Screwtape went down to Georgia

[cnm]

I never read much of Lewis's work I preferred Oscar Wilde...

Lewis's characters never minded a bit of ultra violence to assist the religion of peace.

 

[Billiejeens]

... to side with the Devil ...

There are many “devilishly” complex problems our country and the world faces. Covid is small potatoes comparitively. What are these bigger even more complex problems? First is that our Wall Street financial empire, backed by our “globalist” network of military bases, is in chaotic and inevitable decline.

The dilemma is that we have built the very systems that controls us and the world, and nobody can bring back the past.

We can no longer dramatically outproduce our many competitors in real economic terms. Our leaders in both parties either can’t or don’t want to heal our social divisions. Resolving all these problems requires leaders who recognize above all that there is no path backwards to U.S. unilateral dominance of the world, and detente is necessary in a multipolar world.

What is required is honestly and objectively defining our problems, and honesty & competence in dealing with them. Honesty and competence are both characteristics completely lacking in Trump. Our country in 2016 democratically elected a narcissistic demagogue who had spent most of his life as a wannabe power broker, hustler and popular entertainer, and was famous in the business community for being a rich conman grifter. He hasn’t a clue about what really must be done, but he is willing to see the country torn apart to satisfy his egomania. You have bought his patent medicine of “MAGA,” so of course you don’t agree.

The candidate who you believe was “fighting the devil” more than half the country believed was an unstable and dangerous demagogue who was actually tearing our country apart. Even though I agree with some of his supposed “positions,” I am convinced he would have ended up insane in the White House, leading our country to disaster.

Any chance that even 1 of your posts will ever not be excruciatingly long and boring?

 

[cnm]

Oh look, the Left are C. S. Lewis fans now?

I always though he was an hypocritical arsehole.

YMMV.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Oh look, the Left are C. S. Lewis fans now?

I always though he was an hypocritical arsehole.

YMMV.

Why do folks think that enjoying great literature, or profoundly amusing children’s literature that parodies real life, or even clever polemical quotations, equals agreeing with the politics or religious sentiments of a writer? Is there a hidden political meaning to “Jabberwocky” that forbids me from enjoying it?

Do we all now have to worry about the politics of Aeschylus? Shakespeare? Dickens? Jane Austen?

 

[Votto]

Oh look, the Left are C. S. Lewis fans now?

I always though he was an hypocritical arsehole.

YMMV.

And why is that?

 

[Votto]

I never read much of Lewis's work I preferred Oscar Wilde...

Lewis's characters never minded a bit of ultra violence to assist the religion of peace.

Jesus himself got a whip out and used it.

 

[Mac1958]

If, six months ago, I were to describe the last month to the politicians still rewarding and encouraging Trump’s behavior, most would say I was succumbing to Trump Derangement Syndrome. “Oh, come on, he wouldn’t do that!” they’d say. And even for those who thought this outrageous affront to the civic order might be possible, they’d certainly take great offense if I followed up with, “Not only will he try to steal the election with deranged conspiracy theories, not only will his champions call for martial law to erase the loss, but you won’t say ‘boo’ about it. In fact, you’ll even say he should run again.”

Well, that’s happened. They created this self-destructive mess. They created it by refusing to take the right path not just because the right path was hard, but because the wrong path was so easy. As Screwtape explains, “the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

Now, America isn’t in Hell, but the people who did nothing, or far too little, are daily beset by lesser, fresher, hells of their own making—and I’m making popcorn. The gloriously entertaining spectacle of Trump and his ambitious progeny suddenly having to deal with their own mini-Trumps in the form of Wood, Powell, and their minions is enough to turn their home-brewed dumpster juice into a delicious elixir sweeter even than liberal tears.

Wow.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

I was not very familiar with Jonah Goldberg, but this article got me reading up on him. He was certainly an extremely conservative intellectual on the editorial board of National Review, writing supposedly intellectual books with titles like “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left,” and blogging widely, appearing on FOX, etc.

Probably many of today’s Trump fanatics got many of their foundational “ideas” about American society and the world from him and others just like him. He did originally support the Bush Administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq, which he foolishly predicted would give birth to a “healthy constitutional democracy.”

It seems ironic that while he originally denounced “liberal lies” and the supposed repudiation of classical “Western culture” by “the left” — he now finds the same, or even worse degradation of culture and morality, among rightwing Trump populists.

 

[Toro]

Are you required to register a party or independent where you live. If so, does it effect what primary you can vote it?

It's a closed primary.

That's one reason why I remained a Republican after Trump was nominated. I wanted to continue to have a say in the party.

But I can't anymore. It's become the party of conspiracy theories, demagoguery, anti-democracy, division, race baiting, anti-intellectualism, and a cult of personality.

Can you imagine Ronald Reagan trying to overturn an election?

I can't be associated with this. So I'll become an independent.

 

[OldLady]

For context (I was Screwtape ignorant so used Mr Googley ;-)

Screwtape appears as a fictional demon in the book The Screwtape Letters (1942) and in its sequel short story Screwtape Proposes a Toast (1959), both written by the Christian author C. S. Lewis. Screwtape is also the title of the stage adaptation of the Letters by James Forsyth (originally Dear Wormwood, 1961).

Screwtape holds the rank of Senior Tempter and serves as the Undersecretary of his department in what Lewis envisages as a sort of infernal Civil Service. The Screwtape Letters represent his side of the correspondence with his nephew Wormwood, as mentor to the young demon who is charged with the guidance of one man. The Toast is Screwtape's after-dinner speech at the Tempters' Training College and satirises American and British or English public education. Screwtape has a secretary called Toadpipe.

Screwtape appears to understand very well the nature of human minds and human weaknesses, although nothing about human love. He also has a way with words and a fondness for sarcasm.

Here's the pithiest snip:

For nearly five years now, it has been obvious that Trump was unfit for the job and the arguments marshaled in his defense were cynical rationalizations that, for some, eventually mutated into sincerely held delusions. Sure, some deluded themselves from the beginning, but I’ve talked to too many Republican politicians and conservative media darlings who admitted it in private. And even the griftier gibbons going full Gorka as they fling their own feces for fun and profit in Trump’s defense knew it. At least Steve Bannon, whose greatest contribution to political discourse has been to introduce the concept of “flooding the zone with shit,” is fairly straightforward about seeing Trump as a tool—in every sense. He’s leaked more anti-Trump tales to more anti-Trump journalists than anyone.​

​

For the Bannonistas, following the wrong path wasn’t a hard choice, but an easy one. You think Jenna Ellis, who rates as a Z-team legal talent only because our alphabet is limited to 26 characters, would become a legal adviser to a president under normal circumstances?​

​

But for a lot of otherwise decent politicians and commentators, doing the right thing was just too damn hard. At every stage, they fed the Trumpian alligator another piece of themselves and said “This much, but no more.” But now all that is left are stumps, and it’s hard to walk in the right direction on stumps or hold your hands up to shout, “Stop!” when you have no hands.​

​

Again, I think most of these people are good people, but good people can be wrong. And if there’s any lesson to be gleaned from 2,000 years of Judeo-Christian influenced literature, it’s that good people can simultaneously be seduced and blind to their seduction and the compromises that come with it. See Graham, Lindsey.​

​

If, six months ago, I were to describe the last month to the politicians still rewarding and encouraging Trump’s behavior, most would say I was succumbing to Trump Derangement Syndrome. “Oh, come on, he wouldn’t do that!” they’d say. And even for those who thought this outrageous affront to the civic order might be possible, they’d certainly take great offense if I followed up with, “Not only will he try to steal the election with deranged conspiracy theories, not only will his champions call for martial law to erase the loss, but you won’t say ‘boo’ about it. In fact, you’ll even say he should run again.”​

​

Well, that’s happened. They created this self-destructive mess. They created it by refusing to take the right path not just because the right path was hard, but because the wrong path was so easy. As Screwtape explains, “the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”​

​

Now, America isn’t in Hell, but the people who did nothing, or far too little, are daily beset by lesser, fresher, hells of their own making—and I’m making popcorn. The gloriously entertaining spectacle of Trump and his ambitious progeny suddenly having to deal with their own mini-Trumps in the form of Wood, Powell, and their minions is enough to turn their home-brewed dumpster juice into a delicious elixir sweeter even than liberal tears.​

​

Mike Pence fading into the shrubbery like Homer Simpson is a profile in strategic cowardice of schadenfreudtastic proportions. The exquisite agony of Republicans righteously insisting that their own election was devoid of fraud while mumbling that there are “legitimate questions” about the candidate at the top of their own ticket makes the fremdschämen humor of The Office seem like a particularly uplifting episode of Little House on the Prairie by comparison. The Fox pundits who spent years monetizing Trump sycophancy suddenly having to grapple with the object of their toadying turning on their prized soapbox is splendiferously karmic.​

​

I understand that this all sounds awfully self-righteous. But I’ll tell you, I feel like I deserve my gloating. I’m not alone in my right to it, but I deserve my share. I’ve been saying “don’t do this” for five years and I’ve been mocked and shunned for it. So forgive me if I enjoy my I-told-you-so moment. Or don’t forgive me. I’m used to it.​

Screwtape Went Down to Georgia

'The safest road to Hell is the gradual one.'

gfile.thedispatch.com

Word

What an absolute disgrace the GOP has become.

I'm de-regestering as a Republican as soon as I can. I can't be a part of this clown car shitshow any more.

Are you required to register a party or independent where you live. If so, does it effect what primary you can vote it?

I de-registered as a Republican and registered as an Independent about halfway through Trump's presidency.

Where I live, the state leaves it up to the parties whether or not their primaries are open or closed. For 2020, both parties decided to have closed primaries. As a registered independent, I therefore did not get a primary ballot.

I've always been an Independent, and that's the one bad thing about it. Arguably, primaries are more important than the actual election. But the problem often becomes wanting to vote in BOTH parties' primaries, and you still have to choose one--which one is more important.

 

[White 6]

Are you required to register a party or independent where you live. If so, does it effect what primary you can vote it?

It's a closed primary.

That's one reason why I remained a Republican after Trump was nominated. I wanted to continue to have a say in the party.

But I can't anymore. It's become the party of conspiracy theories, demagoguery, anti-democracy, division, race baiting, anti-intellectualism, and a cult of personality.

Can you imagine Ronald Reagan trying to overturn an election?

I can't be associated with this. So I'll become an independent.

Thought that close primary thing might be the case, as have heard of it an figured that was in places that require you to register. TN now like that. I have no party affiliation and as a Tennessean, I can vote in which ever primary I choose. I just cannot vote in both. At primary time I pick which one is more important to me at the time, but know it locks me into making selection on other races of that party's ticket that I really do not care about, but have to learn who those dufuses are just to make sure I am not helping a true dickhead. Primaries are a hard learning curve no matter which party's primary I vote in.
Reagan would have never done it.
Independent is a good way to go.

 

[DrLove]

For context (I was Screwtape ignorant so used Mr Googley ;-)

Screwtape appears as a fictional demon in the book The Screwtape Letters (1942) and in its sequel short story Screwtape Proposes a Toast (1959), both written by the Christian author C. S. Lewis. Screwtape is also the title of the stage adaptation of the Letters by James Forsyth (originally Dear Wormwood, 1961).

Screwtape holds the rank of Senior Tempter and serves as the Undersecretary of his department in what Lewis envisages as a sort of infernal Civil Service. The Screwtape Letters represent his side of the correspondence with his nephew Wormwood, as mentor to the young demon who is charged with the guidance of one man. The Toast is Screwtape's after-dinner speech at the Tempters' Training College and satirises American and British or English public education. Screwtape has a secretary called Toadpipe.

Screwtape appears to understand very well the nature of human minds and human weaknesses, although nothing about human love. He also has a way with words and a fondness for sarcasm.

Here's the pithiest snip:

For nearly five years now, it has been obvious that Trump was unfit for the job and the arguments marshaled in his defense were cynical rationalizations that, for some, eventually mutated into sincerely held delusions. Sure, some deluded themselves from the beginning, but I’ve talked to too many Republican politicians and conservative media darlings who admitted it in private. And even the griftier gibbons going full Gorka as they fling their own feces for fun and profit in Trump’s defense knew it. At least Steve Bannon, whose greatest contribution to political discourse has been to introduce the concept of “flooding the zone with shit,” is fairly straightforward about seeing Trump as a tool—in every sense. He’s leaked more anti-Trump tales to more anti-Trump journalists than anyone.​

​

For the Bannonistas, following the wrong path wasn’t a hard choice, but an easy one. You think Jenna Ellis, who rates as a Z-team legal talent only because our alphabet is limited to 26 characters, would become a legal adviser to a president under normal circumstances?​

​

But for a lot of otherwise decent politicians and commentators, doing the right thing was just too damn hard. At every stage, they fed the Trumpian alligator another piece of themselves and said “This much, but no more.” But now all that is left are stumps, and it’s hard to walk in the right direction on stumps or hold your hands up to shout, “Stop!” when you have no hands.​

​

Again, I think most of these people are good people, but good people can be wrong. And if there’s any lesson to be gleaned from 2,000 years of Judeo-Christian influenced literature, it’s that good people can simultaneously be seduced and blind to their seduction and the compromises that come with it. See Graham, Lindsey.​

​

If, six months ago, I were to describe the last month to the politicians still rewarding and encouraging Trump’s behavior, most would say I was succumbing to Trump Derangement Syndrome. “Oh, come on, he wouldn’t do that!” they’d say. And even for those who thought this outrageous affront to the civic order might be possible, they’d certainly take great offense if I followed up with, “Not only will he try to steal the election with deranged conspiracy theories, not only will his champions call for martial law to erase the loss, but you won’t say ‘boo’ about it. In fact, you’ll even say he should run again.”​

​

Well, that’s happened. They created this self-destructive mess. They created it by refusing to take the right path not just because the right path was hard, but because the wrong path was so easy. As Screwtape explains, “the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”​

​

Now, America isn’t in Hell, but the people who did nothing, or far too little, are daily beset by lesser, fresher, hells of their own making—and I’m making popcorn. The gloriously entertaining spectacle of Trump and his ambitious progeny suddenly having to deal with their own mini-Trumps in the form of Wood, Powell, and their minions is enough to turn their home-brewed dumpster juice into a delicious elixir sweeter even than liberal tears.​

​

Mike Pence fading into the shrubbery like Homer Simpson is a profile in strategic cowardice of schadenfreudtastic proportions. The exquisite agony of Republicans righteously insisting that their own election was devoid of fraud while mumbling that there are “legitimate questions” about the candidate at the top of their own ticket makes the fremdschämen humor of The Office seem like a particularly uplifting episode of Little House on the Prairie by comparison. The Fox pundits who spent years monetizing Trump sycophancy suddenly having to grapple with the object of their toadying turning on their prized soapbox is splendiferously karmic.​

​

I understand that this all sounds awfully self-righteous. But I’ll tell you, I feel like I deserve my gloating. I’m not alone in my right to it, but I deserve my share. I’ve been saying “don’t do this” for five years and I’ve been mocked and shunned for it. So forgive me if I enjoy my I-told-you-so moment. Or don’t forgive me. I’m used to it.​

Screwtape Went Down to Georgia

'The safest road to Hell is the gradual one.'

gfile.thedispatch.com

Word

What an absolute disgrace the GOP has become.

I'm de-regestering as a Republican as soon as I can. I can't be a part of this clown car shitshow any more.

Are you required to register a party or independent where you live. If so, does it effect what primary you can vote it?

I de-registered as a Republican and registered as an Independent about halfway through Trump's presidency.

Where I live, the state leaves it up to the parties whether or not their primaries are open or closed. For 2020, both parties decided to have closed primaries. As a registered independent, I therefore did not get a primary ballot.

I've always been an Independent, and that's the one bad thing about it. Arguably, primaries are more important than the actual election. But the problem often becomes wanting to vote in BOTH parties' primaries, and you still have to choose one--which one is more important.

Laws for indies varies by state. It's really weird quite frankly and our election laws should be nationalized at least to some extent for consistency. Not sure about Oregon, but the only way I would consider voting for a Republican is in local races. Rump has corrupted the Republican Party to where I won't have to make a choice in a primary likely for the next several years.

 

[DrLove]

Really good article. I am reading more Jonah Goldberg at The Dispatch, as well as Jonathan V. Last at the Bullwork these days and enjoying it immensely. Thanks for linking this article at The Dispatch.

Wasn't Jonah on the Trump Train for a little while at least? What I think I enjoyed the most about this piece was the humor. He used it to make incredibly salient points.

Most likely. Probably many republican were and apparently many still are. He strikes me as a center right conservative, not presently in the tank for either party and definitely not on the trump train. I do not hold people's past momentary preferences against them, unless it is the communist party or the Nazi party, etc. Some choices, do in fact show a level of lack of judgement and common sense, that I do write them off forever.

Why Republicans didn’t jettison Mango Menace after 1/6 will always be a mystery to me.

Kevin made a bold statement the day of, and was then reminded by Dear Leader that he would never be Speaker if he didn’t tow the line.

A week later he was on a plane for West Palm to kiss Me Precious, his brain swept clean by Will Smith’s neurolizer from Men in Black. The man has no spine, no morals, no center, and no actual core beliefs.

It’s all about the power.

 

[DrLove]

... to side with the Devil ...

There are many “devilishly” complex problems our country and the world faces. Covid is small potatoes comparitively. What are these bigger even more complex problems? First is that our Wall Street financial empire, backed by our “globalist” network of military bases, is in chaotic and inevitable decline.

The dilemma is that we have built and prospered in the past from the very systems that control us and the world, and yet nobody can bring back that past.

We can no longer dramatically outproduce our many competitors in real economic terms. Our leaders in both parties either can’t or don’t want to heal our social divisions. Resolving all these problems requires leaders who recognize above all that there is no path backwards to U.S. unilateral dominance of the world, and detente is necessary in a multipolar world.

What is required is honestly and objectively defining our problems, and honesty & competence in dealing with them. Honesty and competence are both characteristics completely lacking in Trump. Our country in 2016 democratically elected a narcissistic demagogue who had spent most of his life as a wannabe power broker, hustler and popular entertainer, and was famous in the business community for being a rich conman grifter. He hasn’t a clue about what really must be done, but he is willing to see the country torn apart to satisfy his egomania. You have bought his patent medicine of “MAGA,” so of course you don’t agree.

The candidate who you believe was “fighting the devil” more than half the country believed was an unstable and dangerous demagogue who was actually tearing our country apart. Even though I agree with some of his supposed “positions,” I am convinced he would have ended up insane in the White House, leading our country to disaster.

Pleased to see that my post resulted in so much good writing and thinking from the very few centrists we have remaining on the board.

 

[White 6]

Really good article. I am reading more Jonah Goldberg at The Dispatch, as well as Jonathan V. Last at the Bullwork these days and enjoying it immensely. Thanks for linking this article at The Dispatch.

Wasn't Jonah on the Trump Train for a little while at least? What I think I enjoyed the most about this piece was the humor. He used it to make incredibly salient points.

Most likely. Probably many republican were and apparently many still are. He strikes me as a center right conservative, not presently in the tank for either party and definitely not on the trump train. I do not hold people's past momentary preferences against them, unless it is the communist party or the Nazi party, etc. Some choices, do in fact show a level of lack of judgement and common sense, that I do write them off forever.

Why Republicans didn’t jettison Mango Menace after 1/6 will always be a mystery to me.

Kevin made a bold statement the day of, and was then reminded by Dear Leader that he would never be Speaker if he didn’t tow the line.

A week later he was on a plane for West Palm to kiss Me Precious, his brain swept clean by Will Smith’s neurolizer from Men in Black. The man has no spine, no morals, no center, and no actual core beliefs.

It’s all about the power.

Yep, cause certainly not about the U.S. Constitution, representative elections, rule of law or history of government in these United States.

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

It seems ironic that while he originally denounced “liberal lies” and the supposed repudiation of classical “Western culture” by “the left” — he now finds the same, or even worse degradation of culture and morality, among rightwing Trump populists.

Such as? The problem with all these hyperbolic hysterical denunciations of Trump is once the
neurotic overwrought charges are made then the charges have to be justified.
They certainly should be, anyway.

And that's the precise moment these absurdities fall apart but no one ever demands the
neurotic rhetoric is substantiated. Just repeating the mantra and getting it out in the political
ether to sustain the woke mob is the real point.

It's essentially dishonest character assassination, not that I hold Trump up as some shining
exemplary human being. He was a very good president, however. No wonder why the left
soils themselves at the very notion that Trump cannot be hounded out of existence.