Programming

I grew up memorizing hundreds of Bible verses. I would write them on index cards to study them. I’d go through them one by one and see Ephesians 5:22-24 and immediately knew to say,

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

It’s been many years since I was told to memorize anything. Ask me if I Googled those verses and I’ll be offended. The act of memorizing verses made them stick. Just like learning how to spell M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I taught us all.

I was taught songs. “The fruit of the Spirit shows God’s love in you! You gotta have Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, for this is the fruit of the Spirit.” It’s been 30 years since I heard that song and I know those words intimately. I spared you the second verse.

When I grew up, Evangelicals walked a fine line between outright saying, “vote for this candidate.” They’d joke about losing their tax exempt status if they influenced us and got caught. What they’d do, however, was invite local candidates to come speak at the church and “share their faith.”

Literally, the church invited politicians they wanted elected to come speak to the congregation to hear how “Christian” the local, always Republican, candidate was. I won’t forget it. It was always Sunday night service and it bored me to tears.

So imagine a young Republican voter who has been filled with words of who they are and who they should be and will be NOW GETS TO SAVE THE BABIES. This young voter now knows,

“Joe Schmo candidate of this area, has my faith. My church never told me to vote for him, but I heard that fine white man speak at my church and I know his name and he is on the ballot. I am supposed to save all the babies and he loves those babies!”

The story I told you on how young Republicans get made in churches is old. It’s 30 years old. That was SUBTLE.

Now, Christian Nationalism is not only horrifically mentioned at all, but it’s ACTIVELY mentioned in many churches. When it’s not spelled out as plainly as MTG spells out, “Christian Nationalism,” it still votes the same.

The candidates don’t wait to speak until Sunday night at Church. They’re holding hands with “renowned” preachers or just making up their own sudden Christian missions from God to battle the woke government.

Now the still un-taxed church isn’t being subtle. They actively promote their candidates. That’s an issue above my pay grade. Smarter insomniacs can figure that one out.

The issue is, MAGA has enough of the religious folks in it to fully know how programming works. Many of them grew up in church, too. Now they repeat lies. It’s not scripture they’re using. MAGA is using scripts.

“Antifa! It was Antifa! We hate Antifa,” MAGA wails day in and day out. “Democrats are woke! Woke is bad! Woke means something bad!”

MAGA is programmed to hate things that, many of them, cannot even define. Many of these parents taught their kids lessons of God over country and using the Golden Rule. Not all of MAGA puts guns in their toddler’s hands.

What is “Antifa,” but being anti fascist? What is being “woke,” but being enlightened and seeing we are not alone in the world? They cannot tell you if you ask them why woke is bad or why being anti fascist is suddenly more than not wanting a dictator over a democracy.

The same techniques have been used forever. Republican leaders and their campaign managers truly appear to have the mantra … “If you repeat something enough times, eventually it will become true. If it does not become true, if a decent portion of the Republican base believes it to be true, it will be true enough. If enough of the overzealous lie gets believed, that is also acceptable.”

Repetition is why I know verses and songs decades later. Republicans know how powerful programming is and they’re using it even more than I know. I haven’t voted for a Republican since my first vote, so I’m out of the loop. Anyone else have an opinion?