only offered token charity and no check on power. The US is returning to this state with remarkable speed and a profound inability to learn from the past.
To get in the Halloween spirit and if you think the separation of church and state is important, watch this.
Duty to Warn: May I Tell You What Project 2025 Really Is
Faith based government should 250 years in the past.
More fun. The Sheer ABSURDITY of the ‘Populist’ Gold Palace (ft. Christopher Hitchens)
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I strongly disagree with the premise of this story.
It was not that the media did not take the Christian Right seriously, it was that it saw them as potential customers and tried to appease them in to reading and buying their products. Furthermore, this began in the 20th and not the 21st century.
Anyone else remember Reverend Jeremiah Wright and heat Barack Obama took from the media for attending his church due to a single sermon several years before he ran for president.
I mention that to compare it with the many 1950s and 1960s sermons by the true darling of the GOP, Jerry Falwell. Falwell for decades was an unapologetic racist claiming that Blacks had the Mark of Cain and as such by Gods plan were inferior to White people. Claiming to have changed, Falwell showed up at the 1980 GOP convention where the Party of Lincoln ended its support for the very reason it was founded, Civil Rights. Falwell remained the GOP hero with the media never mentioning his Mark of Cain sermons. But in truth, Falwell never changed to the point he wanted South Africa sanctioned for ending Apartheid and releasing Nelson Mandela from jail.
Or to put another way, media did not tell the truth about the “Christian Right” but because those White men in control over the media did not feel threatened by it whereas a Black man, likely at most paying half attention to a single sermon from a Black minister scared the hell out of them.
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Sarah’s coverage and insight of the Christian charismatics is really important for all the reasons she notes. I would add that the internecine right wing strife over Israel is an opportunity to further weaken the hard Christianist right, which has always had strong elements of ethnic/religious chauvinism that are incompatible with a public discussion about the reality of Zionist influence in American politics. I hope TPM devotes more coverage to the scandalous and hypocritical aspects of American Zionism, AIPAC and congressional and foreign policy influence. In addition, the overtly racist and Jewish-supremacist features of large elements of Israeli society and within the Israeli rabbinical establishment would, if more widely reported, further splinter the American hard right. Benzi Gopstein (Lehava) is an example of the anti-gentile forces regnant in Israeli society that would be seen as profoundly offensive to American Christianists (and secular Americans for that matter). A Hebrew Memri would prise apart a bastion of the American right. Let’s go TPM!
Agree with you 100%. The satire gave many the false notion that they were harmless fools.
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Gold palace in White House
…a stately pleasure dome decree?
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