Red Christ (Trailer Park Rome, Eight.)

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
~Ronald Reagan

I know I'm old. I get that.

But I have to admit, I find the willingness of modern Republicans (and their voters, apparently) to bow down before the Hammer and Sickle and Vladimir Putin...disgusting.

Today, a Russian Su-27 Flanker collided with a USAF MQ-9 Reaper drone, damaging it and forcing the operators back at Ramstein or wherever to ditch the thing in the Black Sea.

These type of confrontations used to be fairly common back during the Cold War, but I have a feeling that unlike then, now they're going to escalate.

Because Putin knows something like a third of Americans hate America and will side with him. Such people are mostly on the Right, but not all. It's not a day goes by, lately, where there isn't some Republican praising Russia and cursing about Ukraine. There's a small number of Tankie Leftists out there too. This lady's timeline is literally full of hatred for America and praise for Josef Stalin.

I'll never get it, but that's the truth.

We need to face this fact and plan accordingly, before this crap gets out of hand.

Don't get me wrong, there have always been a small number of American communist types. But they haven't really had any power since the 1930's, and they didn't really have all that much then, either. It wasn't anything we did. The Commies soup-sandwiched their own efforts in 1939 by abandoning the improvement of race relations as a plank in their platform.

But Putin and Russia have sure captured influence with "Conservatives" in America now, haven't they? All they had to do was cosplay as "Conservatives," engage in a little performative culture-warring, homophobia and religiosity and there you have it. Putin may not have turned Moscow into the Third Rome, but he's sure owned it in the Trailer Park Rome of the American Deep South and Midwest, hasn't he?

This is a goddamn problem and you shouldn't need me to explain it to you.

Especially when it looks very, very likely that, with all this crap in mind, Putin's going to try and give NATO a good hard kick, quite possibly directly at us rather than Europe. If he attacks Europe and our allies, he's got to deal with the Baltic States, the Balkans, Moldova, the Poles, Ukrainians and all them first and they will be reinforced by us and the rest of the EU.

Now, on the other hand, for the cost of a few cruise missiles launched at Alaska, Guam or Hawaii, Putin could watch gleefully as a third of Americans shit themselves and preemptively surrender. And yeah, then he's still gotta fight America and ultimately the rest of NATO (but he was gonna have that anyway) the difference is that fully a third of Americans will fold like the blubbering cowards that they are, likely actively hindering our efforts instead of just talking shit about it.

And this will cause problems for everybody.

Welcome to America, where half the population tolerates (or at least does nothing about) active insurrectionism.

And I'm here to tell you, if you support *Checks Notes* even anything that was a traditional Republican view about foreign policy, international relations, or Russia prior to 2015 the MAGA's will sit there and call you a "Woke Leftist" and say you're somehow "Not A Christian." 

Seriously there's a whole cottage industry of David French haters on the far-right. In other words if you're a practicing Christian or a traditional conservative Republican...these fucking people hate you.

Because you have values other than cynicism and mobocracy.

Ya know, I can remember when American far-right Evangelicals didn't consider the Eastern churches (let alone the Russian Orthodox which was known to be KGB-infiltrated like a motherfucker) to be Christian at all.

And while I'm at it, it turns out even Ron DeSantis is a chickenshit Russia-appeaser. 

Reagan Wept.

Comrade Meatball can kiss my ass.

Goddamn, but that pisses me the fuck off. Republicans should goddamned well know better. The Russians don't give a fuck about you. In Russia, you, your culture and your people could have been subjected to generations of Russification, but if you're not ethnic Russian, mostly you still get treated like an 8th-class citizen.

And white American "Conservatives" think they're going to come out on top by helping these fucking people??

They'd rather fan the flames of "Christian" nationalism, "Culture War" and fascism (But I repeat myself) likely eventually provoking a real conflict and destroying America...while they claim all that diversity and inclusion and woke stuff for themselves.

But it's dour, harsh religiosity, fascist jackboots and wage-slave poverty and serfdom for the rest of you proles.

Because fuck you, that's why.

This is basically what these fucking people keep saying. America isn't America if anybody else gets any. Heaven isn't heaven if everybody gets to go.

Historically, you know what country was "Christian Nationalist" and full of dour Calvinists who used anti-Communism and religiosity to justify all type of excesses?

Apartheid South Africa, that's who.

It's almost like the cruelty and the racism are the goddamned point. Asmodeus and Dis Pater will have their triumphant return in the old Roman style if these fools have anything to say about it. Think I'm kidding?

I know people who bought all the way into Christian Nationalist Dominionism and the Seven Mountains Pentecostal crap. They essentially want to claim the religiosity of 5th Century Byzantium but the truth is, their life is usually more like Breaking Bad meets Trinity Broadcasting Network.

And it amazes me that others go along with this, ignore it, or enable it by doing all type of other dumb shit that undermines the people defending democracy, pluralism, and our secular society...which is secular because of the Constitution. 

But people see all this conspiracy theory stuff, or political and religious woo woo or sucking off Putin and Trump not as ways to make anything any better, but to turn a greater profit for themselves.

You cannot have both the Cross of Christ and the Hammer and Sickle, but these idiots will still try.

Some people just see Idiocracy as a means for more power and control, more death and wealth-concentration, and all this shit helps create that. 

And civilization and society be damned, I guess.

You really think if it all comes crashing down, that all that money you made peddling shit is gonna still be worth something??

I'm fucking tired of the rest of us possibly having to pay the cost of these fucking people's sins.

I refuse to be the sin-bearing servant for a bunch of goddamned hypocrites whose Republican Jesus is Vladimir Putin.

The only answer to the Red Christ is "Crucify Him."

When is enough going to be enough?

Слава Україна!

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. ~Isaiah 53:5

Seven