Jesus, freak

Why conservatives are telling their people that liberals want to kill Christ

Have you noticed it’s become a conservative article of faith that liberals are genociding Christians?

It seems to have been inspired by the Covington Kids, who had to withstand some mean tweets a week ago after that old Indian banged his drum at them, and as a result have become the new Perpetua and Felicity of the Right. Erick Erickson is heavy on this beat. A few days ago he “apologized” (in a sorry-not-sorry way) for his resulting hatred of the press. “I must confess,” the ham-faced pundit told readers, “I have a harder and harder time resisting the temptation to believe the American political press corps has become the enemy of the people.” He professed to struggle against this feeling (“I try to pull myself back from thinking they are the enemy”) as if it were a pound of salt pork, but succumbed because “the press reaction to the news of Covington Catholic is one of a long series of stories of reporters dripping with contempt... I increasingly feel, as a Christian and a conservative, that the press is not interested in telling the truth and facts, but is heavily invested in ruining people like me.”

You’d think he’d get over this after a good night’s sleep and a side of beef, but apparently Erickson was watching one of his favorite comic book shows recently and saw — yea, even there! — a threat to his religion:

Marvel and Netflix Decide Christians Need Killing

I liked season 1 of Marvel’s The Punisher on Netflix, but season 2 decided to go for woke. The big baddie in season 2 is a Christian fundamentalist couple whose alt-right, closeted, gay senator son is being blackmailed by the Russians. The result is The Punisher killing the Christians...

I try to watch TV to escape from the news. Instead, Netflix and Marvel have decided to repackage every worn out cliche and stereotype of Christians and then have their protagonist kill all the Christians...

He seems obsessed with the Kill-Christians thing. I don’t watch as much TV garbage as I used to, but in my day the Wacked-Out Jesus Freak was one of a dozen basic villain types, along with the Resentful Anti-Social Bookworm and the Professor Who Thinks He’s God. Shit, they were doing that stuff on Bracken’s World. Nobody — nobody sane at least — took it seriously.

But conservatives are taking it seriously now. Because of Covington — and because some journalists are reporting on fundamentalists’ use of religious schools and homeschool curricula to indoctrinate their children with extreme far-right politics — the brethren are fantasizing liberal jihad.

“Liberals’ Holy War on Christian Orthodoxy,” raves David Harsanyi at the Daily Signal. Liberals, per Harsanyi, believe in a false Jesus of “left-wing agenda items, such as immigration and socialized health care,” while true Christians like Karen Pence spread Christ’s message of contempt for homosexuals. (The Christian Broadcasting Network gives this a more commercial spin: “How Lady Gaga-Style Leftists Are Trying to Recreate the Christian Faith in Their Own Image.”)

“Are liberals declaring war on Christians and Catholics?” asks Fox News; “Texas Democrats Seek To Ban Christianity Using So-Called Anti-Discrimination Laws,” gibbers James Wesolek at The Federalist (and you guessed it, it’s just a new version of the “Liberals Ban The Bible” fraud). “The Left’s insane attack on high school kids from Covington Catholic School was not an isolated incident,” howls John Hinderaker at Power Line. “...Christian schools stand in the way of the Left’s indoctrination project. So they are slated for destruction.”

What’s going on? Well, think about it. The midterms showed that the Republican base is pretty much restricted to white people — and they’re even losing a bunch of those. So who comprises the current conservative hardcore — the ones Republicans have to hang onto, or all is lost?

You can get a pretty good idea from who Trump directly and fulsomely panders to, because he knows better than most who they are. As his ramblings about duct-taped women being trafficked by Mexicans (very much in the manner of the hysterical rightwing emails directed at your grandparents) show, the hardcore base voters are fearful to the point of paranoid delusion. Plus they are religious — you don’t think Trump yammers about Bible studies and suffers to have all those Elmer Gantrys lay hands on him because he loves Jesus, do you? He knows that’s what his people go for.

That’s the prime conservative Republican voter segment now — Jesus freaks who think everyone’s against them. You can ring their terror bells pretty good with scary stories about that socialist Puerto Rican girl, but if you can convince them that liberals are literally trying to kill Christ again, you might get some of them to go door-knocking — or night-riding — in 2020.