This discussion, led by Dahlia Lithwick of Slate, is the most important information you will read today, this week, this month. It explains the theocratic movement that is taking control of the seats of power, imperiling democracy. It describes who they are. You will learn about “dominionism,” about “the Seven Mountains,” about a distorted view of religion that seeks power. They play the long game, with the goal of controlling our society.
This is the only post today. We really have to focus on the root issue in American political life today, the one that makes it impossible to address any problems. Religious extremism is it.
Lithwick is a lawyer, journalist, and senior editor at Slate. She interviews Rachel Laser, the president and CEO at Americans United for Separation of Church and State—a nonprofit education and advocacy organization that works in courts, legislatures, and the public square to protect religious freedom—and Katherine Stewart, an author and journalist who has closely covered religious extremism for the past fifteen years; her latest book is The Power Worshippers: Inside The Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. Her new book, Money, Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy, will be published next February.
Please open the link to Slate to read the arntire discussion. It’s terrifying.
Dahlia Lithwick: So Katherine, I think we’re going to start with you, and we’re going to talk about this movement. I would love to define it, because we put a lot under this rubric of white Christian nationalism.
Katherine Stewart: Let’s talk about what Christian nationalism is and what it isn’t. Christian nationalism is not a religion—it’s not Christianity. I think of it as a mindset, and also a machine. The mindset is this ideology, the idea of America as essentially a Christian theocracy or a Christian nation whose laws should be based on the Bible, and a very reactionary reading of the Bible. It’s also a political movement that exploits religion in this organized quest for power. As a political movement, it is leadership-driven and it’s organization-driven. It has this deeply networked organizational infrastructure that is really the key to its power. There has been five decades of investment in this infrastructure, and it’s the leaders of this network who are really calling the shots.
We can group their organizations into categories. I’ll throw out a few names, but this is by no means comprehensive. There are these right-wing groups like the Family Research Council. You have networking organizations like the Council for National Policy, which gets much of the movement’s leadership cadre on the same page, and brings them together with these very deep-pocketed funders. There are think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation. And there’s a vast right-wing legal advocacy ecosystem that includes groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom, with its $100-plus-million-per-year budget; also, the Becket Fund, Liberty Counsel, First Liberty Institute, Pacific Justice Institute—and they align with the aims of the Federalist Society and related organizations that mobilize enormous sums of money to shape the courts.
Another feature of this movement that is often overlooked is the pastor networks like Watchmen on the Wall and Church United, or groups like Faith Wins, that draw together and then mobilize tens of thousands of conservative or conservative-leaning pastors as movement leaders. If you can get the pastors, you can get their congregations. Often pastors are the most trusted voices in their congregations. So they reach out to these pastors, draw them into networks, and give them tools to turn out their congregations to vote for the far-right candidates that they want.
And then, of course, there’s this information sphere—or propaganda sphere—of the type that the Alitos, with their “Appeal to Heaven” flag, are clearly tied into. It’s a kind of messaging sphere that outsiders often simply don’t know about, but it’s incredibly self-contained and repeats over and over again a certain core set of messages.
Rachel, I think we know about the ways in which these movements and groups have targeted Congress and targeted the executive branch. We have seen the laying on of hands of the clergy when Donald Trump assumed office. We know a lot about Mike Johnson, we know a lot about Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the ways in which these religious ideas have embedded themselves in the other two branches of government.
But it’s harder and murkier to understand how it intersects with the courts. I would love for you to explain when this movement really turns its attention to the courts, and how this movement manages to bring this sprawling network to making change at the federal judiciary.
Rachel Laser: I think we have to start with the Federalist Society, which was founded in 1982. That was around the time when all of the religious-right groups were getting active. They were intentionally shifting their focus from school segregation to abortion. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, we saw this shadow network of legal groups forming. That accompanied what the Federalist Society was doing with the judiciary. The Alliance Defending Freedom was founded in the early ’90s, the Becket Fund in the early ’90s, First Liberty in 1997, Jay Sekulow’s American Center for Law and Justice back in 1990, Liberty Counsel in 1989. So when we were seeing the “moral majority,” and this sort of burgeoning religious extremist movement in the country, they got really smart and decided to focus on the courts, and, boy, are we seeing the rewards of that today.
Stewart: And the movement is extremely strategic. Very patient. I think the key to their success is that long-range thinking and their strategy.
From the very beginning, they set about picking the right cases to bring to the right courts and they created these novel legal building blocks that would sideline, and in some cases obliterate, the establishment clause. They’ve turned civil rights law on its head, and expanded the privileges of religious organizations substantially, including the right to taxpayer money.
Katherine, you wrote a piece in 2022 describing how the movement gets supercharged. You flagged three things that happened after Dobbs: First, the rhetoric of violence among movement leaders appears to have increased significantly from the already alarming levels I had observed in previous years. Second, the theology of dominion—that is the belief that right-thinking Christians have a biblically derived mandate to take control of all aspects of government and society—is now explicitly embraced. And third, the movement’s key strategists were giddy about the legal arsenal that the Supreme Court had laid at their feet as they anticipated the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Can you talk about how those three themes are playing out now? I mean, we live in that world. That’s mifepristone, that’s EMTALA, that’s the in vitro fertilization decision out of the Alabama Supreme Court.
Stewart: By acknowledging the legitimacy of a state interest in zygotes and blastocysts and fetuses, they really provide a legal system with a set of purely religiously grounded rights that can be used to strip women of all kinds of rights and basically turn our bodies and lives over to federal and state authorities.
But Dobbs is really just the inevitable consequence of this movement’s power. They’re not stopping here. The movement leaders are determined to end all abortion access everywhere. When they say abortion, they also mean some of the most effective and popular forms of birth control, as well as miscarriage care that’s necessary to save women’s lives and health. We’re seeing the consequences of this all over the country, where women are suffering devastating health consequences when they can’t get the miscarriage care that they need.
I’ve been attending right-wing conferences and strategy gatherings for 15 years for my research, and they tell us over and over again what they intend to do, and then they do it, and then they boast about what they’ve done. They’re really not hiding, and their aims are not hard to discern if you’re paying attention.
In the last 15 years, the rhetoric of violence has become more extreme. Fifteen years ago, the religious right sometimes wanted to portray itself as just wanting a seat at the table in the noisy forum of American democracy, saying, “We just want to have our voices heard and be counted.” But the calls for dominion, the calls for total domination, have become louder and more explicit. And part of that is a consequence of the rise of a spirit-warrior style of religion, embodied in movements like the New Apostolic Reformation, which is a sort of charismatic Christian evangelical movement. It’s a relational network, rather than a formal denomination, and it’s grown enormously in recent years. It has deep roots in Christian Reconstructionism and Calvinism, but it didn’t really get going until Loren Cunningham and Bill Bright, these two Christian-right leaders, both said they had a dream.
They both seemed to have the same dream that God told them that they needed to take over the seven “mountains,” or spheres, of culture, which they identified as things like government, education, business, media, and the like. They shared these ideas with some figures like Lance Wallnau and Peter Wagner. Wagner was a key figure in the “church planting” movement—a movement of establishing or planting new churches. Wagner ran with the idea of taking over the seven mountains as taking back dominion from Satan.
That notion of “Seven Mountains” dominionism has spread very quickly—not just among networks like the New Apostolic Reformation and other charismatic networks, but the language and style of “Seven Mountains Dominion” and this sort of spirit-warrior religion has spread to other sectors of the movement that are not remotely identified with the NAR or charismatic Christianity.
NAR churches often cite the Watchman Decree, a very theocratic prayer, which references the seven mountains. They often fly the “Appeal to Heaven” flag. Now you have people like Mike Johnson, who’s affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, displaying an “Appeal to Heaven” flag outside his office and appearing on podcasts run by very overt “Seven Mountains” dominionists, and you have a lot of white-power and militia groups that were not particularly religious before—they were more focused on race—but now they’re adopting the language and style of “Seven Mountains” dominionism. So when you see Mike Johnson’s “Appeal to Heaven” flag, when you see the Alitos flying the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, it doesn’t mean that they are necessarily affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation, or that they’re members of these militias at all, but it really tells us who they’ve been talking to.
Most people in the mainstream, at the center right, really don’t know anything about this flag. They wouldn’t think to fly it. It’s like a relic of the revolutionary period. And it’s been revived now, and it’s being promoted by people on the extreme far right. So when they fly it, they’ve reinterpreted it as taking a stand for the idea of America as a Christian theocratic nation rather than a pluralistic democracy. They see it as a call for profound, and even violent, revolution. It’s really astonishing to see it flying over the Alitos’ beach house. Again, it doesn’t mean that they’re paid-up members of militia groups or charismatic Christian groups. It just means they spend their time in the same information and propaganda bubbles where this flag stands for God and country and armed insurrection.
Laser: If you believe that rights are God-given, instead of given by the people, then you can see how you can jump quickly to “and I can use violence to protect those rights.” That’s what has shown up in the polls.
PRRI [Public Religion Research Institute] did a poll on Christian nationalists, and they found Christian nationalists are about twice as likely as the rest of us to believe in political violence. That’s what we saw on Jan. 6 with the parading “Appeal to Heaven” flags that were at the insurrection. I think another important point to make here is the authoritarian nature of this Christian nationalist movement. This movement is rooted in the belief that America is a country given to European Christians, and that our laws and policies must reflect the same. If you believe that, you are antidemocratic, because democracy is rooted in equality. So the end goal of this Christian nationalist movement has to be the toppling of democracy to achieve their goal. And that’s why we saw so many of them fueling the insurrection.
The antidote to Christian nationalism is the separation of church and state, because it refuses to let Christian privilege into the law, it refuses to let conservative Christianity be the guiding principle in America. It insists that America keep to its promises that are embedded in our Constitution, of religious freedom as a basic human right. And that’s why Christian nationalists have gone after the separation of church and state, and that’s why their allies at the Supreme Court are on a crusade to eradicate church–state separation—because they are in lockstep with a movement that must get rid of church–state separation in order to accomplish its goals.
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My comment:
Will we be a theocracy or a society struggling to improve democracy? Please open the link. After reading this, you can understand why it is so important to the theocrats to destroy the separation of church and state and to funnel public money into religious organizations. That’s one of the crucial issues on the ballot in November. If you don’t want to be controlled by these power-hungry zealots, get active.
A superb overview of the American Taliban
I am reminded that Methodist founder John Wesley warned that living in the way he described would make a person wealthy, which would inhibit living as he suggested you should.
The Southern Baptist Convention is being held in Nashville this week. Among the things they are on course to denounce by vote are female pastors and invitro fertilization of human beings (read this as draconian support for full rights of the zygote). This vote will be taken, knowing that it will continue the trend of a decline in the population of Southern Baptist numbers.
The Dominionism movement takes place against the backdrop of radical decline in church attendance.
It’s a warning to us all how fast the right wing fundamentalists seized control of the Southern Baptist Convention – the once open-minded organization of Protestant Churches (home to Jimmy Carter and Al Gore and James Dunn) that turned into a right wing theocracy with much in common with the right wing Supreme Court — picking and choosing from the teachings of Jesus to support the leaders’ far right self-serving religion that keeps them in power and pretending any Christian teachings of Jesus that don’t support their self-serving religion simply must be ignored. The SBC follows Jesus’ teachings as much as the Supreme Court respects the Constitution – they have created a false reality where Jesus’ teachings were about keeping the powerful in power and the Constitution was about granting freedoms and protections to the powerful and limiting the rights of everyone else.
The SBC didn’t vote to eliminate female pastors altogether this year, but that is likely coming soon.
Perhaps the most significant Irony of the Dominion movement is that it so readily plays the role of the Sanhedrin (Pharisees and Sadducees as ruling elite) represented in the gospels. The narrative in Christian scripture is that Jesus was sent by God to challenge those who oppressed the world through their laws. This was reinforced by Paul in his letters when he basically stated that the Law, as represented by Jewish and Roman authorities, was obsolete and that the grace of God presented a way out of human oppression. The most compelling stories in the New Testament are of Jesus’ direct confrontation with the political elite, both the Jewish priestly establishment and Rome. Yet, Christian Nationalists don’t want their followers to know this. Katherine Stewart is right when she says this is not a Christian movement. When Mike Johnson declares that his vision for government is from the Bible, he is very clear that what he means is that only a few should determine the values for everyone else in the form of no less than a theocratic monarchy that dictates what the populous is allowed to believe and learn. This is what the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages attempted to do until it was nullified by secular monarchies influenced by the Reformation. That struggle was long and bloody and one could argue it culminated with two World Wars. These theocratic forces are not promoting a values based faith, but a legal perspective as old as the first empire in Sumeria. Only a few should have access to the resources, both intellectual and monetary, as a means to exert power. For decades it has been evident that the separation of church and state has acted as a vehicle for vibrant and diverse participation in religion. This Christian Nationalist movement is meant to bring everything down through the guise of a democratic legal system that seems helpless to stop the momentum.
“For decades it has been evident that the separation of church and state has acted as a vehicle for vibrant and diverse participation in religion.”
This is a penetrating analysis of the situation. This movement is all about power, not about religious belief. Biblical interpretation is just a convenience for these people.
The interesting question is whether Mike Johnson is a political chameleon, and really believes anything he says. Would he fly a BLM flag if it got him votes?
I wonder why you are asking this question, Roy. Johnson seems quite sincere–a fundamentalist extremist who wants to establish a theocratic state. He has been utterly clear about that throughout his adult life, long before he became Speaker and so a big shot. That someone like him, with his convictions, was elected Speaker shows just how far down that path to Theocracy the Repugnican Party has gone. It was no secret who Johnson is. He has always been clear on this. He is a Christian fundamentalist theocrat.
I guess, knowing that the nature of politics is a matter that feeds on itself, I feel compelled to wonder about this of all politicians. George Wallace stood on the steps and declared “segregation forever” until his voting public changed its mind (by changing its nature when black and brown people got to vote). Suddenly, Wallace sounded like a regular old guy and got more black votes than anybody would ever have imagined. That did not make him one of the good guys, but it changed him in a public way.
Johnson walks between the worlds of the pro-Russia GOP and the rest of the crowd that seems to let the extremists run the party. Who is he really? I do not think a republican who is not looking extreme has a constituency out there. Their base has been taught to react to extremism.
He looks pretty Christian Nationalist to me.
“He looks pretty Christian Nationalist to me.”
That’s only because he is.
Johnson needs to hang around that CIA guy a little more. CBK
The GOP embraces The Ten Commandments. They are interested in punishment and constricting behavior. “Thou shall not” should be their motto, but you won’t hear them mentioning Jesus’ beatitudes. Matthew 5:3–12
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
So many questions and reality unchecked.
Everything is local, including cults and cult-like behavior and brainwashing.
What’s the endgame? When the country’s courts, legislatures, school boards, state universities are controlled by these “religious” beliefs and fear mongering, what is the plan for the rest of us? The era of civil liberties and inclusion (in the courts and culture) (1954-2001) is over.
What is their plan for the religious minority? What is the plan for immigrants… for women… for anyone who is “different” from the white “Christian” straight undereducated male.
The playbook is “go local!” Control the local churches, local school boards, local sheriffs and courts, local “common good” and you control the State and Federal/National agenda.
What happens when local school districts are so underfunded due to shifting funding to private and parochial schools? What happens when African-American history is erased from text books and LGBTQ students are erased from schools? When the teacher shortage soars because the answer to “Why did you become a teacher?” is counter to school district policy and subject to the culture police?
How does the local principal and superintendent fight back? How does the union fight back? How does the too-trusting middle class fight back when they realize what’s happening.
Ouch! That column should scare the heck out of everyone. Blogs and articles preach to the choirs – and can’t compete with fox addictive news, loudmouth uncensored state and national “leaders,” literally bully pulpits, and the “payback’s a b***h” mentality of those who think government has become a multi-billion dollar welfare office.
I haven’t checked STEM programs lately, but I wonder, since they got named STEM, how much has been taught in these programs about political orders, history that included religious movements and their influences on society and culture, war and peace, philosophical problems that show up in their own thinking, basic logic, psychology, the structure of democracy and the purpose of our own institutions as compared with kingship or tribes, . . .
We can say this isn’t Christianity. But, it is a Christian problem that needs to be dealt with by Christians who claim to not subscribe to Christian Nationalism or other forms of Christian or religious supremacy. To not do so is to, at the very least, be complicit. Continuing to sit next to those who subscribe to this ideology, and continuing to listen to priests and pastors who subscribe to this ideology is to be complicit. At the current time we can still say this isn’t Christianity. But, for how long? It’s up to Christians to make that decision.
agreed
There are 45,000 Christian denominations. Christianity is not a political party. “Christian Nationalism” is a political problem just like Communism in Russia and China. The key challenge is informing an electorate of the dangers. This theocratic project is about those who feel chosen by a god to reign supreme. The money and largess of this movement uses myth and misinformation for power. That’s why the Catholic Church used Latin even after it was a dead language and resisted access to science and scripture. It’s why many right wing Christian denominations focus on Bible verses over scriptural context. The challenge now is that these religious grifters have captured a large population of followers. Christianity has never been in a position to police itself.
Regardless of it’s ability to police itself, the burden is currently on those who choose to be a part of that belief system to begin to remedy this problem. It will be much easier for them to start that process now, before it becomes everyone else’s burden.
It is already a burden on everyone. Believers who reject this movement are simply dismissed as apostates and ignored. Winning at the ballot box and reinforcing the Constitution is what is required here.
Your suggestion that Christians need to solve a problem within Christianity is unquestionably true. It is, however, a lot like saying that any other group should solve its problems; it’s easier said than done. Consider my own church. Some members are strident in their political conservatism and others are pretty liberal. Should we tear up the church with strident arguments over political ideas? Should we remove ourselves from the church because we disagree with some of the other folks?
As I pointed out above, the biggest problem facing churches today is falling membership. Most congregations look like a convention of AARP. The ones I attend are very old. Running off people will not keep the doors open.
It’s pretty much dead but hasn’t realized it yet. The Pew studies show that Americans are as likely to believe in astrology and reincarnation as they are in the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. They practice now, a religion I call Vaguism in order to cling to some vestige of older belief, but they no longer buy most of it. Satan and hell? Few young people believe that utter nonsense anymore.
All this from the older folks in the Repugnican Party is a desperate attempt to revitalize this dying thing. Young people aren’t buying it. But in the meantime, we have to deal with the older troglodytes in the forms of people like Green, Johnson, Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas.
No, I would never suggest tearing up a church over mere differences in political opinion. I am not talking about folks who once identified as conservative. Christian Nationalists are not conservative. They are fascists. If running fascists out of a church results in its ability to sustain itself, so be it. If a church is open to sharing pews and the podium with fascists, well, then it is a fascist church.
LetThemLearn,
You are so right. These people are not conservatives. They are fascists.
The will of separation between RELIGION and STATE isn’t a one-sided effort stalled by the other. Both are bought by “In God We Trust” fiat. Cleaving beliefs by semantics doesn’t change the outcomes.
What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand?
Belief can
Belief can
What puts the folded flag inside his mother’s hand?
Belief can
Belief can
(1) Alito, Thomas & Trump: A Betrayal of the Founders’ & Framers’ Ideals (hartmannreport.com)
This great essay by Thom Hartman destroys the assertion that the founding fathers wanted a “Christian Nation” in the sense of the modern-day Nationalist movement (I deliberately did not use Christian as a modifier).
Hartman quotes Madison:
“We are teaching the world the great truth, that Governments do better without kings and nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson: the Religion flourishes in greater purity without, than with the aid of Government.”
Time has shown that Madison was correct. The only question is: Will modern fusion of religion and politics kill religion before it kills politics or the other way around?
Roy,
My dear friend Pastor Charles Foster Johnson, founder of Pastors for Texas Children, is a strong defender of separation of church and state. He said to me that separation protects the church from the state, and it also protects the state from the church. Right now, these Dominionidys threaten to control us all by taking control of the state.
Roy . . . and another basic problem with a “Christian nation” is that by definition, it cannot be Jewish, Muslim, Native American, or any of the other religions and sects and religious group/ideas without already being an “outsider.”
A nation that is so closely aligned with ONE religious tradition and its ideology as applied to the political domain is, by definition, tribal. You can be nice to outsiders, as many tribes are, but “others” cannot be insiders, again, on principle. And worse, they want to fill the vacuum that kings and nobles left behind, with their own ignorance.
Whereas democracy, and especially the way our founders wrote about and understood it, can include everyone from any/or-no religious affiliation without deeming them outsiders of the political domain of the nation. They were a little late with women and black people, et al. But the principle still holds; and we WERE still reaching for it. CBK
A Duke divinity school guy analyses why evangelicals support Trump in a Oped for the Hill. He talks about the anxiety of the religious right and their penchant for believing the conspiracies of the day.
Opinion: Why evangelicals won’t abandon Trump after his conviction (msn.com)
I believe the anxiety comes from the decline in church attendance. People look about them and feel threatened by the obvious truth of the greying population. Trump offers an excuse-based reason for this phenomenon, and they lap it up like they lapped up Covid conspiracy.
One unfortunate feature of Christianity is the continued desire of Christians to consider themselves to be persecuted. It goes along with the idea that Christians are ” in this world, but not of it”. I have heard that sentiment expressed countless times during decades of church attendance.
If sincere, genuine Christians want to consider themselves not to be of this world then I strongly suggest that they stop attempting to impose their beliefs on those who do not share their faith.
I’ve lived in both The North and South. The persecution complex is a lot more prevalent among evangelical Christians in the South.
Birdchum: In Orwellian-speak (one has to learn to make the interpretive transitions):
“Persecution” in this context is code for: You won’t let us control everything everyone thinks, says, and does. CBK
I think it is driven by a televangelist grift that sees no problem with the size of individual churches as a means to wealth for preaching sociopaths. While church attendance is falling, individual “non-denominational” institutions continue to thrive. Some of these churches actually call for civil war. The current Republican playbook comes from the prosperity gospel model. “We’ll make you rich!” is as powerful a message as Christian persecution.
What strange times we live in. Millions of Americans clamoring to have the modern world run into the ground by Bronze age mythologists. I guess science and nature are not as exciting as chariots of fire but at least they’re real.
Diane, thank you for posting these writings of Dahlia Lithwick, Heather Cox Richardson, “democracy”, and others whose important pieces elsewhere often get lost among the constant outpouring of endless new digital content. (Dahlia Lithwick first caught my eye back in internet news infancy, when she was writing for Slate in 1999, because she was one of the very few journalists covering the Clinton impeachment who wasn’t simply presenting right wing talking points without questioning what was a completely illogical narrative.)
Lithwick, Richardson, “democracy” and you are all kindred spirits, working to shed light by informing and thinking and making your points using evidence and logic and reason, while your critics often spew hate, misinformation and insults. I am grateful for this blog and your tireless work maintaining it for the good of the things that matter. Thank you.
Thank you, NYCPSP. I am grateful for your participation on the blog.
From the Slate article:
“Christian nationalism…is a mindset…this ideology, the idea of America as essentially a Christian theocracy or a Christian nation whose laws should be based on the Bible, are a very reactionary reading of the Bible. It’s also a political movement that exploits religion in [an] organized quest for power…they set about picking the right cases to bring to the right courts and they created these novel legal building blocks that would sideline, and in some cases obliterate, the establishment clause. They’ve turned civil rights law on its head, and expanded the privileges of religious organizations substantially, including the right to taxpayer money.”
“The movement leaders are determined to end all abortion access everywhere. When they say abortion, they also mean some of the most effective and popular forms of birth control, as well as miscarriage care that’s necessary to save women’s lives and health….their aims are not hard to discern if you’re paying attention.”
So.
An end to abortion. And end to birth control. Following up on that, an end to same-sex marriage. And a curtailing of LGBTQ rights. This all part of the plan. But, the BIGGER part is “Christian” control of the United States government, all of it.
Margaret Atwood wrote this about ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ in The Atlantic two Springs ago:
“I stopped writing it several times, because I considered it too far-fetched. Silly me. Theocratic dictatorships do not lie only in the distant past: There are a number of them on the planet today. What is to prevent the United States from becoming one of them?”
The answer is, Voters! Voters who understand the constitutional separation of church and state. Voters who believe in women’s rights. Voters who believe in equality and “liberty and justice for all.” Voters who are committed to the Constitution and do not subscribe to insurrectional sedition.
The Council for National Policy is a far-right group that had enormous influence with the previous Trump administration and wants more.
As I’ve noted previously, current and former CNP members include Cleta Mitchell, the Trump lawyer who was on that call to the Georgia Secretary of State demanding that he find Trump more than 11,780 votes. And Charlie Kirk, head of Turning Point USA who bragged about bussing tens of thousands of people to the January 6th ‘Stop the Steal’ rally and insurrection.
Two of the top people at the far-right Federalist Society, Eugene Meyer and Leonard Leo, are also CNP members. The appointments of Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett were high priorities for the Federalist Society and for CNP.
Seditionist Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is a member. So is Stephen Moore, the “economist” that Trump wanted to appoint to the Federal Reserve but didn’t because of the fallout over the disclosure that he falild to pay his ex-wife to pay “than $300,000 in spousal support, child support and money owed under their divorce settlement.” Moore helped Republican Sam Brownback ruin the economy of Kansas.
The Council for National Policy is interconnected to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network and the former Tea Party Patriots, and of course, MAGA world and Trump.
At its website, the Council for National Policy (CNP) states that it stands for “limiting the size and scope of government to allow Americans greater freedom. ” Naturally, this is a lie. Republicans like Reagan grew the size of government, and Republicans like George W. Bush and Trump grew both deficit spending and debt, big-time .
The CNP says that “the Founding Fathers created this nation based upon Judeo-Christian values and that our culture flourishes when we uphold them.” This too is a lie.
In fact, the Founders envisioned a democratic society “in which the common good was the chief end of government.” They agreed with John Locke’s view that the main purpose of government –– the reason people CREATE government –– is to protect their persons through, as historian R. Freeman Butts put it, a social contract that placed “the public good above private desires.” The goal was “a commonwealth, a democratic corporate society in which the common good was the chief end of government.”
To put this in Biblical language, the core precepts of Christianity are love and generosity; love for your neighbor, and love for the stranger, generosity, kindness, and service to others. T
To be more specific, in the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah (22:13-17) warns
“Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his countrymen work for nothing, not paying them for their labor . . . your eyes and your heart are set only on dishonest gain . . . oppression and extortion.”
And Ezekiel (34:2-5) gives this warning:
“Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured.”
In the New Testament, Philippians (2:3-4) tells believers to “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
And Matthew (6:24) tells Christians that “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
Of course, both the CNP and Republicans DO NOT believe in ANY of this. Quite the opposite.
These people and those they influence may call themselves “Christians.” They are nothing of the sort. But they ARE fascists.