” is the title of a column by David French on a news story you may not have heard of – almost certainly if your primary news sources come from the right-wing media bubble. (The link should provide full access.) Here’s how it starts:
Let me share with you one of the worst and most important recent news stories you’ve probably never heard about. Late last month, the Southern Baptist Convention settled sexual abuse lawsuit filed against a man named Paul Pressler for an undisclosed sum. The lawsuit was filed in 2017 and alleged that Pressler raped a man named Duane Rollins for decades, with the rapes beginning when Rollins was just 14 years old.
The story would be bad enough if Pressler was just a predator. But although relatively unknown outside evangelical circles, Pressler is one of the most important American religious figures of the 20th century. He and his friend Paige Patterson, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, are two of the key architects of the so-called conservative resurgence within the SBC
The details are horrific, not least because the abuse went on for years and was known at high levels within the SBC – but nothing was done. But it’s also worth noting that French describes how the double standard works. Conservatives can give chapter and verse of every scandal on the left – including those that are totally imaginary – but when it comes to the right?
…We all find ourselves confronted with the disturbing and humiliating reality: whatever our ideology or theology, it does not make us good people. The supposedly virtuous “us” commits the same sins as the supposedly wicked “them.”
How does a typical conservative activist deal with this reality? By pretending it didn’t exist. Shortly after the Pressler deal was announced, I searched for statements, comments, or articles from the conservative stalwarts who so zealously cover the left’s misbehavior. The silence was deafening. If your news comes primarily from right-wing sources, there’s a good chance you haven’t seen this news story at all.
What if people on the right heard about things like this? “Conservative supporters can just cry “media bias!” » and rely on their subscribers to sort everything out. For these followers, a scandal is only real when people they trust say it is.» This is a dynamic that Sara Robinson detailed in her introductory article on authoritarian movements. Scroll down to his descriptions of leaders and followers.
If you’re wondering why Donald Trump has so many supporters among the Christian right, it’s because they have been conditioned by their religion to accept the leadership of patriarchs who can do no wrong, whose authority should not be called into question, and their conviction that they are the only truly moral actors. This is how they can support a rapist who is the subject of 91 criminal proceedings.
Here are three selections from the main comments on French’s article:
Gilby
Visiting my hometown in the rural South, this reality is evident. I may ask, “How can you support this, given x, y, and z?” ” only to discover that they have never heard of x and y, and have only heard a reversed version of z. Might as well bring them dispatches from a foreign country. There is a whole landscape of information from which they have been carefully protected.
I was in a bookstore, with a large Christian section, and I overheard the following conversation. One woman told the other that she had finally divorced her physically abusive husband. The other woman asked why she put up with physical violence. She said she and her husband went to counseling with their minister of faith that this article is about, before filing for divorce. Her friends and other church leaders had urged her to do it for their preteen children. At the council, she said she could tell the minister was taking her husband’s side. The counseling lasted a few weeks, with another episode of abuse. At the last meeting, the minister suggested the following. If you know he is capable of abuse, why do you do the things that trigger him? You need to change your behavior. After all, he is the provider and father of your children. She said she never went back and quickly filed for divorce. Apparently, protecting men is the primary mission of this denomination. I admit that I was disturbed that a minister took this position, it is the fault of the person being mistreated if they are mistreated. This goes quite well with this article.
Exactly true. I listen to several hours of talk radio every day. It’s a strange obsession, I know. But that’s exactly what happens on the radio. They highlight the slightest moral infraction committed by a left-wing professor or activist and argue that “the left is bad.” And they ignore or minimize the giant scandals of the right. The result is that they don’t live in the real world. They are almost entirely convinced that Biden is “the most corrupt president in American history,” despite the fact that there is no evidence to prove it. This is a much bigger problem than most Americans realize.
It bears repeating that those who think we should go out of our way to get their votes is not the most efficient use of resources. As Sara Robinson notes in her later writings on the subject, adherents of this type of mindset are not easily convinced by outside actors. It takes something they experience as a betrayal of their trust and beliefs within their community to cause them to look elsewhere. (Fred’s comment above is an example.) Robinson suggests that the way to deal with them when they are ready to take a break is to isolate the leaders and give their followers seeking an alternative a safe landing zone.
If you’re wondering why there’s such a good fit between the Christian Right and Donald Trump’s authoritarian, anti-democratic Republican Party, this comment from French provides some important clues. This kind of behavior is omnipresent in the “moral majority”.
