A couple of days ago I put up a post reminding whoever reads this blog that the Republican party's dependence on Conservative Evangelical scumbags like Jerry Falwell, Jr. (which I dubbed "Christopaths" 18 years ago and, by God, I'm gonna keep using it until it catches on and makes me as rich as "dumpster fire" made me!) did not, in fact, begin in 2016. That the unholy union between unslakable Republican ambition and God-bothering grifters like Jerry Falwell, Sr. goes way, way back to the days of Ronald Reagan.
Yes, I know it began before that, so please don't inundate me with "Well, technically..."s or "You forgot about..."s. Let's just stipulate, here and now, that you're all very clever and know many thing and move on, shall we?
What brings me back to Falwell this morning is a story and a podcast.
The story is the one about Watergate and John Dean at a point when Nixon was already up to his ass in the coverup, and Dean came to him to warn him about there being "a cancer on the presidency".
Well, yeah, but the cancer on the presidency was the president, so good luck with that.
Nixon then asked Dean to take all his notes and go away to Camp David and prepare for him a full report on this Watergate matter, and then come back and submit that report to Nixon. Dean went to Camp David and started work, but quickly figured out that any such report would have to include Dean's own involvement. And, not being an idiot, Dean also figured out that, once he submitted the report to Nixon, Nixon would claim that this was the Very First Time he was hearing about this matter! Then he'd hang the whole thing around Dean's neck and make him the fall guy. That was when Dean decamped from Camp David and went to go see the the senate Watergate investigators. He had a story to tell.
I mention this story because, since the rise of Trump, the "My God! This is the first I am hearing about this!" lie has become a staple on pretty much every Never Trump thing.
You're telling me that there's racism going on!? In the Party of Lincoln?!
Shut the front door! How did this happen!!
You're telling me that the clowns on Conservative talk radio have just been making shit up to scare the rubes? That it's been a bad influence on society?!?
OMG how did this happen!!
I'm shocked -- shocked! -- I see a noble enterprise like Fox News slowly turning into a right-wing propaganda machine since Trump was elected.
Remember the Good Old Days, when it was awesome?
...Charlie Sykes, listening in wide-eared wonder to the stunning revelation that the Republican party was actually in bed with the Christopaths...even before Donald Trump was elected!!
Sykes: ..and of course the whole Trump era, and you have this, again, this extraordinary line where you say, "I couldn't help but wonder if the plot twist to the story of American conservative Christianity was that what we thought was the Shire was Mordor all along."
Moore: It's kind of like watching The Sixth Sense or some other M. Night Shyamalan movie for the second time because then you can see how all of these things fit together that previously... I mean my gut would say to me, what's going on? I mean Glenn Beck is doing the restoring honor message on the National Mall in 2010? And you have a lot of my fellow evangelicals saying this is preaching the gospel. But I would think, yeah, this is just an anomaly. It's something that's on the fringe. And then later we turn around and see it's not fringe at all. And I think maybe the... the moment that... that became clearest to me was October 7th, 2016. I remember the day when the Access Hollywood tape was released...
It goes on like that. Sykes obsessing that, since Trump the Christopaths have really lost their way.
Moore (responding as if he had just personally decrypted this from the Mayan codex) that, actually, the Christopaths influence on the Republican party may extend back into the mists of...The Before Time.
The following is not actual dialogue from the podcast..
Sykes: You're shitting me!
Moore: I am not. There is evidence of Christopaths having a lot of clout within the GOP even before Trump came down the escalator.
Sykes: But I've been involved at the highest levels of the Republican party and Conservative media for decades? How could I have possibly missed this?
Moore: We all missed it, Charlie. They were so stealthy, these Christopaths. So subtle and sneaky and silent. They were like fucking ninjas! Invisible all this time and then, whamo! Suddenly they're everywhere!
By now, none of this surprises me. After all, 18 years ago, based on what was plainly obvious all around us, I wrote a parable about where this Republican/Christopath alliance was headed. And 18 years later, I wouldn't change a word.
All I'm listening for now is the next phase of this by-now familiar "My God! This is the first I am hearing about this!" dodge. Specifically, the sound of some prominent Never Trumper groping around in the dark looking for any way -- any way at all -- that they can plausibly blame this on us dirty, godless Liberals.
