It’s hard to believe that this right-wing religious fanatic is the libertine Donald Trump’s most powerful henchman, but that the devil’s bargain the religious right has made. The following is a twitter thread from someone who was present at the speech:
AG Barr, speaking to NRB Christian Media Convention: “Politics is everywhere. It’s omnipresent. Why is that?” He says it results from conflict between 2 views: (1) limited govt that preserves liberty (2) govt that submerges individual in “collectivist agenda” The speech is pretty broad and philosophical, but the upshot seems to be themes that Barr has hit previously: He supports a small government, and he does not believe a political system can be substituted for religion.
Now Barr is attacking the “progressive movement,” for having “broken away from the fold of liberal democracy” He says that has played a “major role” in making politics “less like a disagreement within a family and more like a blood feud between two different clans.” “The crux of the progressive program is the use of the public purse to provide ever-increasing benefits to the public, and thereby build a permanent political constituency of supporters who are also dependent,” Barr says.
Religion is important to small govt, Barr says, because it “allows us to limit the role of govt by cultivating internal moral values in the people.” “Men are far likelier to obey rules that come from god than to abide by the abstract outcome of an ad hoc, utilitarian calculus.”
On separation of church and state, Barr says, “This does not require that we drive religion from the public square and affirmatively use government power to promote a culture of disbelief.”
Barr is now on to promoting state and local rights. He says concentration of power in D.C. is “another source of the extreme discontent in our contemporary political life.” “You have a problem? Let’s fix it in Washington, D.C. One size fits all.” He then ties that to abortion, suggesting one rule on that issue might not be appropriate for everyone in the country.“It is a recipe for bitter conflict over that rule,” he says.
Now he’s on to a pressing critique. He says “corporate or mainstream press” is “massively consolidated,” and has become “monolithic in viewpoint.” He also says journalists seem to see themselves less as “objective” reporters of fact and more as “agents of change.”
This is quite the mishmash of traditional conservative movement drivel, religious extremism and Trumpian faux populism. Fox News Brainrot in full effect.
He can do a lot of damage over the next 11 months. Imagine what he can do with five more years.