It was ‘advancing mankind’ that I thought might trigger Randians, that is, being ‘altruistic’. But I confess that don’t have an extensive knowledge of Objectivism so maybe I mis-spoke.
Let me try to persuade you of what I think is the most important thing for us to understand at this moment in history: most people are not, with respect to how they will vote (or act politically in general), like the people on this forum.
Most people reading this post have almost certainly thought a lot about political issues, are of above-average intelligence, and probably very well read. Their political beliefs are internally consistent.
This is not true of most people, and is certainly not true of the ‘middle third’ who don’t consider themselves either consistently conservative or liberal. These are the people we need to reach.
(And among ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals’, ‘consistency’ is confined to a minority among both sides.)
Things aren’t helped by the fact that in a democracy (yes, yes, I know, the US is a republic, but one with universal suffrage), political parties will ‘tack to the middle’ in order to win.
In fact, most people get their general ideas of how things work in the social sphere from Hollywood, which emphasizes Good vs Evil, Super Heroes vs Super Villains.
Thus all the crazy conspiracy theories which are so popular on the Right, trying to explain what’s happening by assuming that Hillary Clinton, George Soros and Satan sit down around a table every day, and after finishing a dish of boiled baby, plot to undermine yet another pillar of society.
Have a look at this thread on Twitter, where a popular ‘middle of the road’ person (some sort of celebrity of whom eccentric me has never heard), who used to be against Trump, relates how he changed his mind, after interviewing him. Read the comments as well. Most are from non-political people (ie when you look at their Twitter bios, there is nothing to indicate that they were already conservatives). They will cheer you up.
By ‘we’ I mean conservatives. We need to reach them – the sort of people like the fellow who interviewed Trump, and his milieu, to pull them towards us, politically. Look at the comments after that interview. These are people who are now open to becoming aware of what is happening to their country.
The political configuration of a country is not static. What mainly influences it are events, but conscious human activity also plays a role.
Most conservative forums, or at least the ones I’ve seen, are places where conservatives can post yet more examples of leftist lunacy. This is useful for various reasons, but what we need is some place where we can discuss;/argue about what has caused this catastrophic development, and what we should be doing to fight it.
BUT … there is one huge obstacle to getting a lot of conservatives to join this forum: it’s for atheists. Now, if it were called the FreeThinking Conservative, that name might not scare people away, since it is used in different ways. But I am afraid that if I urge people to join ‘the Atheist Forum’ …
However, I’ll try. Let’s see if there is surge of new registrations over the next few days. By ‘surge’ I mean one more in two weeks than usually register.
On polls, re religous belief, ‘Christian nationalism’, etc. We have to take all of them with a grain of salt.
On the other hand, we need to be familiar with some of the facts regarding ‘Christian naitonalism’, as it’s likely to be a major Leftist scare-phrase in the next period.
I looked at several polls taken within the last few years, on politics and religion, and specficaly on ‘Christian nationalism’. They were quite interesting, especially when they showed that, for many people, this phrase is essentially meaningless.
Here are several relevant polls, two of which, if not contradicting each other, do report significantly different results: And one of the others is outrageously politically biased. It’s also interesting to see that significant numbers of people seem to hold a set of political views which flatly contradict each other…
About a third of Republicans are both conservative and highly religious. So, if we combine this poll’s findings with the previous one, then about half of conservatives are Christian, but not highly religious.
“Percent of Adherents of Christian Nationalism who view Joe Biden very favorably: 9 Somewhat favorably. 8” What???!!!
Percent of sympathyzers of Christian Nationalism who view Joe Biden very favorably: 9 somewhat favorably 8. Again, what???
8% of Christian nationalism adherents hold unfavorable views of the term, and 38% are not familiar with the concept. … Again, what?
Example of bias:
If you disagree with the statement “generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for many Black Americans to work their way out of the lower class,” you are, according to the this survey, an ‘anti-Black racist’.
Christian nationalism - Wikipedia
According the Wiki author, Christian nationalism ‘bears overlap with … white supremacy’ and ‘…has been linked towards support for political violence’.
Note the sly weasel-words which the Wiki editor uses to smear Christian nationalists. ‘bears overlap with’ and ‘has been linked to’.
https://wave_6_-_christian_nationalism_2021.pdf [Baylor University’s famous ongoing study of religion and American life.]
“… support for QAnon and White natonalism was very low in our sample…” [WHITE NATIONALISM: SUPPORT: 6.7% for Strong Christian Nationalists, and 5% for ‘moderates’, )OPPOSE: 71.1% of Strong Christian Nationalists and 81.4% of ‘moderate’ Christian Nationalists oppose White Nationalism]
Note that 2% of Strong Christian nationalists support AntiFa along with 7.4% of ‘moderates’ , and 29.3% support BLM! Again, what???
And among ‘Strong Rejectors of Christian Nationalism’ 1% support ‘white nationalism’
23.2% of Strong Christian Nationalists and 29.7% of moderates think the Supreme Court is too conservative!
10% of strong Christian Nationalists believe ‘Conservative Christians are a threat to the unity of the United States’ !!!
Clearly, the phrase ‘Christian nationalism’ is almost meaningless. Many people who describe themselves this way, or who fit the poll-taker’s definition, just use it to mean ‘Christian’ and ‘pro-American’. You can be a Christian nationalist and disapprove of the term, support BLM, like Joe Biden and think the Supreme Court is too conservative!!!
Finally, a recent poll:
“Overall, six-in-ten U.S. adults – including nearly seven-in-ten Christians – say they believe the founders “originally intended” for the U.S. to be a Christian nation. And 45% of U.S. adults – including about six-in-ten Christians – say they think the country “should be” a Christian nation.”
Anyway, our tasks are clear: to persuade our Christian co-thinkers NOT to use this bogey-man phrase to describe themselves.
