The Konami Code Creator Has Died And Gamers Are Mourning

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CHEAT FOR EIGHTIES VIDEO GAMES

Lauren Strapagiel BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on February 26, 2020

Konami

The man who helped you cheat your way through old-school video games has died.

Kazuhisa Hashimoto was best known as the creator of the Konami Code: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start.

His death was confirmed on Twitter by Yuji Takenouchi, a friend of Hashimoto and a video game sound designer. Hashimoto was 61, according to reports.



TECHNOuchi ♓️🅰@TECHNOuchi

コナミコマンド「上上下下左右左右BA」の生みの親であるプログラマーの橋本和久さんが、昨夜、亡くなられたとのこと。ご冥福をお祈りいたします。08:22 AM - 26 Feb 2020
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onami tweeted its condolences, calling Hashimoto a "deeply talented producer."


Konami@Konami

We are saddened to hear about the passing of Kazuhisa Hashimoto, a deeply talented producer who first introduced the world to the "Konami Code". Our thoughts are with Hashimoto-san's family and friends at this time. Rest In Peace.04:36 PM - 26 Feb 2020
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The Konami Code first appeared in Gradius, a game released in 1986. Perhaps more famously though, it was used in the Nintendo Entertainment System game Contra, where it granted the player 30 lives.

It's since appeared in numerous games as a fun Easter egg and the world's most famous cheat code. (It even does something fun on BuzzFeed!)

The Konami Code has become a ubiquitous part of gaming culture, and many took to Twitter to honor Hashimoto and mourn his passing.



ChikoritaCheezits (Local Kid Icarus Trash)@ChikoritaCheez
Creator of the Konami code, Kazuhisa Hashimoto has passed away. His impact on the gaming industry may not be as much as others, but the Konami Code is one of the most known codes of all time. RIP04:41 PM - 26 Feb 2020
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Joël 🇩🇴@WeAreJoel
Just found out that Kazuhisa Hashimoto, the creator of the Konami Code, has passed away but his legacy will continue for as long as video games exist.03:59 PM - 26 Feb 2020
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For many, discovering the code was a childhood rite of passage.



Josh Billinson@jbillinson
A babysitter taught me the Konami Code to get past a level I couldn't beat in TMNT on the NES and it opened a whole new world to me, a child who was terrible at video games https://t.co/qlyTfHDx1G05:37 PM - 26 Feb 2020
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Even if you didn't know his name, you knew his legacy.

Fail Prime@FailPrime
"Programmer Kazuhisa Hashimoto, the creator of the Konami code, died last night." I dont think there is a gamer new or old who hasnt experienced, or heard of the Legendary "UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN..." Cheat code. The man made a lasting impact on all gamers. He will be missed.04:43 PM - 26 Feb 2020
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Gal†Zar@JRoberts38

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A "RIP KAZUHISA HASIMOTO" He is the creator of Konami code, your legacy will live forever sir, thanks for the great memories.05:57 PM - 26 Feb 2020
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If you want to pay some gaming respects, the Konami Code can be found in dozens of games, including titles from Castlevania, Dance Dance Revolution, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Just Dance 3, and Mario Party 1.


Lauren Strapagiel is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Toronto, Canada.

Opinion: Why Pundits Can't Comprehend Bernie Sanders

It's the last gasp of a political elite that’s been radically out of touch with the lives of normal people for most of the 21st century.

Waleed Shahid BuzzFeed Contributor Posted on February 27, 2020

Brian Blanco / Getty Images
Bernie Sanders marching with supporters to early voting at 

Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina.

If you were watching cable TV on the night of the Nevada caucuses, you might have heard Chris Matthews compare Bernie Sanders’ electoral victory there to the rise of the Third Reich. While Matthews has since apologized, it was an astounding and unconscionable moment: one of the country’s most prominent political commentators disparaging the campaign of a man who could very well be America’s first Jewish president. And it revealed something powerful.

A few hours earlier, one of America’s most celebrated Democratic strategists, James Carville, went on air to say the winners in Nevada were Sanders and Vladimir Putin. As I watched, I realized these weren’t just random or offhand comments; they’re the last gasp of a political elite that’s been radically out of touch with the lives of normal people for most of the 21st century, increasingly inept at explaining the enormous pain and discontent felt by the working- and middle-class voters who make up the base of the Democratic Party.

To put it another way, a generational transition is happening in the Democratic Party — and it’s clear that many of its current leaders and talking heads don’t understand why.

From my perspective, the reason a party stalwart representing the last half-century of Democratic politics is losing to an independent, anti-establishment outsider is pretty straightforward. After all, millions of Americans are suffering from the consequences of a generation’s worth of bad decisions made by the political establishment, both Democratic and Republican. The communities torn apart by deportations, those jailed by the rise of mass incarceration, the families reeling from the toll of the war in Iraq, young people trying to live their lives under the yoke of crushing student debt, and everyone suffering from skyrocketing inequality after the financial crisis now simply understand that these crises required the willing complicity of leaders in both parties, including even prominent Democrats like Joe Biden.

The actual problems facing Americans have gotten really bad, and people rightly blame consultants and elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans, for bringing our society to the brink.

Simply put, this is why people are drawn to Bernie. They’re looking for new leaders who either didn’t contribute to those crises or — even better — have spent their entire careers opposing the policies that led to them. They are looking for leaders whose solutions actually scale up to the problems facing our society, because they understand there’s an entire generation of politicians who were on the wrong side of some of the defining fights of our lives, and Joe Biden embodies them.

And yet, it’s clear that few of the people you see discussing politics on cable TV understand that. They insist Biden’s poor showing has been the fault of lackluster debate performances. Just as they failed to understand Trump’s rise, they fail to see that their theories have been discredited. And they’ve all but called Democratic voters stupid, because these talking heads are unable to grapple with the obvious: Sanders is winning by speaking to the hopes and fears of a rising generation of Democrats who look and think a lot more like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than Joe Biden.

There are signs of hope, however. Progressives like Alexandra Rojas and Abdul El-Sayed are now providing commentary at CNN that raises the level of discussion to a much higher level. Yvette Simpson is often sparring with Rahm Emanuel and Chris Christie at ABC News. And Anand Giridharadas has been holding his own network accountable and it sounds like the message is being heard. But the shift is happening at a glacial pace, and in the meantime, cable TV keeps on embarrassing itself on a daily basis. The reason is simple: the lives of many of its talking heads are totally divorced from the enormous pain of having an unaffordable medical bill, or $200,000 in student loan debt, or not having even $500 in the bank.

Many in my generation see this clearly. We are diverse, worse off than our parents, and came of age during the Iraq War and the financial crisis. We understand the existential threat of the climate crisis, and see an authoritarian right-wing government that wants to suppress multiracial democracy at every turn. The Republican Party, despite having won the popular vote only once in my lifetime, nevertheless controls the Presidency, the Senate and the Supreme Court. And top scientists at the UN tell us we have about 10 years to act in order to stave off ecological collapse.

To us, things look and feel deeply, deeply broken, which is why a political revolution seems a more pragmatic and necessary vehicle for hope than Biden’s prediction of a post-Trump epiphany among Republicans.

On an even deeper level, my generation, despite being plugged in and connected, feels deeply alone. The movements we built under Obama — Occupy Wall Street, a network of immigrant DREAMers, the climate movement, Black Lives Matter — have been fueled in part by a deep desire to find community and identity in a country that is increasingly unable to respond to our aspirations and tells us that we must fend for ourselves. Sanders, on some deep level, has given voice to these individual movements by linking them together into a song of solidarity: “Are you willing to fight for someone you don't know?”

Amid such a compelling offer, the smug and empty “liberalism” of the supposedly serious people in charge finds itself unmoored, bereft of ideas to solve our many crises. Sanders’ big idea is to return the Democratic Party to its roots in the powerful labor and civil rights movements of the mid-20th century. The universal social programs Bernie Sanders is fighting for are not radical — they’re commonsense and cost-effective ways to provide the basic things we all need to thrive. In most European countries, his agenda would belong in a center-right party. It’s why Democrats haven’t been convinced by the yearslong fear-mongering about his candidacy.

As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says: “We aren’t pushing the party left, we are bringing the party home.”

My mother is a union member who experienced the cruelty of navigating our byzantine health care system after suffering a stroke three years ago. My dad is angry watching my two younger siblings suffer from a mountain of student debt while they try to catch up with soaring rents. They’ve lived in this country for decades and feel under attack by this president and the racism he’s encouraged among our citizens.

The first time they ever voted was for Barack Obama, because he gave them hope.

This time, like many of the immigrant and working-class voters of Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, both of my parents are supporting Bernie Sanders. The TV pundits and wealthy consultants can’t explain it. But it’s because they feel someone finally understands their struggles and is willing to fight those who created those problems in the first place.

It’s hope and change they can believe in.

Waleed Shahid is the spokesperson of Justice Democrats, the organization known for recruiting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to run for Congress and helping launch the Green New Deal.

House Passes Historic Anti-Lynching Bill And Makes It A Federal Crime, 65 Years After Emmett Till

FOUR LAWMAKERS VOTE AGAINST HOUSE BILL TO MAKE LYNCHING FEDERAL HATE CRIME, CITE 'GOVERNMENT OVERREACH'

BY RAMSEY TOUCHBERRY ON 2/26/20

Historic legislation that would make lynching a federal hate crime passed the House by near-unanimous consent Wednesday—with four representatives opposing it.

Three Republicans voted against the measure: GOP members Ted Yoho of Florida, Louie Gohmert of Texas and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. The chamber's lone Independent, Justin Amash of Michigan—who famously switched from Republican to Independent over his support for impeaching President Donald Trump—also voted no.

Sixteen members did not vote. The proposal, however, received broad bipartisan support and passed 410-4.

THE SIXTEEN NON VOTES ARE CALLED ABSTENTIONS AND COUNT AS A YES VOTE- SILENCE IS ACQUIESCENCE DESPITE THIS TO THE PERSON ABSENTAINING IT IS THERE WAY OF SAYING NO WITHOUT OFFENDING ANYBODY HENCE THEIR ANONYMITY IN THIS STORY

Republicans accused the legislation of being an overreach by the federal government and encroaching on states' rights. The legislation, if enacted, would add lynching to the list of current criminal civil rights violations.

"The Constitution specifies only a handful of federal crimes and leaves the rest to individual states to prosecute," Massie told Newsweek in a statement. "In addition, this bill expands current federal 'hate crime' laws. A crime is a crime, and all victims deserve equal justice. Adding enhanced penalties for 'hate' tends to endanger other liberties, such as freedom of speech."

Although Yoho said he'll continue to condemn the "horrific act of lynching" and advocate for perpetrators to receive the "harshest penalty under the law," the retiring congressman also felt the text took away too much power from states and was redundant.

"This bill today is an overreach of the federal government and encroaches on the principles of federalism," the retiring lawmaker told Newsweek in a statement. "Hate crimes fall under the jurisdiction of states, which has led to 46 states producing various hate crime statutes. In my home state of Florida, these crimes are already under state government jurisdiction and are punishable up to death."

Gohmert said on the House floor he would prefer that states penalize the guilty party for lynching so they can face capital punishment

"I would much rather, if someone is lynched in Texas, they be subject under Texas law to the death penalty," he said.

Amash cited similar reasons as Republicans for opposing the bipartisan bill. Citing already existing law that prohibits lynching, he feared it could lead to unintended consequences because the measure was redundant and amounted to "federalization of criminal law."

"Creating federal crimes for matters that are normally handled by the state obscures which government—federal or state—is responsible for investigating and prosecuting the crime, and it gives power to unelected federal officials whom voters can't directly hold accountable," Amash wrote in a series of tweets explaining his vote.

"This allows state officials who don't adequately address particular crimes to shift blame and avoid accountability," he continued. "At the same time, it creates an incentive for budget-constrained state and local governments not to prosecute crimes and instead leave it to the feds."

BULLSHIT EXCUSE, BESIDES THIS FETISH FOR STATES RIGHTS IS A HANGOVER

FROM THE CONFEDERACY AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN STOMPED OUT BY THE FEDERAL STATE POST WWII INSTEAD THE GOP PUSHED IT AND THE DEMOCRATS CAPITULATED 

Previous attempts by Congress since 1900 to pass similar legislation repeatedly failed. The Senate approved a similar version by unanimous consent in February 2019. But because of minor discrepancies, the Senate will need to vote on the House's in order for it to land on the president's desk for approval. If the measure becomes law, violators would face substantial fines and/or jail time.

Between 1877 and 1950, the Equal Justice Initiative estimates that more than 4,000 black people were lynched in a dozen states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

The bill, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, was written after the 1955 racist murder of a black teenager in Mississippi, which spawned civil rights action.

"This legislation will not erase the stain of lynching and racist violence, but it will help shine the light of truth on the injustices of the past so that we can heal our nation and build a better, safer future for all of our children," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on the floor.

'WE ARE OVERWHELMED': DOCTORS IN SYRIA'S IDLIB ARE 'POWERLESS' IN THE FACE OF RUSSIAN-BACKED OFFENSIVE, MSF SAYS

BY DAVID BRENNAN ON 2/27/2020
The nine-year Syrian Civil War rages in the northwestern province of Idlib as President Bashar al-Assad seeks to crush the final bastion of resistance against his regime. The rebels in Idlib—mostly Islamist militias, the strongest of which is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham which was formerly allied with Al-Qaeda—are supported by Turkish forces. On the other side, Assad's troops are backed by Russian airstrikes and special operations troops, plus Iranian-aligned militias.

The battle is proving one of the war's most intense.

Airstrikes, rocket attacks, heavy artillery barrages, and armored assaults occur daily. Idlib's civilians are caught in the middle, and more than 900,000 people have fled their homes amid the fighting.

Civilian targets are not off limits. Russian and Syrian forces have been accused of intentionally targeting medical centers which are protected under the Geneva Convention are continuously attacked.

According to Médecins Sans Frontières, whose volunteers are working alongside local staff, the remaining medical facilities are on the verge of collapse under "indiscriminate" attacks.

"The health system is barely standing," Cristian Reynders, the Médecins Sans Frontières project coordinator for northwestern Syria, told Newsweek on Thursday from an MSF coordination office in the region.

"We do our best to respond, but we are overwhelmed," Reynders explained. Hospitals are "sanctuaries" from the fighting that "must be respected" by all actors, he said. But aside from urging combatants to respect hospital neutrality, the MSF and those on the ground are "powerless," Reynders added.

Medical staff are grappling with multiple attacks in multiple locations on avowedly civilian targets, Reynders said. The trend is "very, very worrying," he said.

MSF supports three regional hospitals. Two of the hospitals it supports—Idlib Central and Mareet Misirin—were almost hit by bombs or shells on Tuesday, which landed within 330 feet of both centers. Indeed, four medics working for Idlib Central hospital sustained minor blast wounds.

MSF recorded 185 wounded people on Tuesday, 66 of whom had severe wounds requiring major surgical operations. At least 14 of those were children. Lacking basic supplies like bandages and gauze, treatment is limited.

The number of ongoing medical operations has ravaged anesthesia stocks, leaving surgeons with inadequate supplies to treat the patients such as those missing limbs.

At certain points during the offensive, surgeons have been conducting 30 major surgeries per day, Reynders said.

Recorded messages from medical workers at the Idlib Surgical Hospital—provided to Newsweek by MSF—illustrate the chaos and suffering in Syria's last significant pocket of resistance. The center is in the city of Kafr Nabl, right on ever-shifting frontlines.

The manager of the hospital's media and documentation department said the regime and Russian bombing targeted schools and a health facility in the city. A surgeon at the hospital described Tuesday as "a difficult, bloody day," as workers struggled to treat dozens.

A nurse at Idlib Surgical warned that without international intervention, the "inhuman, systematic bombing" would continue.

Medical workers continue to treat civilians caught in the fighting. Reynders said he could not say if and when the volunteers and staff might leave, expressing his respect for the "impossible" choices they make in deciding whether to treat their patients or to flee.

"Nobody knows what will happen in 10 minutes or in one hour," he added. "We are on our toes all the time and doing our best."

Idlib was home to some 3 million people—half of them refugees from elsewhere in Syria—before the latest regime offensive began in December. Those who have fled have "nowhere to stay, nowhere to go," Reynders said. The United Nations has described the humanitarian crisis in Idlib as "horrifying," according to NPR, with countless displaced people sleeping outside with no shelter because refugee camps are full.

Calls for a ceasefire have thus far fallen on deaf ears, and all combatants have vowed to continue and even escalate the fighting. This means more shells and bombs for civilians and medical workers, Reynders said, until the two sides can reach a detente.

MSF and other organizations are responding to the humanitarian crisis as best they can, but Reynders noted that this is a "human crisis" which is too big for them to manage. "There is another level of responsibility that must be taken by the international community, by state actors that have the power to enforce international humanitarian law."

RAINN'S NATIONAL SEXUAL ASSAULT HOTLINE SEES SURGE IN CALLS FOLLOWING HARVEY WEINSTEIN CONVICTION

BY CHANTAL DA SILVA ON 2/27/20

The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) saw a 23 percent surge in calls in the days following disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction.

On Monday, Weinstein, 67, was found guilty on two sex abuse charges, including rape in the third degree and committing a criminal sexual act. He was acquitted of three further charges, including the two most serious charges against him of predatory sexual assault and rape in the first degree.

While the film producer has been accused of attacking dozens of women, predominantly in the film industry, the charges in this case centered around accusations made by two women: Jessica Mann and Miriam Haley, who accused Weinstein of targeting them early on in their careers.

On the day of Weinstein's conviction and on the following day, a Tuesday, RAINN said its national sexual assault hotline experienced a 23 percent increase in call volume.

In a statement shared with Newsweek, Erinn Robinson, RAINN's press secretary, said she believed "the media attention surrounding Harvey Weinstein's case is leading many more survivors to reach out for help."

In many cases, she said, women were coming to share their stories "for the first time."

Robinson said RAINN has experienced a similar effect throughout the course of other high-profile cases, including that of Bill Cosby, who had also faced widespread sexual misconduct allegations and was convicted of three counts of aggravated indecent assault in April 2018.
Disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein enters New York City Criminal Court on February 24, 2020 in New York City. Weinstein was convicted of sexual assault charges.SCOTT HEINS/GETTY



During the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing into accusations of sexual misconduct against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, RAINN saw a massive surge in calls to its sexual assault hotline.

As Christine Blasey Ford delivered her testimony before the committee, RAINN said it had seen a 147 percent increase in calls compared with a typical weekday.

The rise in calls was so significant that RAINN had to notify users it was experiencing "unprecedented wait times" for its online chat system, while the organization encouraged those to call its hotline, 800.656.HOPE instead.

"Hearing about sexual violence in the media and online can be very difficult for survivors and their loved ones," RAINN had said in a Twitter statement. "Remember to take care of yourself during these times."

"Hopefully, the facts that a defendant with all of the power and legal resources that money can buy can be found guilty, and that public opinion was heavily in favor of the victims, will give hope to other survivors and prosecutors that these cases will be taken seriously and that they too can get justice," Robinson said in a separate statement to Newsweek.

"Having already seen an uptick in visitors to the National Sexual Assault Hotline this week, we anticipate that more survivors will reach for support. We are humbled to be able to help these survivors in their healing," she said.

This article has been updated to include a statement from RAINN's Erinn Robinson.
Correction: This article previously stated that the surge in calls to RAINN's sexual assault hotline occurred on the Tuesday and Wednesday following Weinstein's Monday, February 24 conviction. It occurred on the day of his conviction and the day following.

OPINION
ROBERT REICH: BERNIE'S PLANS ARE AMBITIOUS. BUT THEIR COSTS ARE PEANUTS COMPARED TO THE PRICE OF INACTION | OPINION

ROBERT REICH , NEWSWEEK COLUMNIST AND CHANCELLOR’S PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
ON 2/25/20

In last Wednesday night's Democratic debate, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg charged that Senator Bernie Sanders' policy proposals would cost $50 trillion. Holy Indiana.

Larry Summers, formerly chief White House economic advisor for Barack Obama, puts the price tag at $60 trillion. "We are in a kind of new era of radical proposal," he told CNN.

Putting aside the accuracy of these cost estimates, they omit the other side of the equation: what, by comparison, is the cost of doing nothing?

A Green New Deal might be expensive, but doing nothing about climate change will almost certainly cost far more. If we don't launch something as bold as a Green New Deal, we'll spend trillions coping with the consequences of our failure to be bold.

Medicare for All will cost a lot, but the price of doing nothing about America's increasingly dysfunctional healthcare system will soon be in the stratosphere. A new study in The Lancet estimates that Medicare for All would save $450 billion and prevent 68,000 unnecessary deaths each year.

Investing in universal childcare, public higher education and woefully outdated and dilapidated infrastructure will be expensive too, but the cost of not making these investments would be astronomical. American productivity is already suffering and millions of families can't afford decent childcare, college or housing – whose soaring costs are closely related to inadequate transportation and water systems.

Focusing only on the costs of doing something about these problems without mentioning the costs of doing nothing is misleading, but this asymmetry is widespread.

Journalists wanting to appear serious about public policy continue to rip into Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (whose policies are almost as ambitious) for the costs of their proposals but never ask self-styled moderates like Buttigieg how they plan to cope with the costs of doing nothing or too little.

A related criticism of Sanders and Warren is that they haven't come up with ways to pay for their proposals. Sanders "only explained $25 trillion worth of revenue, which means the hole in there is bigger than the size of the entire economy of the United States," charged Mayor Pete.

Sanders' and Warren's wealth tax would go a long way toward paying for their plans.

But even if their wealth tax paid a small fraction of the costs of their proposals, so what? As long as every additional dollar of spending reduces by more than a dollar the future costs of climate change, inadequate healthcare and insufficient public investment, it makes sense to spend more.

Republican administrations have doled out gigantic tax cuts to big corporations and the wealthy without announcing specific cuts in public spending or other tax increases because – despite decades of evidence to the contrary – they claim the cuts will generate economic growth that will more than make up for any lost revenue.

Yet when Warren and Sanders propose ambitious plans for reducing empirically verifiable costs of large and growing public problems, they are skewered by fellow Democrats and the press for not having ways to pay for them.

A third line of criticism is that Sanders' and Warren's proposals are just too big. It would be safer to move cautiously and incrementally.

This argument might be convincing if the problems Sanders and Warren address were growing slowly. But experts on the environment, health, education and infrastructure are nearly unanimous: these problems are worsening exponentially.

Young people understand this, perhaps because they will bear more of the costs of inaction. An Emerson poll of Iowa found that 44 percent of Democrats under 50 support Sanders and 10 percent favor Warren. In New Hampshire, Sanders won more voters under 30 than the other candidates combined, according to CNN exit polls. In Nevada, he captured an astonishing 65 percent of voters under 30.

The reason to support Sanders' and Warren's proposals isn't because they inspire and mobilize voters. It is because they are necessary.

We can no longer pretend that climate change, a wildly dysfunctional healthcare system and a yawning deficit in public investment pose insignificant challenges. Doing nothing or doing too little will make them far worse.

Obsessing about the cost of addressing them without acknowledging the cost of failing to address them is dangerously irresponsible.

Robert Reich's latest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Change It, will be out in March.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own.​​​​​

IDLIB IS THE NEW FACE OF CONFLICT. THE WORLD NEEDS TO CATCH UP

OPINION DAVID MILIBAND ON 2/26/20 

The scenes and stories from Idlib province in Syria should be shocking – but it seems from the lack of reaction by western governments that we have been numbed. Children freezing to death in -11 degree temperatures after being bombed by their own government should never be normalized. But in fact the type of conflict we are seeing in Idlib is the new face of conflict. Diplomats and humanitarians need to catch up.

The assault on Idlib is not just another turn in the Syrian conflict. It is intended to be one of the last. And the statistics show that it is the most brutal at least as measured by the flight of victims. 900,000 people have fled since December, over 100,000 in the past seven days alone, and over 300,000 still risk joining them. This is the largest civilian displacement since the conflict started nine long years ago. Among those forced to flee are 30 local IRC staff who, despite being displaced themselves, have continued their work helping others in the areas in which they've relocated.

There is a current UN Inquiry into the attacks on health facilities and other civilian infrastructure. But it is limited to a mere seven incidents and it remains unclear if the findings will be made public and if the report will name perpetrators. So, it is not providing a credible deterrent to the current escalation of violence, or the ongoing attacks on civilians and the facilities they depend on for their survival. In the past few weeks alone, the IRC and the organizations it works with have had to suspend operations in a number of health facilities and relocate an entire fleet of ambulances. Faced with ongoing and deliberate targeting of aid workers, medical staff and their facilities, it is legitimate to fear that there will be no doctors and nurses left to help spare life and limb on the ground.

The catastrophe in Idlib is a symptom of the utter failure of diplomacy and abandonment by the international community of Syrian civilians. But it also foreshadows an even darker trend towards an Age of Impunity—an era characterized by the total disregard for the rule of law and an equally grave deficit of international diplomacy, which allows the suffering of civilians to continue unabated. These changes create greater risks for civilians and aid workers and increase the likelihood that we'll be dealing with the repercussions for a generation. The danger is that Syria becomes not just a disaster, but a precedent for a new normal of brutal, divisive, contagious conflict—a testament to a global shift in the waging of war in four key ways.

First and foremost is where the conflict is taking place—in crowded urban areas, not the hills of Verdun, the fields of Gettysburg, or the deserts of Kuwait. The urbanization of war has put more civilians at risk, not just from the direct harms of bullets and shrapnel, but from the indirect impacts of airstrikes and artillery attacks on health facilities, water and sanitation systems, bakeries, and housing—all of which have been targeted in the most recent Idlib offensive. This is a major reason why the conflict in Syria has displaced more than 11 million people, and it represents a significant shift from wars of previous generations. Since 1945 an average of 5 people were displaced for every one person killed. In Syria that ratio has been 25 to 1.

Second, the battlefield in Syria is increasingly crowded, filled by non-state actors like the constellation of armed opposition groups, militant and sanctioned organizations, and other forces backed by foreign powers—some of whom are also directly present in Syria. The involvement of so many groups, more than 100 in Syria according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, has fractured the battlefield geographically with so many different groups controlling different territory, but also hierarchically given the often unclear chain of command structure within each group. For civilians living in Syria, this means fewer areas of stable control as groups compete and fight over territory, and a more complicated environment to navigate, with competing allegiances and constantly shifting alliances.

Third, conflicts are lasting longer. The large presence of foreign militaries has made the conflict deadlier for civilians due to the increased firepower they bring, as demonstrated by widespread Russian air strikes on cities like Idlib. But the internationalization of this war has also made the conflict last much longer. It is unlikely the conflict would have lasted this long without the surge of support in the form of arms, money—and sometimes direct support—from regional and international powers. We are approaching the tenth year of this conflict, which means many of those 11 million displaced Syrians have been without a home for nearly a decade. According to David Armitage in his book Civil Wars, this is the new norm.

Fourth, the protracted nature of the conflict in Syria, along with the proliferation of armed groups with few ties to the laws of war and the involvement of multiple foreign militaries who have shown little regard for war crimes or civilian casualties, have made the conflict an avatar for the Age of Impunity. This is an era in which civilians are seen as fair game for armed combatants, humanitarians are viewed as an impediment to military tactics and therefore unfortunate but expendable collateral, and investigations of and accountability for war crimes are considered an optional extra for state as well as non-state actors. In Syria, far too many of the militaries, militias and mercenaries involved have learned the dangerous lesson that "the rules are for suckers."

The danger is that Syria becomes not just a disaster, but a precedent for a new normal of brutal, divisive, contagious conflict. If the UN Security Council remains gridlocked, and the UN frozen out of peacemaking by the Astana group of Russia, Turkey, and Iran, then the UN Secretary General should go himself to meet the people of Idlib, shuttle from Ankara to Moscow and back to New York, and urge the Presidency of the Security Council (currently Belgium) to summon Foreign Ministers to New York for serious talking. This is not normal, but neither is the situation on the ground. The UN Human Rights Council is meeting this week for the first time in 2020 and the high level segment this week with Foreign Ministers present is a critical opportunity for an emergency meeting on the situation in Idlib. However, it is unclear whether this dire situation will even be discussed, let alone a resolution calling for a ceasefire adopted.

The immediate priorities should be a ceasefire, strengthening humanitarian access, and delivering accountability for the crimes committed and civilians needlessly suffering. Beyond the immediate emergency, accountability not impunity needs to be restored as the watchword of the age. NGOs and businesses can help with that—in the way the German NGO the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights has issued indictments under the principle of universal jurisdiction for human rights crimes in Syria.

For too many it is too late in Syria. The very least we can do to honor their memory is build a new system of prevention and accountability that makes "never again" more than a hollow slogan.

David Miliband is CEO and president of the International Rescue Committee (IRC). The IRC is a member of the Global Emergency Response Coalition, who has launched an appeal this week to raise funds for the Syria crisis. The Global Emergency Response Coalition is a lifesaving humanitarian alliance made up of leading U.S.-based international aid organizations.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own.​​​​

OPIOID-RELATED DEATHS IN THE U.S. COULD BE FAR HIGHER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT, STUDY SUGGESTS

BY KASHMIRA GANDER ON 2/27/20

Addiction In America - The Shocking Statistics

The number of deaths linked to opioids in the U.S. over the past two decades could be almost 30 percent higher than previously thought, a study has revealed.

Researchers looked at data on people who died of drug overdoses between 1999 to 2016 from a database kept by the National Center for Health Statistics in the U.S., which included a total of 632,331 cases. This enabled the team to match up information on death records with drug overdoses without a specific cause.

Of those, 78.2 percent of cases had information on the drug involved, while 21.8 percent didn't. The team found that 71.8 percent of unclassified drug overdoses over the course of the study involved opioids, or approximately 28 percent more than previously reported. That amounts to 99,160 additional deaths linked to prescription opioids, heroin, or fentanyl.

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The team found states including Alabama, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Indiana, had the highest discrepancies. According to a statement by the University of Rochester where the researchers are based, the number of reported opioid-related deaths in Pennsylvania, for instance, was 12,374, but the research puts the figure at 26,586.

The research comes amid an opioid overdose epidemic which kills 130 Americans every day on average, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of the over 70,200 individuals who died of a drug overdose in 2017, around 68 percent had taken an opioid. That included prescription and illegal drugs like heroin and its stronger synthetic counterpart fentanyl. The crisis started after a rise in opioid prescriptions in the 1990s.

Andrew J. Boslett, Alina Denham, and Elaine L. Hill co-authored the paper published in the journal Addiction. They told Newsweek: "We suspect that the driver of underreporting of opioid overdoses in the United States may be due to a lack of resources for medical examination, as well as continued (though decreasing) reliance on coroners, who are elected officials with potentially only limited experience in medical examination."

Explaining why they carried out the study, they said: "A number of researchers have speculated that socio-economic malaise in many areas of the country over the last twenty years has played a role in increasing drug overdose-related abuse and mortality.

"Over the last few years, we have been developing research on whether the shale boom, coal bust, and other economic shocks have influenced the drug overdose epidemic, in a meaningful way. As we developed this study, we noticed by looking at the data and reading through the literature that around 20 to 25 percent of drug overdoses did not have a drug-of-cause listed in the death record.

"We realized that this was an issue, not only for our studies—which would rely on high-quality estimates of local drug and opioid overdose rates across space and time—but also for the country's understanding of the toll of the opioid overdose epidemic."

The team went on: "We suspect that the driver of underreporting of opioid overdoses in the United States may be due to a lack of resources for medical examination, as well as continued (though decreasing) reliance on coroners, who are elected officials with potentially only limited experience in medical examination."

Highlighting the limitations of their study, the team they could have applied more advanced tools in machine learning.

2,000-Pound Great White Shark Unama'ki Spotted Near New Orleans

A TON O' FUN

A white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) has been tracked west of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico, near the Louisiana coast. 

According to the ocean research group OCEARCH, this is the first time the species has been located in this particular stretch of coast.

© Dave J Hogan/Getty OCEARCH have been tracking white sharks like the one pictured to monitor their activity and migrating behavior. 2000-pound Unama’ki was recently pinged near the Louisiana coast—just in time for Mardi Gras.

"Is this a whole new piece to the white shark puzzle?" OCEARCH said on Twitter.

Wow look where white shark Unamâki is! She has moved west of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s the first time we’ve tracked a white shark to this area off the coast of Louisiana. Is this a whole new piece to the white shark puzzle? pic.twitter.com/fUz2WmrN1q— OCEARCH (@OCEARCH) February 24, 2020

The 2,000-pound female, named Unama'ki, swooped into the area on Sunday (February 23)—seemingly in time for Mardi Gras. OCEARCH posted a screenshot of her location on Monday, revealing she appears to have found some cooler water nearer the coast.

"The water temperature at her most recent ping off the Louisiana coast is around 70 degrees Fahrenheit," said OCEARCH.


White shark Unamaâki seems to have found some of the cooler water available in the Gulf of Mexico right now. The water temperature at her most recent ping off the Louisiana coast is around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. pic.twitter.com/M2vonT3rUF— OCEARCH (@OCEARCH) February 24, 2020

Her shark tracker pinged again on Fat Tuesday (February 25), showing she had drifted further out into the Gulf of Mexico only a couple of days after arriving. The tracker tagged her location as just south of New Orleans.

"Looks like white shark Unama'ki wants to participate in #MardiGras2020 after all!" said OCEARCH.

Looks like white shark Unamaâki wants to participate in #MardiGras2020 after all! She turned around after pinging much farther west than we usually see white sharks go in the Gulf. Her newest ping is south of New Orleans. pic.twitter.com/BIq60H7d1x— OCEARCH (@OCEARCH) February 25, 2020

Non-profit OCEARCH started tracking Unama'ki and several other sharks last year. She was tagged near Scaterie Island in Nova Scotia, Canada, on September 20, 2019 and scientists have been keeping an eye on her progress down North America's east coast ever since.


The 15 feet 5 inches great white, whose name means "land of the fog" in the language of the indigenous Mi'kmaq people of Nova Scotia, made swift gains, arriving in the Gulf of Mexico in time for Halloween 2019.

To reach the U.S.' southernmost tip by the end of October, she had to complete a 2,000-mile trip in less than 2 months.

By tracking several sharks living in the Northwest Atlantic, scientists with OCEARCH have learned a lot about the populations living on North America's east coast over the last few years. They believe there are two sub-populations—one that spends the summer and autumnal months in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and one that spends the time in Canada.

On Tuesday, another of the great whites spending a winter in Florida was seen speeding up the east coast. Helena—a 1,300-pound, 12 feet 5 inches female—was located at a spot near Charleston, South Carolina on Tuesday, three weeks after she had pinged in the Florida Keys.

"Look how fast @helena_shark is moving north. She was down in the Gulf of Mexico last month and a new ping today shows her off the South Carolina coast," said OCEARCH.


Look how fast @helena_shark is moving north. She was down in the Gulf of Mexico last month and a new ping today shows her off the South Carolina coast. pic.twitter.com/hcB7YY0ZFY— OCEARCH (@OCEARCH) February 26, 2020

Decoding the Christian paradox: Evangelical historian explains how right-wingers ignore Jesus to support a corrupt and greedy president

Published February 23, 2020 By Chauncey Devega, Salon - Commentary


To quote the bumper sticker: “What would Jesus do?”

Assuming that he existed and held the views imputed to him, Jesus Christ would not support Donald Trump.

Donald Trump’s behavior, values, policies and their consequences are the opposite of what Jesus Christ represented. Trump has put migrants and refugees in cages and delighted in their suffering. He feels contempt for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable and the needy. He has lied at least 16,000 times. He is corrupt and wildly greedy.

Donald Trump is violent, a militarist, a nativist and a white supremacist. He has given aid and comfort to anti-Semites, neo-Nazis and other hate-mongers.
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We are told that Jesus Christ lived a life of love, humility and sacrifice. Donald Trump has lived a life of selfishness, greed and wanton cruelty.

Why are white evangelical Christians so overwhelmingly supportive of Donald Trump? While some have tried to present it as a riddle with no evident solution, the answer is quite simple: Donald Trump does the bidding of the Christian right. He has advanced its policies in a war against secular society, women’s freedom, LGBTQ rights, multiracial democracy and the U.S. Constitution.

But it’s important to note that the Christian evangelical community is not a monolith. There are many people within it who oppose Donald Trump and his movement, because they see it as antithetical to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

One such voice is historian John Fea, a professor at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. His new book is “Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump.” Fea recently published an op-ed in USA Today entitled “‘Evangelicals for Trump’ was an awful display by supposed citizens of the Kingdom of God,” in which he explained that he had spent his “entire adult life in the evangelical community” following a “born-again experience” at age 16:

But I have never seen anything like what I witnessed as I watched President Donald Trump speak to a few thousand of his evangelical supporters at King Jesus International Ministry, a largely Hispanic megachurch in Miami, during the kickoff to his “Evangelicals for Trump” campaign…Trump painted himself as a president who is protecting American evangelicals from those on the political left who want to “punish” people of faith and destroy religion in America. …

I am used to this kind of thing from Trump, but I was stunned when I witnessed evangelical Christians — those who identify with the “good news” of Jesus Christ —raising their hands in a posture of worship as Trump talked about socialism and gun rights.

I watched my fellow evangelicals rising to their feet and pumping their fists when Trump said he would win reelection in 2020.

Trump spent the evening mocking his enemies, trafficking in half-truths in order to instill fear in people whom God commands to “fear not,” and proving that he is incapable of expressing anything close to Christian humility.

His evangelical supporters loved every minute of it. That night, Christians who claim to be citizens of the Kingdom of God went to church, cheered the depraved words of a president and warmly embraced his offer of political power. Such a display by evangelicals is unprecedented in American history.

I usually get angry when members of my tribe worship at the feet of Trump. This time, I just felt sad.

I recently spoke to John Fea about the rise of Trump and his power over Christian evangelicals and the Christian right. Fea explained that the Age of Trump is a continuation of a long history in America where too many white Christians have supported racism, nativism and other regressive social causes. Fea also argued that while the “dark side” of Christian evangelicalism is flourishing under Donald Trump, the groundwork for this moment was laid down decades ago by the likes of Jerry Falwell Sr. and Pat Robertson.

Fea also told me that evangelicals have begun to use religious language about “demons” and Satanic power as a way of publicly targeting the Democrats and others who oppose Donald Trump’s assault on American democracy.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

You recently wrote a USA Today op-ed about Donald Trump’s corruption of evangelical Christianity and his power over its adherents. How are you feeling?

I’ve had my ups and downs. It’s been an emotional roller coaster since Donald Trump got elected. It started out with anger. I can honestly say that I’ve gotten rid of that anger. It’s not anger towards Trump per se. Trump is Trump. He’s a fool, he’s absurd, he’s a narcissist. What bothers me are the Christians, the evangelical community, who are so supportive of Trump, who are so willing to look the other way when he does these blatantly and grossly immoral things.

I’m an academic by nature, so I want to try to step back at times and try to understand what gave rise to Trumpism and his power over Christian evangelicals. Sometimes I’m numb. Sometimes I’ve debated whether or not I still belong in that faith community. I am still an evangelical. That is how I identify. But this has all been a roller coaster ride.

What’s really affected me the most is being on the road with my new book, “Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump.” It came out in 2018, and talking to people who are hurting and emotionally scarred from how they’ve been treated in evangelical churches, simply because they don’t support Trump and what he represents, has really impacted me.

What are some of those personal stories?

At first, I believed that I would have all these Trump supporters criticizing me, yelling at me at my book talks. But what actually happened was that I encountered people who were looking for some kind of community, as they sought out like-minded evangelicals, or former evangelicals, who were looking for other Christians who do support Donald Trump. We would talk for hours after my events. People were sharing with each other how they were more free having a conversation here at this book talk than talking to people about politics in their own churches. That was a huge eye-opener for me.

There were a lot of tears. I prayed with people. Many of these people were women who were struggling not only with the fact of evangelicals supporting Trump, but the misogyny that went along with it. They were also struggling with how the misogynistic attitudes within American evangelicalism were foregrounded by the Trump election. There were also people at my talks sharing how they were ostracized from their church in 2008 or 2012 because they voted for Barack Obama. There were also people who had spoken out about sexual harassment in the evangelical community and were then told to remain quiet by their pastors and other church leaders.

Most of the people I talked to were just saying, “How could I have worshiped with these people all these years and not have realized that they would have supported everything that Donald Trump stands for, both in terms of his character and his policies?”

Some of them would tell me that they are “pro-life” but that there are other more important issues. They would explain how they are willing to put that issue to the side right now because there are issues which are much more important with the Trump presidency, such as immigration, his personal character, religious liberty for non-Christians or just Trump’s blatant lying to the American people.

In the United States white Christianity, especially in the South, was a tool for enforcing and legitimating white supremacy against nonwhites. Why is there any surprise about Donald Trump — who is an evident white supremacist — being a natural partner and champion of right-wing Christians?

I know the history of evangelicalism. I still had hope in 2016 that evangelicals were going to do the right thing and not vote for Trump. They’re my tribe. I was optimistic that Christian evangelicals were going to do the right thing and make the right decision and oppose what Trump stands for.

It took me a few days, not long, to take off my scorned evangelical hat and replace it with my historian’s hat. So yes, you are exactly correct. There is a dark dimension of evangelicalism. One sees that wherever there were moments of demographic change within United States history. There is always a backlash to those changes in American history and it is usually evangelical Christians who are not only part of the backlash but are largely leading that backlash.

I would also argue that there are many things that evangelicals do and have done throughout American history that have brought about some moral improvement in our country. That would include anti-slavery causes, international relief in poverty-stricken countries, actions in support of social justice and other forward-looking issues and concerns. That is not the dimension of the evangelical tradition tapped into by the 81% of white evangelical voters who voted for Donald Trump. Donald Trump appealed to all the darkest sides of American evangelicalism in 2016.

Part of what my work since 2016 has been trying to get evangelicals, a group who are largely an anti-intellectual bunch, to think about the fact that they should not have been surprised by the rise of Donald Trump and the evangelical community’s relationship to it. My book is dedicated to the 19% of evangelicals who did not support him. My book’s message is, “Let’s not pretend that Trump is new. Let’s come to grips with the fact that Trump is just the latest manifestation of a long string of dark moments within our faith’s history in America.”

Did Trump just give right-wing evangelicals permission to be who and what they really are?

The dark side of Christian evangelicalism flourishes under Trump. Did Trump create these racist evangelicals or is he just a manifestation of racism in that faith community? I would probably say it’s the latter.

Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, conservative evangelicals in the Moral Majority, such as prominent figures like Jerry Falwell Sr., Pat Robertson and others, began engaging with politics with the goal of trying to reclaim and renew and restore America’s “Christian” roots. They were very disappointed with Jimmy Carter for a variety of reasons and they began to turn towards Reagan and the GOP. We began to see a political playbook develop. A generation of white evangelicals embraced a strategy of “elect the right people, elect the right president, appoint Supreme Court justices, change the world, and bring about Christian witness in the world through the pursuit of political power.” In many ways that political power is normally associated with fear.

Much of this is driven by a fear-mongering narrative about white Christian America: We’re going to lose our “Christian nation” that we believe the country was founded upon. We need to make America great again, as if it was great in the 1950s or the 1920s with Jim Crow and other forms of oppression. We need to revisit the past, as if it was a much more moral Christian era — which it wasn’t. The right-wing Christian leaders were and are essentially longing for an era that never really existed in the first place.

Now, what’s fascinating about Trump is for many white evangelicals that political playbook was always associated with a Republican candidate. In the minds of most white evangelicals, they believed that person would be of moral character. A Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush or John McCain or Mitt Romney were, in the eyes of white evangelicals, people of moral character. As compared to Donald Trump, they would not be tweeting out lies every day. Yes, they were liars, but they weren’t doing it to the extent of Trump. Most evangelicals would admit Donald Trump does not have the same kind of character as a Reagan or a Bush. Would the evangelical political playbook survive with a person that most evangelicals believed was not a person of moral character? As we discovered, the answer is yes.

When the Christian right talks about “religious freedom” and says that America is a “Christian nation,” what do they really mean?

No one was debating whether the United States was a “Christian nation” until the 1970s. It was manifested through a culture war debate and trying to superimpose that assumption about a “Christian nation” onto the founding fathers who were never asking the question to begin with.

There are two ways of considering that claim. One is the historical argument. The Christian right will make this case that the Constitution is somehow a “Christian” document even though it never mentions God or Jesus. They also try to make a claim about the Declaration of Independence. That document contains four references to God. Most of them are these vague references to a kind of deist God. There’s nothing in the Declaration of Independence about a God who sacrificed his son for the sins of the world or anything of that manner.

There is also an argument that the larger ethos of the culture was Christian and somehow it seeped into to the mindset and the framework of the founders. There is no empirical evidence to suggest such a thing.

So how do you connect that with religious liberty? I think within the Christian right’s mindset, you saw a real transition in the rhetorical approach of the Christian right after Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage. But once they lost that battle, unlike Roe v. Wade — which the Christian Right still fights — they were like, “Hey, we lost this and we’re never going to get it back.”

Then the Christian right begin to switch their rhetorical strategy to “religious liberty,” which is something they rarely spoke about before a period of 2000 to 2010. Now the narrative is, “We have a traditional view of marriage and we have all of these traditional values that we uphold, and we want the liberty to be able to continue to practice these values without the government interfering.” For them, “religious liberty” is always the right of white conservative evangelicals to uphold their position.

What moved you to write the USA Today op-ed? Who was your specific audience?

There was a time when I could have written that essay in a place like Christianity Today or in some other periodical that most evangelicals read. But evangelicalism is so diverse at present. Evangelicals are fractured. There is no longer any kind of mass publication for that community. My thinking was, given that there is no flagship evangelical publication, let me try to pitch this to USA Today. I wanted to speak to my fellow evangelicals — but not the ones who were at the Trump rally I wrote about in the USA Today op-ed. They’re not going to listen to me. There is a group of evangelicals that do not want to listen to reasoned arguments. They are politically calcified.

I was trying to write to the evangelicals who voted for Trump in 2016 because they couldn’t stand Hillary Clinton. I wanted to get those evangelicals to see how our people are sitting in a house of worship and raising their hands singing praises to this morally corrupt individual. I also wanted to show that not all evangelicals support Donald Trump. We are not homogeneous.

How do right-wing evangelicals reconcile Trump’s obvious wicked behavior with their claims to be Christian?

I think it’s mixed. I believe that there are people from within certain sectors of evangelicalism, these are mostly charismatic Pentecostals, who really do believe that Donald Trump is the chosen one. They really believe that Donald Trump is anointed by God for “such a time as this.” He is a new King Cyrus and they know this because they have received prophecies telling them that this is the case. God has told them.

We can laugh at that or say such a belief is foolish, but there’s a world of charismatic Pentecostal evangelicalism that is deeply committed to their leaders, who argue that Donald Trump is the chosen one. They have tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of followers. These are large communities. They are led by very strong and powerful personalities. Paula White, counselor to Trump, is one of these leaders. Lance Wall is another one. He actually made the prediction about Donald Trump and King Cyrus. He had a vision of Trump as King Cyrus. As to these prophetic visions, I really do believe that some of these evangelicals, especially charismatic Pentecostals, think their visions are true. And yes, there are some who use it for political gain.

Many of the evangelicals and other people who I wrote about in my USA Today op-ed probably do believe that Donald Trump is an anointed figure from God who will deliver us out of the clutches of secularism and socialism, the latter being largely understood by most of these anti-intellectual evangelicals as some kind of a Soviet-style socialism. In the uneducated evangelical mind, there is no ability to separate a democratic kind of socialism from Joseph Stalin.

When right-wing Christians, especially evangelicals, start talking about “demons” and “the devil” attacking Donald Trump and that they need to use “spiritual warfare” against Trump’s “enemies,” what do they mean?

Evangelicals have always talked about demonic forces in the world and spiritual warfare. In their minds, God and Satan are still battling with each other, and then one day at the great battle of Armageddon or something akin to it, Satan will be defeated and we’ll move into a new heaven. For evangelicals, the world is always enchanted. There are always angels and forces of evil and devils and demons and so forth. That’s how they see the world around them. What’s fascinating about these discussions of spiritual warfare, though, is that they normally take place behind the closed doors of churches. Now evangelicals are bringing this type of talk and logic to American public life in defense of Donald Trump.

Evangelical leaders such as Franklin Graham and others have recently been saying, “There are forces out there that are trying to undermine this president.” If someone who is not a Christian evangelical were to hear the word “forces,” they would think that means the Democrats or the deep state. But any evangelical who hears someone like Franklin Graham say that knows exactly what those forces are. These are demonic forces.

After the impeachment, evangelicals upped their game. “Demonic” and “spiritual battle” and “the devil” did not come into the public discourse in the way they are at present until Donald Trump was impeached. When the impeachment inquiry started, you had all these people saying that this is the devil at work trying to undermine God’s anointed. Devils are trying to undermine a nation and its president who is trying to bring that nation back to its godly roots.

If right-wing Christian leaders are saying that the Democrats are demonic forces, is that an encouragement to violence?

Perhaps I am naïve, but I guess I have enough faith in my fellow evangelicals to prevent this from moving towards violence. But to affirm what you’re saying, I think you’re right. The logical implications of this certainly could be, at this point, very harsh, un-Christian like attacks on people who do not support Trump.

What do right-wing evangelicals and other Christians want? What is the Christian right’s dream for America?

There’s a theological concept in the New Testament known as the “Kingdom of God.” Many non-evangelicals and non-Christians become very concerned when they hear Trump cabinet member Betsy DeVos or someone else with power saying, “We want to bring about the Kingdom of God.” Outsiders see that as a kind of dominionist, reconstructionist, theocratic kind of statement. But when evangelicals theologically talk about the Kingdom of God, they’re normally talking about what the world would be like if Jesus was King and if you put Jesus on the throne of the so-called Kingdom of God. We’re all citizens of this kingdom as believers. I think they’ve confused this idea of a Kingdom of God” with some form of American exceptionalism or the idea that America is a “City on a Hill” and that God has specially blessed us.

When they talk about the nation becoming more Christian, again, it’s all filtered through this recent history of the last 40 years. So how do we create a Christian nation? Well, we fight against abortion. We fight for religious liberty for our views only. We try to privilege Christianity, our version of Christianity, above everything else. If you push many of these Christian right leaders, it is hard to find an answer as far as what they actually want this vision to look like in practice.

For example, they are against abortion. What does that look like in practice? Do you want to take every woman who had an abortion and put her in prison? Put abortion doctors in prison? What is the logical outcome of these kinds of policies? And they would immediately back off and say, “Oh, no, no, no. We don’t want to create a theocratic state, or a state governed by the teachings of the Bible.” But in some ways, they do.

Most evangelicals, because they’ve committed to this notion of reclaiming America as a “Christian nation,” have no model for pluralism. They cannot grasp any idea of a pluralistic society in which there are people who differ from them and question what American evangelicals believe. How do white evangelicals live together in a society with people who have deep differences on a variety of issues?

How do right-wing Christians reconcile the public policies they support with the actual teachings of Jesus Christ? The contradictions are obvious and stark. Jesus would not be a Republican or a conservative.

They ignore it. They don’t try to make sense of it. They completely ignore the contradictions between Trump’s behavior and the Bible. Or they might talk about what their church is doing locally. They would say, “We have a food pantry in our church, or we help the homeless in our community through our church,” and so forth. But when it comes to public life and national life, that is not what they are focusing on. Culture is the national state of the nation. These evangelicals do not possess an integrated view of the way their faith and practices are related to American culture as a whole.

To me, this is a great advertisement for why religion really should not be included in government. This is exactly why we have separation of church and state. Faith is a belief in that which cannot be proven by empirical means. Faith is not part of empirical reality. How does one litigate matters of faith, and other types of magical thinking, relative to a proper government?

I believe that politics is generally a corrupt sphere. Politics is the best example, the best kind of microcosm of that brokenness. What are we as a church doing mixing ourselves up in politics? Our religious convictions can lead us toward certain policy issues. But when we’re arguing in the public square in a pluralistic society and using demons and the Bible and these kinds of things as evidence, there is a problem. Evangelicals are awful at not understanding those distinctions and the problems that result.

Evangelicals think their private internal language is somehow going to convince secular humanists that a given policy should be enacted because the Bible says it’s true. That is just one example where evangelicals have not thought through political engagement in a serious way.

Chauncey DeVega is a politics staff writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.