Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved.
Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred.
As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer was comforted by the teachers who were themselves rattled by Fetterman’s behavior, according to a second person who was briefed separately on the meeting.
Uhhhhh yeah I don’t think so. I think you’re seeing former addicts that go hard for religion, and yeah that’s real… But it’s usually not the drugs that do it.
It’s been known for a long time: “I used to be all fucked on on drugs. Now I’m all fucked up on the Lord.”
Already in the early 70s, there were rightwing fundie groups operating in my middle school and high school, ostensibly to “save the souls” of delinquents and burnouts. One was sort of legit but run by well-meaning but misguided fundies. But another of those groups was the Tony Alamo cult. Along with the brainwashing, they regularly raped and beat the kids who got suckered into joining them. I had friends who got involved with them and helped two of them get out-- they got to a commune some friends of mine were in, and were able to go off-grid for a while. One of them got better, the other had a fatal mishap involving PCP a few years later.
Like I said, the pipeline is real. I just think it’s incorrect to attribute it to drugs as the cause.