As someone raised in a fundamentalist church, this article really spoke to me. With the embrace of Trump, the evangelicals have turned off an entire generation of young people to Christianity. Politics has become their idol. They are modern day Pharisees disguising bigotry in the name of God, using religion to justify hate for things they find icky. I know it’s considered taboo to questions someone’s faith but at some point you have to call it out. CHRISTIANS IN NAME ONLY.
Even the label “Evangelical” isn’t apt. Evangelism, strictly defined, is spreading the good news of the Gospel into the world. A gospel of justice, mercy, love and salvation. In my view, there is ample space for accountability within the gospel but no room for hate or judgement. In our current moment, what is the predominant message coming from self-proclaimed Evangelicals? I see little mercy or love and much judgement. I don’t think that is what God would deem as effective evangelism.
To many fundamentalists, it's more about tribe and identity than it is about faith and doing good works, right? I'm not a Christian, but I have read the Bible (at least many parts of it), and it's clear that bigoted CINOs are utterly ignoring crurcial portions of the New Testament--namely The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew.
JVL, can you help me out. Why did the Times think Elizabeth Holmes needed a sympathetic puff piece? Is this just a really good PR agency going into over drive? Why is the Times listening to PR agencies on publishing puff pieces for fraudsters?
It's been several years that the Times runs more human interest articles than hard news. This fits the pattern. At least the journalist was sufficiently self-aware that she recognized that she was being rolled, as her editor pointed out. But they ran the piece anyway.
And why do just about all MSM outlets have to fluff Elon Musk? Because it’s an easy job to parrot the wunderkind-savior myth than to get highly educated people to do actual analysis and ask hard questions.
I am always amazed at how all these people are under the impression that Jesus was/would be a conservative.
American conservatism, as it is currently constituted, is about the opposite of what Jesus was about--at least according to my reading of scripture.
It's amazing how easily we can be blind to things that we do not want to see, that do not align with what WE think is important (rather than, perhaps, to what someone like Jesus thought was important).
All 3 items were well worth reading. The Google AI heads up on open source AI is startling. Among other things, it means there is no putting the genie back in the bottle, or throttling back, or pausing of AI development and no path to blocking bad actors developing AI tools to aid nefarious schemes.
This is a questsion to everyone on the Bulwark staff. One month later, how accurate do you believe is Frank Luntz's 4/9/2023 NYT op ed identifying the qualities necessary to defeat Trump in the GOP POTUS 2024 Primary and is there a potential actual candidate in or capable of announcing and doing so? nytimes.com/2023/04/09/opinion/donald-trump-2024-campaign.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article "First, beating Mr. Trump requires humility...It’s about offering Republicans the contrast they seek: a candidate who champions his agenda but with decency, civility and a commitment to personal responsibility and accountability.
"Second, Mr. Trump has become his own version of the much-hated political establishment...Mr. Trump has become a professional politician reflecting the political system he was elected to destroy...there’s a clear way to appeal to other Republican voters firmly focused on the future rather than on relitigating the past. It starts with a simple campaign pitch along these lines: “We can do better. We must do better.”
"Third, recognize that the average farmer, small business owner or veteran will hold greater sway with the Trump voter than the famous and the powerful...They just need to be authentic — and be able to say that they have voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020..."“Donald Trump had my back in 2016. Now, it’s all about him. I didn’t leave Donald Trump. He left me.'
"Fourth, compliment Mr. Trump’s presidency while you criticize the person...'Donald Trump was a great president, but he wasn’t always a great role model. Today, more than ever, we need character — not just courage.'...
"Fifth, make it more about [voters'] grandchildren...'The values we teach our children should be the values we see in our president.'
"The looming debt ceiling vote is the perfect hook. The increase in the annual deficit under Mr. Trump is the third-largest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration... 'We can’t afford this debt. We can’t afford Donald Trump.'
"Sixth, there’s one character trait that unites just about everyone: [disgust with] hypocrisy...'While more than half of America was working paycheck to paycheck, [As President, Trump spent $150 million on 300 rounds of golf at his golf resorts. He] was working on his short game. And you paid for it.'
"Seventh...The successful candidate must appeal to independents as well."
..."eighth, you need to penetrate the conservative echo chamber. You need at least one of these on your side: Mark Levin, Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, Newt Gingrich and, of course, Tucker, Sean and Laura."
"Donald Trump was a great president, but he wasn’t always a great role model."
Yeah, no, Frank. I'm never going to say that about the worst "president" in American history, just to placate the ego of some idiot yokel who supports him against their own (and America's) interest. Screw that.
I'm not a Bulwark staff member, but my response to all eight of those points that Frank Luntz made sound delusional. They all sound plausibly functional in a GENERAL election. But there's absolutely no way voters would be significantly attracted to any of those propositions in a Republican PRIMARY nomination. That's been pretty well demonstrated over and over and over again for almost a decade now. My guess is that Mr. Luntz, even though he's a well-respected pollster, didn't actually test these propositions with focus groups of likely Republican primary voters. If you've listened to any of Sarah Longwell's focus group podcasts then you know what I'm talking about. My guess is that Mr. Luntz is just expressing what he wishes, and psychologically NEEDS to be true.
Had to delay a Catholic retreat due to Covid. Finally ran one successfully with a vaccine requirement for about 50 following masking guidelines. Used advice for a Pulmonologist parishioner to execute it safely. Next retreat there was a huge backlash about the vaccine requirement, about 6 weeks before Paxlovid was approved. I had a good active Catholic say to me, “if they get Covid and die at least they just went on a retreat!” The Pastor and I pulled the plug on retreats for almost a year.
I am not tired of you talking about AI. Please continue. I have 2 teenagers and I’d love to hear more about what you have to say concerning AI and job futures.
He admits earnest "love" of Trump from 2015 to 2020 until COVID hit when he discovered the callousness that overtook his Christian friends mirroring their "good Christian" president.
Obviously, the pastor didn't hear Trump's announcement words about Mexicans in 2015, his admussion of his grabby hobby with women in 2016, ridiculing a person with a disability in 2017, etc., etc., etc.
Young seems to finally to have had a literal "Come to Jesus" epiphany in regards to the Victim-In-Chief.
Good for him, even though he's a bit of a Johnny-come-lately.
No, he didn't hear them. we often do not hear things that we don't want to hear from people who ARE saying other things we DO want to hear.
It is a common problem.
It is usually only when we are immediately faced with the reality of certain things that those things become visible, become real.
That is why (barring personal experience) analogies and stories are FAR more persuasive than terabytes of solid data. It is why biblical parables are so powerful.
If you REALLY want to persuade someone, tell them a story.
The story reminds me of John Grisham‘s the chamber that book was pivotal to me, because until I read it, I really believed in an eye for an eye, i.e. if you could prove without a shadow doubt that someone had killed somebody, then the death penalty was acceptable. After I read that book I ran a million miles from the death penalty. John Grisham, beautifully nuanced exactly what Kevin writes here, that when you’re brought up in a world that validates and teaches you from multiple trusted leaders that racism and hatred is OK, it’s impossible to not see the other side as animals. It’s a very dangerous world. I highly recommend the book, though sadly it doesn’t give a road map in how to remove the blinkers from the hatred and the bigotry, except diversity in friends and life matters.
One of the things that solidified my stance against the death penalty was a passage from the Lord of the Rings:
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
We played with AI for video that was open source maybe 5 years ago, and decided it was too much work to develop the interface and opted to go with a vendor Calipsa - probably it was built on the same open source algorithms. Anyways it allowed us to grow with out adding head count. Probably saved us 10 FTE. Been happy with the accuracy - they have cleaver methods for making it smarter.
I have been pleasantly surprised the kind of responses I get for querying AI Writer on Fire Code questions - a combination of human in customer service posing the question and communicating the result to the customer could eliminate all the work in between.
Kevin Young nailed it! Helped me understand how so many Americans are duped by the orange god.
I feel like I'm going to need #3 after I read #s 1 & 2. Hoofa doofa.
As someone raised in a fundamentalist church, this article really spoke to me. With the embrace of Trump, the evangelicals have turned off an entire generation of young people to Christianity. Politics has become their idol. They are modern day Pharisees disguising bigotry in the name of God, using religion to justify hate for things they find icky. I know it’s considered taboo to questions someone’s faith but at some point you have to call it out. CHRISTIANS IN NAME ONLY.
Even the label “Evangelical” isn’t apt. Evangelism, strictly defined, is spreading the good news of the Gospel into the world. A gospel of justice, mercy, love and salvation. In my view, there is ample space for accountability within the gospel but no room for hate or judgement. In our current moment, what is the predominant message coming from self-proclaimed Evangelicals? I see little mercy or love and much judgement. I don’t think that is what God would deem as effective evangelism.
To many fundamentalists, it's more about tribe and identity than it is about faith and doing good works, right? I'm not a Christian, but I have read the Bible (at least many parts of it), and it's clear that bigoted CINOs are utterly ignoring crurcial portions of the New Testament--namely The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew.
JVL, can you help me out. Why did the Times think Elizabeth Holmes needed a sympathetic puff piece? Is this just a really good PR agency going into over drive? Why is the Times listening to PR agencies on publishing puff pieces for fraudsters?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/07/business/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-interview.html
It's been several years that the Times runs more human interest articles than hard news. This fits the pattern. At least the journalist was sufficiently self-aware that she recognized that she was being rolled, as her editor pointed out. But they ran the piece anyway.
And why do just about all MSM outlets have to fluff Elon Musk? Because it’s an easy job to parrot the wunderkind-savior myth than to get highly educated people to do actual analysis and ask hard questions.
JVL should add gold miner to his resume, pure gold again.
I have been reading Alexie forever, great stuff.
Thanks so much for the Kevin Young story! I could never understand the hypocrisy of Christians supporting Trump – Kevin helps explain it.
I am always amazed at how all these people are under the impression that Jesus was/would be a conservative.
American conservatism, as it is currently constituted, is about the opposite of what Jesus was about--at least according to my reading of scripture.
It's amazing how easily we can be blind to things that we do not want to see, that do not align with what WE think is important (rather than, perhaps, to what someone like Jesus thought was important).
All 3 items were well worth reading. The Google AI heads up on open source AI is startling. Among other things, it means there is no putting the genie back in the bottle, or throttling back, or pausing of AI development and no path to blocking bad actors developing AI tools to aid nefarious schemes.
This is a questsion to everyone on the Bulwark staff. One month later, how accurate do you believe is Frank Luntz's 4/9/2023 NYT op ed identifying the qualities necessary to defeat Trump in the GOP POTUS 2024 Primary and is there a potential actual candidate in or capable of announcing and doing so? nytimes.com/2023/04/09/opinion/donald-trump-2024-campaign.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article "First, beating Mr. Trump requires humility...It’s about offering Republicans the contrast they seek: a candidate who champions his agenda but with decency, civility and a commitment to personal responsibility and accountability.
"Second, Mr. Trump has become his own version of the much-hated political establishment...Mr. Trump has become a professional politician reflecting the political system he was elected to destroy...there’s a clear way to appeal to other Republican voters firmly focused on the future rather than on relitigating the past. It starts with a simple campaign pitch along these lines: “We can do better. We must do better.”
"Third, recognize that the average farmer, small business owner or veteran will hold greater sway with the Trump voter than the famous and the powerful...They just need to be authentic — and be able to say that they have voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020..."“Donald Trump had my back in 2016. Now, it’s all about him. I didn’t leave Donald Trump. He left me.'
"Fourth, compliment Mr. Trump’s presidency while you criticize the person...'Donald Trump was a great president, but he wasn’t always a great role model. Today, more than ever, we need character — not just courage.'...
"Fifth, make it more about [voters'] grandchildren...'The values we teach our children should be the values we see in our president.'
"The looming debt ceiling vote is the perfect hook. The increase in the annual deficit under Mr. Trump is the third-largest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration... 'We can’t afford this debt. We can’t afford Donald Trump.'
"Sixth, there’s one character trait that unites just about everyone: [disgust with] hypocrisy...'While more than half of America was working paycheck to paycheck, [As President, Trump spent $150 million on 300 rounds of golf at his golf resorts. He] was working on his short game. And you paid for it.'
"Seventh...The successful candidate must appeal to independents as well."
..."eighth, you need to penetrate the conservative echo chamber. You need at least one of these on your side: Mark Levin, Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, Newt Gingrich and, of course, Tucker, Sean and Laura."
"Donald Trump was a great president, but he wasn’t always a great role model."
Yeah, no, Frank. I'm never going to say that about the worst "president" in American history, just to placate the ego of some idiot yokel who supports him against their own (and America's) interest. Screw that.
I'm not a Bulwark staff member, but my response to all eight of those points that Frank Luntz made sound delusional. They all sound plausibly functional in a GENERAL election. But there's absolutely no way voters would be significantly attracted to any of those propositions in a Republican PRIMARY nomination. That's been pretty well demonstrated over and over and over again for almost a decade now. My guess is that Mr. Luntz, even though he's a well-respected pollster, didn't actually test these propositions with focus groups of likely Republican primary voters. If you've listened to any of Sarah Longwell's focus group podcasts then you know what I'm talking about. My guess is that Mr. Luntz is just expressing what he wishes, and psychologically NEEDS to be true.
Had to delay a Catholic retreat due to Covid. Finally ran one successfully with a vaccine requirement for about 50 following masking guidelines. Used advice for a Pulmonologist parishioner to execute it safely. Next retreat there was a huge backlash about the vaccine requirement, about 6 weeks before Paxlovid was approved. I had a good active Catholic say to me, “if they get Covid and die at least they just went on a retreat!” The Pastor and I pulled the plug on retreats for almost a year.
I am not tired of you talking about AI. Please continue. I have 2 teenagers and I’d love to hear more about what you have to say concerning AI and job futures.
I am perplexed by Pastor Young.
He admits earnest "love" of Trump from 2015 to 2020 until COVID hit when he discovered the callousness that overtook his Christian friends mirroring their "good Christian" president.
Obviously, the pastor didn't hear Trump's announcement words about Mexicans in 2015, his admussion of his grabby hobby with women in 2016, ridiculing a person with a disability in 2017, etc., etc., etc.
Young seems to finally to have had a literal "Come to Jesus" epiphany in regards to the Victim-In-Chief.
Good for him, even though he's a bit of a Johnny-come-lately.
Or what he said after Charlottesville.
No, he didn't hear them. we often do not hear things that we don't want to hear from people who ARE saying other things we DO want to hear.
It is a common problem.
It is usually only when we are immediately faced with the reality of certain things that those things become visible, become real.
That is why (barring personal experience) analogies and stories are FAR more persuasive than terabytes of solid data. It is why biblical parables are so powerful.
If you REALLY want to persuade someone, tell them a story.
Arguably AI and LLMs are the answer to how TV news can fact check Trump in realtime.
It's amazing how so many people thoroughly steeped in Church culture are completely oblivious that Jesus was a stone cold Socialist.
Absolutely agree...can't figure out which passages lead to the extremely popular Gospel of Wealth among too many American Christians.
The story reminds me of John Grisham‘s the chamber that book was pivotal to me, because until I read it, I really believed in an eye for an eye, i.e. if you could prove without a shadow doubt that someone had killed somebody, then the death penalty was acceptable. After I read that book I ran a million miles from the death penalty. John Grisham, beautifully nuanced exactly what Kevin writes here, that when you’re brought up in a world that validates and teaches you from multiple trusted leaders that racism and hatred is OK, it’s impossible to not see the other side as animals. It’s a very dangerous world. I highly recommend the book, though sadly it doesn’t give a road map in how to remove the blinkers from the hatred and the bigotry, except diversity in friends and life matters.
One of the things that solidified my stance against the death penalty was a passage from the Lord of the Rings:
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
Ooh I love that and such wise words.
Thanks Andrew for your perspective.
We played with AI for video that was open source maybe 5 years ago, and decided it was too much work to develop the interface and opted to go with a vendor Calipsa - probably it was built on the same open source algorithms. Anyways it allowed us to grow with out adding head count. Probably saved us 10 FTE. Been happy with the accuracy - they have cleaver methods for making it smarter.
I have been pleasantly surprised the kind of responses I get for querying AI Writer on Fire Code questions - a combination of human in customer service posing the question and communicating the result to the customer could eliminate all the work in between.
This is their information:
https://pro-bots.ca/use-cases/
I am curious to see what they think they have available. Just issued an RFP to change out my ERP so it is very timely.
Anyways, If you are interested, I can let you know what I find out on Monday.
Rob