By calling America “dark,” “depraved,” and “irredeemable,” the GOP speaker may as well be citing Al Qaeda’s leader

In a video recorded just weeks before he ascended to his role as the most powerful Republican on Capitol Hill, Johnson filmed a video for the World Prayer Network with rabidly homophobic pastor Jim Garlow. As Frederick Clarkson has chronicled for Salon, Garlow is part of an apocalyptic Christian movement that wishes to end secular democracy and replace it with “a utopian biblical kingdom where only God’s laws are enforced.” (Which, of course, sounds much like bin Laden’s hope for an Islamic caliphate.) Garlow asked Johnson if he felt that it was finally “a time of judgment for our collective sins.”

To this, Johnson replied, “The culture is so dark and depraved that it almost seems irredeemable.” As evidence, he noted how many young people identify as something other than straight.

Johnson’s words echo those of bin Laden’s "Letter to America: “We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling’s, and trading with interest.”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I am really not worried about Muslim terrorists in America.

    I am really worried about the next Timothy McVeigh. There are crazy people on the right who think he did the right thing. It’s only a matter of time before they emulate him.

    • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Surprisingly, his reasoning for doing it, while wrong, was instigated by the Waco Siege, which was a pretty shitty thing for the government to do. Turns out when you attack a group of people, they get radicalized (even further than that group already was)

      • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        Waco was fucked up long before the siege. It was just a tinderbox by design because those people were absolutely nuts.

        • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think you’re missing the point. When the government decides to get violent with groups, it only leads to radicalization. Very rarely does it solve an issue.

          • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            Im Lakota, I’m pretty awake to it but that doesn’t change the fact that it was a powder keg and the Branch Davidians were a death cult. There wasn’t any outcome that wasn’t going to be a lot of death and violence.

            • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              They were an apocalyptic cult, but not necessarily a death cult. Mind you they couldve evolved into a death cult with time, but thsy were generally pretty open which is not common in death cults.

              But ill also note they needed to be dealt with, its just that the ATF and feds fucked it up massively trying to make up for Ruby Ridge. Seriously they couldve grabbed David Karesh at basically any other time, the fucker was a singer for a band they couldve grabbed him when he did a show.

    • Telorand@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      I submit that it’s mainly only fundies who use that, and the problem is the fundies themselves, who often love and are most familiar with high-control power structures.

      And since Mike is former CoC (a child of Mormonism), this follows especially for him.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    People like this were fine with democracy when they were the majority and could get everything they wanted. As soon as they started to lose the popular vote they suddenly discovered how flawed the system was.

    • Jessvj93@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Same for prisons too, suddenly they’re too harsh for MAGA nuts, yet they wanted it that way cause they get off on their moral high horse when they get to punish the “right” people.

      • honey_im_meat_grinding@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        Makes you think if we had some crazy-ass lottery based system where a few people out of the population would be randomly selected for a week-long placement in prison, the fear of being on the receiving end of that would turn the prison system into a Norwegian-style reformative system almost overnight – where prisoners are given student accommodation-esque rooms with access to their digital devices, friend and family visits with privacy in the room, normal looking on-site grocery shops, mental health care workers, and so forth, all culminating in a recidivism rate as low as 15% in their best prison.

        • Doc Avid Mornington
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          1 year ago

          Nah. People suffer from too much just world fallacy. They’d never believe the lottery would select them, but they’d revel in seeing other people randomly get screwed. It’d be a very popular reality TV show.

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Exactly this.

      (Except suppression of black voters has been going on for centuries. Can’t lose that majority.)

    • Doc Avid Mornington
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      1 year ago

      Only quibble is, they were never the majority. It’s too easy to underestimate just how imbalanced our “democracy” was, and to a large extent, remains. But, we’re getting better, slowly, s l o w l y . . .

  • Diplomjodler@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    The American Taliban are very real and they’re chomping at the bit to take over. And it will be every bit as ugly as it is in Afghanistan.