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| Tucker Carlson, Putin admirer, continues his slide to the far right |
Although I've criticized the North American Intelligent Design tribe (NAID) for their subliminally pagan category of so-called blind natural forces and also their slant toward the political right (*1), they are by no means the most extreme community to be found in the US. We only have to compare them with Ken Ham and his "Young Earth" theme park and his pseudo-scientific patter. Also, politically speaking the Trump supporting NAID community isn't as extreme as it gets. This came to light at the end of last year in the following post on Science & Culture....
At a Wrenching Time, My Gratitude for Discovery’s Leadership | Science and Culture Today
The writer of this post, David Klinghoffer, gives the NAID leadership a good slap on the back for helping to encourage him during what he refers to as a civil war among conservatives....
In my lifetime, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s been called a civil war among conservatives.
He goes on to say (My emphases)....
An Institutional Catastrophe: It was last month that another prominent think tank — with a lot of great people there, including friends of mine — split down the middle over the organization’s partnership with that tireless insinuator Tucker Carlson. The leadership of that organization, in my view, failed spectacularly. It hurt many on the staff, not least Jewish staff, with a number of resignations resulting from this including from the Board of Trustees. It was an institutional catastrophe, and recovery, if it comes, will take years.
Immediately after
that, at a routine, planned staff meeting, Discovery Institute leadership spoke
to us about all this. They could have ignored it. After all, another think
tank’s self-immolation is not an obvious action item for us. CSC Managing
Director John West addressed the situation directly, including about the
related rise of some proponents of so-called “Christian Nationalism,” who use
the mask of faith toward dark ends. Discovery President Steve Buri also spoke.
Their frank views, which I share entirely, did not surprise me. But I was very
moved to hear them articulated so promptly, forcefully, and publicly. After the
meeting, John West proactively encouraged me to write about Tucker in
relationship to the Alt Right and what’s often called the Woke Right, which I
did here. He did not need to do that either.
I'm very pleased to see that Christian Nationalism, the alt-right and Tucker Carlson are being disowned here. Interestingly this disowning goes as far as referring to the Alt-Right bad boys as the "Woke Right" - remember that for the loose coalition of US right-wing tribes the term "Woke" is used to label all that is unspeakably evil! (which may well include myself, a soft-left conservative!). So it is only natural that the NAID tribe label the alt-right baddies under the same classification heading of "Woke" in an attempt to identify them as all part of the "evil others". For myself I think the term Super-Unwoke is far more appropriate as the alt-right clearly have social connections with the unwoke community of which NAID is part; in fact those social connections are clearly evidenced given the stormy "institutional catastrophe" that Klinghoffer describes.
Tucker Carlson appears to be a Putin apologist and in fact an apologist for authoritarian leaders more generally. Perhaps then the following from the same Science & Culture article is not so surprising (My emphases)...
For a Colleagues Own protection: To say that I felt
supported by Discovery leadership would be an understatement. It’s too bad I
can’t tell you about other pertinent details, but I’ll just mention that we
have someone else in our Discovery circle, a Christian, whose courage extends
to frequently putting himself at physical risk in order to do the right thing
in this context. Sorry I have to be vague about that, for his own protection.
But again, as a Jew, I’m grateful for it, as I am for the friendship of CSC
Director Stephen Meyer, Discovery Founder Bruce Chapman, and others.
Gasp! Has the civil war got that bad? And again: The above is strong evidence of the hitherto close social links of the unwoke and the super-unwoke. Civil wars can be the source of the worst kind of acrimony and cruelty. I'm sure Klinghoffer is feeling that a slap on the back is much better than a knife in the back.
***
The following post on Science & Culture is from the same author David Klinghoffer and gives us more detail on the super-unwoke,,,
Tucker Carlson and the Second Coming of the Alt-Right | Science and Culture Today
According to Klinghoffer the alt-right were at one time atheists (Was Hitler an atheist? - I know he was anti-Christian) but for the second coming of the alt right this is what Klinghoffer tells us...
Well, there is one
surface-level difference: while the Alt-Right was frankly atheist, Tucker,
Fuentes, the poisonous, delusional Candace Owens, and others on their team
mostly wrap themselves in pseudo-Christian trappings. I liked the atheists
better. At least you couldn’t say about them that they took the Lord’s name in
vain.
Yes I agree that Candace Owens is poisonous and delusional and also I agree that the alt-right's Christian gloss is alarming. Klinghoffer goes on the list some of the sins of the alt-right such as their rabid antisemitism and yet underneath it Klinghoffer wants to stay loyal to the Trumpite right wing if possible....
The Alt-Right did
more plundering of pseudo-science, while the Woke Right plunders Christianity
while pretending to revere it. Despite cries from the left and the media that
Trump was a crypto-Nazi, the Alt-Right had no effect on the 2016 election
outcome. Now the Woke Right is complaining that the President isn’t a Nazi.
Speaking only for myself, I fear that the divisions they are sowing among
conservatives will, over the coming two elections, hand the country back to the
left. It’s a price that the All American “patriot” Tucker, surrounded on his
set by all the iconography that can be purchased from L. L. Bean, is willing to
pay.
To me the above is white washing MAGArism by comparing it with the black of the Alt-right. But I suggest that it is Trumpite extremism that has let the evil genie out of the bottle. The super-unwoke represented by Tucker and Fuentes has gained confidence in the face of Trump's narcissistic extremes and Trump's lying commentary about the evil other of the woke left and vote rigging thus draining confidence in US democracy and indeed Western civilization itself. Let me repeat: MAGArism has let the evil genie out of the political bottle. Unintentional no doubt but the extreme language of Trumpite MAGArism has fueled the super-unwoke phenomenon.
Is any of this a surprise? All human beings are both morally and epistemically challenged. The tribal thinking, of both the left-right extremes, which persists in sourcing the human predicament in the outsiders of the "evil other" is simply false (See the Book of Romans)..... sourcing the blame elsewhere is exactly how Trump and the super-unwoke work. They then unleash the emotional fires of alienation, tribal hate & anger with conspiracy theorism. The far-left harness similar methods & emotions in order to achieve control. The end-game involves installing a dictatorship in place of democracy's controlled row; this row is an accountable and constitionalised agreement to disagree. In short neither the woke or unwoke make provision for the very human disease of sin and the unbridled ego enhancement which is at the heart of social & political problems.
Interesting Links
1. Laura Loomer is a crank
2. Tucker Carlson: "It's all them others"
3.
If we’re going to hang any member of the “loser generation,” start with…
4. Loomer vs Carlson
Laura Loomer: Tucker is turning the 'GOP into modern-day Hitler Youth'
Footnote:
*1 See also a certain John West, who writes for Science & Culture and also for the The Trump supporting Townhall Magazine. He has come to my notice before as a right-wing commentator.
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