Mostly Monday Reads: Dangerous Don’s Dirty Dance of Theocratic Fascism

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I wish the media would not confuse traditional conservatism with theocratic fascism. This country has had its share of offbeat religions doing offbeat things, starting with the so-called Pilgrims.  There were so many forms of it in the colonial US that the first Continental Congress couldn’t even develop an opening prayer to please everyone.  The March 2021 edition of Church and State published “A Word From John Adams: A 224-Year-Old Treaty Says The U.S. Was Not Founded As A Christian Nation.” It’s an excerpt from Solemn Reverence by Randall Balmer. 

John Adams had considered entering the ministry before opting to study law. Educated at Harvard, he served in the Continental Congress, as ambassador to Britain, and as Wash­ing­ton’s vice president before his election as president in 1796. He served a single term, losing the 1800 election to Thomas Jefferson.

Though reared a Congregationalist, Adams became a Unitarian. He did not believe in the Trinity – the Christian doctrine, defined in the Nicene Creed, that God exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

“My religion you know is not exactly conformable to that of the greatest part of the Christian World,” Adams acknowledged in a letter to his wife, Abigail, in 1799. “It excludes superstition. But with all the superstition that attends it, I think the Christian the best that is or has been.”

Adams understood the value of religion. “I have attended public worship in all countries and with all sects and believe them all much better than no religion,” he wrote to Benjamin Rush, “though I have not thought myself obliged to believe all I heard.” The second president’s most candid remarks about faith appeared in a letter to his son, John Quincy Adams, in 1816, long after the elder Adams had left office. “An incarnate God ! ! ! An eternal, self-existent, omnipresent omniscient Author of this stupendous Universe, suffering on a Cross! ! ! My Soul starts with horror, at the Idea, and it has stupified [sic] the Christian World. It has been the Source of almost all the Corruptions of Christianity.”

Perhaps Adams’s most enduring contribution to the conversation about church and state in the United States is the Treaty of Tripoli, negotiated during the Washington administration but ratified during Adams’s presidency.

That treaty negotiation contains the most significant indicator of what the founding fathers intended, which eventually became embedded in the U.S. Constitution: the separation of church and state. Its first was written in that Treaty.

The Senate ratified the Treaty of Tripoli unanimously, without debate, on June 7, 1797.

The language of Article 11 is pretty clear – “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion” – so anyone arguing that the United States is a Christian nation would need to explain away both Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli as well as the Senate’s unanimous ratification of the treaty. Clearly, those who constituted the government in the early years of the new nation – the executive and legislative branches – had no quarrel with the statement that the United States was not founded on Christianity.

The rebuttals of the Christian nation crowd are tortured, but they seem to rely on quoting the entirety of Article 11 (reproduced above in its entirety), not merely the opening phrase: “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion . . .” Fair enough. Context is always important. It’s not clear to me, however, how the full article in any way changes the plain meaning of the phrase. The treaty makes the case that the United States has no “enmity” against Islam or Muslims. The treaty does not assert that the United States is a Christian nation; it states the opposite: “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”

You may continue to read the excerpt of that book at the link.  The book is still in print.  You know me and my rabbit holes.  You also know six of my direct ancestors ratified that Treaty. I feel like I have a lot of skin in this game.  We all should have a lot of skin in this game. David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo has just published this. “The Easter Madness Of Donald J. Trump. INSIDE: Alvin Bragg … Wes Moore … Ammon Bundy.”

Trump’s Messianic Complex

I trust that most of you were offline celebrating the holiday, warming to the Spring, welcoming baseball back, or watching college basketball. Congrats on missing another unhinged online weekend for Donald Trump.

Over the course of 70+ posts Easter morning, Trump vilified and attacked a wide range of his antagonists in ALL CAPS zeal. At the same time, he reposted articles declaring himself to be “The Chosen One.”

The contrast between the irreligious candidate embracing Christian nationalism and the lifelong Irish Catholic was, shall we say, striking:

It’s all so infantile and incredibly ridiculous that you can hardly be blamed for not wanting to be bothered about it over the weekend.

The New York Times’s Michael Bender wrote this today. “The Church of Trump: How He’s Infusing Christianity Into His Movement Ending many of his rallies with a churchlike ritual and casting his prosecutions as persecution, the former president is demanding — and receiving — new levels of devotion from Republicans.” I’m sorry, but watching all of this just makes me ill.

Mr. Trump has long defied conventional wisdom as an unlikely but irrefutable evangelical hero.

He has been married three times, has been repeatedly accused of sexual assault, has been convicted of business fraud and has never showed much interest in church services. Last week, days before Easter, he posted on his social media platform an infomercial-style video hawking a $60 Bible that comes with copies of some of the nation’s founding documents and the lyrics to Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the U.S.A.”

 …

Mr. Trump’s braiding of politics and religion is hardly a new phenomenon. Christianity has long exerted a strong influence on American government, with most voters identifying as Christians even as the country grows more secular. According to Gallup, 68 percent of adults said they were Christian in 2022, down from 91 percent in 1948.

But as the former president tries to establish himself as the one, true Republican leader, religious overtones have pervaded his third presidential campaign.

Benevolently phrased fund-raising emails in his name promise unconditional love amid solicitations for contributions of as little as $5.

Even more than in his past campaigns, he is framing his 2024 bid as a fight for Christianity, telling a convention of Christian broadcasters that “just like in the battles of the past, we still need the hand of our Lord.”

On his social media platform in recent months, Mr. Trump has shared a courtroom-style sketch of himself sitting next to Jesus and a video that repeatedly proclaims, “God gave us Trump” to lead the country.

The apparent effectiveness of such tactics has made Mr. Trump the nation’s first major politician to successfully separate character from policy for religious voters, said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah University, an evangelical school in Pennsylvania.

“Trump has split the atom between character and policy,” Mr. Fea said. “He did it because he’s really the first one to listen to their grievances and take them seriously. Does he really care about evangelicals? I don’t know. But he’s built a message to appeal directly to them.”

I’m going to share Jennifer Ruben’s response to this with you.

The bigger problem is the Trump Snake Oil show has emboldened local theocratic fascists at all levels.  Again, I dealt with them back in 1992 when the cry against anyone who wasn’t white and their brand of Christian was considered to be a multiculturist.  They were as rabid back then as now against women’s Reproductive Rights and the GLBT community.  I fled Nebraska for the safety of the French Quarter because of them. They’re insane.    This is insane.  This is from Piper Hutchinson, who is writing for the Louisiana Illuminator. “Ultra-conservative lawmakers target Louisiana libraries as culture war rages on.” This is radicalism. It’s theocratic fascism! The men who voted for that Treaty would be appalled; many were clergy.

With veto-proof majorities in both legislative chambers and the backing of a new governor, some Louisiana Republicans are taking aim at public libraries with legislation that could criminalize librarians.

Four conservative lawmakers have filed five bills that play off the library culture war currently raging across the nation, including in Louisiana.

Upset with what they view as sexually explicit materials in libraries and the “Marxist” American Library Association, far-right activists have filed thousands of book challenges in the past few years and pushed libraries to disaffiliate with the ALA. In Louisiana, public library oversight boards have mostly resisted calls to restrict book content, but some, including the State Library, have ended their ALA memberships.

The issue has captured the interest of Republicans in Louisiana, including Gov. Jeff Landry.

As attorney general, Landry set up a tip line to field complaints against libraries that he said failed to protect children from “early sexualization, as well as grooming, sex trafficking, and abuse.” Landry later drafted a “Protecting Innocence” report on libraries and supported legislation to restrict minors’ access to certain library materials.

Three bills filed could lead to criminal punishment for librarians.

House Bill 777 by Rep. Kellee Dickerson, R-Denham Springs, would prohibit any public employee from spending public funds with the American Library Association. Anyone who does would be subject to up to two years in prison or a fine of up to $1,000.

The bill would force public libraries, including parish and university libraries, to sever their memberships with the association and would prohibit libraries from sending their librarians to ALA conferences and other continuing education events.

Dickerson said in an interview she filed the bill because she wants money to be spent locally, rather than with a national organization.

The villainization of the American Library Association is something that perplexes most librarians.

“I’m not sure exactly what these people think go on at ALA conferences,” Suzanne Stauffer, an LSU library and information science professor said in an interview. “It’s workshops about how to better meet the needs of their community.”

“Frankly, the conferences are dull,” Stauffer added, laughing.

Michael Lunsford, a conservative activist who frequently targets the ALA, thinks otherwise. Lunsford, executive director of Citizens for a New Louisiana, a Lafayette-based advocacy group, has been on the frontlines of the library battle in Louisiana. He and his organization have been involved with attempts to restrict books before multiple parish library boards of control. The appointed volunteer boards oversee libraries and have the final say over what books are removed from the shelves

Lunsford described the American Library Association as a “Marxist” organization out to fundamentally change U.S. society.

“We’ve had an organization that comes out and says, ‘You have to have these erotic books in your children’s section or you’re a Nazi,’” Lunsford said.

Lunsford claimed he found a copy of “Let’s Talk About it” in the children’s section of the Lafayette Public Library. The graphic novel is a nonfiction young adult book that contains depictions of genitalia and descriptions of sex acts. The book is billed as a guide to coming of age, puberty, consent and sexuality and is targeted at readers 14 and older.

The books Lunsford and other ultra-conservative activists have targeted are primarily those with LGBTQ+ themes and those with sexual content are classified as young adult or adult books. Louisiana also recently adopted an extensive tiered card system that gives parents control over what types of books their children can check out.

Attendees at a Livingston Parish Library Board of Control meeting on July 19, 2022, show their opposition to a member who had submitted a list of books that she deemed inappropriate for children and young adult readers. Five of the books contained LGBTQ themes. (Piper Hutchinson/Louisiana Illuminator)

The weirdest temper tantrum this weekend is the conspiracy around the lunar calendar’s choice of Easter this year and the coincidence that it happened on Trans Day of Visibility. “Trending: Easter Controversy,” or: How little lies pave the way for the next big lie. No-News Weekend Internet is stupid-dangerous in the Trump era — as this weekend’s attack on the Transgender Day of Visibility shows.” This is from the Law Dork’s Chris Geidner.

This weekend’s gaslighting from the right around Easter falling on the same day as Transgender Day of Visibility is a stark sign of how empty the Republican Party has gotten — and how dangerous Donald Trump is, not only to transgender people, but to America.

If you, blessedly, have no idea what I am talking about, congratulations, you live a life free from what I think is best thought of as “No-News Weekend Internet.” In short, when nothing is happening, something must happen. It will always be stupid, but, in the past, sometimes that meant stupid-fun. Now, it means stupid-dangerous.

This time, it was two things. Easter moves around because it falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21. Transgender Day of Visibility, which was founded in 2009, takes place on March 31.

This year, again, BECAUSE OF THE MOON, Easter is on March 31.

For a group of Republicans looking to demonize Joe Biden and transgender people, this was all that they needed to start a weekend of hate. Then, for kicks I guess, they added in an attack on the “new rules” for the White House children’s egg decorating contest — specifically, that submissions can’t be overtly religious — as a second anti-Christian thing that Biden has done despite the fact that the Biden administration didn’t change the rules.

It’s disgusting and done in extremely bad faith — but also dangerous.

Because of that danger, I’m going to go through what happened in detail and discuss why it’s so disturbing.

And, of course, the deplorable Caitlyn Jenner had to come join the gaslighting.  This is from HuffPo.  I really feel like I should drag out all the dumb jock jokes we used to tell in junior high school. It’s on that level.

Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman, wrote on social media Saturday that she is “disgusted” Transgender Day of Visibility is on Easter this year. The annual event has been held on March 31 since its inception in 2009. Easter is a different date each year, however.

“I am absolutely disgusted that Joe Biden has declared the most Holy of Holy days – a self proclaimed devout Catholic – as Transgender Day of Visibility,” Jenner wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “The only thing you should be declaring on this day is ‘HE is Risen.’”

Tom Toles Editorial Cartoon

The last thing I will share with you is my absolute delight in having a new case study for my Graduate Students in Derivatives. This is from CNBC. “Trump Media plunges more than 20% after company reports net loss of $58 million in 2023.” So, the stock has a negative Price/Earnings ratio, which is incredible it even got listed in that situation. It’s the most shorted stock in history, which means people were paying a lot of money to bet it would crash. I’ve been carefully watching for a sign of a gamma squeeze.  Also, its sponsor barely got out of serious hot water with the SEC before it could launch shares of JDT.

The share price of Trump Media fell sharply Monday morning after the social media app company closely tied to former president Donald Trump reported a net loss of $58.2 million on revenue of just $4.1 million in 2023.

Trump Media & Technology Group shares were trading down by more than 20% as of 12:30 p.m. ET.

Despite that plunge, the company’s market capitalization was still more than $6.8 billion after its 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed the loss for last year.

Much of the net loss appears to come from $39.4 million in interest expense, according to the filing.

A spokesperson for the company did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the new filing.

The filing shows that in 2022, Trump Media had a net profit of $50.5 million and total revenue of only $1.47 million.

The company ended 2023 with just $2.7 million in cash on hand, the filing said.

The losses last year by Trump Media — the owner of the Truth Social app routinely used by the former president — could continue for some time, according to the company.

“TMTG expects to incur operating losses for the foreseeable future,” says the filing, which came a week after the company began trading under the ticker DJT on the Nasdaq.

The filing also warns shareholders that Trump’s involvement in the company could put it at greater risk than other social media companies.

TMTG also disclosed to regulators that the company had identified “material weaknesses in its internal control over financial reporting” when it prepared a previous financial statement for the first three quarters of 2023.

As of Monday, Trump Media said these “identified material weaknesses continue to exist.”

That’s what we in the business like to call the discipline of the market.  You may follow those links if you want to get into the weeds.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?