One of the constant MAGA themes, doubtless the fruit of polling data, is that ginning up panic about something called “wokeness” really seems to rev the engines of MAGA cultists. This is unsurprising since anything that lets the MAGA Cult indulge its deeply rooted racism by means of code language gives the Cult a secret thrill. It is what is known as “vice-signaling”.
Vice-signaling is the opposite of virtue-signaling. The constant complaint of the Cult is that whenever somebody they hate does something decent, they are only doing it in order to win praise (i.e. virtue-signal), not because it was the right and decent thing to do. So, for instance, Rush Limbaugh heaped contempt on people who tried to help Nigerian women kidnapped by Boko Haram. There was nothing wrong and everything right about trying to save them. But because Michelle Obama was involved in the project Limbaugh ladled out his customary dripping contempt on the very word “compassion” and the Cult declared it an act of “virtue-signalling” as they declare any virtuous act by those they hate, despite the fact that it was undertaken, not to show off or gain applause, but because it was right.
The paradox of the Cult is that its preferred method for gaining the applause of its peers is not to do good things, but to brag about its cruelty. This is thought to be “courage“, because grave evil always casts its evil acts as “courageous” and tries to paint itself as persecuted by Normals who recoil in horror from such cruelty. So from cheering for the “courage” of racists marching under the banner of the swastika at Charlottesville to Alex Jones “bravely” standing up to parents of Sandy Hook and siccing sociopaths on them for years to thugs cheering as Trump urges violence against the Capitol to vice-signaling against people seeking racial justice in the US, what the MAGA cult does is not virtue-signal, but vice-signal.
This is why Mike Godwin, author of Godwin’s Law (“As an online discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler or Nazis approaches 1”) has made a new observation:
I have never, not once, found this observation to prove false. It is true every single time. And, since racist propagandists are increasingly out in force stampeding the Cult about the mythical bogeyman “Wokism”–including Catholics who ought to know better, but who take their cues from FOX and not the guidance of the Church’s Tradition–I thought it would be a good Advent exercise to let the excellent Gloria Purvis do her informed Catholic thing and disabuse those who think the fight for racial justice in America to be contemptible to stop with the sinful lies they so casually believe and spread. Consider it preparing the Way of the Lord:
It is characteristic of MAGA antichrist religion that it is so ignorant of the Christian tradition that it would utterly overlook and even heap contempt on
Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. (Lk 12:37)
Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. (Eph 5:14)
So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. .For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. .But, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. .For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. (1 Th 5:6–11)
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Ga 3:28)
And it is even more characteristic of this evil false religion that its standard response to this is to blithely declare that these biblical passages mean something “spiritual” and have nothing to do with the rampant racism that courses through the bloodstream of the MAGA cult. As though the very core of the gospel does not commit us to putting to death–death on a cross–every trace of the evil racism that infects the white supremacy the MAGA Cult passionately defends. There is nothing wrong–nothing at all–with waking up to and repenting that sin. It is commanded by the gospel. And the fact that the Cult so casually makes it an object of ridicule–does it in its sleep, in fact–is one more reason why anybody who actually cares about the gospel and not about perpetuating this antichrist cult, should work for the destruction of the MAGA cult by voting for its defeat tomorrow.
The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion. On the contrary, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, this sacred synod ardently implores the Christian faithful to “maintain good fellowship among the nations” (1 Peter 2:12), and, if possible, to live for their part in peace with all men, so that they may truly be sons of the Father who is in heaven. (Nostra Aetate)
Advertisement
