2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumBrat - a Christian Reconstructionist and Ayn Rand follower
While I am happy about Cantor's defeat, I can't help but be worried about Brat.
It was only last week that people were sounding the death knell for the tea party and yet Brat has an over whelming win.
Brat basically ran this race on his own, without support from the major tea party backers. That is going to change and there is going to be a lot of money (and vitriole) thrown against Tremmell.
And looking at Brat's background he is going to garner a lot of votes from the crazies out there......
This is a good quick and scary read.............
Brat is a strict Christian Reconstructionist, which means that he supports a theocratic government and holds extraordinarily radical beliefs when it comes to the role that God should play in the lives of believers and non-believers alike. As far as Reconstructionists are concerned, the Bible is the standard for morality that all must adhere to and those in violation of its tenets as they interpret them gays, blasphemers, the irredeemably sinful should be subject to punishment by the state. In fact, Rousas John Rushdoony, who founded the Calvinist-based sect, declared that Christianity and democracy were inevitably enemies.
Lovely. Another asshole clinging to ancient superstition and ready to disregard thousands of years of scientific advancement and human enlightenment is likely going to become one of the 435 superlatives weve chosen to sit in our House of Representatives. There are plenty of reasons why this country is completely fucked and has been allowed to degenerate into utter madness, but the fact that we not only sanction a belief in bronze-age fairy-tales but actually elevate it to government office has got to be somewhere near the core of the problem. Both parties do it but only the GOP and its Tea Party insurgents have explicit intellectual violence actually written into their charter. They dont trust nor care one bit about provable science, but they sure as hell will drop the name of the Lord every few minutes like theres a Skinner Box treat in it for them.
And whats worse is that Brat isnt even some cynical prick pandering to his constituency hes a True Believer. In the year 2014 he holds tightly to the idea that everyone should be mandated to follow the commands of a 2,000-year-old book written by people who by modern standards knew almost nothing about anything.
http://thedailybanter.com/2014/06/dave-brat-jesus-not-another-one-of-these-aholes/
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)just like Nancy Pelosi, the late great Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and many others.
He's a calvinist and received degrees at Hope College in Holland, M and Princeton Divinity School, both Protestant organizations.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Towards the bottom on "about him" it says that he and his wife follow their beliefs at St. Mary's Catholic Church. No big deal but this morning when everyone was talking about him. I wanted to see what this guy was about. I was being sarcastic when I compared him to Nancy and Kennedy. Of course boehner is Catholic too so not all are great.
jehop61
(1,735 posts)Perhaps Bill Donohue of the Catholic League converted him?
I agree with that too.....being Catholic I hate him being Catholic.
Nonhlanhla
(2,074 posts)A bit of background from my own engagement with the theological world: Princeton Theological Seminary is mostly centrist with some slightly right-of-center (and even the more right-of-center ones that I knew from there were still Dems, by the way), as well as some pretty far-left-leaning folks and it is definitely NOT fundamentalist. Compared to some theological schools like Union Seminary in New York it is relatively conservative, but compared to the overall picture in the US it is decidedly liberal - although obviously there were a small number of students there like this dude who were certainly very conservative. The Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) of which Princeton Seminary is part is a generally liberal-leaning denomination that has ordained women for decades and also recently started ordaining gays. I don't know if he was PCUSA, but a guy with such uber-conservative ideas would have found the open exchange of ideas that is common at Princeton Seminary difficult to handle, and he would certainly be too conservative for the PCUSA. I suppose he converted to Catholicism due to their more conservative stances on some social issues.
yellowcanine
(35,692 posts)VanillaRhapsody
(21,115 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,280 posts)Ayn Rand was an atheist who despised Christianity.
And:
http://www.alternet.org/why-christian-conservatives-love-jesus-hater-ayn-rand
Apparently the likes of David Brat and his fellow teabaggers have chosen Mammon over God. It's just that they can't explain why.
Arneoker
(375 posts)than a follower of Ayn Rand.
But of course the Tea Partiers are better described as Mammonists than Christians. Mammonism is the greatest religious threat to Christianity, that is, the real sort, involving, you know, adhering to the sayings of Christ.
Blue Owl
(49,918 posts)n/t
eppur_se_muova
(36,227 posts)What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should, she wrote, gushing that Hickman had no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel other people.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1118602
Maybe he could work that into his campaign literature.
doxydad
(1,363 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Alex P Notkeaton
(309 posts)Brat. He'll fit in perfectly with the Tea Party caucus!
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)they mix it with some prayers.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)It's happened before, after all; just look at certain of the old Dixiecrats for example......eom.