"Right-wing strategist Steve Bannon, who once pledged to make the world 'as exciting as the 1930s,' promotes the ideas of the Italian Traditionalist Julius Evola, who wrote: 'We would like a more radical, more intrepid Fascism, a really absolute Fascis...

[kraemer_hb@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy That's what a cult wants. I don't remember who said things like 10 devout followers are better than 50 normal people. It might have been some Nazi.
Trump selected his followers for devoutness, that's the function of him requesting them to repeat any of his lies. This way they always have to avow to him being their saviour. (What I can't wrap my head around is religious Christians doing such oplenly blasphemous things.)

[thebratdragon@mastodon.scot]

@wdlindsy @Dave_Goldsmith even more succinctly, everybody is a sucker except him.....

[laloofah@mstdn.social]

@wdlindsy I was referring to how I think most of us are in our current circumstances. When society breaks down & chaos reigns, I agree; most of us really don’t know how we’d respond to alien situations & experiences.
I 1st saw Milgram’s Obedience to Authority film in a college psych class, & it horrified us all, as it does most people. But I learned later the experiment isn’t free of controversy. I think you’ll find this interesting, if you’ve not read it (or similar):
https://www.npr.org/2013/08/28/209559002/taking-a-closer-look-at-milgrams-shocking-obedience-study

[jon_kramer@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy MAGA is not the only anti-democratic movement. They are roughly 50% of the movement away from democratic rule. They are just the loud stupid 1/2.

The other 1/2 is far more subtle. The half that doesn't want primaries, wants candidates picked by the party leaders, resuses to enact laws that the majority of Americans want, etc. These are also people who don't want democracy.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Jon_Kramer I see no daylight between the puppet-masters you're describing here and MAGA.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Laloofah Thank you very much for the link. I'll read with interest. Have you seen the film "Experimenter" telling Milgram's story and starring Peter Sarsgaard and Winona Ryder? I thought it was really great.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Thebratdragon @Dave_Goldsmith Yes.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Kraemer_HB "What I can't wrap my head around is religious Christians doing such oplenly blasphemous things."

And, yet, in the American context, there is a very long history of distorting and warping Christianity to rob it of its teachings critical of injustice and calling for solidarity with the poor. Christian leaders who defended slavery invented a peculiar form of Christianity to justify that immoral practice, and their thinking remains alive in the MAGA movement today.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Dave_Goldsmith Yes, he did.

[laloofah@mstdn.social]

@wdlindsy You’re very welcome! And no, I not only haven’t seen that film, I’d never heard of it! So thank you for bringing it to my attention — I will be looking for it.

[kraemer_hb@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy Is this invention of Christianity to justify slavery connected with Calvinism? I'm from a Calvinist region of Germany, and I often acknowledge US Evangelical thoughts that seem familiar.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Kraemer_HB Calvinist theologians, as in Presbyterian divines at Princeton University, did play a major role in establishing that pro-slavery reading of the bible for the South.

[kraemer_hb@mastodon.social]

@wdlindsy Thank you! I read "Great Awakening" in Wikipedia and come from there to "Pietism" (that was strong in my home region) and the "Charismatic movement" that sure had some influence on Trumps performance. One could say he is speaking in tongues these days when his followers believe he has something profound to say, and all other people find him rambling incoherently. The complex religious history of the US is very interesting for its influence on todays political phenomena.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Kraemer_HB Yes, and in the US, a very rigid and retrogressive form of Calvinism is now ascendant in many quarters, pushed hard by a group who have been called the TheoBros, whose influence in evangelicalism in general is increasingly significant.

[wdlindsy@toad.social]

@Laloofah I think we watched it on Pay Per View, so that might be one place to find it if you have access to PPV (we no longer do, but find lots of good movies for free at both Tubi and Kanopy, the latter via our local library system).