H.L. Mencken and the modern Know Nothings

 

After the Scopes Monkey Trial which humiliated William Jennings Bryant and the cause of biblical literalism in 1924, one of the most acerbic newspapermen of the 20s, H L Mencken said this:

“Heave an egg out of a Pullman window and you will hit a fundamentalist  almost anywhere in America today. They swarm in the country towns…They are thick in the mean streets behind the gasworks. They are everywhere  learning is a heavy burden…even the vague, pathetic learning on tap in little red schoolhouses.They march with the Klan, with the Christian Endeavour society, with the Junior Order of  United American Mechanics…with all the rococo bands that poor and unhappy folk organize to bring some light of purpose into their lives.They have had a thrill and they are ready for more.”

Mencken could have just as easily written those words in 2008. About one fourth of Americans are still biblical literalists.After universal education and intellectual advances everywhere, the Know Nothing southern red states still voted for the most craven and opportunistic gang to ever sit around the White House table.They were small, uninteresting and venal  men who stopped at nothing to manipulate “the sheep without a shepherd.” And at their worst they played the Jesus card.

John McCain finally had to reject the endorsement of one of the biggest biblical illiterates ever to appear on television—with the money the sheep had sent him. I refer here to John Hagee, a preposterous Biblicist poseur whose rants about the end times and Israel’s role has  done so much harm to global and domestic American peace. And if you knew what Sarah Palin believed about the Apocalypse, you’d run.

As the economy implodes, the direct result of GOP greed, the fundamentalist apocalyptics will be having a grand time.The poor old Book of Revelation will once more  be held hostage to ranters and ravers.