A childhood friend of mine who reconnected with me on social a while back, and checks all these boxes. His posts used to mostly be libertarian stuff, but then he’d slip in some dubious Dr. Mercola health thing. Then it was the chemtrails and Trump stuff. I ended up blocking him so I don’t know if he’s actually QAnon or not.
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Hmmm this makes me wonder how the spiritualist craze & the tent revivals that swept the country in the 1800s might link up to the Civil War.
ETA: And there was a wellness craze too!
http://ap.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/first-age-reform/essays/sylvester-graham-and-antebellum-diet-reform
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WWE has all kinds of parallels to things the Republicans like (or are otherwise obsessed with): worker exploitation, consumer exploitation, hatred of unions, quack physicians, “good old boy” facade hiding massive wealth and privilege, unreasonable hours and working conditions, racism, misogyny, toxic masculinity, anti-political correctness, authoritarian rule, death, violence, tax avoidance, a secretive “Deep State” running things, herd mentality, crowd participation, forced conformity, and of course plots that require an extreme suspension of disbelief.
I say all this as a decades long fan of pro wrestling.
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The spiritualists were staunchly anti-Slavery. Abolitionists were some of the first be supporters of the Fox sisters, like Amy Post. They got their real start in Rochester, which was a hot bed of anti-slavery and feminist activism. They believed the spirits were in possession of superior understanding of morality, since they had already crossed over to the other side. The spirits tended to support their positions on the issues of the day.
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Thanks Mindysan, I was hoping you would weigh in! Good to know that the spirits were abolitionist. Also that Rochester is still active…
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I cover the Fox sisters and spiritualism in my US history survey, so I know a little about it.
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Overlaps are no longer surprising to me.
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Here’s a PhD dissertation on southern spiritualism.
The slavocracy corrupted everything.
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