Counter-Reformation 2.0

After the high drama of the Trumpists' attempted putsch, there's a temptation to think that putting the violent, heavily-armed minority back in its box will solve the problem. And certain direct, specific actions would be good. Identify all the perps and their enablers, then ensure that they face legal consequences, to publicly demonstrate that people who indulge in this sort of violence and intimidation don't get to be above the law. 

And, probably most important, disrupt the violent far-right and white supremacist networks which have self-evidently infiltrated various police departments. Black folks won't have needed the wake-up call of the attack on the Capitol to alert them to the fact that this shit has been going on for far too long.

All of this is necessary, but not sufficient. Firefighting this outbreak of violence is good, but it won't solve the underlying problems which got America into this mess. A thought-provoking post on the Minor Heresies blog (no less immediately relevant for being posted last September) views the state of early 21st Century America through the historical lens of Early Modern Europe, the Counter-Reformation, and what happens when an established order loses power and tries to claw it back:

"First, I’d like you to imagine yourself as an average peasant in Western Europe in 1516, the year before Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. The Protestant Reformation is not yet even an idea. There is no “Catholic Church.” There is just “The Church.” It permeates personal, family, economic, and political life. For someone living in Koln, or Naples or Lyon in 1516 there is nothing else. Sure, there are a few Jews about, and you’ve heard, perhaps, of Muslims and Hindus, but these are oddities. Tuck this idea away for later; there was a time when, for the people of Western Europe, there was only one spiritual option, and no concept of any other.

Then, after 1517, there were other versions of Christianity. Lutheranism, of course, and Calvinism. John Knox took Luther’s ideas to Scotland and founded the Presbyterian Church. Suddenly, there were options. The Catholic Church did not tolerate this loss of power and preeminence.

The century between the mid-1500s and mid-1600s is the era of what is now known as the Counter Reformation. It was fought on an array of battle fronts:  political, legal, military, theological, and organizational. The Vatican engaged in diplomacy, cracked down on dissent, and fomented wars. It also formed new organizations, such as the Jesuits, set scholars to work clarifying its theology, and actually engaged in some internal reforms. I won’t dig too deeply into this, since the Counter Reformation has filled a stack of books. It is enough to say that it got brutally violent, with torture and executions, and was finally ended by a vicious war, now known as the Thirty Years War. The terrorism and starvation partially depopulated northern Germany by its end in 1648. Catholicism didn’t yield power quietly, and the aftershocks of that fight persist to this day.

Now imagine yourself as a heterosexual Christian white man in 1947. Perhaps you are working in a unionized factory job or farming. Perhaps you are going to college on the GI Bill, preparing yourself for the white collar world. Whatever your path, your place is analogous to the peasant of 1516, in terms of your demographic identity. Desegregation is in the future. The heyday of the civil rights movement hasn’t arrived. Women’s rights aren’t a thing. Likewise LGBT rights, or even their existence. Secularism is a fringe idea, and psychotherapy is for rich kooks. Like a fish not understanding water, your preeminence in American society isn’t something you even consider. It’s just the way things are."

Read the whole thing here - it's well worth your time, especially for the way it draws your attention away from the immediate fireworks of the ragtag army of MAGA chuds, their disturbingly hilarous mid-rampage selfies and their touching faith that their transgressions will be wiped clean by a personal pardon from The Donald. 

These people and their actions are just the symptoms of a deeper malaise, in particular the general powerlessness of voters of all persuasions in a nation where both major political parties have, to a greater or lesser extent, been captured by the money of oligarchs & corporate interests, to such an extent that they don't represent the people who vote for them (or those disillusioned people who don't vote, for that matter).