Two Sad Jokes
Headline I just read, from Real Clear Politics:
Mark Levin: Bannon, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly have contributed nothing to conservatism or the country.
Of course I will not read, and do not recommend, the accompanying article, apparently a transcript from an episode of the money- and audience-grubbing Levin’s Trump sycophant jamboree hilariously called “Liberty’s Voice.” But I will merely point out, for what it is worth, that I absolutely agree with Levin’s judgment, as per that headline: Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly have indeed contributed absolutely nothing to the cause of American conservatism, let alone to the cause of The United States of America.
But if Levin were honest with himself, or had an ounce of integrity left, he would go on to acknowledge, as supporting evidence for this condemnation, that Bannon and Carlson were without a doubt two of the most important and influential media voices in the fabrication of the Trump cult, in the push for his takeover of the Republican Party in 2016, in the argument for his election, in the support for his re-election in 2020, in the downplaying of the January 6th 2021 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol in Trump’s name, in the rehabilitation of a subversive cult leader’s presidential aspirations in 2024, and in the continual whitewashing of Trump’s authoritarian assaults on constitutional government, civil society, the rule of law, the Western democratic alliance, NATO, and the last wisps of America’s global reputation as the figurehead of freedom and goodness on the world stage. These are the kinds of facts which Levin himself, before the spring of 2016, used to be able to see about Bannon and Carlson, used to decry, and used to loathe, until Trump’s presidential nomination became a fait accompli, and Levin suddenly threw millions of his radio listeners under the bus, or rather drove the bus right over them in his hasty flight to the Mar-a-Lago knee-bending gala. Bannon and Carlson, with their huge influence within the Republican “grassroots,” were on the vanguard of promoting and normalizing anti-conservative and anti-American propaganda and policy, which Levin himself has conveniently ignored for years, or has rather joined Bannon and Carlson in perpetuating.
Until, of course, those two dare to oppose Trump’s mindless and corrupt war undertaken in the name of no perceptible aim beyond deference to Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal self-interest, and suddenly Levin pretends to find his “liberty’s voice” just long enough to tell us that Bannon and Carlson are bad for America — except when he himself is supporting and shilling for the authoritarian monster they have wrought.
Meanwhile, the fraudulent conservative whom Mark Levin had supported before he suddenly jumped on the Trump bandwagon, and whom he was racing against on his cannonball run to sell out his party and his country to kiss the ring of the moron king, was Senator Ted Cruz. Cruz, interestingly, is also in the headlines today — and this time I actually skimmed a bit of the story, although the headline tells most of it — coming under attack by social media Catholics (yes, I know that sounds amusing and ambiguous) for promoting a lengthy essay warning about a secret Catholic takeover of the Republican Party.
The headline:
Catholics condemn Ted Cruz for endorsing papist cabal conspiracy theory: ‘You should be embarrassed.’
The opening summary of the situation, from Mediaite:
“READ every word of this. It’s the best & most comprehensive explanation of what we’re fighting,” wrote Cruz in a social media post, linking to a conspiracy theory article which warned that a cabal of Catholics were turning the Republican Party into “a party with different gods” through a “ten-year project” to carry out “the replacement of evangelical Protestant political theology” with a “foreign” Catholic framework.
“Evangelical Protestant political theology.” What in the world is that, and why does it have any place in a serious discussion of American constitutional conservatism?
I know that the evangelical type of Protestantism has its roots in “foreign” soil too. I also know that evangelical Protestantism has always had a strong element of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism, and the fostering of the so-called “Protestant work ethic” as opposed to any more profound aspirations of the soul. But none of that made evangelical Protestantism inherently stupid, crass, and merely a thin sham of religion to cover over a trivial materialism and devotion to small-minded comfort and success, as opposed to genuine piety and humility before the divine. It took the Americanization of evangelical Protestantism to make it a stupid, crass, sham cover for materialistic comfort and success.
Ted Cruz as a defender of Christianity against the “different gods” of “foreign” Catholicism? Or even a defender of “evangelical Protestant political theology,” whatever that is? That’s a good one.
