Update and scripts (Patreon)

Hi, everyone! It's 2022, and there is a lot going on with the show this year. 

I've recently bought some new equipment that should help with recording. I've also been experimenting with new visual effects. The aesthetic changes will begin to roll out in February.  Finally, I want every video to feel *big* and that means focusing more attention on larger projects (25 - 50 minutes) and fewer small videos (10 - 15 minutes). This is partly because I feel most personally satisfied when I release a big project, but there is another reason, too. The channel is still getting new subscribers every day, but the uptick has slowed considerably. Time to shake things up.

And now, on with the scripts.

BORDERS

AUDIO 1

How many people, right now, in this moment, are currently displaced, seeking refuge in another land, seeking employment in another land due to lack of options in their own, seeking asylum from dangerous conditions, or seeking a better life for their families after the resources of their home had been stolen by wealthy, powerful entities? In total, there are currently about one billion migrants throughout the world. Of this billion, there are 80 million who are forcibly displaced, including 45.7 million people who are internally displaced within their own countries. Of these displaced people, approximately 45 percent are under the age of eighteen. If the world population is approximately seven billion, then one out of every seven human beings on Earth is presently a migrant. For context, there are more migrants on Earth than the populations of the United States, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Japan combined. “Migrants” is a broad classification for people who are living and working outside of their nation of origin. This can include everything from poor migrant laborers seeking either temporary or permanent employment if there is little to none in their home, to refugees from war, famine, changing climate, cartels and other disastrous, dangerous conditions. Migration generally flows from poor nations to richer nations, often prompting a nativist and xenophobic posture from the citizens of the rich nations.

However, many of the conditions that lead to migration from poor nations to rich nations have to do with conditions created by the rich nations in the first place. Unequal trade deals that disadvantage the poor nations, debt from the former colonial period, wars waged by rich nations on poor nations, environmental disasters attributed to climate change primarily caused by industry in rich nations, and other circumstances that lead to people abandoning their homes in search of a better life. In other words, rich nations exploit poor nations and create conditions in which those living in poor nations need to seek refuge elsewhere. Then, rich nations set the terms in which poor migrants and refugees can enter, effectively laying responsibility on the people of the poor nations for circumstances created by the rich nations. Finally, rich nations do not accept responsibility for the conditions that lead to migration and use nativist political propaganda, news media, and other forms of manufactured resentment to maintain this relationship and this system. According to philosophers such as Jean Bodin and sociologists like Max Weber, a “state” is a territory in which a “monopoly of violence” has been claimed. Violence is physical force, physical control, or a threat of either. We, as residents of the state, are not permitted access to violence whereas agents of the state – be they politicians or law enforcement – either control the terms in which violence can be used or perform the violence directly.

AUDIO 2

The border of a state is used to physically enforce the terms of who is and is not allowed within the state. Thus, a border is not only potentially “violent” in the more visual, explicit and instantly recognizable form of this definition. Instead, a border, itself, is a form of violence. This is compounded by the fact that activities decided within the state that affect people outside the state through foreign policy are also violent. Politicians, pundits and other public figures direct our attention to “violence” at the borders to justify this resentment, but the existence of borders is a far greater source of violence. National borders partition the world and control migration to serve the economic interests of the few. How did this happen? Was it always this way? And if not, does that mean that some other system, some other way of life, can work better for all of us? [I. PAST AND PRESENT] Precisely how humankind transformed from nomadic to sedentary life is speculated and debated among anthropologists, but some matters are clear enough. Sedentary agriculture began around 10,000 BCE, which eventually lead to early states around 3000 BCE in Egypt and Mesopotamia. These early states had no boundaries or clear territory. Although scholars debate the finer points, one theory of state development is that the early states were created to protect the private property of the few, as agriculture lead to early stratified economic classes. It was not human nature that created inequality if states did not develop for thousands of years.

Rather, it was circumstance and environment. According to Reese Jones, author of Violent Borders, “Modern histories of states emphasize the positive attributes of state expansion... The positive version of state expansion ignores the significant role of coercion in state-making. States extracted taxes that were used to pay for armies, administration, and large building projects. States were also incubators for disease, with a dense population, monoculture crops, and the pests that follow. Most states practiced slavery and relied on forced labor and military conscription for territorial expansion.” States emerged by enclosing land and resources by limiting the movement of other people, and this enclosure was performed by those who gained and inherited enough power to do so. This continued throughout the centuries. In 16thcentury Europe, during the emergence of capitalism, lords began to enclose common land and convert it into territory and private property. In short, over the course of human history, greater wealth was accumulated and concentrated among the few, and greater restrictions on movement and land were established to maintain that wealth and prevent the masses from having control of their own lives. In the 16thcentury, Europe was still recovering from the black plague. Massive population loss stunted development of the continent by annihilating their labor force and weakening their institutions.

AUDIO 3

However, some European nations still maintained their militaries and sought to rebuild through the colonization and exploitation of more vulnerable nations. Much in the way that Europe suffered from de-population in the 14th and 15th centuries, Africa, North America and South America were de-populated by European conquerors in the 16th century through the 19th century – through slavery, executions, warfare, and control from afar – all in the service of stripping resources. Colonialism is a policy of conquering, stealing and controlling a new territory, often transforming indigenous populations into second-class citizens or slaves. Inexpensive labor or slave labor throughout the history of colonialism provided the capital for the industrial revolution in Europe and the United States. This allowed richer nations to develop and modernize by the 19th century and prevented poor nations from doing the same for a long time. According to Teresa Hayter, author of Open Borders: The Case Against Immigration Controls,

“The wealth of Europe and other industrialized countries was built, from the sixteenth century onwards, through the exploitation of the natural resources and peoples of the rest of the world. Europeans used the labor of conquered peoples to produce raw materials and primary products for consumption in Europe, and they destroyed the industries of the more advanced civilizations they encountered in their imperial expansion. They then embarked on their own industrialization and they protected their new industries through quotas, tariffs and prohibitions. Once they had established their dominance, they advocated free trade.” Following the end of the colonization period, an unequal relationship between rich nations and poor nations had been established through trade deals that disadvantaged the latter.

This unequal relationship was also solidified through debt from colonization that poor nations had to pay off themselves, despite being debts created and enforced by the colonizers. These debts give rich nations the power to impose policy on poor nations, such as monopolies by foreign corporations and influence on internal policy that advantages the rich nations. This unequal economic relationship works in tandem with stricter immigration restrictions and tightened security at borders. If rich nations can control poor nations through economics, rich nations had to find a way to prevent migrants and refugees from the poor nations from simply abandoning their annihilated homeland and living, ironically, in the nation that was responsible.

AUDIO 4

In 1948, following the colonial period and World War II, the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 13–1 of the declaration states that people have a right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each nation and that people has the right to return to their nation of origin if they leave. However, it is silent on people's rights to enter another nation – only that the nation of origin will allow them to return. The declaration does insist that everyone has the right to seek asylum from persecution, but the exact terms of allowing asylum are left up to each individual nation. In effect, this Declaration of Human Rights does nothing but enshrine in each individual nation the right of refusal. For the next seventy years, restrictions on entering nations, particularly rich nations, rose in tandem with trade deals that negatively affected poor nations. According to Harsha Walia, author of Undoing Border Imperialism, “A salient example of the impact of capitalist mobility on migration trends in North America is the effects of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has displaced millions of Mexicans, and the parallel fortification of the U.S.-Mexico border against migrants.

Under NAFTA, the Mexican government was forced to eliminate subsidies to corn while corn produced in the United States remained subsidized, thus making US corn cheaper to buy inside Mexico than Mexican corn. As a result, over 15 million Mexicans were forced into poverty, and 1.5 million farmers who lost their farms migrated to the United States to work in low-wage sectors.” The maintenance of poverty by rich nations forces migrants in poor nations to travel to the very nations that keep them in poverty. Migrant laborers suffer from abuse and exploitation. This includes criminally low wages and dangerous occupations. Because of their tenuous legal status, migrant laborers are unlikely to raise serious grievances with their employees, or they may face dismissal or deportation. In summary, rich nations keep some nations in relative poverty through unequal trade deals and debt arrangements, rich nations welcome some migrants from poor nations to exploit them for inexpensive labor, rich nations also exclude most migrants to maintain control of the economy and to force most in poor nations to continue to provide inexpensive goods to import into their nations. [music] On its face, this is obviously inhumane, but propaganda changes the narrative from a conflict between rich nations and poor nations to a conflict between what is “legal” and what is “illegal.” It is legal to impose restrictions on borders. It is legal to maintain poverty in poor nations through trade and debt.

AUDIO 5

It is illegal to flee from these conditions and immediately join the work force of a wealthy nation-state. Rich nations make the rules to disadvantage poor nations and then chastise poor nations and poor migrants for not following them. No matter how little power migrants have and no matter how badly they are treated, the blame is always shifted on them instead of those who have created these conditions in the first place. Thus, the conflict is not about legal and illegal forms of immigration, but about control. Nevertheless, those who wish to draw attention away from the actions of rich nations and the border apparatus continue to beat this drum. Legal immigration, good. Illegal immigration, bad. However, the legal immigration system is prohibitively costly for the poor and time-consuming for those facing immediate hardship. Legal immigration often takes years, work visas have many restrictions, and application is no guarantee of entry – ever.

The legal immigration apparatus in a rich nations like the United States is a maze of caps on nations, and limitations on who may and may not cross the border. If the legal option is not available, the illegal option will be taken. If the legal option is not immediate but the need is immediate, the illegal option will be taken. It is simply inhumane to expect people whose lives have been destroyed by poverty to wait for years, sometimes decades, before trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. It is a position of incredible privilege and hypocrisy, considering why they are impoverished in the first place. [II. REFUGEES] In addition to immediate economic control of poor nations through trade and debt, rich nations damage poor nations in several other ways, and all lead to the same pattern of migration. Those who leave the borders of their own nation due to emergency hardships and displacement rather than purely to seek employment are more commonly called “refugees.” The United Nations estimates that there are approximately 80 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. War is historically the most common reason for mass amounts of refugees. Wars between nations, both throughout history and especially in modern times, are fought predominantly for resources and other economic reasons. Scratch almost any war that is superficially about ideology or religion, and some undercurrent of economy will be revealed.

AUDIO 6

In the modern era, most conflicts are wars of choice to partition out resources, especially energy concerns, or to partition the borders of nations, again, for their resources. Civilians in nations that are suffering from a bombing campaign from a richer nations with economic interests in the region often find themselves without homes. This can happen directly, meaning their physical house or building can be destroyed in the conflict, or indirectly due to a nation's loss of infrastructure and institutions. Refugees count in the millions, and these various refugee crises originating in poor nations can be directly tied to the intervention of rich nations. For example, the United States' involvement in Afghanistan from 2001 until today. More than 2.5 million people are estimated to be living in a prolonged, internal displacement, while more than 2.7 million people have been forced to leave the nation to live in Iran, Pakistan or various nations in Europe. As of last year, 9.2 million Iraqis are either internally displaced or refugees abroad. Internal displacement means that people are “re-settled” within the same nation but live in camps and temporary housing indefinitely, partly due to limits on rich nations accepting refugees. In addition to war refugees, there are also climate refugees – people displaced due to changing environment or environmental disasters. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, “The impacts of climate change are numerous. Limited natural resources, such as drinking water, are likely to become even scarcer in many parts of the world.

Crops and livestock struggle to survive in climate change ‘hotspots’ where conditions become too hot and dry, or too cold and wet, threatening livelihoods and exacerbating food insecurity. People are trying to adapt to the changing environment, but many are being forcibly displaced from their homes by the effects of climate change and disasters, or are relocating in order to survive.” What the UN does not say, however, is that climate change is primarily caused by rich nations. Remember those seven nations from the beginning? That's the G7, a collective of nations that constitute 58% of the world's net wealth.  Not surprisingly, among the top 20 contributors to climate change, all seven are within the top twenty – not to mention other heavily industrialized nations like China, Russia, Australia and others. With the exception of Brazil, there are no South America nations on this list, and absolutely no African nations.

Africa contributes relatively little to climate change. The rich nations of the world, however, destroy the climate and create millions of climate refugees. Due to the changing climate, some estimate that there will be between 150 and 200 million climate change refugees by the year 2050. 

AUDIO 7

Second, rich nations only take a fraction of these refugees in total. Many refugees are turned away from all nations, either indefinitely seeking a home or indefinitely displaced internally in the aforementioned camps. The refugees are not simply all divided up among other nations. Furthermore, the numbers don't add up in any meaningful way to justify the actions of the rich nations. For example, the United States sets refugee admission caps. According to Pew Research, in 2019, the administration set a refugee ceiling of only 30,000, and in 2020, the ceiling was set to only 18,000. This might sound like a lot of people, but not when you take into account that there are 80,000,000 refugees worldwide. 18,000 is 0.02% of 80,000,000. A fraction of a fraction of a percent. Defenders of rich nations might also argue that the very richest nations are still leading the way in taking in these refugees, but that is not true either. Of the G7, only Germany is among the top five host nations for refugees, below Pakistan and Uganda. No matter how desperate the refugees are, and no matter how responsible rich nations are for their circumstances and hardships, many of the citizens of the rich nations will still buy into the idea that refugees are trouble-makers, at best, and dangerous criminals, at worst. Politicians demonize immigrants, and the press, particularly the conservative press, uncritically repeats their accusations or uses the controversy to their own benefit. Again, from Open Borders:

“The criminalization of refugees and migrants has the effect, deliberately or otherwise, of creating a group of people who are subject to extreme forms of exploitation as ‘illegal’ workers. It also feeds racist prejudice. The government uses language about refugees which differs little from that of the gutter press. ... It is then a small step, encouraged at times by the selective release of crime statistics and the results of government investigations into international crime rings, to accuse asylum seekers of cheating on social security, scavenging tube tickets and other rackets.” So, with all this in mind, about borders and refugees and immigrants, does the world have to be this way? Are there more options? Is there a better way? [III. BORDERS] Immigration restrictions increased over time – not as a result of any looming threat but as a means in which to control and partition the world. It was not always this way. In the United States, for example, between 1892 and 1954, almost 12 million immigrants were processed through the immigration station on Ellis Island. It was a golden era of immigration – people coming from all over the world to start again in the United States – and the nation largely benefited from this mass of immigrants. However, between these years, the number of annual immigrants reduced every time anti-immigration legislation was passed.

AUDIO 8

Quotas were created, entire nations and regions were restricted or outright banned. Ellis Island is now a museum. Everything has changed. So, how do we solve the border crisis? There are two lines of thinking. One is solving the circumstances that lead to undocumented migrant labor and refugees in the first place, and the second is solving borders as violence specifically by abolishing immigration restrictions. In truth, both solutions must occur in tandem. The abolition of restrictions and the reorganization of the entire world cannot happen through one reform or one change. Interventionist wars of choice must end or else war refugees will always exist. Greater steps toward curtailing climate change must be enacted. Climate scientists have their recommendations, and for reasons of the profit motive, they are not always followed. All trade deals must be immediately renegotiated to more equitable. All colonial debt must be immediately wiped out. The ratio of aid going into poor nations must be made higher than what is extracted. Believe it or not, for all the talk of rich nations providing foreign aid, that is currently not the case. They take more than they give. To those who oppose these solutions, such actions may seem radical and unrealistic, but the simple truth is this:

If we want to solve the border crisis and the refugee crisis, we have to solve the circumstances. We can't just keep building bigger and bigger walls. They do not work, and they don't actually solve inhumane conditions – they only keep inhumane conditions out of sight. Now, what about the borders themselves? Borders tear families apart, separating children from their parents – sometimes permanently. Borders force migrants and refugees into the hands of outright criminal agents, subjecting them to long periods of arbitrary detention, hunger, isolation, racial harassment, and in some cases, forced medical procedures. The crowding of migrants in camps often leads to epidemics. Even those who are eventually released suffer trauma from the experience. This is particularly true of children. The common counter-argument to this is invariably “Well, if they don't want to be tortured and have their children stolen from them, they shouldn't have come here,” but this argument falls apart under scrutiny. Besides the aforementioned point about who is at fault for creating the circumstances in the first place, there is no moral justification for violating the human rights of others and no legal justification for the frequent violations of international law that are ignored at borders.

AUDIO 9

Thus, the whole “It's your fault for crossing the border” argument and the related “It's not our problem” argument absolutely crumble when a broader view of events is allowed. It is unreasonable to expect someone to continue living in their own home if it's on fire. Another argument against abolition of restrictions is that existing jobs would be threatened and that immigrants are a tremendous strain on welfare. However, studies consistently show that is not true. Economic migration is only perpetuated because there is economic demand across the border. If there were no demand, there would be no economic migration. Growing industries have created an increase in demand for labor, for service-sector jobs, for all sorts of careers. This is particularly true in large, rapidly-growing cities in rich nations. A counter-argument to this is that these circumstances may change if, say, only the United States loosens or abolishes its border restrictions, but if this action is done in tandem with other rich nations like the rest of the G7 or some European Union members, the influx of migrants would not land solely on the borders of the US. International treaties and arrangements are common enough. Other arguments against abolishing immigration restrictions come from irrational fear. Politicians and conservative pundits beat the drum of nativism, claiming that migrants and refugees are dangerous.

This has been particularly common in the United States in recent years. However, studies have shown that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than those born in the US. An immigrant's status is often precarious, and they generally know to keep out of trouble. Nativist sentiment also includes the charge that allowing more immigrants would change the “culture” of the nation, but this is merely a dog-whistle for “race.” A nakedly bigoted argument is inherently worthless. So, what would a world with limited or no immigration restrictions look like? Proponents of this abolition vary in their overall political philosophies – meaning whether or not their end goal is the abolition of the state and borders altogether. A simple proposal, one which could be arranged within our current system, is this: Immigrants – whether migrant workers or refugees – would pass through customs checkpoints, and migration would no longer be prevented by border patrol, as “illegal” immigration would be a label only for unwelcome terrorists, those carrying contraband, and others deemed to be planning immediate harm. Few would be turned away, except under these extreme circumstances uncovered during screening. All other migrants and refugees would be given immigration documents. No caps that would limit the amount of migrants. No waiting for years for the system to choose your turn. No arbitrary denials based on education, skills, or status of family across the border.

AUDIO 10

With practically no immigration restrictions and with almost everyone getting documented, there would be no need for dangerous coyote crossings or climbing over walls. Migrants risk their lives because they assume, often correctly, that they will be turned away at the border. If they are no longer turned away, the coyote crossings would dry up, leaving what remains of border patrol to focus on actual problems. That is not to say that abolition of immigration restrictions would have no problems – only that this system would produce fewer problems and would be significantly more humane. This is not some utopian dream, because the world used to be this way, and it can be this way, again.

TED CRUZ

AUDIO 1

[If you kill Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you.] Rafael Edward Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1970. Cruz's parents owned an oil-services company called R.B. Cruz and Associates, which provided seismic maps to the oil industry during the Alberta oil boom of the 1970's. As a teenager, young Rafael insisted on being called “Ted” which infuriated his Cuban father, also named Rafael. Cruz grew up a privileged youth. His family paid for him to attend two private high schools and later Princeton University. In his youth, he was schooled in laissez faire capitalism by the Free Market Education Foundation. Cruz cozied up to conservative figures like Alan Dershowitz, William Renquist, and even joined the George W. Bush 2000 presidential campaign as a legal adviser. In 2003, he was appointed Texas Solicitor General. In 2012, Cruz ran for the United States Senate, successfully winning the seat with the help of the free market capitalist group the Club for Growth, the right-wing libertarian advocacy group FreedomWorks, and a host of high-profile endorsements from Sarah Palin to Rand Paul, among others. Throughout his career in politics, Cruz has opportunistically aligned himself with whatever movement happened to be popular in the far right at the time. During the Barack Obama administration, he allied with the Tea Party instead of the Republican establishment.

During the Donald Trump administration, he allied with the Make America Great Again movement while the establishment of the party scrambled to determine a way forward. During the lame duck period of Trump administration, Cruz allied with the insurrectionists and conspiracy theorists. During the Joe Biden administration, Cruz has allied himself with the freshmen wave of far right Republican Representatives and against establishment Republican Mitch McConnell. Cruz's rise to power has little to do with his popularity, magnetism, or political canniness. He has those qualities in short supply. Cruz's career is built on shameless sycophantism, attracting the edges of the Republican electorate, adopting and claiming a movement that he was not clever enough to create himself, and remaining in office through the massive Republican voter demographics of red state Texas. A thorough examination of Cruz's career shows him not to be a talented political operative but a success story of happenstance, geography, and willingness to attach himself to whatever movement is in the air. As the saying goes, it doesn't take a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing. Let's go through the stages of Cruz's career step by awful step. [I. The Tea Party] The Tea Party movement within the Republican Party was popularized during the early days of the Barack Obama administration. The origins, agenda and demographics of the Tea Party are obscured by the Tea Party itself.

AUDIO 2

As for its origin, while those in the Tea Party would often cite talk of the historical Boston Tea Party during the 2008 Ron Paul presidential campaign as its progenitor, the movement did not begin in earnest and had no national protests until the first days of the Obama administration. As for its agenda, the Tea Party would often cite “low taxes” and “de-regulation” as its goals, but these were the goals of the mainstream establishment of the Republican Party. As for its demographics, it was overwhelmingly white – but that is true of the Republican Party in general. The Tea Party was not all Republican – it was populated by independent voters as well – but those independent voters leaned conservative. It had a smattering of support among Democratic voters, but this is not unusual. All presidents, for example, receive some crossover votes from those registered in the opposing party. With all this in mind, what was the Tea Party actually about? It depends if that question is for Tea Party voters or Tea Party politicians. Tea Party voters were moved, in part, by racial animus and fear of the loss of racial status. It could not have been exclusively about policy for them, because the movement began in earnest only days after Obama took office and before he took any real action.

Obama's most controversial policy among the Tea Party, the Affordable Care Act, was not signed into law until more than two years after he took office. The first national Tea Party protest was urged by a CNBC analyst Rick Santelli, who admonished the Obama administration's intention to prevent people from losing their homes in the wake of the Great Recession. Conservatives often racially code any attempt at assisting the poor, with terms like “welfare queens” and “hand-outs” that conjure up images that white Americans had been fed for a long time. Even if Santelli had not explicitly said so, white Americans heard him loud and clear. The Tea Party was not a grassroots movement. It was funded by wealthy capitalists, endorsed by wealthy cable news commentators and mainstreamed by wealthy elected politicians. Tea Party politicians' policy goals were economic, but to accomplish this and to create a movement, they created an enemy – an “other” that would threaten the predominantly white, conservative Republican voters. The Tea Party's goals may have been related to capitalism, but they fostered racism to get there. It's the oldest trick in the book. See: post-Civil War black reconstruction and white plantation owner sabotage for more history on that. During the Obama administration, Republicans consistently created transparently shallow or false scandals around the president while ignoring actual controversies – such as mass deportation and increased drone strikes – because those actions were and still are in line with conservative policy goals, too.

AUDIO 3

Ted Cruz came fashionably late to the Tea Party, but he soon became one of its rising stars. His entrenched, long-standing views on laissez faire capitalism and pre-existing political connections made him right for the movement, and his half-Cuban heritage gave the Tea Party a talking point to defend themselves from accusations of racism. Cruz ran on the Tea Party platform in the 2012 Senate race. He won the primary with his, as the Washington Post put it, “up-by-the-bootstraps biography,” which one assumes did not include his oil industry parents or Ivy League education. His father, perhaps, came from nothing. Ted Cruz came from oil money, but why let the truth get in the way of a good political narrative? Cruz claimed that the United States was heading down the path of “European socialism” and that President Obama was responsible, a common tactic among conservatives, painting garden variety neoliberal policies made popular in the Ronald Reagan era as “socialist.” The Tea Party ran with this idea because decades of Cold War propaganda lead to decades of ignorance among the US population about what socialism is – or even what social democracy is. During his first term as senator, Cruz made some powerful enemies, but not only in the Democratic Party. Cruz was, and still is, unpopular among his Republican colleagues. It has little to do with ideology – Cruz is, after all, well in line with most conservative Republicans.

Cruz may be disliked by Democrats for his ideology, but Cruz is disliked among Republicans because they have to work with him, but by all accounts, he is arrogant beyond his marginal talents and so personally unpleasant that the prickliest conservative does not want to be in the same room as him. Cruz is obsessed with his own brand and harms the careers of his colleagues to get what he wants. Republican communications strategist John Feehery once said of this: “Cruz is an army of one, alienating anybody who is in his path. He advocates losing strategies purely to further his own career at the expense of the party.” For example, Cruz objected to a criminal-justice reform bill that was so widely beloved that everyone from the Koch brothers to the ACLU was in favor of it. Even Cruz's fellow Tea Party caucus senator Mike Lee was in favor of it. Cruz, however, claimed that criminal-justice reform would lead to thousands of violent criminals being released out into the streets. He then threatened his fellow Republicans that if they were to vote in favor of the bill, they would be subjected to, as The Atlantic put it, “Willie Horton-style attack ads.” In addition to this gauntlet being thrown down against his own party, his rhetoric was duplicitous. Ted Cruz was either lying about the content of the bill or ignorant about it. The bill had no force to release “violent criminals.” It was mostly about minimum sentencing, among other things.

AUDIO 4

Cruz had a habit of objecting to no-brainer, bipartisan efforts, such as United Nations Treaty on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Cruz tactlessly went after this treaty, even as Bob Dole had come to the Senate floor in his wheelchair to lobby for passage of the treaty. Dole had previously suffered a disabling injury during his service in World War II. In an interview with The New Yorker, the late John McCain said “It was the most embarrassing day in my time in the Senate, to force Bob Dole to watch that.” Cruz lead a government shutdown in 2013 – his freshman year as a senator – declaring that it was necessary to defund the Affordable Care Act. Cruz must have known this would not work, and Republicans broadly knew that, too. It was a waste of time and made the party look bad. Cruz called Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor, mocked Republicans like Bob Dole, Mitt Romney, and John McCain for not winning their presidential elections, all while having no real political accomplishments of his own. Cruz's bad reputation among Republicans came much earlier than this, though. 

According to an article in Mother Jones: “A prominent aide to George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign could barely contain himself when we asked him to discuss Cruz, who worked in the campaign’s policy shop. This person described Cruz as hyper-arrogant and widely despised, and he emphasized – over and over – that the pervasive dislike of Cruz within the Bush ranks had nothing to do with ideology. … 'Ted thought he was an expert on everything,' says this campaign veteran, who asked not to be named.… In fact, this Bush alum recalls, “the quickest way for a meeting to end would be for Ted to come in. People would want out of that meeting. People wouldn’t go to a meeting if they knew he would be there. It was his inability to be part of the team. That’s exactly what he was: a big a******.” Back to the Tea Party and his first term as senator, Cruz must have concluded that if Barack Obama could be elected president after only a partial term as a junior senator, then he could too. Cruz did have some data that suggested he would be a viable candidate. Though widely despised among other Republican politicians, Cruz used that in his favor, marketing himself as an “outsider.”

AUDIO 5

In truth, a former clerk for William Renquist, former Solicitor General, and current senator from Texas, one of the most important Republican strongholds in the nation, is not an outsider. His godawful reputation is entirely self-made and well-earned. During his campaign, Democrats were obviously critical of him, but Republicans had some choice words as well. Former Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner called Cruz “Lucifer in the flesh. … I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a b**** in my life.” Representative Peter King remarked “I hate Ted Cruz, and I think I'll take cyanide if he ever got the nomination.” Bob Dole weighed in with “We need somebody with experience and there are a lot of good candidates - I like nearly all of them. Except Cruz.” To top it off, George W. Bush said “I just don't like the guy.” Cruz tried to use this aggression to his advantage and began winning primaries, but all of that changed as the field narrowed to two. [II. Trump & Cruz] In a way, the Make American Great Again movement had its origins not only in the rhetoric of Donald Trump but in the Tea Party. While the Tea Party dog-whistled to white Americans to create a fervor that could allow them to pursue their economic policy goals, MAGA shouted to white Americans. The stage had been set years ago.

White Americans were made to feel victimized and humiliated by the first African-American President, and now a strongman had emerged to lend credibility to their racism. For the first time ever, Cruz was out-flanked to his political right and saw his spotlight stolen by an even more obnoxious character. During the primaries, Trump captured nearly all the media attention. He used a series of increasingly inflammatory statements to draw cable news to follow his every movement and record his every word. He bought precious little ad space but received significantly more air time than any other candidate in either party. Of the Republicans, Cruz was in second by this metric, but it was a distant second. Cruz could almost certainly feel which way the wind was blowing, and unlike his other Republican colleagues on the debate stage, he tried not engage with Trump. Any unkind words were generally initiated by Trump. Cruz did not have the magnetism to survive Trump, and due to his years of trashing his own party, he did not have even the institutional support to have his colleagues rally to his aid if that were to happen. That all changed when Cruz managed to win the Iowa caucus. Cruz's campaign falsely claimed that Ben Carson had quit the race in the run-up to the caucus and that those who were planning to caucus for Carson should switch their support for Cruz. Carson, however, had not announced that he was leaving the race and would stay in the race for another month.

AUDIO 6

Trump pounced, claiming that this constituted election fraud, which is debatable, and that the Iowa caucus should have a do-over. This gave Trump the appearance of the “outsider, under siege by the establishment forces,” a persona that Cruz had carefully cultivated in his career. It was not “fraud,” but it was a dirty trick, unsurprising from the Cruz campaign. Cruz's dirty politics and Trump's subsequent claims of fraud almost certainly inspired the future president to use this claim whenever he looked as if he might lose. Trump began calling his opponent “Lyin' Ted.” Donald Trump, of all people, accusing someone else of being a liar and ascending the moral high ground was preposterous, but the nickname stuck and hounded Cruz for months. In March, an anti-Trump ad commissioned by a super PAC that was not affiliated with the Cruz campaign posted a provocative picture of Melania Trump to encourage socially conservative voters to vote for Cruz, not for Trump. Whether or not the Cruz campaign had anything to do with this is debatable, but it was definitely done to help the Cruz campaign. Trump fired back, posting an unflattering picture of Cruz's wife Heidi. In April, the disreputable conspiracy theorist Wayne Madsen published an article stating that Ted Cruz's father was photographed with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The report provided nothing more than grainy pictures of someone who bears a passing resemblance to the elder Cruz and no evidence of anything linking him to the assassination.

Nevertheless, Trump jumped on it and helped spread the conspiracy theory. Few took it seriously, but it dominated headlines due to how outrageous it was. Trump continued to play the media, and the media continued to cover it because they knew Trump equaled ratings. Cruz desperately tried staying in the race, even choosing a running mate, Carly Fiorina, to give people the impression that he might be the nominee in the end. It was nearly unheard of to publicly announce a vice president during a losing campaign. Cruz quit in May. When the Republican National Convention was held, Cruz refused to officially endorse Trump at first, building his own brand as the true outsider now that Trump was the face of the party. This did not last long. Cruz completely humiliated himself, allowing himself to be recorded making calls for Trump during the general election campaign. Cruz learned that it was better for his career to be with Trump than against him. In October, when an offensive recording was released, many Republicans retracted their endorsements or condemned Trump – but not Cruz. He used this opportunity to get in good with Trump. Cruz reaffirmed his support Trump. After the election, Cruz quickly became Trump's most loyal supporter because it allowed him to be closer to power than he ever had been before. He also knew that Trump managed to do what he had been trying unsuccessfully to do for years: build an obsessive base of supporters and a brand around himself.

AUDIO 7

Not a reputation for effective governance – but a cult of personality that could transcend his own shortcomings. Trump stopped calling him “Lyin' Ted” and called him “Beautiful Ted.” Cruz supported even Trump's most controversial actions, particularly related to immigration. In 2018, he was the sole senator to oppose a Republican motion to begin debate on legislation to resolve the DREAM Act. He called for the repeal of the 14thAmendment to the Constitution that grants citizenship to those born in the United States. He even strongly defended the policy of separating migrant children from their parents. Such positions made him vulnerable in Texas due to its large Hispanic population and large immigrant population. He was challenged by Beto O'Rourke in 2018, who looked like he had the rare opportunity of unseating a Republican in a red state. However, with support from Donald Trump and the demographics still largely on his side, Cruz narrowly won the election. His alliance with Trump paid off. Following the 2020 presidential election, with his president now on his way out, Cruz enacted his plan to steal the MAGA base in the post-Trump era. When Trump made his baseless claims of election fraud, the soon to be former president had no greater ally than Ted Cruz. Nobody argued in favor of this nonsense conspiracy theory harder than Cruz. Nobody beat the drum harder. Cruz knew enough that it was ludicrous and untrue, but he also knew that this was his opportunity to become The New Trump.

To have that brand and that cult of personality that he had tried to capture for so long. Cruz gave people the impression that he was Trump's second-in-command – not Vice President Mike Pence – who largely stayed out of it and nearly paid a terrible price for it. When the insurrectionists came, some could be heard praising Ted Cruz. When they breached the Capitol, some were recorded going through Cruz's notebook, saying “I think Cruz would want us to do this." Joe Biden was ultimately inaugurated as president, despite Cruz's objections, but stopping the inauguration was never the strategy. There was never any way he could make that happen. He only wanted to seen trying to make it happen. That has been Cruz's modus operandi for his entire career, and it finally paid off. [III. Failing Upwards] Cruz has now set his sights on 2024. He wants to president, and he has already made moves to suggest he is running. 

AUDIO 8

Mike Pence is probably going to run, and he has a lot of support among the Republican establishment, but if Republican voters are still obsessed with Trump by 2024, Pence is going to have a difficult time convincing the people who literally wanted to execute him. If Trump runs, he is probably going to be the nominee. Politico is called the 2024 Republican race “the 'if-Trump-doesn't-run' primary.” If Trump does not run or is otherwise occupied, Cruz has a chance. So, what could get in his way? Possibly someone like Mike Pompeo or Ron DeSantis, who do not have as much name recognition right now, but really, Cruz's biggest obstacle is himself. Here is the perfect example. In the midst of a massive crisis in Texas in which a storm knocked out power across the state and left millions of people in peril, Ted Cruz abandoned his constituents and took his family on vacation in Cancun, Mexico. He was first photographed at the airport with many speculating that it might not even be him. After all, what politician could have so little sense? Even beyond the ethics of it, such a move would be a breach of Politics 101. You can't disappear in a time of crisis. Eventually, it was confirmed to be Cruz. At first, he tried to do damage control, claiming that he was only dropping his family off in Mexico and planned to immediately return. This raised obvious red flags, because, first, his presence to “drop his kids off” would not be required. He's not the one flying the plane.

Second, his bags and a leaked text message suggested he was planning to stay for days. His sudden return trip was confirmed to have been made after the scandal broke. Cruz never took responsibility, blaming it on his children and throwing them under the bus. He also claimed that he did not return due to the scandal but because of his own conscience and decided he would return as soon as he sat down in his seat on the plane. This, to be clear, is not true. He's a liar. Cruz kept changing his story, over and over again, trying to find some way to do damage control. He was met by protesters near his home. Some conservative commentators tried to cover for Cruz. “What else could he do?” they asked. Unfortunately for this talking point, it was annihilated when it was pointed out that Beto O'Rourke was helping on the ground level, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was leading the charge to raise money for families affected by the storm. Cruz's most recent attempt to do damage control was his speech at CPAC, in which he joked about it in a seemingly self-deprecating way. This had about the same lack of self-awareness as George W. Bush joking about not finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The crowd in attendance might have thought it was funny and might have forgiven him, but everyone else saw it for what it was. Ted Cruz is shockingly bad at his job, both as a lawmaker and as a public figure. He is arrogant beyond his ability, and he is deeply and painfully unlikeable.

AUDIO 9

A counter-argument to Cruz being bad his job and holding unconscionable political positions is that anyone gaining a position of power in their career of choice must be great at it and earned it. Let's try a little experiment. Think about every boss you have ever had. Were they all great at their jobs? Were they all really respectable people? Did you admire them and look up to them? No? Then, you have your answer. Mild-to-moderate success in a career is not always an indicator of ability. This is particularly true of United States politics, because the political system does not always reward merit. It tends to reward either gaming the system, or, in the case of Ted Cruz, inserting himself into a system that was already rigged in his favor. To conclude, let's examine that and how unpopularity is not always an obstacle to power. When one considers Ted Cruz's lack of popularity and frequent gaffes, the question arises: do we need to take this man seriously? Must we see him as a threat? Common wisdom is that an unpopular politician cannot remain in office for long and cannot climb higher than their current station due to the requirement of garnering votes. However, the United States' version of “democracy” allows for unpopular figures to gain power all the time. Let's go through the House, Senate, Supreme Court and White House. In the House of Representatives, a nauseating politician can be elected due to gerrymandering.

A party can reconfigure the districts in such a way that someone in their party is a sure thing in every election. If a district is gerrymandered to have significantly more Republicans than Democrats, then a Republican will almost certainly be elected. Any Republican – even a repulsive one. All that Republican needs to do is ride the zeitgeist. Whatever far right movement engages the fringe will allow that politician to stand out in the primaries and divide the so-called mainstream Republican vote among all the other candidates in the primary. Once the primary is won, that Republican is a shoe-in. That is how we get elected representatives like Marjorie Taylor Greene. In the Senate, there are greater hurdles. Everyone in the state can vote, not simply a gerrymandered district that favors one party.

However, states still have demographics and a culture that favor one party over the other, and in Cruz's case, he is a Senator in Texas, a red state with a culturally conservative identity. A Republican in a red state only needs one good campaign in the primaries, and after that, the Senate election is usually a foregone conclusion. Mitch McConnell could lose an election in New York, but he can't lose in Kentucky. Lindsay Graham could lose an election in California, but he can't lose in South Carolina. Furthermore, sitting Republican senators are rarely face a serious primary challenge within their own party. A Senator in a red state only needs to be popular for one day.

AUDIO 10

If he's unpopular after that day, it usually will not matter. Senators embed themselves in their seats. In the Supreme Court, popularity can be a non-factor. All that matters is who the president chooses and whether or not the president's party also currently holds the Senate. If a Republican president nominates a Supreme Court justice, no matter how loathsome, that will nominee will almost certainly be accepted so long as Republicans hold the Senate majority. The most vile human being imaginable can be a Supreme Court Justice, and once they get through confirmation, they can remain in that position for life. There are no general elections for Supreme Court Justices. And what about the White House? Surely an unpopular politician could never be president, right? The presidency can only be achieved from a mandate from the population! Well, no, not really. A president can lose the popular vote and still become president. The last two Republican presidents only reached that office through the electoral college. Furthermore, Cabinet positions and various local positions like Cruz's own former job as Solicitor General are appointments and do not require elections. In summary, an unpopular politician can go far in the United States. 

In 2024, Cruz is up for re-election. That is also the year of the next presidential election. An unpopular, fringe candidate can still win elections by casting the other primary challengers as the establishment, dividing the establishment vote among half a dozen candidates, and capturing the smaller fringe vote all for himself. Then, when the field has narrowed to two, the unpopular, fringe candidate has gained enough momentum to be seen as the frontrunner, and can win through inertia more than anything else. It happened with Trump, and it could, theoretically, happen again with Cruz. Nobody likes Ted Cruz, except all the people who like Ted Cruz. So, what can we do about this? Cruz as President of the United States would be a disaster even more than the average president, so we should probably stop him.

AUDIO 11

A more direct strategy to keep Cruz out of the White House and potentially oust him from his Senate seat is to never let anyone forget about his support for the insurrectionists, his conspiracy theories, and his Cancun scandal. These missteps and disqualifying gaffes must be brought up every time his name is uttered. He cannot be allowed to be rehabilitated by 2024. Every speech, every interview, every tweet must be accompanied by a recitation of his most recent scandals. Some people protested near his home when he returned from Cancun.

What if the protest just, never, stops? We cannot let people forget who Ted Cruz really is. He can't just grow a beard and reinvent himself. This is who he is, this is who he has always been. An opportunist, a befuddled, gormless loser who fails upward. Nobody likes Ted Cruz, and we need to make sure it stays that way.

THE DEVIL

AUDIO 1

On March 26, Lil Nas X released a new single ahead of his upcoming album. The track, entitled Montero (Call Me By Your Name), is autobiographical. Montero is Lil Nas X's given name, and the lyrics focus on his sexuality, his struggles with coming out at an early age, as well as a celebration of who he is, devoid of any shame. The upcoming lyrics, for example, are based on a real interaction he had with another young man, and the parenthetical in the title is a reference to the coming-of-age gay romance novel Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman. Such an explicit song all on its own would provoke the anti-LGBT religious right, but the music video has caused the most consternation. The offending scene features Lil Nas X dancing provocatively for the Devil to distract him long enough to put an end to him. The outrage was predictable, as ritualistic as church on Sunday. Defenders of the music video and of the young musician have already noted that much of the outrage, whether explicitly stated or not, comes from a place of homophobia – ironically, the topic of the song itself. Those who believe he has offended their religion have misunderstood the power dynamics. Lil Nas X's video is not attack but a defense against persecution by the church and other religious authorities. The video may have caused offense, but the video is, itself, self-defense. The outrage is another instance of a long history of concern about the encroaching threat of the Devil.

A moral panic that ebbs and flows throughout history with notable examples in the United States – everything from the Satanic Panic and Halloween scares of the 1980's to more recent conspiracy theories about Hollywood actors harvesting adrenonchrome to perform devil-worshipping rituals. Obviously, this is all ridiculous, and even a modest amount of research has shown that. However, what those who debunk this nonsense and those who defend Lil Nas X often fail to do is acknowledge that the central figure related to this panic, a fallen angel who sits on the throne of Hell, is simply not real. This is not a statement of skepticism of the supernatural. Rather, it is a statement rooted in Christianity. The Devil, as depicted in the music video and in popular culture, does not exist in the Holy Bible. The idea that an adversary who collects the souls of mankind and reigns over the damned is a fairly recent invention and contradicts what is actually written in scripture. There is no reason for Christians to condemn Lil Nas X, because the red-skinned, horned “Master of Hell” character depicted in the music video does not even exist within Christianity and therefore cannot be truly offensive to Christianity in the first place. The Devil of popular culture is an amalgamation of various references in the Bible to completely separate and unrelated “enemies” and “adversaries” – written hundreds of years apart.

AUDIO 2

The Devil is a kind of “Christian fan fiction” that bears little resemblance to how the character was depicted in the New Testament and no resemblance whatsoever to how the character was originally depicted in the Tanakh. [I. Tanakh] The Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, is the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures, including the Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvin. Christians know the Tanakh as the Old Testament of their Holy Bible. The division of these books contained within are not necessarily in the precise chronological order in which scholars believed them to be written. In fact, Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. Nevertheless, contextual and historical clues suggest there is a strong possibility that the first written record of what would eventually be considered “the Devil” is found in the Book of Job and the second written record is found in the Book of Zechariah. This is disputed because of references to excilic and post-excilic periods in Job as well as its unusual language and confused authorship, but for the sake of brevity, let us assume this was, at least, an early or the earliest reference to the Devil in scripture. In the Book of Job, however, “the Devil” is not the Devil. Although mistranslated and misrepresented in the Christian Bible, the Hebrew Bible does not name him Satan but rather, ha-satan.

“Ha” translates to the definite article “the” and “satan” closely translates to “accuser,” or “adversary,” or within the specific context of the story of Job, “prosecutor.” Satan is nota proper name but a title or descriptor. In the Book of Job, God meets with his heavenly court. Who they are varies depending on the book. In Pslam 82, they are called “divine beings” and “gods.” In First Kings, they are the “heavenly host.” Later in Job, they are called “servants” or “angels.” In Deuteronomy, they are “the whole heavenly host,” but suffice it to say, they are beings who assist God in one way or another. Among them, introduced in the Book of Job, is “ha-satan,” the aforementioned accuser, adversary or prosecutor. In Job, God asks the prosecutor where he has been, and the prosecutor responds that he traveling the world. God wonders if the prosecutor has met Job, a man of great virtue as well as obedience and fear of God. The prosecutor suggests that Job is only so obedient and good because he has everything he needs, prompting an arrangement between them in which Job would lose all that he had as a test. In the Hebrew Bible, God's heavenly prosecutor is usually translated as “the adversary,” but in the Christian Bible, the Old Testament has renamed him Satan – as if “satan” were meant to be a proper name, which it most certainly was not. We will come back to this, but next, the Book of Zechariah.

AUDIO 3

The first six chapters of the Book of Zechariah are a series of visions, all of which are regarded as a combined symbolic history of Israel and vision of a better future. The accuser appears only briefly to be rebuked by God. In the Hebrew, he is merely the accuser – the prosecutor and one of God's divine beings. In the Hebrew Bible, the only time the proper name “Satan” is mentioned is in First Chronicles. However, to the author and to the Jewish people, this was not meant to be that Satan. According to the The Jewish Study Bible on the section “Many scholars understand the [Hebrew] 'satan' to refer to the infamous heavenly being, but it is more likely that it here refers to a human adversary.” Though some things are clear, such as the basics of translations, the motivations of the anonymous authors of the Hebrew Bible are challenging to determine in even less confusing circumstances. Nevertheless, every reference to “the Devil” in the Old Testament practically has a asterisk next to it.

When Christians re-translated the Hebrew Bible as their Old Testament, the Hebrew word “satan” – adversary, accuser, or prosecutor – was capitalized and made Satan, even if it wasn't “the satan” – God's servant. Any satan, meaning any accuser. For example, Psalms 109 Verses 6 and 7 in the Hebrew Bible is “Appoint a wicked man over him; may an accuser stand at his right side; may he be tried and convicted; may he be judged and found guilty” but in the Christian Bible, it reads “...and let Satan stand at his right side.” This Pslam has nothing to do with the Devil or probably not even the satan. For lack of a better word, Christians “retconned” the Hebrew Bible to have references to the Devil, thereby better conforming to Christianity. The serpent in Genesis was retroactively cast as Satan in the 2nd century CE, dogma was fashioned to retroactively describe Old Testament figures as being influenced by Satan, all in the service of giving the Devil the appearance of always existing. Returning to the Book of Job, it's important to understand that Biblical texts were written by different authors across different centuries and with different purposes. Many books were written as the history of the Jewish people, some were written as instruction, and some were written to answer questions, often through etiological myths. An etiological myth provides supernatural answers to why things are the way they are in the absence of more grounded evidence.

AUDIO 4

This is not confined to the Abrahamic faiths, of course. For example, the Greek myth of Persephone and Hades is etiological. It was meant to explain the seasons. Scholars debate what is and is not meant to be taken literally in the Bible, but in both Judaism and Christianity, it is not necessarily considered blasphemy to consider certain Biblical stories etiological. The creation of the universe in Genesis is one story that is not always taken literally even by the faithful. The Book of Job is another such story that is not always assumed to be historical. Instead, the Book of Job attempts, much like the Creation story, to answer a complicated question: if God is good, why do bad things happen? Why do bad things happen to good people? An answer to these questions is often called a “theodicy,” and the Book of Job is one of the earliest and most famous examples. If the Book of Job is, in fact, etiological and a theodicy, not a historical account of Job, than it stands to reason that the accuser character in the Book of Job was merely invented to set up the story, and that any further inclusion of “Satan” in the Christian New Testament is only an extension of a character that was nevermeant to be taken literally. [II. The New Testament] Satan most famously appears as a character in the New Testament in the temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert. Three out of the four gospels describe this temptation: Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Gospel of Mark only references the event in passing whereas the Gospels of Matthew and Luke describe it in some detail.

Satan tempts Jesus to transform stones into bread, to throw himself to the ground and rely on divine power to rescue him, and finally, with the power to rule over kingdoms of the world. Jesus does not accept this offer but also does not contradict Satan's ability to do this or his ownership of these kingdoms. God has not granted “the Devil” dominion over the world, which suggests that the offer was from God himself and that God's prosecutor merely carried this out. Jesus' temptation in the desert was a test by his father, not by a Devil. Another interpretation of the temptation in the desert is that it was meant as a lesson and not to be taken literally. The temptation has three offers, each escalating from the former, and each a lesson for the early Christians. The bread a warning about hedonism, the leap a warning about egoism, and the kingdoms a warning about materialism. Much as in the Old Testament, God's prosecutor exists as an antagonist, as a metaphor for temptation and sin. Another reason to believe the temptation in the desert is not a historical account is nobody else was there to bear witness. 

AUDIO 5

It is, instead, an important lesson. Not history. Satan is referenced by name a handful of other times in the New Testament, but most Christians focus on his alleged role in the Book of Revelation. Few Biblical books are more misunderstood than Revelation. In modern times, many Christians use Revelation as a warning against the coming power of the Devil and the end of the world, but the actual content of Revelation tells a different story. The author of Revelation, John of Patmos, had a specific audience in mind: seven early Christian churches in what is now Turkey. The cities were Pergamum, Thyatria, Sardis, Philadelphia, Smyrna, Ephesus and Laodocia. John describes the challenges facing these churches in first century CE. Roman officials were concerned about the growing sect of Christianity – not for religious reasons but for political reasons. Jesus Christ as a messiah had revolutionary overtones. John's letter to the seven churches was full of instructions of how to behave under this threat and how to remain faithful instead of assimilated into another culture. The “beast” of Revelation, the dragon, the lion, the other fanciful characters are coded language for the recipients of this letter. Revelation is full of gammatria, a number code among Jews, and metaphor as instruction. The “beast” referenced in the Book of Revelation is not literally the Devil. It is almost certainly a reference to the Roman Empire and more specifically its ruler.

In the time of the Roman Empire, the emperor was often depicted as divine, something considered blasphemous to Jews and early Christians. Romans believed that if they were able to conquer, then it must be divinely ordained. Revelation was written after 70 CE when Rome destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. John pushed back on this, stating that the lamb, Jesus Christ, could “conquer” through peace and through sacrifice. John is asking the seven churches a question: will you follow the lamb or the beast? The lamb is Jesus, the beast is Rome – not the Devil. Revelation is written the way it is to protect the aforementioned seven early churches. It could not simply be a long list of complaints that explicitly references Rome or else it would endanger the churches. Revelation is political. It is not warning about the Devil. John was concerned with immediate and terrestrial matters, not a supernatural evil. The “prophecy” of Revelation is merely the hope of a better future for the early Christians. In short, there is actually very little “Satan” in the Bible – certainly not enough to cast him as the enemy of God or the enemy of humanity. [III. The Devil Character] So, how did we get here? How did God's servant and prosecutor become a monster who reigns in Hell? Red, horned, terrifying, and apparently easily distracted by Lil Nas X? The Devil as commonly depicted today is the product of artists and reinterpretation of centuries-old events to better fit the emerging religion of Christianity.

AUDIO 6

 In the 3rdcentury, Origen of Alexandria began to popularize the idea that Satan was a fallen angel. This comes from a mistranslation or misunderstanding of a verse from the Gospel of Luke. While Jesus was speaking to either seventy or seventy-two followers of his, he said “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” However, this misinterprets Jesus' words and rearranges the text. As theologian Albert Barnes once said 'Lightning' is an image of 'rapidity' or 'quickness.' I saw Satan fall 'quickly' or rapidly-as quick as lightning. The phrase 'from heaven' is to be referred to the lightning, and does not mean that he saw 'Satan' fall 'from heaven,' but that he fell as quick as lightning from heaven or from the clouds. 

Books like in Tanakh like Ezekiel, Isaiah and others retroactively cast Satan as being present or in reference to Satan. For example, the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 14, Isaiah has a prophetic vision about the fall of the King of Babylon. Translated from Hebrew, Isaiah speaks of a “morning star,” but translated and re-translated a few different ways, the Latin word for this morning star is “lucifer.” Those who wished to advance the theory that Satan was a fallen angel came to the erroneous conclusion that “lucifer” simply must be another inexplicable proper name for Satan, capitalized it, and retconned a vision about the King of Babylon to be an allegory about the Devil. The idea stuck in the minds of early Christians, and by the Middle Ages, the Satan character was nominally understood to be the enemy of God, the source of all sin and temptation. Satan became a common scapegoat for the ills of the world. “Why is the world the way it is?” they asked. It couldn't be those in power, it couldn't be wealth, it couldn't be the church, and it couldn't be the natural world that was still not well-understood. So, it had to be something else.

AUDIO 7

Someone else, and that someone, conveniently, was an invisible entity that was “discovered” centuries after the fact in the Old Testament. Satan's now common horns and hooves may have been derived from Pan, a figure in Greek mythology. The church rejected worship of “pagan” deities, which may explain why Satan was being this blasphemous image.

To sum up, outrage about the Montero music video and all Satanic panics are derived from mistranslations of the Bible, purposeful obfuscation, historical scapegoating, and anti-pagan propaganda. Lil Nas X is not dancing with a depiction of a figure with firm roots in Christianity. He is dancing with a character stolen and reinvented from Judaism that bears no resemblance to this. Dancing provocatively with an actor dressed as the Devil is not blasphemy. Belief in the Devil has more to do with blasphemy. The idea that God does not have control over good and evil, or that God could be threatened is far more blasphemous than a music video and a shoe. For God's sake, it's just a shoe!