I'd love to see lasting damage done to conservatives and their party - damage that lasts for generations.
this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2026
424 points (98.2% liked)
politics
31167 readers
2146 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles. Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to US politics and contain quality and original content. Social Media adjacent hosts like Substack are allowed, but ONLY if they tie back to a company/subsidiary. No personal or friend group blogs and no self-promotion. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and re-hosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing other users of being bots or paid actors.
- No memes, trolling, misinformation, or low-effort posts/comments (including reposts). If you see posts like this that anger you, do not engage. Report, block, and live a happier life than they do. Any slap-fight is subject to comment removals. Fights full of rule violations will result in temporary bans to cool off.
- No manipulating votes via bots or alt accounts; this will result in permanent bans. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in an account ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be permanently banned.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules and use critical thinking when reading, posting, and commenting. Users that repeatedly have comments or posts removed, weaponize reports, or violate the code of conduct, will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users. The reason(s) behind moderator action(s) are publicly available through the Modlog.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Prior to the Great Depression three Republicans repeatedly cut taxes for the wealthy, reduced government regulation, and made corporations a driving force in the government. (Sound familiar?) It took 20 years for another Republican to be elected and almost 50 years if you exclude Eisenhower.
IMO Trump is going to cause another depression and for many Americans that depression has already begun. Maybe people will remember this, but who am I kidding?
I'm Gen X, and I remember hearing older generations from the working class - and the very poor part of it, no less - bitching about FDR, comparing him to a dictator, saying he was a Communist, etc...and these motherfuckers almost surely had their lives improved by FDR.
My parents were boomers and would overhear this kind of thing (usually with lots of colorful language not really meant for kids) and when I was asking what they were talking about, they would just shake their heads and I could tell they were quite pissed about all of the stupidity they had to wade through daily. We lived in the rust belt and in a very red area.
And that's all pre-hate radio, pre-Faux News. And wayyyyy before shit platforms like Xitter and Facebook and Nextdoor....somehow, I doubt these types will learn much of anything.
The GOP needs to have lasting damage done to it and democrats need to get their shit together.
You can't follow teachings of Jesus and be a Republican.
Christ said to pay your taxes, that hoarding wealth is a sin, and he flipped shit (and tables) over the commercialization of faith in the temple.
He threatens Hell one time (Matthew 25), and it's for the mistreatment of the poor, hungry, sick, imprisoned, and foreigners.
My parents are very strong, theologically conservative Christians and vote Republican. I say "vote Republican" because they're not invested in the machinery and drama around Republican politics. They don't attend conventions or rallys. They don't watch Fox new or follow the 24 hour news cycle. They're not at all wealthy but are comfortable (through frugal living) and they take advantage of public programs. They are essentially single-issue voters - abortion. I'm 95% sure that if the parties magically switched positions and Democrats were pro-life and Republican pro-choice, my parents would start voting Democrat.
The Republicans' entire existence is due to 2 single-issue voting groups. Pro-Life and Pro-gun.
As someone who, unfortunately, needs to interact with a lot of American "Christians", it cannot be understated how little of Christ's own words are spoken in most Protestant churches.
Years of going to church with my wife's family and I've heard Romans or Timothy 2 dozens of times but I can't remember the last time I heard anything from the gospels that were actually Jesus' words vice an apostle.
Sunday school is worse. Kids learn Old testament -> brief synopsis of Jesus, mostly John (should be obvious by now why) -> and then wrote memorize Paul.
Christians in America generally avoid Christ as much as possible.
I remember Robert Anton Wilson, who grew up Catholic, musing about how they should probably be called Paulians. Man, did that hit home with my experience.
I grew up xtian (from a liberal tradition of xtianity) and when I started hearing how other kids that were also xtian talking about certain issues, as early as maybe third or fourth grade I started to understand that there are vastly different interpretations of what that means.
I read the NT at a rather early age, slogged through the OT later, 2x for both of them (although I admit to skimming Numbers) and that did a lot to generally give me a great distance from all of it.
When hard core wingers talk about "the bible", I often get the sense they have never read anything but hand-selected passages spoon-fed to them. It is especially wild to notice that when I talk about "red letter xtians" around them they often get a look of confusion. Before the term was concocted, though, even as an adolescent, when I'd ask people if what they were espousing was something that was written in red, they'd be confused. Which is strange, since quite a few bibles I've seen have Jesus' words in red...
When this same batch of illiterates advocate for "teaching the bible", part of me wants to say - yes, let's do that, but read the entire thing and have class discussions after each assigned reading.
No special guidance, though, from certain beliefs. No apologetics applied to "explain" all the contradictions with logic, math, science and ethics. Start to finish, baby, even if it takes a few years to do it.
See how long that lasts, LOL.
But the headline of an episode of evangelical podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey’s show was perhaps the most inflammatory: “James Talarico is More Demonic Than You Think.” Stuckey, who has attacked empathy as “toxic,” warned viewers and listeners that “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Satan looks good. He sounds good.” Talarico, she said, is “evil disguised as goodness.”
Or, your mythical satan might use a cunt named Allie Beth as a mouthpiece.
I doubt it but I hope so. And I think it's also crucial that these Christians don't push the party to embrace forcing everyone to follow their rules.
Lasting damage is what we want. Too bad this is just another opinion piece and not news. Kinda like polls telling you what you want to hear until they've been proven false. Ignore the bullshit on both sides and vote like you've never voted before.
As long as there are humans there will be the equivalent of the GOP. There are always backwards, selfish, hateful people.
This is wishful thinking. Evangelicals have been aware of liberal Christian churches forever, and they hate them more than anything.
Evangelicals aren't a large enough fraction, they're just loud
Loud and highly motivated to vote
Those absurd attempts to suppress Talarico's interview with Jimmy Kimmel tell a different story. It shows they are scared of him. Even if they didn't need to be scared of him, showing that you're scared isn't a good look.
I don’t mean that Talarico can’t win. He’s a slight favorite, according to the polls. Republicans are scared of him, as they should be. They’re worried that most independents in Texas, even conservative leaning ones, will go for Talarico over the odious Paxton this year.
That’s different than saying Talarico has the potential to permanently pull Evangelicals over to Democrats in meaningful numbers. Those are Trump’s base. They’ve long been aware that it is possible to be a Christian and a decent person at the same time, and have roundly rejected the notion.
The "christian right" is a broad category going far beyond Evangelicals, and I don't think anyone's addressed their hypocrisy in such an appealing and convincing way before. Many will dig their heels in and stick to the tribal identity, but their claims of being real Christians are going to sound more hollow to a lot of people.
view more: next ›