In Praise of Preaching to the Choir

By David Corn  August 26, 2022

A church choir in Germany. AP/Peter Zschunke

I was on the road the past few weeks, and often people approached me with questions about the news and politics. One of the topics most raised (other than the FBI raid!) was the January 6 committee, and a frequent query was whether this House panel, even though it was doing a bang-up job of publicly chronicling the insurrectionist riot that Donald Trump triggered, was merely preaching to the choir.

Preaching to the choir. That metaphor, usually deployed in a negative manner, has long intrigued me. As a journalist affiliated with progressive outlets and a commentator on MSNBC, I’ve been accused of committing this act. But in a church, preaching to the choir is a damn important job. A choir is an essential component of many churches. It brings the parishioners into the pews and helps to keep them there. It serves the spirit of the movement. A choir needs to be strong and well-tuned. Consequently, preaching to this group and bolstering this portion of the flock is a task of great purpose.

The same is true in politics. Ensuring your own supporters are well-informed is a top priority. Yes, they may already be on your side. But the more they feel empowered—armed with information and understanding—the more effective they will be as foot-soldiers in the cause. They will do a better job of inspiring and mobilizing their fellow citizens. Preaching to the choir—in politics or in religion (and sometimes it is both)—can be reaffirming for those on the listening end.

So if the January 6 committee is only providing citizens already concerned about Trump’s assault on American democracy a deeper, clearer, and more comprehensive picture of what happened that day and during the entirety of Trump and his crew’s attempt to overturn a free and fair election, that would be a triumph. Dayenu, as the Jews sing during Passover. These people are now better able to consider the crisis at hand, discuss the matter, and perhaps do battle to protect the republic. If the committee’s preaching happens to reach others and prompt them to think more about what Trump and his minions tried to pull off, that’s even better. We shouldn’t expect it to persuade the deplorables and Trump-cult zombies, but reinforcing those Americans who already comprehend the danger at hand is a noble and critical mission.

This week, pundits pointed to a new NBC News poll to suggest the January 6 committee’s work might indeed be influencing the electorate. When asked to rank the most important issue facing the nation, a whopping 21 percent of voters cited threats to democracy. This was the number-one choice; the cost of living (16 percent) and jobs/the economy (14 percent) placed second and third. Did this mean the democracy crisis spurred by Trump has become the top concern of American voters? Not exactly.

I asked a friend at NBC News for the partisan split on this question. Here’s that data. For Democrats, the order was threats to democracy (29 percent), abortion (14 percent), climate change (14 percent), gun violence (13 percent), cost of living (12 percent), jobs/the economy (6 percent). For Republicans, immigration (26 percent), jobs/the economy (21 percent), threats to democracy (17 percent), cost of living (16 percent), crime (8 percent). Clearly, if you combine cost of living and jobs/the economy, you get a plurality that surpasses threats to democracy. And the standing of threats to democracy in the overall list of concerns is also boosted by Republicans who presumably believe that the 2020 election was stolen and that this did-not-happen theft represents a threat to the political order of the country.

A fifth of the country does not consider Trump’s war on democracy the most pressing challenge for the country. But the fact that the democracy crisis topped the D list is likely a result of the hearings conducted by the January 6 committee—and its efforts appear to be moving the choir and the rest of the Democratic congregation. As has the recent Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. In many states, more women than men have recently registered to vote. And in the much-watched special election this week in New York’s bellwether 19th congressional district, Democrat Pat Ryan, who cast the race as a referendum on reproductive rights, vanquished the favored Republican candidate.

Ryan’s upset victory sparked a great deal of yapping about the possibility of a shift in the nation’s political mood that might forestall the much-predicted GOP takeover of the House. As veteran political journalist Ron Brownstein (who decades ago hired me for my first job in Washington!) reported, Ryan’s win reinforced the belief of Democratic strategists that a combo of issues—abortion, gun violence, and threats to democracy (the J6 attack, the Republican Party’s steady nomination of election deniers in races across the country, and Trump’s apparent theft of classified documents)—has stirred the Democratic base and improved the party’s prospects for the midterms. That is, it’s not one thing; it’s everything. And President Joe Biden’s recent accomplishments—the Inflation Reduction Act, canceling some student debt—certainly help.

During the 2004 presidential election, George W. Bush’s campaign calculated that “persuadables”—voters who could cast their ballots for either the Democrat or the Republican—had declined from about one-fifth of the electorate 20 years earlier to about 6 percent. With this information in hand, Bush’s strategists focused mostly on driving their base to the polls. They preached to the choir, deploying state initiatives to ban gay marriage. It’s a good bet that in our increasingly divided nation, there are fewer persuadables these days. All the more reason for each side to rally its adherents with clear messages. The January 6 committee—with ranking Republican member Liz Cheney—has been doing that for Democrats, and it promises to do more with additional hearings in the coming weeks. Recent events suggest the Democratic choir is paying attention and singing stronger. That’s not a bad way to spread the word.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.

American Psychosis Tease of the Week and Special Offer

Thanks to a PR push for Our Land, the newsletter has a bunch of new trial subscribers (who I hope will become premium subscribers by clicking here). So allow me to note once more that on September 13, Twelve, a Hachette imprint, will publish my new book, American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy. The book chronicles the long relationship between the GOP and far-right fanaticism. For over seven decades, the party has exploited and encouraged extremism. It didn’t start with Trump. In a way, January 6 was not an aberration; it was a continuation of the longstanding Republican practice of revving up right-wing radicals. As I’ve noted in previous issues, there’s no other history of the Republican Party’s embrace of fanaticism, bigotry, and paranoia—from McCarthyism to Bircherism to the Southern strategy to the New Right and the religious right to Limbaughism (as in Rush) to Gingrichism (as in Newt) to Palinism (as in Sarah) to the Tea Party to Trumpism. It’s an ugly tale that the GOP has refused to acknowledge and that the mainstream media has never thoroughly covered.

As a desperate author—what author isn’t desperate?—I’ve also pointed out the tremendous significance of preorders these days. The more prepublication purchases, the more booksellers (Amazon, the remaining bookstore chains, and independent book shops) promote the book. So readers can be influencers by ordering American Psychosis right now. It truly helps. And to make doing so easier, Our Land is offering its readers a special deal: You can purchase a signed edition of American Psychosis now for 35 percent off. Just click here. Please help me spread this important story of the GOP’s dark side by preordering and telling your friends and foes about American Psychosis.

On to this week’s sneak peek: Would you support someone who claimed you were literally part of a Satanic plot to destroy the world? The GOP has done that. In early 1990, Pat Robertson, a nutty but wealthy televangelist who had unsuccessfully run for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, formed the Christian Coalition, and the outfit fast became a political powerhouse, fielding and backing far-right and socially conservative candidates across the land. The GOP quickly embraced the organization, with top Republicans, including presidential wannabes, flocking to its annual convention. The first of these shindigs, held in November 1991, drew Vice President Dan Quayle, Sen. Jesse Helms, and several House Republicans. At this confab, Robertson shared his bizarre and conspiratorial world view, claiming the “academic elites, the money elites, and the government elites” were trying to “destroy” American society and impose a one-world government—and they were in league with Lucifer to do so.

Weeks earlier, Robertson had published a book asserting that this evil, anti-Christian, Satanic plot was being aided and abetted by none other than President George H.W. Bush. This book, titled The New World Order, was a pile of paranoia that compiled the various conspiracy theories of the ages and claimed secret societies, occultists, communists, and elites had for centuries conspired to lock the world into a godless, collectivist dictatorship. The Federal Reserve, the J.P. Morgan bank, the Rockefellers, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Ford Foundation, the United Nations, Henry Kissinger, the Trilateral Commission—they were all in on it. So, too, were “European bankers” and the Rothschild family (long a target of the antisemitic conspiracy theories Robertson echoed). Bush, Robertson revealed, had “unwittingly” carried out “the mission” and mouthed “the phrases of a tightly knit cabal whose goal is nothing less than a new order for the human race under the domination of Lucifer and his follows.”

That is, George Bush was a Satanic dupe. With this book, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies and became a bestseller, Robertson transmitted classic antisemitic garbage and the slop of conspiracism. The Wall Street Journal called the work a “compendium of the lunatic fringe’s greatest hits.” Yet the GOP welcomed Robertson into its tent, validating this loon. A year later, Bush attended the second annual conference of Robertson’s Christian Coalition and lauded Robertson for “all the work you’re doing to restore the spiritual foundation of this nation.” He then attended a private reception with major contributors to the coalition in the rose garden of Robertson’s estate. Black swans swam in a pond, as Bush warmly greeted members of the televangelist’s inner circle. Presumably, Bush’s alliance with Satan was not mentioned. American Psychosis has all the details on how Bush and the GOP forged a partnership with this crazy, antisemitic, conspiratorial extremist—while claiming to seek a kinder, gentler nation. (For other American Psychosis teases, see the list of recent Our Land issues below, which is only available to trial and premium subscribers.)

J.D. Vance and the Podcaster Who Said “Feminists Need Rape”

Want a deep and scary dive into the dark and extremist far-right worldview of J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio? Read the scoop I published this week. I reported on an interview Vance gave to a rightwing activist in which Vance proposed a “de-Nazification” plan to purge liberals from the government and other societal institutions. To achieve this purge, Vance said, the right has "to get pretty far out there and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with." He called on Trump, should he be elected in 2024, to fire "every civil servant"—which the president does not have the power to do—and to defy the law to implement this cleansing. Vance also suggested seizing the endowments of Harvard University and other elite colleges "for being on the wrong side of some of these cultural war issues." He claimed the Chinese are waging a sinister plot to inject woke-ism into American businesses. It’s frightening stuff. Check it out here.

Dumbass Comment of the Week

There have been plenty of obvious contenders since the last issue, particularly comments from Republicans and conservatives who went bananas over Biden’s cancellation of some college debt. (One example: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene complained it was “completely unfair” to have such debt forgiven. Her business had $180,000 in PPP loans forgiven.) But the early favorite was Herschel Walker, the GOP’s Senate candidate in Georgia. This Trump endorsee with an extensive record of idiotic statements, lies, and misconduct attacked the recently enacted climate change legislation with this argument: “They continue to try to fool you that they are helping you out. But they’re not. Because a lot of money it’s going to trees. Don’t we have enough trees around here?”

Is it stunning or just S.O.P. for the Republicans to field such a stupid candidate? Ronald Reagan in 1981 did falsely claim, “Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.” So Walker is preserving a grand GOP tradition.

Tucker Carlson once again uttered an inane remark about the January 6 terrorist attack on the US Capitol. Referring to that horrific assault, he bleated, “Within hours, they were telling us that an election justice protest, which is what it was, was an insurrection.”

Nothing unusual here for Fox’s most popular fascist. This was just another Carlson attempt to gaslight the public about the riot that Trump incited. Calls for the execution of Mike Pence, an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power, brutal assaults of law enforcement officers? It was merely “an election justice protest.” Disinformation is foul. Disinformation that justifies violence that threatens American democracy is evil.

But this week’s winner takes the prize by setting a record. We have never had a first-place finisher triumph with a one-word remark. On Saturday, Trump posted a statement on social media that denigrated Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his wife Elaine Chao, who had served as Trump’s secretary of transportation and who resigned after January 6. He referred to Chao as “crazy.” Three days later, McConnell was asked if he had any reaction to Trump insulting his wife. His reply: “No.”

That mono-syllabic response tells us all we need to know about McConnell.

The Watch, Read, and Listen List

The Old Man, For All Mankind, and Westworld. Endings are tough. For books, movies, and songs. This is particularly true for the season finale of a television series that is not yet done. The producers need to wrap up enough of the dilemma(s) at hand to satisfy the viewer but also leave the audience wanting more—that is, establish a powerful story line for the next season. Questions must be answered; questions must be raised. Closure and continuation. You want both an exclamation point and an ellipsis. Ta-dum and to be continued. That’s a tough balance to strike: satiation and anticipation. Not every show gets it right. That was obvious to me, as I wrapped up the current season of three premier series.

FX’s The Old Man was a promising venture. Jeff Bridges as Dan Chase, a onetime CIA operative, is in hiding, and John Lithgow as Harold Harper, his former agency colleague and now a top FBI official, is hunting Chase down, sort of. It’s a delight to watch each of these two veteran thespians act up a storm against the other. (Was there no role for Jeff Daniels?) And Alia Shawkat—perhaps best known as Maeby Fünke on Arrested Development—keeps up with them as Chase’s daughter, who has a double identity. The set-up is smart: an Afghan warlord, for some reason, is after Chase and using the CIA to find him, and his pursuit of the ex-CIA man threatens to kick up bad memories and some very inconvenient dust for Harper and the agency. Along the way, Chase, on the run, hooks up with a divorced mom (Amy Brennerman), and sparks of crisp dialogue fly. Yet each episode ramps up the plot’s implausibility—could an Afghan warlord influence the CIA so easily?—and steers the series away from its le Carré-ish potential. The final episode tosses out a revelation about Chase’s daughter that seems obvious upon its disclosure and concludes with Chase and Harper—two old men—at an airfield in Morocco, presumably planning a rescue operation that might not be necessary. It was underwhelming. The actors carry the show, imbuing the occasional leaden monologues with spy-guy sizzle. But all I could think as the season finalized was whether these long-in-the-tooth ops had enough frequent flyer miles to get back home.

This recent season of Westworld was a great improvement on the previous outing (Season 3), in which the sentient robots (known as hosts), who had once been automatons at the Westworld high-tech amusement park, battled an artificial intelligence force that seemed to control the destiny of most humans. It was a hard-to-follow narrative that nearly drove me to change the channel. But as if I had been programmed to watch the top HBO show of the moment—whatever it is—I stuck with the series. This latest season returns to basics: humanity versus robot overlords. This is a golden plot line that’s almost foolproof. Who’s going to prevail? Unfortunately, this classic confrontation descends into preposterousness. In one climatic scene of the last episode, the two main villains—each a host—have a shoot-out at a high-tech facility, and this face-off between robots could determine the fate of both the human species and this new species of hosts. Yet this massive Hoover Dam-like place—where a kind of virtual robot heaven is maintained in super-duper computers—is empty. There’s no security. Not a host, human, or guard to secure the command center or to keep the lights on. These two hosts prance about firing shots at each other. Too often Westworld has served up abstract notions that are hard to comprehend for hard-to-comprehend’s sake, in the style of Tenet. (Jonathan Nolan, one of the co-creators of the show, is the brother of Christopher Nolan, the director of Tenet.) But this showdown is plain absurd and a lousy way to resolve a fundamental issue (should humanity be saved?).

More to the point, the final moments of the season are hard to sort out. It seems that Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood), the host who kicked off the robot revolution at the end of Season 1, now plans to set up a test to determine whether humans should be given one last chance before being condemned to the extinction that seems to be upon them. But didn’t she sacrifice—or seem to sacrifice—her life to free humans from the chains of A.I. last season? A forced ambiguity appears at hand because HBO has not yet decided whether to renew the show. Consequently, Nolan and co-creator Lisa Joy had to bring this season to a close not knowing whether there was more story to tell. This episode had to function as a possible that’s-all-folks ending and render at least a partial verdict on who should inherit the Earth—hosts or humans…or no one—even though there might be more to come. I’m not sure artificial intelligence could crack this code. 

As I noted a year ago, I have seldom experienced as satisfying an hour of television as the Season 2 closer of For All Mankind, the alternative-history drama on Apple TV+. The show started with a brilliant premise: the Soviets land a man on the moon in 1969 ahead of the Americans. A Cold War moon race ensues, and assorted elements of American society are changed, including who inhabits the White House. By the end of Season 2, the Yanks and the commies each have a lunar base, and Cuban Missile Crisis-like tensions threaten to destroy space exploration and maybe much more. Season 3 takes us—Americans, Russians, and possibly others—to Mars in the 1990s. There is plenty of derring-do and smarty-pants engineering that goes into this very large step for humankind. Unfortunately, the soap opera elements this season are too sudsy and overwhelm the clever alt-history running in the background. Still, the ride remains thrilling, as one life-threatening challenge after another is overcome by human ingenuity. (Yay, us!) This season’s final episodes deliver major shocks—Is that a footprint of unknown origin on the Red Planet? Can an astronaut really ride on the outside of a spaceship during blast-off?—and there’s a wonderfully delightful tease about the season to come. The show’s producers, like a sharp NASA engineer, know how to make good use of a launch window.

The Mailbag

With our new influx of subscribers, let me remind everyone of the few rules of The Mailbag. Please include your name and keep comments as compact as you can. To-the-point emails have a much better chance of being published. I know Our Land readers can be passionate. Please, though, refrain from excessively crude language. It’s not a deal-killer, but it can distract. Spelling counts. Be mindful of punctuation and syntax. And no double-spacing after sentences. That’s an anachronistic practice that has long been thrown to the curb by grammarians and just about everyone else. (Need to be convinced? Read this: “Nothing Says Over 40 Like Two Spaces After a Period!”)

With interest growing in the coming midterm elections, there was much response to the latest issue featuring my examination of Joe Biden’s recent messaging efforts. Craig Berrington called the article:

The very best analysis of where things stand today and what is critically necessary from Biden—a Trumanesque assault on the Republicans—from now through the election. I flinched at your retelling of the disastrous 2010 midterms, when the Tea Party clobbered Obama and Biden, cratering the Democratic Congress. It also brought back terrible memories of how Harry and Louise clobbered the Democrats in 1994. 

The big problem today is that the Republicans have found their Harry and Louise theme for a Tea Party-style attack for this year’s midterms. It’s the IRS staffing increase in the Inflation Reduction Act. This single provision will allow every Republican to say, “Of course I supported this or that’ in the IRA, but I would never vote for making the IRS into America’s Gestapo.” We may think that is worse than nuts. But that’s what I thought about critical race theory, too. If the Ds don’t figure out that they need Rapid Response, repeated over and over, that takes down this stuff, they will lose the narrow leads they have now. 

The Republicans are certainly good at ginning up phony crises and issues, and we can see them now zeroing in on the increase in IRS agents, a necessary move to deal with a gigantic backlog of cases and to pursue the many tax cheats who steal from the rest of us. Biden and the Democrats do need to repeat ad infinitum that the IRS’s targets are these cheats, particularly the well-off scofflaws. That won’t stop the Rs from this demagoguery, but it could lessen the impact.

Will Stanton wrote:

I really don't understand why any voter concerned about inflation (all of us), or climate change, or saving democracy, etc. would blame the Democrats who are trying to govern instead of the united Republican obstruction. I am not aware of any Republican solution to inflation or any other problem. The Republicans have made it clear that if they take the House, they will not do one thing to help regular people. Yet the mainstream media constantly states that Democrats will lose the House. I am so tired of Democrats being blamed for Republicans obstruction. Is the problem really "messaging" rather than the power of hate and fear which the Republicans harness so well?

Both. The Democrats cannot on their own neutralize the politics of hate and fear. But more effective messaging can motivate some voters to be more favorable toward them and perhaps on the margins counter Republican attempts to exploit resentments and grievances.

Anthony Barbieri had this to say:

I enjoyed my first receipt of Our Land. I could not agree more about the Democrats messaging. If Democrats want to win in November their mantra to Americans should be, “Your children are being slaughtered in school and a woman is not equal any longer because of the Republicans.” They all should all be saying it every time they get in front of a camera. Hell, the Republicans still always start off with "the election was stolen"

Jack Altschuler wrote:

I’ve been excoriating Ds for their terrible messaging for a long time, but your current Our Land is center of the bull’s eye. I’d like to link to your post. Are you willing to allow that kind of access? What link should I use?

Thanks, Jack. As I’ve said previously, the newsletter exists as a newsletter and not as a website post. Our goal is to encourage subscriptions. Consequently, its contents are not published on an easy-to-access website. This is the business model of many newsletters these days. The issues can be shared, if you forward the newsletter via email, or you can cut and paste its content into your own social media posts. By the way, if you forward any issues, please tell recipients they can sign up at www.davidcorn.com.

Holly Hertel emailed

Thank you for a hint of Pride and Prejudice in your beginning, and, as always, your superb writing: engaging word choice and great information. I'm looking forward to my copy of your new book! 

I confess: There was no intentional reference to P&P. I must have accidentally dropped a beat from the Jane Austen novel. What was it?

Dell Erwin had a complaint:

Great article but I wish your paragraphs were not so long. Much easier to read if you keep them short.

Okay.

I will.

Keep that in mind.

MoxieCam™

“You know that Tom Petty song when he sings, ‘When dogs get wings’?”

“Yes, Moxie, ‘It’s Good To Be King.’”
“Well, watch this!”

Read Recent Issues of Our Land

August 19, 2022: Has Biden learned from Obama’s big #fail?; American Psychosis tease of the week; conflicted feelings about Liz Cheney; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Ted Cruz); Better Call Saul’s magnificent finale; MoxieCam™; and more.

August 5, 2022: The January 6 Rudy Giuliani mystery; American Psychosis tease of the week; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Alex Jones); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 29, 2002: We need to worry about Christian nationalism; American Psychosis tease of the week; Stranger Things jumps a ghoulish shark; Steve Earle honors his forebears; Joni Mitchell’s glorious return; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 23, 2022: Trump’s trap for the GOP; American Psychosis update and tease; Dumbass Comment of the Week (John Cornyn); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.  

July 19, 2022: Announcing the forthcoming release of American Psychosis; Breitbart gets something right; The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and The Player (three decades later!); Simon Winchester’s The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology; and more.

July 16, 2022: Does Steve Bannon buy his own BS?; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Catherine Glenn Foster, Lauren Boebert, and Dave Yost); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 12, 2022: It’s about sex; Iran-contra flashback: the day reality died; a dangerous state Supreme Court decision; and more.

July 9, 2022: Why did the Atlantic enable Mitt Romney’s dangerous both-sidesism?; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Marjorie Taylor Greene, again); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

July 2, 2022: Mark Meadows: one helluva liar; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Ali Alexander); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

Got suggestions, comments, complaints, tips related to any of the above, or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.