TV Handmaids vs Trumpist & Taliban reality

There are real parallels between the Evangelicals depicted in the Handmaids tale, Trumpism and the Taliban.  Both the evangelical RW & Taliban are religious groups who reject the separation of Church and State, women's rights, & much of liberal democracy. But, while the Handmaids tale is fiction, the "Sons of Jacob" are plausible. The Taliban resemble them.  The story was written in the 60s. Updated for TV & the present it is even more terrifying.

Parallels to the Taliban

Parallels:

1. Commanders

The Talliban decentralized their movement in the face of arrests & imprisonments after losing electorally.  The treasonous revolutionaries who overthrew the USA &  created Gilead called themselves Commanders & their movement "Sons of Jacob" and used this structure to operate as both a movement and a terrorist army.  The Taliban have done the same.

The structure is ideal for a tneocratic autocracy, because a paramilitary organization with commanders can be both decentralized and under oligarchic control. They could employ almost unlimited resources of men and material and seemlessly take over government & business orgs & resources.

2. Oppression of women

Both Taliban and Gilead are all about Oppression of women. Gilead justified enslaving women on cherry picked biblical passages. The Taliban cherry pick Hadith & Koran.  The Taliban behave in a manner similar to the fictional rulers of Gilead. Destroy schools, Forbid literacy in children, force conservative dress, kill or enslave the rebellious. The world of Afghanistan resembles the fictional Gilead.

People forget that Iran and Afghanistan once had women doctors & were not that different from our country before revolutionaries took it over. People also forget that similar ideas are taught as dogma by dogmatic RW Christians & Catholics. In Gilead & Afghanistan reading is criminalized or punished.

Gilead and EMAD Trumpism

Thank God it didn't happen here! Yet.  But Trump draws his base [in Arabic alqaeda] from Fundamentalists with similar ideas to the Sons or Jacob.  It could happen here. And as the experts warn you, and as illustrated by both the "Handmaid's tale" and the Taliban, The rank and file may be true believers, but the leaders are Exploitive, Manipulative, Amoral & Dishonest [EMAD], or to use the clinical terms, at best Narcissistic, but with folks like Trump Psychotic, Sociopathic, ruthless & criminal people.  The taliban finances itself smuggling drugs & running extortion schemes.

What this means is that when people like Lawrence Tribe, tell you he will do anything he can to stay in power. And his wannabe Commanders talk up "There is no good Democrat but a Dead Democrat" there is good reason to be alarmed enough to make sure you get involved!!!

Our water supply is not yet polluted enough for handmaids. But the story is more plausible than it seems.

It could happen here!