Jeet Heer: Reportedly Falwell Jr. boasted about his sex life & large dick to his colleagues & showed

[highplainsdem]

them risque photos of his wife.


Thread from journlaist Jeet Heer, starting here, full text below:

Link to tweet

1. The recent Jerry Falwell scandal got me thinking about how different Falwell's handling of this has been from the old clerical sleazeballs of yore like Jimmy Swaggart & Jim Baker. Does anyone remember the "I have sinned" speech?


2. The figure of the lascivious clergyman is as old as religion. Baker and Swaggart were creeps but they existed in a moral universe where it was still expected that they should hide their sins and feign remorse. We're in a different time now.


3. What's striking about Falwell Jr. is how utterly lacking in shame he is. Not only did he not hide his indiscretions, he flaunted them. Reportedly, he'd boast about his sex life and large dick to his colleagues & show them risque photos of his wife


4. Falwell, who was one of the first big evangelical leaders to endorse Trump, is part of the general decadence of late imperial America, when the ruling elite no longer bothers to wear the mask of chivalry & decorum but rather wants everyone to know what pigs they are.


5. Part of the Falwell Jr. story is that white evangelicals quickly glommed on to Trumpism because they already shared the same backlash values as Trump, a point made well in @sarahposner new book Unholy. More thoughts here:

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/jerry-falwell-jr-zipper/

[chowder66]

1. Good line:

...when the ruling elite no longer bothers to wear the mask of chivalry & decorum but rather wants everyone to know what pigs they are.

[Sneederbunk]

2. Swaggart: I have sinned and it was good.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Falwell Jr. is not a lascivious clergyman at all. He's a lascivious lawyer.

He has a J.D. from the University of Virginia but has never been a pastor of any kind. He took over the administration of Liberty U and is therefore is assumed to be an evangelical preacher, but he isn't and never has been. Not that this excuses him in the least; he's a sleazebag and a creep and a phony who uses the widespread belief, which AFAIK he's never contradicted, that he is a man of God to push the evangelicals' political agenda. He isn't any more interested in God than Trump is.

[underpants]

7. He's mostly just a real estate guy

When Sr. dropped dead everything fell in his lap.

Wiped out all debt with Sr’s Insurance policies. Massive expansion of the physical campus that had started before Sr croaked. Massive. Blocks out the horizon on 460.

The online university stuff is just like printing money.

I’ve met a lot of LU grads and literally ONE was both a nice person and good at their job.

[dalton99a]

4. "In my opinion, Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught"

Falwell Jr.’s exhibitionism, his compulsive need to publicize his sexual antics even at the cost of his job, helps illuminate his fateful political alliance with Donald Trump. Falwell Jr. was among the earliest major evangelical leaders to embrace Trump and has remained a steadfast supporter. During a famous visit to Liberty University in January of 2016, Falwell Jr. stated, “In my opinion, Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught in the great commandment.” Two weeks later, Falwell Jr. enthusiastically endorsed Trump for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

The alliance between Trump and white evangelicals has puzzled many observers. “Evangelicals for years have defined themselves as the values voters, people who prized the Bible and sexual morality—and loving your neighbor as yourself—above all,” notes New York Times reporter Elizabeth Dias. “Donald Trump was the opposite. He bragged about assaulting women. He got divorced, twice. He built a career off gambling. He cozied up to bigots. He rarely went to church. He refused to ask for forgiveness.”

Yet, as Dias observes, this seeming contradiction disappears when we realize that “evangelicals did not support Mr. Trump in spite of who he is. They supported him because of who he is, and because of who they are. He is their protector, the bully who is on their side, the one who offered safety amid their fears that their country as they know it, and their place in it, is changing, and changing quickly.”

This argument echoes a case made in greater detail by reporter Sarah Posner in her compelling new book Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump. Posner places the story of Trump and white evangelicals in the larger history of the backlash against civil rights, feminism, and LGBTQ rights that gathered force in the 1960s. This backlash, Posner demonstrates, fueled both the religious right and Trumpism.

[AllaN01Bear]

5. i remember the fake boo hoos and the fake crocadille tears that this man projected.

[Grins]

6. Just more proof...

At least to me, that on top of the pics last week of Falwell - and his wife’s assistant - both with their shorts undone, Falwell and his wife were doing three somes (four-somes?) with the Florida cabana boys, who were probably blackmailing him.

Oh, well. Three-way anal can be expensive, amiright, Mrs. Falwell...?

And the guy who covered it all up was a certain lawyer named Michael Cohen who, I seem to recall, is currently writing a book...?

What’s that line again about revenge?

[sdfernando]

8. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

At least it is to Kahn Noonian Sing.