Now Established: The Church Of Branch Covidianism

Tucker Carlson has outdone himself in an utterly brilliant monologue on the new established religion of the West: Branch Covidianism. Most of us would be struck dumb at the sheer lunacy of what we're witnessing in our public life. Not Tucker. His analysis hits home as few others have been able to do. The full effect is obtained by watching the video, which contains valuable supplementary material:

Christianity is dying and being replaced by cult of coronavirus

Tucker starts out by noting what we're all aware of--America, once a country of religious people, has become the land of the unchurched. Public life is dominated by atheism and secularism. To drive that point home, Tucker plays a video clip to accompany his words:

"Politicians used the pandemic across the country to close thousands of churches and throw Christians in prison for practicing their faith. There was the scene, for example, last fall in Idaho. Police arresting a congregation for singing hymns outdoors be paid."

No, it's not just Australia. The Branch Covidian cult has struck deep roots here in American--even, God help us, in deepest Red Idaho.

Shocking as the video is, Tucker doesn't leave it to speak for itself. He goes on to make the following trenchant observation:

What did these people do wrong? Well, they publicly affirmed their belief in a power higher than government. That’s not allowed. Fewer and fewer Americans do that—or even think to. But that does not mean, and this is the critical point, that does not mean this has become a secular country. There are no secular countries, just as there are no secular people. Everybody believes in something. ... The question is what?

This is, in a very real sense, the culmination of the Globalist movement that began in the wake of the Great War but really gained momentum after the Second World War. I've observed in the past that the true significance of the Second Vatican Council--convened less that 20 years after the end of WW2--is that it marked the embrace by the formerly pre-eminent spiritual institution of the West of the new Global religion of Man. Narcissism framed in the high fallutin' lingo of the new intelligentsia of neo-gnostic intellectuals.

Over the succeeding decades, there have been any number of semi-mass movements of secular salvation in the name of the new religion. Any number of semi-sacred shibboleths and taboos on speech and thought were advanced, but none truly gained the traction of a real religion for the masses--it remained an elitist cult. What was lacking was the institutional trappings that the masses expected of a real religion. Various messianic political movements had attempted the transition, mostly focusing on a Great Leader, but they had ultimately fallen flat.

As Tucker observes:

America [really, the West] has not lost its religion. It's just replaced its religion. What's dying is the faith that created Western civilization—Christianity. In its place is a new creed, and like all religions, it has its own sacraments, its own sacred texts. It's the cult of coronavirus.

What Branch Covidianism provides, which has hitherto been lacking, is the external signs: sacraments and sacramentals. Unsurprisingly, Bergoglio himself has embraced the new Global cult, providing an aura of spiritualism to go with incantations to Pachamama.

And so Tucker turns to the would be high priestess of Branch Covidianism: the unelected governess of New York--raised Irish Catholic but now a Branch Covidian enthusiast and priestess--Kathy Courtney Hochul. It's hard to top Tucker's description of Hochul's dumbfounding performance yesterday:

Yesterday, Kathy Hochul held her first service as the leader of the New York Diocese of the Corona cult. Around her neck. She wore not a cross—that's yesterday's symbol—but instead a vaccination necklace. That necklace signified to the faithful gathered that Hochul is ascended to the select priesthood of those who have taken full intravenous communion. Listen to Bishop Hochul preach:

And I wear my vaccinated necklace all the time to say I'm vaccinated. All of you. Yes, I know you're vaccinated. You're the smart ones. But, you know, there's people out there who aren't listening to God, what God wants. You know this. You know who they are. I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it and say we owe this to each other. We love each other. Jesus taught us to love one another. And how do you show that love but to care about each other enough to say, please get vaccinated because I love you. I want you to live.

And not content with that, Tucker rings the changes on the faux religious signing that jumps out at you from Hochul's performance--not omitting to reference the mediocrity of it all:

How do you show your love to one another? The old way is to visit people, say, in the hospital as they died. That's no longer allowed. The new way to show your love is to get the vax. God himself wants you to take the vaccine. ... No one comes to the Father except through the shot. Sinners in the hands of an angry health care worker. At the pulpit. Kathy Hochul, not super bright as you may have noticed, seems suddenly transformed—a transfiguration if you will. Standing there, she wasn't merely a mediocre, unelected governor of a dying state with bad weather. No, Hochul was the vaccine messiah preaching the undying word of St. Anthony Fauci. Can I get an amen, ladies and gentlemen.

Tucker doesn't say this, but I don't think Kathy Hochul is bright enough to have dreamed that shtick up by herself. Some political aide who knew what he/she was doing concocted it. And that’s a bit chilling.

Tucker continues from there by offering some mindblowing examples of Branch Covidian sacramentals, illustrated with the help of graphics, without which you might not believe this is really going on. For example, a Tony Fauci prayer candle on sale at Etsy--I'm not kidding. And Tucker quotes two reviews, because purchasers/converts feel the need to witness to their embrace of Branch Covidianism:

"Love it! I think I may have to set up a little altar to place it on!" There's a new convert. Here's another review from a woman called Kelly Hannan: "I put this in my office. I work in public health and this makes me smile every time I look at it." Of course it makes you smile, Kathy Hannan. Virtue is its own reward.

Should I really have been surprised that people would afix their names to such twaddle? But that's what narcissism does to natural human self consciousness. And so Tucker cleverly shifts seamlessly from this easy acquisition of virtue via injection to the new Global Religion of Man and its essential narcissism:

Now, for those still making the tough transition from a traditional Western religion or religion about God to this new religion, which is not about God, it's really about you and only you and more of you. And you, you, you, you, you. You can pick up a masked nativity scene online, it looks conventional, but look closely, it features Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, all with their faces covered as they should be, even in a manger. They're masked just like you are. In this religion of narcissism, the holiest figures look exactly like you do. That's the point.

Wow!

Of course the parallels aren't all exact. For example, is the injection a new baptism, or is it communion? Earlier Tucker had compared the injection to intravenous communion—although in his words he does hint at injection as a rite of initiation. Now Tucker observes:

And speaking of babies, you’ll want to celebrate your children's baptism by vax by purchasing a sacred text to memorialize this moment. We recommend this age-appropriate Tony Fauci coloring book.

Baptism by vax, or injection. It seems apt, but in the context here the extension of the injection to ever younger age groups--soon, one supposes, to include newborns, eight days after birth--reminds one (or at least it reminded my wife) of Pius X lowering the age of communion and encouraging frequent communion. Eight months, five months—for all the world, the boosts look like injection versions of frequent communion. That was part of the spectacle of Zhou getting his Branch Covidian boost--frequent boosts, and who knows whether they might not end up being daily. Soon it may be that we’ll hear people speaking in awe of particularly devout Branch Covidians as “daily boosters.”

I think this is one of those situations where we can't be held too closely to one specific symbolism--take your pick is my advice. Whatever works. Covid passport as confirmation? The possibilities seem almost endless.

But returning to that "age-appropriate Tony Fauci coloring book," that brings up the issue of non-believers. Amid the generally "glowing" reviews that Tucker found, there was one that struck a darkly discordant note:

"There's a section at the back of the book where kids color numerous pages solid black to help Dr. Fauci cover up his involvement in the pandemic."

Uh oh! There’s one of those people who’s not listening, like governess Kathy, to What God Wants. A latter day version of the old village free-thinker. Something will need to be done to this heathen. Strip him of his job, his ability to associate with others, whatever it takes. A public recantation is required--or else.

This is where we are, America. La vida es sueño. Life in a gnostic dreamworld. Will we wake up before it’s too late?