Read on Twitter
So, with Cruz leading the charge to overturn the election results, now is probably as good a time as any to remind you all that in 2016 I wrote that Cruz is just as authoritarian as Trump. He's simply smoother than Trump with the values voting rhetoric.
https://religiondispatches.org/why-trumpvangelicals-dont-need-ted-cruz-conservative-christianitys-authoritarian-streak/ https://twitter.com/nadinevdVelde/status/1345579301341548544
https://religiondispatches.org/why-trumpvangelicals-dont-need-ted-cruz-conservative-christianitys-authoritarian-streak/ https://twitter.com/nadinevdVelde/status/1345579301341548544
But the "values" that values voters are really voting for ultimately boil down to the power to dominate others. Which is why I'm not surprised at all that Trump proved so congenial to the Christian Right, pursuing their agenda more vigorously than any previous president, even W.
Unfortunately, to far too much of the American public, Cruz still represents a palatable package for theocratic authoritarianism. And that needs to change. Fascists must not be allowed to escape criticism just because they have the "sincerely held religious beliefs" bona fides.
In other words, we have to stop giving authoritarian Christians a pass. They have the right to their toxic beliefs; they do not have the right for those beliefs to be "respectable," let alone to have them dictate limits to the human rights of people who do not share them.
To get to this point, we need to recognize the Christian supremacism that pervades our society and to start working to dismantle it. Stop enabling it by treating "respectable" right-wing evangelicals as if they're not part of the problem http://conversationalist.org/2020/09/24/the-failure-of-respectable-evangelicalism-part-3/
Exposing the Christian Right's extremism is a major thrust of my work. I also write a lot about what navigating pluralism in a healthy democratic society should look like (and why there must be limits on the toleration of intolerance): https://religiondispatches.org/americas-national-conversation-about-christianity-is-fundamentally-unserious-but-not-in-the-way-you-think/
If you value the writing I do and want me to be able to continue to produce it regularly, please realize that freelance fees don't pay all the bills. To remain a productive, independent voice in 2021, I need the support of readers like you: https://www.patreon.com/cstroop
Thanks for reading, and thanks to all of you who support me via Patreon! Happy New Year, everybody. The holiday season is always rough for me, but now it's back to fighting American fascism!
