Listen now (130 min) | Our favorite ex-evangelical Misha Thomas returns to the pod to talk pre-election jitters — and drops a bombshell on us unsuspecting hosts. What follows is perhaps our most honest (and hopefully disarming) conversation yet. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to Uncertain Things wherever you get your podcasts or here: uncertain.substack.com.
I'm more worried about waking up to a Socialist Republic than an America First bully. Check out the Trump prophesies by Kim Clement in 2007 and then tell me how Trump even got elected and why it's possible for him to take this election as well. Shocking...gave me goosebumps. You don't have to like him, he just needs to be re-elected.
It's really heart breaking, infuriating, and frankly, terrifying, to hear someone who otherwise seems sensitive and intelligent fall for the most disingenuous right wing propaganda.
I don't think it's possible to simply blame it on right wing propaganda. Something more serious is going on. And while I don't agree with Misha's conclusions, I think it should act as a warning.
Misha says he made his decision in the last week specifically based on the Amy Coney Barrett hearings and the notion of restoring political balance. This is a narrative pushed by the Republicans to cover nearly forty years of politicizing the courts. I get the spiritual point he's making, and I think it's important, but his ignorance of policy and political history is DEEPLY troubling.
I mean, I'm sorry, but over the last 40 years one side has embraced exactly the politics of Friendship Misha talks about, The Democrats. They've conceded the overall Republican Neoliberal (right wing) economic vision for the country, and done what they can on social issues. Now, we find ourselves in a moment of leftward correction in our politics (IMHO long over due!) and the right is crying HEY WOAH we need checks and balances. That line of attack is propaganda that distorts the historical reality, but if you only started paying close attention to national politics last week, it's really easy to get sucked into. I'm not trying to reduce what Misha is saying as a person, but he got duped. That, to me, is what should act as a warning.
I fully agree with you on the policy question. I can't support his idea of voting out of cultural disaffection. Nor do I understand how a second Trump presidency could possibly be a counter-balancing force, rather than a radicalizing one. As for the the leftward correction, I personally see a lot of overdue correction, as you put it, mixed with a lot of counterproductive radicalization (the right is crying foul indiscriminately, of course). Where I slightly disagree with you is that I don't think a person like Misha could have been "sucked into" right-wing propaganda if there wasn't some truth to which he was reacting. And whether or not his conclusion makes sense (I clearly disagree with it), I think it won't do to explain it away as simply a coup of the right's disinformation machine. But who knows.
For propaganda to be effective it has to have some basis in emotional truth, I agree 100 percent. I just can't get over how someone so obviously intelligent and curious as Misha could be such a low information voter. That's the thing, to me, worth examining here.
I'm more worried about waking up to a Socialist Republic than an America First bully. Check out the Trump prophesies by Kim Clement in 2007 and then tell me how Trump even got elected and why it's possible for him to take this election as well. Shocking...gave me goosebumps. You don't have to like him, he just needs to be re-elected.
It's really heart breaking, infuriating, and frankly, terrifying, to hear someone who otherwise seems sensitive and intelligent fall for the most disingenuous right wing propaganda.
I don't think it's possible to simply blame it on right wing propaganda. Something more serious is going on. And while I don't agree with Misha's conclusions, I think it should act as a warning.
Misha says he made his decision in the last week specifically based on the Amy Coney Barrett hearings and the notion of restoring political balance. This is a narrative pushed by the Republicans to cover nearly forty years of politicizing the courts. I get the spiritual point he's making, and I think it's important, but his ignorance of policy and political history is DEEPLY troubling.
I mean, I'm sorry, but over the last 40 years one side has embraced exactly the politics of Friendship Misha talks about, The Democrats. They've conceded the overall Republican Neoliberal (right wing) economic vision for the country, and done what they can on social issues. Now, we find ourselves in a moment of leftward correction in our politics (IMHO long over due!) and the right is crying HEY WOAH we need checks and balances. That line of attack is propaganda that distorts the historical reality, but if you only started paying close attention to national politics last week, it's really easy to get sucked into. I'm not trying to reduce what Misha is saying as a person, but he got duped. That, to me, is what should act as a warning.
I fully agree with you on the policy question. I can't support his idea of voting out of cultural disaffection. Nor do I understand how a second Trump presidency could possibly be a counter-balancing force, rather than a radicalizing one. As for the the leftward correction, I personally see a lot of overdue correction, as you put it, mixed with a lot of counterproductive radicalization (the right is crying foul indiscriminately, of course). Where I slightly disagree with you is that I don't think a person like Misha could have been "sucked into" right-wing propaganda if there wasn't some truth to which he was reacting. And whether or not his conclusion makes sense (I clearly disagree with it), I think it won't do to explain it away as simply a coup of the right's disinformation machine. But who knows.
For propaganda to be effective it has to have some basis in emotional truth, I agree 100 percent. I just can't get over how someone so obviously intelligent and curious as Misha could be such a low information voter. That's the thing, to me, worth examining here.