This is one of those stories that we would probably prefer to ignore, but given the current disastrous shape the United States is in these days, it should probably be addressed. We’re talking about the newly elected Georgia GOP district chair Kandiss Taylor. Taylor recently hosted a couple of people on her podcast to discuss supposed biblical evidence that the Earth is flat. This resulted in Taylor going on a bit of a rant, complaining about how many globes are in stores, in schools, and on television shows. The three of them appeared to agree that if everyone else only knew what they know, the rest of us would all be “flat earthers” too. Some of you can probably hear me sighing from here. (Salon)

A recently elected Georgia GOP district chair revealed that she believes the world is flat and that the proliferation of globes is part of a conspiracy, Rolling Stone reports.

During an interview on Kandiss Taylor’s podcast “Jesus, Guns, and Babies” with David “Flat Earth Dave” Weiss and Matt Long, the trio discussed what they deemed the biblical evidence that the planet is flat. Taylor told Weiss and Long that the more she learns about flat earth, it “doesn’t make sense the other way.”

“The people that defend the globe don’t know anything about the globe,” Weiss responded. “If they knew a tenth of what Matt and I know about the globe they would be Flat Earthers.”

In an effort to be fair to all of the parties involved in this story, we should probably start by stating that the Earth isn’t actually round. It’s an oblate spheroid, being a bit fatter around the equator. So any of the older globes out there that were made as almost perfectly circular spheres aren’t 100% accurate.

I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the idea of these people who seem to sincerely argue that the planet is flat. Sure, if you lived back in the dark ages, it would be completely understandable. In fact, the Pope could have you locked up or worse for saying the Earth was round and revolved around the sun. (Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for it.) Are they pretending to think this just to attract attention? Or is it possible that they actually believe it?

Some people clearly have believed it, even in recent history. “Mad Mike” Hughes literally died trying to prove the theory when his homemade rocket crashed in the Mojave Desert in early 2020. It was his second rocket flight and, tragically, he never made it close to an altitude where he could have seen how wrong he was.

It’s the 21st century, folks. Come on, man. We have thousands of satellites orbiting the planet. Do you think they can orbit a pancake? (Or “a frisbee” as Mike Hughes described it.) We have photos dating back to the Apollo missions and even earlier. If you have enough money, Elon Musk will fly you up into low orbit and show you personally.

So why are we talking about this today? Because the country is currently going insane and we are in a disastrous state where our continuation as a prominent nation is no longer assured. The Republican Party needs to retake power and restore order and some semblance of sanity in society. But in order to do that, the voters need to take Republicans and conservatives seriously. And that’s not going to be easy as long as liberals have loons like these people to point out.

“Oh, so you think we should be sending weapons and military gear to Taiwan? Aren’t you afraid they’ll fall off the edge?” You get the point. We need to focus, and this isn’t helping matters.