I was born in 1948 and grew up during the Cold War, when the United States and Russia were mortal enemies. I recall Soviet Premier Khrushchev saying, "We will bury you!" And during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. One high-ranking American politician left Washington, D.C. one night for his home in Virginia, seriously wondering if Washington, D.C. and everything he knew would still exist in the morning.
The rivalry continued until the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991; its fifteen members became separate countries. Of the fifteen, six have a Muslim majority: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
The U.S. won the Cold War. How? It used various economic and political pressures, one of which (I’ve read) was fanning the flames of Islamic fundamentalism.
Payback is a bitch. Turnabout is fair play (and fair play or not, it should be expected.) What would Russian payback look like? Obviously, tanning the flames of Fundamentalist Christianity, with the goal of creating such division, even civil war, so that states leave the United States, just as they tried to do when Lincoln was President.
Today, we see right-wing Christian fundamentalists who have much in common with Islamic fundamentalist organizations like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. That is, we see right-wing Christian fundamentalists:
1) who proudly display their semi-automatic weapons, just like the Taliban.
2) who regard their leader as “Chosen by God”[i], as does any Islamic theocracy.
3) who demonize the opposition. QAnon Trump-ettes say Democrats are cannibalistic Satan worshipers. The Ayatollah Komaini, former leader of Iran, said the U.S. was “The Great Satan”)
4) who are willing to violently take political power. Refer “A Christian Insurrection”[ii] and “How the Christian Right Helped Foment Insurrection.”[iii] It’s all reminiscent of the Iranian Revolution of the 1970s, which put Komaini in power.
5) who believe that Christianity should be accepted and dominate politics; in effect, be the nation’s official religion.[iv]
6) who believe their religious leaders before scientists (The Earth really isn’t more than about 10,000 old, don’t ya know? And evolution isn’t true.)
7) who have been trained since childhood to accept what they are told over what they experience (“Yes, Johnny, it certain does say ‘serpent’ but it really means ‘Satan’, do you understand?”; “Johnny, there was massive election fraud.”)
8) who hope, even expect, even welcome a civil war in the U.S.[v]
And if by chance a contagious fatal virus comes on the scene, Russia might amplify doubts about the vaccine, leading the gullible to fill hospital ICU beds, drive doctors and nurses from the profession.[vi] An article in MIT Technology Review has the following:
“In the run-up to the 2020 election, the most highly contested in US history, Facebook’s most popular pages for Christian and Black American content were being run by Eastern European troll farms. These pages were part of a larger network that collectively reached nearly half of all Americans, according to an internal company report . . .”[vii]
Anti-Vax propaganda and its willing media propagandists (I’m looking at you, Fox News and Republican leaders) have led to an unnecessary death rate of 40%, according to a medical journal article.[viii] Here’s some simple math: 800,000 total deaths times 40% equals 320,000. That’s three hundred and twenty thousand UNNECESSARY American deaths.
You may dismiss Payback Theory as a conspiracy theory but that only denies the “WHY” — Why are right-wing Christian Fundamentalists working against American democracy? Why are they working for the interests of our enemy?
But THAT right-wing Christian Fundamentalists are working against American democracy should be apparent to anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature.
Photo credits:
“Lauren Boebert’s and Thomas Massie’s Christmas cards are disturbing”
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/lauren-boebert-s-thomas-massie-s-christmas-cards-are-disturbing-n1285643
“Taliban holds military parade featuring captured US weapons in Kabul”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-15/afghanistan-taliban-military-parade-us-weapons-kabul/100620882
[i] Comparing Trump to Jesus, and why some evangelicals believe Trump is God’s chosen one
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/25/why-evangelicals-like-rick-perry-believe-that-trump-is-gods-chosen-one/
[ii] A Christian Insurrection: Many of those who mobbed the Capitol on Wednesday claimed to be enacting God’s will.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/evangelicals-catholics-jericho-march-capitol/617591/
[iv] The Growing Anti-Democratic Threat of Christian Nationalism in the U.S.
https://time.com/6052051/anti-democratic-threat-christian-nationalism/
[v] Is the US headed for another Civil War?
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/09/16/is-the-us-headed-for-another-civil-war/
[vi] Burned out by the pandemic, 3 in 10 health-care workers consider leaving the profession
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/04/22/health-workers-covid-quit/
[vii] Troll farms reached 140 million Americans a month on Facebook before 2020 election, internal report shows
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook-troll-farms-report-us-2020-election/
[viii] Lancet Study Finds 40 Percent of U.S. COVID-19 Deaths Could Have Been Avoided
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/lancet-study-40-percent-u-s-covid-19-coronavirus-deaths-avoidable-unnecessary.html