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Thursday, August 7, 2008

Maverick Moment of the Day

posted by on August 7 at 8:52 AM

This one is way outside the realm of my Seattle Jew expertise, but Ben Smith is reporting that some Christian Democrats have found clear signs, in a recent McCain ad called “The One,” that the maverick is trying to dog whistle to Evangelicals and fans of the Left Behind series, telling them in subtle apocalyptic code-words and images that Obama is the anti-Christ:

The makers of the ad chose all of Obama’s quotes very carefully and the ad is rife with image after image equating Senator Obama to the anti-Christ, and especially to Nicolae Carpathia, the anti-Christ in the popular Left Behind series.

From the title of the ad (that immediately reminds anyone familiar with the Left Behind series of the name of the false church set up by the anti-Christ) to the quotes (with no respect to context) and images that the McCain camp chose to use, which basically allude to every symbol of the anti-Christ possible short of flashing 666 on the screen, this ad is an attempt to stir up already circulating falsehoods about Obama and add more fuel to the fire.

The McCain campaign clearly believes that Democrats and the press will not be attuned enough with the people who bought over 70 million copies of Left Behind to realize what is happening. But as with apocalyptic writing that can seem just plain odd until one really studies them and understands the symbolism and contextual language of the time, there are numerous parts of this ad that make no sense in a high-budget presidential ad unless they are understood for what they really are: attempts to scare people with contextually bankrupt scriptural and Obama quotes and imagery tied together to send messages of fear that Obama is somehow the anti-christ.

Smith has questions about whether this is an over-reading of the ad’s intent. (And he also asks, “Isn’t the anti-Christ supposed to be Jewish?”) But here’s the ad again, for Slog readers who missed its earlier posting:

RSS icon Comments

1

Magical insurrection, now in a campaign ad near you.

Pitiful; a joke of everything that has become our highest office in the land and the road to get somebody there.

Posted by Non | August 7, 2008 9:09 AM
2

This is interesting -- the wife of a friend of mine has read the Left Behind series. She's not an evangelical (she's a lapsed Catholic), but, maybe about a year ago she brought up this idea of Obama as the anti-Christ.

I prefer to think she was just pointing out the similarities between Obama and the anti-Christ in the books (a very popular, charismatic leader who wants to unite the people). But, I think there is a small part of her that worries about it and it may influence her vote (she's not the sharpest tool in the shed).

If a non-evangelical feels this way without prompting, I am betting it's not long before we see crazy Christianist blogs about the topic (if they don't already exist).

Posted by Julie | August 7, 2008 9:15 AM
3

I never followed any of that Left Behind stuff. Does the Anti-Christ have to become President of the United States in order to carry out his evil plan or can he lead another country? I just don't see the American public voting for someone named Nicolae Carpathia. There'd be too many internet rumors about him being a secret vampire.

Posted by Bont | August 7, 2008 9:17 AM
4

Can you imagine losing and the reason being "I was so good, that they thought I was the anticrist because I was so good."


HOW twwwwisted. SICKENING UGH I AM PISSED

Posted by Non | August 7, 2008 9:18 AM
5

I grew up in a christian home. My mom owned the entire series. I read the first three books and I can tell you two things:

1. Christians take that fiction to heart. It's a very dramatic interpretation of what every christian actually believes the "end times" will look like.

2. When I saw the McCain ad, all I could think about were those motherfucking books.

Posted by Bryce Beamish | August 7, 2008 9:21 AM
6


Does that clip of Charlton Heston mean that McCain is insinuating that Obama is a front man for the NRA?

Posted by John Bailo | August 7, 2008 9:24 AM
7

Ahh. This makes sense. I really couldn't get the point of that ad before. That Left Behind shit is bad news. Also, with apologies to John Waters:

If you go home with somebody, and they have "Left Behind" books, don't fuck 'em!

Posted by A | August 7, 2008 9:29 AM
8

And if Obama is the Anti-Christ, don't Evangelicals believe that:

1. The Anti-Christ's arrival and rise to power is totally inevitable.

2. They avoid his evil by being carried away in The Rapture.

If anything, they should be supporting Obama, to hasten their ascent into heaven.

Unless they feel in their hearts that they will be...

LEFT BEHIND

Posted by Bont | August 7, 2008 9:31 AM
9

@3 -- I read the first book out of sheer curiosity. Nicholae was presidnt of Romania, and then because Secretary general of the UN and then basically tried to take over the world.

I find the whole "one world" thing as a sign of end times totally fascinating. It's why some evangelicals are/were against inter-racial marriage, the Euro, etc. I mean, there were plenty of arguments for or against the Euro, but "I think it's a sign of the coming of the anti-Christ" could not be more retarded.

Posted by Julie | August 7, 2008 9:34 AM
10

the sooner the anti-christ is president, the sooner the rapture, and the sooner we're rid of evangelical christians & their endless jeremaids.

gobama!

Posted by max solomon | August 7, 2008 9:39 AM
11

@9

You're kidding me? The guy was the president of Romania and they made his last name Carpathia? That's...that's...just so lazy! And dumb...did I mention dumb? I mean that's like writing a book where the name of the Governor of Washington is Olympia Cascadia. (hangs head and cries)

Posted by thaumaturgistguy | August 7, 2008 9:43 AM
12

@8. In Christian anti-logic, maybe supporting/voting for the anti-Christ disqualifies you from getting into heaven. Who knows...

Posted by Julie | August 7, 2008 9:46 AM
13

I totally got that the first time I saw it...discussed it last night with some folks and they also agreed.

Posted by Jubilation T. Cornball | August 7, 2008 9:49 AM
14

The funny thing is, if you're not familiar with the books (which I'm not), then the ad seems strangely pro-Obama. The little tag at the end does absolutely nothing for it.

Posted by Me | August 7, 2008 9:55 AM
15

@11: Who is this Olympia Cascadia of which you speak? I think she's governor material!

Posted by Paul Constant | August 7, 2008 9:57 AM
16

@5, 8 & 10 - You stole all I was going to say.
When I first saw this ad it seemed so over the top 'he's the anti-christ, don't ignore the signs!!' - but then I remembered I was immersed in this stuff for 25 yrs.

In the end, I agree w/ 10. I hope he is, so they'll be raptured and the world can live in peace.

Posted by 666!!! | August 7, 2008 10:05 AM
17
Posted by Abby | August 7, 2008 10:07 AM
18

Is this ad real? I never watch ads so I honestly don't know, and it seems so ridiculous I'm questioning my eyes. But yeah, if it's real, that's exactly what it's about. Right down to the pseudo-King James English phrases ("It should be known that in 2008 the world will be blessed.")

The beauty is that the crowd that will hear the dog whistle is generally tone-deaf to sarcasm, which is how everybody else is supposed to interpret the highfalutin language. It's also pretty telling that it's drawing comparisons not so much to Revelations (you know, the actual book in the bible that Christians pretend to read religiously) but in a series of pulp paperbacks about Revelations that evangelicals really do read.

Those damn paperbacks have become their own gospel, right after the Gospel of Narnia.

Posted by flamingbanjo | August 7, 2008 10:11 AM
19

Anti-Christ is the first thing I thought of when I saw that ad. I didn't make the parallel with Left Behind, but the "Messiah" analogies are obviously about the Anti-Christ. Anyone who thinks this is too silly to be true, remember these are the same people who think Jews put fossils in the ground to trick Christians.

Posted by Sirkowski | August 7, 2008 10:15 AM
20

This is slightly off topic, but there's no "I'm John McCain and I approve this message." bit in this commercial, but it does say paid for by John McCain 2008. Is that because this was a web-only ad? Just curious.

Posted by Jen | August 7, 2008 10:33 AM
21

This is very scary, and very real, unfortunately. The language is absolutely tailored to appeal to that Fundamentalist / Evangelical crowd that is gullible enough to believe the millenialist / apocalyptic crap.

As a kid, I had lots of friends who were raised in that tradition (hey, it was a small town, I didn't have a lot of choices), and I'm afraid that these folks (some of whom, because they are susceptible to messages from charismatic leaders with a clearly-articulated, simple vision) who might otherwise vote for Obama will absolutely hear this "dog whistle" loud and clear and start proselytizing on it. Remember, those books have influenced a LOT of people, and they each have as many votes as each of us!

What a fascinating, brilliant, evil, cynical direction for McCain to go, particularly given his lack of credibility with this same group of voters on the Right!

Posted by Murgen | August 7, 2008 10:37 AM
22

If you take the Bible 100 percent literally (which most Left Behind readers do), there's no possible way Obama could be the anti-Christ anyway. Scripture says he will come out of Eastern Europe or the Middle East.

Of course, it might help if those people spent as much time studying the actual Bible as they do reading the Left Behind books.

(Full disclosure: I've read them all. The first three weren't too bad; the rest were written after the authors realized how much money they could make. They turned a planned 7 book series into 15.)

Posted by Georgia Guy | August 7, 2008 11:17 AM
23

This must be why Bush was reelected:

Right-wing nut-job: "Man Bush is as dumb as we are. Isn't he going to destroy our economy, lie to us, and all-around rape the planet?"
Rapture-ready lunatic: "Well, we can't vote for anyone intelligent, or charismatic, or who might actually be good at what he does, because those are characteristics of the Anti-Christ!"
Right-wing nutjob: "Yeah, BUSH, president for life! He's too dumb to be the Anti-Christ!"

Posted by MR. Language Person | August 7, 2008 11:19 AM
24

#22,

people actually do think obama "came from" the middle east. they hear the middle name and its all they are capable of imagining.

Posted by bryce beamish | August 7, 2008 12:13 PM
25

@24 - You have a point. I forgot who we were talking about for a minute there.

Posted by Georgia Guy | August 7, 2008 12:20 PM
26

I just wrote about this today, I've named it (dramatic pause) the Stealth Antichrist Campaign.

It's really obvious, at least here in the south. And I get more and more hits every day on my "antichrist" posts. Search term: IS BARACK OBAMA THE ANTICHRIST?

They aren't being ironic, either.

Posted by DaisyDeadhead | August 7, 2008 12:28 PM
27

While I try to avoid arguments about How Stupid Can Americans Be? (to argue for is too easy, to argue against is self-demonstrative), as an Idahomosexual raised in a Funda-mental-case Pentacostly household, I personally can testify these folk are compulsively-obsessed with The Son of the Devil, on constant alert, always will be. (In 1973 my sister thought Kissinger was the Prince of Darkness, and the jury has yet to be convened, either in the Hague or in Heaven.)

While I'm sure to those of us who are rational it seems crazy WHY these Xtians would want to work AGAINST the rise of said Anti-Christ, when his arrival would according to their own holy text surely hasten the Rapture and their own climbing of the Stairway to Heaven... still, they seem oddly apocalyptophobic.

Obama's just the latest, famous target. I've been waiting for the Obama-As-AntiX meme to drop and only wondered why it took so long. But if you want to follow those fools' progress, there's always RaptureReady dot com (a site with everything but a Singles section).

Posted by Andy Christ | August 7, 2008 12:42 PM
28

If the Rapture comes and all the fundies get swept up to sit at the right hand of the Father, I'll stay here with the sinners, thanks.

Posted by Greg | August 7, 2008 2:21 PM
29

@8: Word. That's actually what I came here to say.
I am also ashamed to mention that I read these books - all 15 of them - and that was the first thing I thought when I saw that ad.
Also, all fundies (well, those who are literate) have read these books. And whether they read them or not, they have heard "the message" and take them as gospel.

Posted by jojo | August 7, 2008 3:06 PM
30

Guess who said what about Obama? [Check this out].

Posted by Trent | August 8, 2008 12:38 AM

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