Christian nationalism is a grave threat to the United States and the American republic. There should be no ambiguity or dullness when it comes to understanding what it is — no matter how benign it may present itself. It is what lurks beyond the veneer that is terrifying. There, the evil is revealed and manifested.
The dogma is a perversion of Christ’s teachings that is antithetical to Christianity. More importantly, Christian nationalism is utterly opposed to democracy. Theocrats despise the United States. God‘s laws are beyond the reach of the American state, and Christianity is but one religion in the beautiful mosaic of American faith. It should always be noted that 600 generations of humans worshipped freely on the North American continent before the first European Christians came and killed them.
The US Constitution is the law of the land in the United States. Within it are the protections that safeguard our liberty. The freedoms of speech, dissent, conscience, worship and expression shall stand untroubled for as long as the great republic endures. We are within one calendar year of its possible end. We have arrived at a moment of grave crisis that cannot be ignored. The abyss that looked distant seven years ago is at hand.
Christian nationalism is incompatible with American democracy and pluralism. When political extremists take power in the name of God there is always death. Always.
I was pleased to participate in “BAD FAITH, Christian Nationalism’s War on Democracy,” a documentary which will premiere at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in early January 2024. Please watch this clip below. I have shared it before (with its previous title), but the fire keeps building.
The separation of church and state and religious freedom are profoundly important foundational achievements of the American republic. The extremists who seek power in God’s name are not benign men and women. They won’t be deterred by setbacks in Ohio and other places. They are on the march, and they are demanding power whether it is handed to them or not.
I want you to read these words from yesterday’s The New York Times that make clear Donald Trump’s plans:
Former President Donald J. Trump is planning an extreme expansion of his first-term crackdown on immigration if he returns to power in 2025 — including preparing to round up undocumented people already in the United States on a vast scale and detain them in sprawling camps while they wait to be expelled.
The plans would sharply restrict both legal and illegal immigration in a multitude of ways.
Mr. Trump wants to revive his first-term border policies, including banning entry by people from certain Muslim-majority nations and reimposing a Covid 19-era policy of refusing asylum claims — though this time he would base that refusal on assertions that migrants carry other infectious diseases like tuberculosis.
He plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year.
To help speed mass deportations, Mr. Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings. To help Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, he plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states.
Let’s call these giant detention and deportation camps what they are intended to be. These are concentration camps. Specifically, they are to be American concentration camps. Dachau was the Nazis’ first camp in Germany.
What will the first American camp look like? There will no doubt be a first, and it will likely be the first to house the political prisoners rounded up under Trump’s invocation of the Insurrection Act. He has promised to invoke it at the instant he returns to power.
Please understand this: Trump is announcing his intentions. He means it. He is surrounded by scores of “little Eichmanns” ready to help him achieve his aims. He should be taken literally and seriously at all times.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson is second in line to the presidency. He rejects the greatest American idea in history, which is the separation of church and state. The greatest American invention — the peaceful transition of power — is utterly dependent on the separation of church and state in this country.
Johnson denied the 2020 election results, lied about the election results, created the conditions for the insurrection of January 6th, voted to disenfranchise millions of Black votes after the insurrection and continues to insist Trump won the election, despite the claim being a combination of fraud, malice and weapons-grade nuttery. The hostility to democracy is deeply rooted within his religious fanaticism, which is unique amongst the various strains of fanatical faith that have always found a home in America because of our nation’s unique faith protections.
We have churches where people pick up rattlesnakes and kiss them to prove they are protected by God. Proof of sin is a bite to the face and a painful death. Bo and Peep of Heaven’s Gate convinced their followers that they were headed to the Hale-Bopp comet, and Jim Jones took his flock to doom in Guyana. There are cults and fundamentalists all over America, but there is only one strain that wants to control your life by controlling the powers of the state to administer God’s law. They are the American Taliban.
Mike Johnson has invented his own distorted version of history as if the events of the late 1780s-90s occurred 6,000 years ago.
The American Constitution is clear about the founders’ intentions and their descendants’ actions to preserve and expand those intentions. There is no room for theocracy in the American system. It was rejected at hour one. The desire to impose it on all of us by a man who believes people and dinosaurs co-existed at the beginning of time 6,000 years ago is never going to happen…or is it?
The most important thing to understand about theocrats is that they view political power as being mandated by God. In fact, many fanatics across America believe Donald Trump has been sent by him, and his opponents are demonically-inspired.
Case in point:
Reading Steve’s post this morning I am drinking my morning coffee from my hotel room and watching the sunrise begin to sprinkle across the Washington monument, I am ashamed by our citizenry’s utter lack of respect, compassion, and tolerance for others. We appear to have failed you George... I cannot believe it has come to this, but here we are.
“Watching a woman stand up and ask Donald Trump how his religious faith has deepened since 2015 has settled the debate around whether there are in fact stupid questions.”--Steve Schmidt
I have to disagree Steve. I was taught there are no stupid questions, just stupid people asking questions...:)
That said, I do wholeheartedly agree. These religious whack jobs, are ruthless as much much as they are relentless, and can never be reasoned with, because a believe system is built on fear and faith. Two ingredients that make it impossible to have a constructive conversation with these people.
They can lose every battle, and never lose the war because they never quit. They will find whatever leverage they can assert within the boundaries of the law, and as J6th has shown; outside the law as well.
So far they’ve been successful corrupting the judicial system, and have perverted the use of first amendment (religious rights) by the court, allowing religious entities to discriminate at will and act as a political entity; illegal for non-profit institutions.
These people and organizations need to be brought to heel, yet, as long as dark and unlimited money infests our political system, it will be an impossible task to rein them in.
Make no mistake, these groups are a clear and present danger to the national security of this nation, and to the health of our democracy and economy. If we fail to act soon, we do so at our own peril!
Just some thoughts...:)