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The Intellectual and Moral Decline of the American Right (www.theatlantic.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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[–] 48 points 6 months ago (2 children)

"Decline" would suppose that there was any substance there to begin with...

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  • [–] 19 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    I'm not old enough to say 100%, but it seems like 2026 Republicans are a completely different beast than the 70s-90s.

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  • [–] 16 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    By the 90's Republicans were in the infant stage of what they have become. Now they are full grown mask off.

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  • [–] 15 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    You can pretty much chart it going into warp speed when Falwell and the Moral Majority went into politics in 1979. The beginning of the end, and the start of this dark mainstream Christian nationalism. It was starting before then, but that is when they stomped on the gas.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago*

    In their own word, from Republican senator Barry Goldwater:

    Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies.

    And another:

    Republicans are selling their soul to win elections. Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. The government won't work without it. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.

    • Said in November 1994, as quoted in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience (2006).
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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    That's the thing. I'm not defending these fuckers at any moment in history, but the most poignant thing we can say is about the nature of the curve.

    Apples to apples things are remarkably different, though, no? If you pulled the staunch ones into today and explained the Epstein files, crypto rug pulls, etc...

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    In the 70s, Nixon initiated a CIA program to stamp out moderately left wing governments in Latin America and Catholic liberation theology that let to significant loss of life and oppression. This was done in conjunction with evangelical churches, including funding their operation

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I mean, we are bombing indiscriminately, cozying up to the worst dictators, having a president who in all likelihood was indispensable to child trafficking, threatening war against our friends to take over their island, having billionaires invade the systems that protect us, are now monitoring (at scale) the actions of the other branches of government by one, and above all else most of this is being led by a traitor who is in cognitive decline and never did anything other than fail upward in his entire life.

    I just think the bar has shifted quite a bit, no?

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