Convert to the Catholic faith, H.W. Crocker, somehow managed to fit 2,000 years of Catholicism into his 500 page book called Triumph. Having read it for the second time earlier this year, I noticed the behavior of one group of murderous medieval heretics appears to be the same as an American political party today. Let's first consider Crocker's description of the Albigensian heretics of the 13th century: "The roots of the heresy lay in the East. Its pedigree included, historically, the Arians and especially the Manicheans. More immediately, it was influenced by the iconoclastic Paulicians, exiled from Byzantium; the violent Bogomils of Bulgaria (from which we get the useful word “bugger”); the Waldenses; a variety of church desecrators; and finally the Cathars, the Greek-named rationalist, Biblical-literalist, anti-clerical, anti-materialist movement of which the Albigensians were a part. Their combined thrust was [...]