Can you guess which political Party this is about?
Quote:Flat Earth on the ballot? Debunked claim pops up in US politics.
Data from a 2021 University of New Hampshire survey shows nearly 10% of Americans believe the Earth is flat, indicating how widespread pseudo-scientific conspiracy theories are emerging in the U.S.
Meanwhile, political observers have met the emergence of some flat Earth beliefs in politics with a mix of alarm and apathy.
Political candidates who believe the Earth is flat and other similar beliefs are "consistent with the current dumbing down and anti-intellectualism of America," said James Taylor, a political science professor at the University of San Francisco. Taylor said these theories have thrived mostly due to the internet and social media compared to 20 years ago.
In Alabama, there's Dean Odle, a pastor who lost when he ran for governor in 2022, and is now seeking to become lieutenant governor next year. Odle, who describes himself as the "Anti-estabishment Republican," told USA TODAY he became "a flat-earth/biblical-earther believer" in 2015, even attending the inaugural Flat Earth International Conference in 2017.
He cites his 2019 self-published book, titled "Like Clay Under the Seal," saying his belief that the Earth is flat initially came as a "spiritual download from the Holy Spirit."
In Minnesota, Bret Bussman, an Army veteran who became Minnesota’s 7th Congressional District Republican Party chair in March, has reportedly publicly shared videos on social media explaining why he believes the Earth is flat. That includes a 2024 Facebook post titled, "5 Reasons Why I BELIEVE in the Flat Earth (And You Should Too!)."
And in Georgia, Kandiss Taylor, a former Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate and the state's current District 1 GOP Chair, has announced she’s running for Congress in 2026. She faced scrutiny after interviewing two prominent flat Earth believers on a podcast two years ago, at one point saying:
"Everywhere there’s globes. It's constant…and that’s what they do to brainwash," Taylor said. "For me, if it is not a conspiracy, if it is, you know, 'real,' why are you pushing so hard? Everywhere I go, every store, you buy a globe, there’s globes everywhere—every movie, every TV show, news media. Why? It doesn't make sense."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2025...492658007/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
