“I was a leftist on the Road to Damascus when I got mugged by reality and now I think Donald Trump is a sexy himbo who will bring about a new American Golden Age. Please buy my merch and subscribe to my podcast.”
Virtually every high profile conservative has a “Why I Left The Left” tagline in their biography. Some of it, I think, goes back to the Nixon/Reagan Era when you really did have a bunch of FDR Dixiecrats selling out to corporate Republicans.
Reagan himself - something of the Joe Rogan of his era - would happily parrot whatever ideology was whispered in his ear. So he went from a Vulgar Marxist during his early Hollywood days, got that top-shelf Nancy head game while his wife wasn’t looking, and converted to MAGA Republicanism in the 1960s. Subsequent national Republicans just repeated this story to their base voters after swapping themselves into their Dear Leader’s role.
More bizarrely, college Trotskyite groups were an absolute hive of neoconservatism. Everyone from William F. Buckley to William Kristol to Richard Bruce Cheney came out of these nominally leftist groups, found religion in Big Business, and swore their souls to Mammon during their early 30s.
And you’ve got guys like Donald Trump who was a loyal Democrat and big party donor from his early days straight into 2007, when the party decided to nominate a black guy for President over his boo Hillary. Then, suddenly, he discovered he actually hated Democrats all along.
But a lot of it is just bullshit. Saying you were a dumb kid who was tricked into agreeing with Weather Underground by Fake News, until someone handed them a Bible with a copy of Atlas Shrugged stapled to it. And then THAT CHANGE EVERYTHING. It’s a classic hit of the Republican genre.
I remember in the 80s and early 90s it was very popular for preachers (especially youth ministers) to have a conversion story. Like they were out doing drugs or eating babies and Jesus came to them to call them.
Youth ministers were generally more hilarious. I wish I had a nickel for every time one of them talked about how they wrestled every day with homosexual thoughts and used to give handjobs to truckers in truck stop bathrooms or whatever (ok, that’s hyperbolic but I think it’s funny). “Everyone” struggles with those kinds of thoughts we just have to resist Satan.
Motherfucker what? Am I so righteous that god said I don’t need to be tempted or am I so evil that it wouldn’t matter, because I’ve never looked at a dude and thought “Yep, gonna split him in half”.
Republicans love a conversion story.
“I was a leftist on the Road to Damascus when I got mugged by reality and now I think Donald Trump is a sexy himbo who will bring about a new American Golden Age. Please buy my merch and subscribe to my podcast.”
Virtually every high profile conservative has a “Why I Left The Left” tagline in their biography. Some of it, I think, goes back to the Nixon/Reagan Era when you really did have a bunch of FDR Dixiecrats selling out to corporate Republicans.
Reagan himself - something of the Joe Rogan of his era - would happily parrot whatever ideology was whispered in his ear. So he went from a Vulgar Marxist during his early Hollywood days, got that top-shelf Nancy head game while his wife wasn’t looking, and converted to MAGA Republicanism in the 1960s. Subsequent national Republicans just repeated this story to their base voters after swapping themselves into their Dear Leader’s role.
More bizarrely, college Trotskyite groups were an absolute hive of neoconservatism. Everyone from William F. Buckley to William Kristol to Richard Bruce Cheney came out of these nominally leftist groups, found religion in Big Business, and swore their souls to Mammon during their early 30s.
And you’ve got guys like Donald Trump who was a loyal Democrat and big party donor from his early days straight into 2007, when the party decided to nominate a black guy for President over his boo Hillary. Then, suddenly, he discovered he actually hated Democrats all along.
But a lot of it is just bullshit. Saying you were a dumb kid who was tricked into agreeing with Weather Underground by Fake News, until someone handed them a Bible with a copy of Atlas Shrugged stapled to it. And then THAT CHANGE EVERYTHING. It’s a classic hit of the Republican genre.
I remember in the 80s and early 90s it was very popular for preachers (especially youth ministers) to have a conversion story. Like they were out doing drugs or eating babies and Jesus came to them to call them.
Youth ministers were generally more hilarious. I wish I had a nickel for every time one of them talked about how they wrestled every day with homosexual thoughts and used to give handjobs to truckers in truck stop bathrooms or whatever (ok, that’s hyperbolic but I think it’s funny). “Everyone” struggles with those kinds of thoughts we just have to resist Satan.
Motherfucker what? Am I so righteous that god said I don’t need to be tempted or am I so evil that it wouldn’t matter, because I’ve never looked at a dude and thought “Yep, gonna split him in half”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cross_and_the_Switchblade
lol