Jessica Scott > Recent Status Updates

Absolutely foundational read for understanding the white power movement in America

Phil Gorski is one of the clearest scholars writing about American religion and politics today. Anchored in a sociological viewpoint embedded in America’s civil religion history, this book compliments American Covenant.

Oh my god.

This book is very dense but it's profound in the way that surveillance capitalism reshapes the fundamental nature of human relationships

I am LOVING this book. Nalini is always a favorite and her first thriller is everything I’d hoped for. So so good!

Hello discussions of evil and modernity, one of my favorite topics.

This book is a really good read so far on the political bullshit that got us to where we are today.

God this book is so subtle and disturbing

God this book is so subtle and disturbing

What’s fascinating about this book is that buried in the noose of conspiracy theories, there appears to be signal, which then makes the conspiracy theories that much more resonant.

Everyone needs to read this book. Fascinating ways our society is being ripped apart by the very social media that was supposed to bring us together.

Written by a person who professes the faith he’s investigating, so far this seems pretty well balanced.

I had no idea the white power movement in the late 20th century was tied so heavily to Vietnam

Shaping up to be probably the most important book Ive read this year and I’m only 5 pages in.

This is mind boggling how the cult of the individual has been weaponized to undermine the social order.

This book is fascinating and has a deep story feel to it.

This book is fascinating and has a deep story feel to it.

This book is fascinating and has a deep story feel to it.

You can’t make this stuff up.

"I'd been wrong. And not just wrong, but real, real wrong. I'd gone and

done something that'd always pissed me off to no end. I'd crossed over

into the media and started looking at politics as a game of chess instead

of a process by which real people were affected in real and lasting ways."

"By feeding them a bit of controversy destined to land in the headlines, Trump was building for his supporters a counter-narrative to confirm their suspicions while shutting out conflicting information. Now conspiracies that had only existed in the far-reaches of the World Wide Web were being introduced into publications of record." - this is acutely worrying

"For twenty bucks I held in my hand the article of clothing that'd come to symbolize the movement terrorizing the country. The tag said it'd been manufactured in Cambodia."

"though Dave and I would probably never vote for the same candidate, or see nearly any political happening through the same lens, we were at least living in the same country and more than happy to share that experience. Our counterparts in the Trump movement had little to no interest in sharing a society."

"As if forty-nine of his fellow Americans—forty-nine living, breathing human beings—hadn't just been mowed down"

That's just it - the moral line between us and them has already been drawn. The lives lost in the Pulse shooting weren't part of his moral circle, which meant the acceptability of not condemning their deaths or worse, celebrating it.

This is an excellent point: "Trump hadn't drug anybody anywhere. And he didn't have impressive poll numbers because he'd somehow or another convinced anybody of anything. Trump was, as of that moment, the heartbeat of an America with which many of us were unaccustomed."

See this is the problem: we keep saying things like NAFTA grew the economy but not for everyone. A lot of folks were left behind in the name of "economic growth".

"Though the real ramifications of NAFTA were more complex—the agreement bolstered our economy and led to higher standards of living—the immediate reaction was that the Democrats had sold out their constituency"

This is a major source of the problem. "The person posting the status bragged that she had unfriended no less than a dozen people, including members of her family. Under the status came a flurry of replies from others who took her advice and purged their social media of anyone who dared to consider voting for Trump"

Fascinating.
“Truth is,” my neighbor said, “there aren't many of them.”

“Liberals?” I asked.

“No, sir. There's very, very, very few. Probably seventy percent of this

country is conservative. Twenty is independent, but they lean right.”

Making sure I understood, I asked him, “You think ten percent of

the country is liberal?”

“If that,” he said. “I hardly know any liberals, myself

"By keeping Trump at the forefront, and using him as an outlet for the more offensive elements of the party, the Republicans unwittingly encouraged and heartened a bloc they had always kept at bay."