Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about the rise of far-right evangelical movements that have decided democracy is just too much hassle and that a nice, comforting bit of authoritarianism might be the way forward. Apparently, free elections and human rights are all well and good until the wrong people start having them, at which point it’s time to burn it all down and start fresh with a strongman who promises to punish their enemies.
Wha...
Once upon a time, America was a democracy. Then a bunch of religious extremists got their hands on the levers of power, and now we’re stuck watching a real-life Handmaid’s Tale unfold in front of our eyes. How did we get here? Simple: decades of planning, manipulation, and a political movement that saw democracy as an obstacle rather than a principle.
The Long Game of Christian Nationalism
The religious right didn’t just appear ...
The government’s latest round of proposed welfare cuts is, predictably, being framed as a crackdown on fraud and fairness. For those of us who have seen first-hand the scamming that goes on within the benefits system, it’s tempting to nod along. No one likes the idea of people playing the system while others work hard. But once again, the real focus seems to be on those at the bottom, while the industrial-scale abuse of Britain’s wealth ...
I’ve recently encountered the term “cognitive dissonance” repeatedly in the media, and until now, I hadn’t quite grasped what it truly meant. After some thought and reflection, I’ve come to understand it in a much clearer, more personal way.
What Is Cognitive Dissonance?
Cognitive dissonance is essentially that uneasy feeling you get when your beliefs and actions don’t quite match up. It’s as if your head and heart are ...
America, once the self-declared land of the free, is hurtling towards something chillingly familiar—Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, but with worse food and even more guns. With Donald Trump poised for a return to power, the country stands on the brink of a far-right, theocratic nightmare, where civil liberties are stripped away in the name of religious extremism.
A Nation Under Religious Rule
The warning signs could not be ...
