Tucker Carlson said something stupid in Hungary this weekend, don’t faint. (Tucker has been lapdancing his way through Hungary again, also don’t faint at that.)
He was over there in his second favorite authoritarian white ethno-state, speaking at some weird right-wing festival called the MCC Feszt, and he told the crowd that America hates Hungary and Russia because they are Christian countries. Yes, that’s the victim mentality white grievance message he went to deliver.
“They hate Hungary. And they hate it not because of what it’s done, but because of what it is. It’s a Christian country and they hate that. And that’s the truth. And nobody wants to say it, but it’s true.”
Nobody wants to say it. Everybody’s scared to say why they don’t like the current dirty white fascist regime that’s taken over a perfectly lovely country and stolen its democracy. It’s because they’re Christian.
“That is exactly why they hate Russia,” he said.
Uh huh. Has nothing to do with how Russia has tried to steal the past couple American presidential elections, played the same playbook in democracies all over the world, invaded its sovereign next-door neighbor and started raping, killing and kidnapping its babies, started a genocide, wants to do the same thing in any other country Putin views as being in his sphere of influence, etc.
Nah, it’s because they’re Christian.
He claimed that the reason some call Viktor Orbán a “Putin suck-up” is because “one thing that Russia and Hungary have in common is, a big part of the population identify as Christians.”
That Christian identity, he said, is “not fine with Washington at all.”
Orbán’s mouth permamently affixed to Putin’s ass might also be part of it.
Anyway, so this is all ridiculously stupid, as we said. For once, Twitter Community Notes made itself useful, linking to data showing that 16 percent of Russians say religion is important to them, and only seven percent go to church regularly. In Hungary it’s 19 and 19. Russia has a law against evangelizing outside of the church. For more of the one million ways to debunk what Tucker said, check out Jonah Goldberg’s timeline, because he spent a lot of time this weekend retweeting them.
Even Tucker acknowledged in his talk that Hungarians really don’t go to church.
So what on earth is he talking about? Because he sure seems to be talking about something!
Let’s be honest about what white nationalist Americans mean when they say “Christian.” It’s not about Jesus. It’s a different kind of Christianity, one that’s long existed, especially among white people, but used to more often pay lip service to being Christ-ianity. These days it’s really just authoritarian white supremacy shaking a cross at people. But if they don’t have a cross lying around, they’re happy to beat the shit out of people with swastikas or whatever else they have handy.
That’s the kind of Christianity the government is pushing in Hungary, and that the state is pushing in Russia. Read up on Kirill, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, which under Putin is just an extension of the state. He’s as defensive of Putin’s baby-massacring wars as Putin’s mouthpieces in America are.
It’s not about the people. It’s about the state. And as is typical of these right-wing authoritarian governments, it’s a kind of a Potemkin village Christianity situation.
And it’s the kind of Christianity that’s real popular among MAGA types in America. It’s what they wish would be the state religion in the US, to own the libs with their critical race woke drag storytime theories. Read Tim Alberta’s huge long read on the subject. Then read former Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore on how conservative evangelicals are quite literally actively rejecting Jesus’s message because they think it’s “liberal talking points.” And no, they don’t have an about-face when it’s explained that the “liberal talking points” come from Jesus. They say, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak,” explains Moore.
That’s what’s happening to much of white Christianity, in America and elsewhere. And that is what poor put-upon perpetual victim white grievance Christianity people like Tucker are bitching and whining about when they say “BLUBBBBBER BLUBBBBER! THEY HATE US BECAUSE WE’RE CHRISSSSTTTTIANS!”
The Gospels indeed teach that Jesus said folks would be hated for his sake.
Thing is, the verse after that does not feature Jesus saying, “So yeah, go be a bunch of white supremacist Nazi gutter-ass scum-fucker anti-LGBTQ+ pieces of fascist human garbage, and tell ‘em Jesus said it’s cool.”
White conservative Christians are always adding that verse.
It’s not there.
OPEN THREAD.
[Mediaite]
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https://substack.com/@ziggywiggy/note/c-39220633?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2knfuc
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https://substack.com/chat/1783367/post/08f86db5-ad48-4941-b853-061cc3392360