History...Only Better, Thanks To White Conservative Christian Heterosexuals

The great thing about being Conservative is having the ability (and the right!!) to change history so that you may continue grifting

The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

You remember Jon McNaughton, right? Perhaps America’s greatest living Right-wing art troll, McNaughton is the genius who gave us the masterwork depicting Jesus Christ handing the Constitution to George Washington. How could that even be possible, you ask? They lived almost two millennia apart.

Before you go getting all historically factual on us, you need to understand that Conservatives don’t see history the way “normal, rational” people see history. I had a history professor in college whose core philosophy was that “history is just one damned thing after another.” And that, kids, is history in a nutshell. This happened, then that happened, and so on, and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

How “one damned thing after another” happened turns out to have significance for those of us for whom history is essential. If you believe, as I do, that past is prologue, keeping history as it happened can help us learn the lessons it has to teach us.

For Conservatives, though, history is less about what happened than how it can be adapted to fit the agenda of the moment. History is fungible. Stalin knew history’s essential secret- it’s flexible and subject to change depending on the needs of the ruling class. Do you need Jesus Christ to hand the Constitution to George Washington? Or Abraham Lincoln to be a trusted adviser to The Former Guy? No problem; Right-wing historians and/or artists will make it happen.

America's greatest art troll, Jon McNaughton, has returned to the large-format rightwing fever dream style that brought him fame all those years ago when Jesus handed the Constitution to George Washington as a barbershop quartet of Founders (including Abe Lincoln, who technically came later) looked on in wonder. McNaughton's latest work, with the concise title "Speak The Truth: Unleashing The Untamed Spirit Of Freedom" (I Shall Never Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas), depicts all the rightwing media figures you can think of and some you can't, assembled in Independence Hall to sign the Constitution, No Libs Allowed.

McNaughton also includes that Deist libertine Ben Franklin, who seems to be wondering who the hell all those strangely dressed people are.

As is traditional for a McNaugton painting, the author includes a long whiny explication of his motives, noting that his ode to Freedom of Speech for Rightwing Podcasters was inspired by Howard Chandler Christy's 1939 painting of the same subject, which McNaughton claims has "unfortunately been dismissed and forgotten by the elite in Washington" because, well, he doesn't like that it's been "relegated to the east grand stairway of the House wing and seldom included in Capitol tours." He suspects that's because George Washington is "portrayed looking up to Heaven with gratitude," because you know nobody is allowed to believe in God anymore, and certainly not in the Capitol where every session begins with a prayer.

Yeah, them damned godless Libruls have fucked things up for everyone, right??

‘Cuz every REAL American (White Conservative Christian heterosexuals) KNOWS that America is a Christian nation.

The other great thing about today’s White Conservative Christian heterosexuals? Even when they manage to exercise power despite being a minority, they STILL complain about being persecuted by godless Libruls.

It’s good for the brand, don’tchaknow?

McNaughton also suspects the painting was shuffled off to a place of shame by critics who "disapprove of the artist's chosen method and means of painting it." We assume he's grumpy about the snooty modernists who mock him too, for painting in a realistic style when all the degenerates in the art world today prefer crazy abstract art like your kid could paint.

The great thing about modern wingnuts is that they can find ways to be victimized by literally anything.

Also, we checked the Architect of the Capitol's website, and it turns out that apart from the 16 months when it was displayed in the Rotunda after its 1940 unveiling, Christy's "Signing of the Constitution" has always hung exactly where it is now. It was not demoted by an atheist, nor was it banished by someone who wanted all of George Washington's facial features on one side of his head. We can only assume McNaughton didn't bother finding that out, or that he has a burning grudge against the godless Woke Postmodernist Art Mob of 1942.

McNaughton helpfully provides the key to his latest revisionist history effort, as if his audience wouldn’t have picked up on the idea that something’s rotten in Philadelphia:

Suffice it to say that any painting that includes Dana Loesch, Laura Ingraham, Ben Shapiro, and Charlie Kirk wasn’t done by someone for whom artistic or historical integrity was a primary concern. The idea that Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, and Franklin shared a room with intellectual and moral lightweights like Sean Hannity, Tim Pool, Mark Levin, and Jack Posobiec is laughable.

The contemporaries McNaughton has included in his “masterwork” aren’t fit to be mentioned in the same breath as those assembled in Constitution Hall to sign the Constitution. Brian Kilmeade? Megyn Kelly? James O’Keefe? Dinesh D’Souza? There’s no functional intellect or moral center amongst the painting's 31 (30 living) contemporaries.

The idea that these people have the country's best interests at heart is worthy of a spit-take. To a person (save for Rush Limbaugh; he’s too dead to continue his drifting), those depicted are a collection of vacant, egomaniacal, morally bereft grifters primarily concerned with inflating their bank accounts.

It’s not about patriotism or doing what’s best for America. It never has been. It’s about doing what provides them the best opportunity to keep the cash rolling in the front door. It’s about continuing the grift…because it beats the Hell out of getting a real job. Why work when you can show up at conferences, throw some red meat to the MAGA masses, and convince people to send you their hard-earned money?

And the grift continues….