(Note: Audio version of this post HERE.)

Here is a thesis statement, or an elevator speech, if you have 35 floors or so:

We are trapped inside a world-historical temper tantrum being thrown by (mostly) white conservative Christian men — and the women who prop them up — over their loss of cultural and political power, influence and relevance. Just about every political/cultural story intersects with this tantrum in some way or another. The winners and losers of this tantrum aren’t foreordained, and these people are doing everything they can to create systems that force the sane majority to abide by their will and respect their authori-tah. Attacking the rule of law, committing terrorist acts to overturn elections they lose, passing down fascist Christian edicts from an illegitimate partisan Supreme Court, banning drag shows, banning abortion, making kissy-face with authoritarians in Russia and Hungary — you name it. It’s not a coincidence that all the same people are doing all these things.

We can win and should continue winning this war. (And we ARE winning.)

To do that, it’s useful to understand what REALLY motivates these people, to understand the fear and confusion behind their actions. And it’s helpful to understand news and trends in light of all this, to help us grasp how weak, fearful and ungrounded they really are, and respond accordingly.

Welcome To The Moral High Ground.

Hi, I’m Evan Hurst. You might know me as the managing editor of Wonkette, the oldest and most hilarious political website in the world. This is my new side project. When I started formulating the idea for this newsletter, I never imagined I’d be launching it the morning after Donald Trump’s first criminal conviction. Let’s go ahead and interpret that as the Lord’s blessing!

This is going to be a weekly newsletter, hitting your inbox on Friday mornings. At least that’s where we’ll start. We have a lot to talk about.

Right now, MAGA Trump supporters are self-soothing, trying to convince themselves that Trump’s criminal conviction in New York is going to be the thing that makes Americans love him and re-elect him president. Then, when he’s back in office, he and all his (mostly white, mostly conservative Christian) MAGA friends are going to PUNISH ALL OF YOU FOR NOT LOVING AND CHERISHING HIM (AND THEM) ENOUGH!

It’s kind of like that thing conservative Christians do when they’re furious that the culture doesn’t care what they think, so they fantasize about Jesus coming back and vanquishing everybody that does gay stuff or listens to Taylor Swift or otherwise has fun. YOU’LL SEE ONE DAY, HEEEEENGHHHHHHH!!!!!! (That’s their grunting sound.)

This is where we drop the first “Bless their hearts” in Moral High Ground history.

There are a million examples of this coping, but the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh is pretty much the spokesmodel for why this newsletter exists, so we’ll just use him:

Just 10 words, yet teeming with so many emotions, if you know how to decipher them. Insecurity, fear, anger, fury, confusion, and so much thirsty desperation, to name a few.

Oh, and magical thinking. MAGA is currently in histrionics, clinging to the fantasy that there is a silent majority that will finally, at long last, come out for Trump in response to his persecution at the hands of the Manhattan DA. And not just for Trump either. For them.

These people’s feelings about Trump are a direct reflection of their feelings about themselves.

These people are desperate for society to respect them, to love them, to think they’re smart, to think they have something to offer, something to teach, something to add to the culture. They’re desperate for somebody to want to be like them, without being forced.

But nobody does. Nobody in America, absent some kind of coercion, chooses to be a bitter, hate-filled Traditional Values MAGA Christian, and as long as people have true agency, they’re unlikely to start. Nobody looks at these people and says, oh boy, I want what they’ve got. Their lifestyle is not attractive. By your fruits shall ye know them, and everybody can see those are some rotten-ass fruits.

Put another way: no liberal or progressive parent sits up at night worrying their kid is going to come home a right-wing Christian. But those parents spend all their time worrying their kids will come home gay or trans, or just “woke.”

The supremacy these people once had was never earned, it turns out, and that realization is painful.

So they’re lashing out. One example: their campaign against drag performers, trans folks and gay folks, calling them “groomers,” when the reality is that kids are far more likely to be sexually abused by conservative Christian religious leaders. (This is something I write about at Wonkette A LOT, and will also write about here A LOT.)

These people are professional victims, and they are conspiracy theorists, precisely because of their insecurities and fears. This is why they believe in the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. They can’t grapple with the notion that the very breath of life is shunting them into cultural irrelevance — no, it’s a conspiracy to replace them!

In these people’s minds, Trump is the warrior that will protect, preserve and bring back Their Way Of Life. (And all the racist and anti-LGBTQ+ slurs they hold dear!) Never mind his morals, because the Christian Right’s morals are garbage too.

Pretty much every sentence I typed there is the springboard for a hundred conversations, and that’s why I’m starting this newsletter, but mentioning the Christian Right’s collectively inferior moral compass is a good transition into …

Why You Call This Site ‘The Moral High Ground’?

Couple reasons!

The people having this tantrum are absolutely, 100 percent certain that they have sole proprietorship over The Moral High Ground. They have God on their side, they will ultimately be victorious, on earth as it is in heaven, give us this Trump our daily bread, etc. This is why they believe the rules don’t apply to them (see: Alito, Samuel and Martha-Ann) and why they feel so damned confident passing moral judgment on people (see: Butker, Harrison).

These people do not have the Moral High Ground. In fact, it’s laughable that anyone still pretends they do, in any way, shape or form. But that toxic tumor of an idea is still out there, metastasizing. Whenever it’s found, it should be mocked, ridiculed, excised, and people should make offhand comments about whether these people should be allowed to be alone with children.

Who does have the Moral High Ground? You, if you’re a decent person who believes in the dignity of all people, who loves people for who they are, who believes people should love who they love. You, if you’re a person of integrity who at least mostly tries to be kind to people who have it worse than you, including at your polling place. You, if you believe in democracy and the rule of law.

You. It’s you. If you’re not a garbage human being, it’s you. So this is your newsletter!

But there’s one more thing.

On a deeper level, the victims of that worldview — which is many of us, on some level, but really especially LGBTQ+ kids, some who have escaped their clutches, some who haven’t yet — often subconsciously carry the idea that Those People actually are the Moral Majority they claim to be. That their claim to that mantle is somehow valid, even if not everybody can live up to their standards.

Fuck. That. Shit.

This is not going to be a support group, but I swear to God, if one LGBTQ+ kid in a bigoted fundamentalist Christian home finds this newsletter and it helps them get through one day, then yeah, that’s part of why I’m doing this.

So yes, we are up in here RECLAIMING IT.

Are You Going To Hit Us Up For Money?

Oh yes! Right now, in fact!

As I said, The Moral High Ground is going to be a weekly newsletter that hits your inbox on Friday mornings, or Friday lunchtimes, or let’s just call it “Friday,” OK? At least that’s where we’ll start. Could it grow into something more? I sure think so. I would love to use it to highlight other fun and smart people who are already part of this conversation, and I could even see a podcast in the future.

But let’s not put the cart before the horse, because 100 percent, starting this side project and cultivating this garden requires money. So the plan right now — subject to amendment! — is that the weeklies will be free or mostly free to read, with tiers going up from there. Maybe the benefits of higher tiers will start to reveal themselves as this place is able to grow.

So please, subscribe as you are able, and if you want to be a Founding Member who really helps this thing get off the ground, I’d be most grateful! Just let the Lord lead you.

Where Do I Get Off Doing This?

If you don’t know me from my filthy, hilarious and poignant analysis of the news at Wonkette — where I’ve been covering stuff like this for years — or if you don’t know me from somewhere else, here are a couple other fun facts:

Before Wonkette I worked with a nonprofit called Truth Wins Out fighting against and exposing the so-called “ex-gay” torture movement, which seeks to force LGBTQ+ folks to pray away the gay, pray away the trans, pray it all away. I grew up in the conservative evangelical church and graduated from a conservative evangelical high school. (Others had it worse, but I came out with enough battle scars, and it’s not a contest.) Much of my exposure to that world was the right-wing, predestination PCA Presbyterian kind, the kind that is quick to sneeringly tell all other conservative evangelicals how more well-read and biblically literate it is than the others. (They particularly like to sneer at the Southern Baptists.)

Bless all their hearts.

The point is that I speak this language fluently, from a number of directions. I’m also quick at identifying other people who speak it even better than I do.

Here Are Two Things This Newsletter Is Not

Briefly:

• A Christian site, or an “ex-vangelical” site, or support group for survivors, as I alluded to above, although you/we are obviously all wanted and welcome here! This site is for literally anybody who’s interested in the subject matter. But for real, if a teen or young adult, LGBTQ+ or otherwise, who is still trapped in an unsupportive fundamentalist Christian environment, stumbles upon this newsletter and finds in it reason to hope for a better life, then hi, I see you. You are loved, you are wonderful, and you will survive.

• An anti-Christian site, or a place for bashing religious faith. We all come to this discussion from wherever we come from, and we all have our respective relationships with it. I don’t baby my readers, but calling bullshit on garbage conservative Christians and those who make cause with them is not an attack on Christianity. Even if I am sometimes very, very mean. Y’all might be shocked to find out how Christian I actually am.

Wait, Are You Still At Wonkette?

I’m here, I’m there, I’m everyfuckingwhere, like Roy Kent.

The Venn diagram of readers for this newsletter and Wonkette will have a lot of overlap, I reckon, but it’s not entirely the same audience. That said, I write things there that will be useful here and vice versa. I’ll do my best to link them up on the regular.

So there you have it. That’s your 2,000-word intro post to the Moral High Ground. We have a lot to talk about.

Next week, we’ll do it in 1,000 words or less, though. Probably.

If you’re feeling limited by the subscription amounts and want to donate more like some kind of high roller luxury patron, well, I’m not going to stop you.

LUXURY BUTTON

Note that this is a PayPal link, so it won’t automatically confer the benefits of subscriptions like above. That’s no biggie. But if you’re donating through that link and somehow don’t have all the access you should, gently nudge me.