It’s About Time!

Regular readers of this blog know that, when I address the threats posed by Christian Nationalism, I always put quotation marks around the word Christian. I do so because the movement we call Christian Nationalism seems–to this non-Christian–incredibly unChristian. I have several friends in the clergy, and they are admirable humans who follow a very different religious path from the proponents of bigotry and White Supremacy who have appropriated the title.

But because I do know wonderful people who identify as Christian, I have been frustrated by what I have seen as a tepid response by the genuinely Christian community to the usurpation of their identity. I would have expected members of the kind and thoughtful congregations that I know are “out there” to respond forcefully to those who are militarizing and distorting the tradition, but until very recently, there has been minimal pushback from people who are entitled to call themselves Christian.

It wasn’t until 2019 that Christians Against Christian Nationalism was formed, the first welcome sign of organized resistance of which I’m aware. And now, in an equally welcome response to ICE and its efforts to rid the country of Black and Brown people by categorizing them as “illegal immigrants,” a network of 5000 churches has organized to protect worshippers.

As The Bulwark has reported, a network of five thousand faith communities is now disseminating a blueprint for clergy and lay leaders who want to push back against what Trump and the agents of his newly emboldened ICE are doing to immigrants across the country.

This rapid-response action plan for churches and faith communities to protect people during ICE raids is the brainchild of evangelical pastor Doug Pagitt and his group Vote Common Good, which is not only providing these resources to the faith communities in his network, but also sending an open letter to the White House Faith Office calling for justice and compassion for immigrants, and slamming plans to open more detention centers like Florida’s Everglades detention facility. Thousands of faith leaders and congregations cosigned the letter.

The plan includes formation of rapid-response teams of volunteers willing to monitor reports of raids, verify them, and show up to raids as “moral witnesses.” They also coordinate shelter, transportation, and legal aid for vulnerable immigrants.

The activism of these congregations is largely in reaction to Trump’s over-reach: Churches are no longer safe from ICE incursions. But whatever the trigger, my reaction is “better late than never.”

The question that confronts adherents of all religions is deceptively simple: do you actively defend the core values of your faith, or do you simply wear the label? When that label is appropriated by people whose actions are diametrically opposed to the most fundamental values of your religion, what do you do? (It isn’t just American Christians who must choose a path under those circumstances; Jews in Israel who see Netanyahu’s actions as fundamentally inconsistent with Jewish values face the same decision.)

Of course, it isn’t just religious folks. When the fascists come calling, we are all obligated to choose a side. Lawyers must decide how dedicated they really are to the rule of law; university personnel must stand–or not–for intellectual freedom. These really are the times that try men’s (and women’s) souls–the times that challenge us to decide where our values really lie and how willing we are to defend them.

Pagitt, the founder of Vote Common Good, has been disappointed to see the way church groups have been co-opted and bullied during Trump’s second term. He isn’t the only one.

“Much to my sadness, we’ve seen faith communities quiver and shake and be afraid like universities and law firms and so many institutions,” he said. “We want to be on the other side of that and say to skeptical people of good conscience to not play the silent hypocrite card.”

It’s encouraging to see the real Christians begin to stand up. The rest of us need to emulate them.

Comments

Calling It What it Is

When Trump won a first term in 2016, virtually all pundits and traditional media outlets bent over backwards to give his voters the benefit of the doubt. They mostly attributed his support to economic anxiety, despite the fact that a significant majority of poorer Americans had voted for Hillary Clinton. 

Research in the wake of that election pointed to a very different motive for those votes: racism. Over the intervening years, it has become abundantly clear that what scholars delicately refer to as “racial resentment” is the glue holding MAGA together–and yet, the legacy media still seems reluctant  to call it what it is.

Non-“legacy” sources, however, increasingly point to the elephant in the room. (Pun intended.)

Heather Cox Richardson recently took on Trump’s efforts to cow museums into an alternate view of history, writing

When Trump says that our history focuses too much on how bad slavery was, he is not simply downplaying the realities of human enslavement: he is advocating a world in which Black people, people of color, poor people, and women should let elite white men lead, and be grateful for that paternalism. It is the same argument elite enslavers made before the Civil War to defend their destruction of the idea of democracy to create an oligarchy. When Trump urges Republicans to slash voting rights to stop socialism and keep him in power, he makes the same argument former Confederates made after the war to keep those who would use the government for the public good from voting.

Talking Points Memo has been equally blunt. In a recent Morning Memo titled “Trump Pushes White Nationalist Agenda Across Multiple Fronts,” Josh Marshall wrote that Trump’s anti-immigrant animus is

fundamentally a story about racism, xenophobia, and othering. It’s about preying on our fears, differences, and prejudices to create a villainous foe whom he can easily vanquish in repeated set-pieces. It’s about letting loose the worst of our impulses to heighten and sustain divisions among us.

The mass deportation agenda is just one part of a larger agenda in which white Americans are fronted as the real America and everyone else is second-class, unless they individually demonstrate in lavish ways a high enough degree of fealty to Donald Trump.

And at Lincoln Square, Stuart Stevens was even more direct, writing that Trump is a racist and that fact needs to be called out.

After decades of evidence — the dog whistles, the calls for innocent black men to be executed, the bizarre fixation on the Confederacy, his alliance with known Nazis and White Christian Nationalists — saying these things, that Donald Trump is a fascist, that he is a racist, should be the least controversial thing to say about him….

For seven months, he’s rounded up brown people for deportation, imprisonment, or total disappearance. He’s attempting to convince his base that slavery wasn’t so bad, after all. Some in his orbit are echoing this sentiment, going so far as to claim we shouldn’t actually blame white people for slavery.

He doesn’t like Black or brown people. Nearly every action is motivated by that dislike. Every breath he takes is flush with a fear and hatred of people who are not white.

What would you call that?

Ever since 2016, Americans of goodwill have tied ourselves in knots trying to understand why any sentient person would vote for Donald Trump–an ignorant buffoon with a limited intellect and unlimited self-regard. The answer to that question has always been obvious, despite a well-meaning desire that it not be so. 

James Carville was wrong. It isn’t “the economy, stupid.” It’s the racism, stupid! As my youngest son observed, way back in 2016, only two kinds of people voted for Donald Trump: those who shared his racism, and those for whom it wasn’t disqualifying.

The civil war really never ended. It just morphed.

Comments

A Fascinating Analysis

The other day, I came across a fascinating–and persuasive–analysis of MAGA’s fixation with the Confederacy and other “losing” episodes of American history. The author, Kristoffer Ealy, a political psychologist, did a deep dive into the pathology, and found what can only be considered one of the major wellsprings of the deep resentments that power the MAGA mindset.

What triggered his exploration was a media report about a southern Board of Education voting to restore the name of Robert E. Lee to the area high school.

As Ealy explained, he began his research with the conviction that there had to be a reason for people clinging so frantically to a symbol of defeat. Why, he asked, would people treat defeat like a comfort food? Clearly, this goes beyond mere “nostalgia.” As he concluded, it becomes “victimhood identity.”

Losing doesn’t just become part of the deal for MAGA — it is the deal. In psychology this is often called victimhood identity, where people begin to see themselves as perpetual victims of life, defining their entire self-image through the lens of being wronged. They come to expect mistreatment, distrust attempts to help, and use grievances as proof of their own righteousness. That’s why Trump can never just win cleanly — he has to make it a mythical landslide stolen by the “deep state,” because if he simply wins, the grievance-based identity collapses.

Layered into that is the contrarian mindset. You know the type — everyone has that one friend who has to disagree with everything, not because they’ve thought it through, but because their identity is wrapped up in opposition. My MAGA acquaintance is like that: if you ask him why he supports the movement, he can’t give a concrete answer. He’ll just start rattling off disconnected complaints—“woke indoctrination,” “globalists,” “cultural Marxism”—with no context, no follow-up, and no plan. It’s not about what he believes; it’s about making sure he’s on the opposite side of whatever you’re on. It’s conflict for conflict’s sake, and when you mix that reflexive opposition with a deeply ingrained victim identity, you get a worldview where losing isn’t a problem — it’s the whole point.

Another dimension of that victimhood identity is what Ealy calls “glorification of martyrdom” —a tendency to romanticize sacrifice and loss as inherently noble. As he points out, once you glorify a loss, the outcome–the fact that you lost– becomes irrelevant. So to the MAGA mindset, the Civil War wasn’t a bloody, pointless rebellion. It was a heroic last stand. As he writes, “The statues aren’t about historical literacy; they’re altars to a story in which defeat proves righteousness. If the statues come down, the tangible symbols of “our eternal struggle” come down with them — and that’s an existential threat to an identity built on keeping the wound open.”

Given this mindset, facts become irrelevant. Suffering becomes the whole point.

All of this sits on top of an external locus of control — the belief that everything bad happens because of someone else. Nothing is ever the result of their own bad choices or failed leadership. The Confederacy didn’t lose because it built its economy on slavery and overestimated its military; it lost because the North had more resources. Trump doesn’t lose elections because of his rhetoric or policies; he loses because of “cheating,” “the media,” or “corrupt officials.” It’s a worldview where the story always ends with “we were robbed,” never “we blew it.”

This analysis rings true to me. It certainly helps to explain the deep-seated animus toward those the movement labels “other”–non-Whites, women, gay folks. It’s their fault that good “Christian” White guys are losing social dominance. Those good guys are victims of society’s hated efforts at inclusion–efforts MAGA sees not as an attempt to level a tilted playing field, but as attempts to divest them of their rightful place in the social order. As Ealy notes, once you begin to look, you see this victim framework everywhere.

The article is lengthy, with enlightening examples. It explains a lot, and it’s well worth the time to read in its entirety.

Comments

The Ten Commandments

 A  Judge recently struck down a Texas law, modeled after one in Oklahoma that was also ruled unconstitutional, requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

This effort surfaces every few years, as Christian Nationalists try to use government buildings to send a message that only certain people are “real Americans.” Given the periodic eruption of this effort, I thought I’d just share what I’ve previously posted about these efforts–and why they are blatantly inconsistent with the Bill of Rights.

Way back in 1997, I wrote:

If I believed passionately that everyone would be better off for reading the Ten Commandments, what would I do? 

I would probably start by distributing leaflets containing the Ten Commandments everywhere I could–on street corners, at the grocery store, at sports and entertainment events. I might ask local churches and individuals to erect replicas of the Ten Commandments on their lawns or porches.

I would ask local newspapers to reproduce them; if the papers would not do so as a contribution, I would try to raise the money to buy a paid advertisement, which would stress the importance of the Commandments to the development of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

I would use the Internet to find others who agreed with me on the importance of widespread distribution, and would engage them in my project. Or I might sell tee shirts printed with the Commandments if I could afford that or could raise the money. 

I would find a group of young people to form a Ten Commandments Club, to spread the word. Or I might hold a rally, and bring in people to speak about the importance of the Ten Commandments in their lives.

And of course, I would do my very best to live up to the principles of the Commandments and other great religious precepts.  (“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” comes to mind; there are many others.)

Every single one of these methods for promoting the Ten Commandments and righteous behavior is protected by the Free Exercise Clause.

If, however, all I really want is for my government to send a message that my particular beliefs are the proper ones, I won’t bother with any of these time-consuming activities. I will petition my local county officials to post the Commandments so that everyone visiting a public building will know who really belongs in this country and who doesn’t. It will be important that my document appear on government-owned buildings, so it will be very clear what my government approves–and by implication, what (and who) it doesn’t.

Unfortunately for those who wish to be more equal than others, the First Amendment forbids government from issuing such endorsements, just as it would forbid the passage of laws requiring the posting of the Bill of Rights in all churches. The First Amendment protects our right to advocate in the public square, but it forbids us to enlist the help of the 800 pound gorilla– the public sector.

And about that “sacred” text? In 2024, I wrote,

Most of us have seen the news that Louisiana now requires posting the Ten Commandments in that state’s schoolrooms. What I hadn’t seen reported–until I read a fascinating article from Salon–is that the version to be posted comes not from the Bible, but from Hollywood. Rather than go to any of the biblical texts, Louisiana opted for Cecil B. DeMille’s, taking the version to be posted from “The Ten Commandments.”

Well, Christian Nationalists aren’t known for consulting original texts. Or for honesty.

The cited article quoted a scholar who pointed out that The Ten Commandments recounted in Exodus 34 are nothing like the list with which most people are familiar. It starts off: “Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you.”

As he noted, the version passed by the State Senate doesn’t appear in any Bible. It is a “highly Christianized version” with “Judaic elements removed.”

As I concluded in that post, Christian Nationalism has two goals: to signal to the MAGA base that they are culture warriors fighting “leftism, Marxism, woke-ism, state-sponsored atheism or whatever else scares conservative white Americans;” and as a distraction from Republican policy failures. It’s notable that US News recently ranked Louisiana dead last among all 50 states, and 47th in education.

The Christian Nationalist’s Ten Commandments agenda stands for the proposition that America is a Christian nation, and Christians (of the right variety) should control every facet of it.

It’s hard to get more unAmerican than that.

Comments

Follow The Money–Hulk Hogan Version

Regular readers of this blog know that I focus a lot on what I call the “information environment,” and its immense effect on our politics and government. I particularly worry about the increasingly fragmented nature of that environment, and the ability the Internet offers to occupy a “reality” of our individual choosing.

It isn’t only the proliferation of what we might call “alternative fact” sources, and the ease of accessing them. The so-called “legacy media” hasn’t exactly covered itself with glory. Respectable outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times have–for one reason or another (Jeff Bezos or ??) normalized the distinctly abnormal demented and deteriorating President. The recent rise of alternative sources like Substack has included some excellent truth-tellers, but most Americans lack the time, interest or background information needed to seek them out.

To call the present overall media environment unsatisfactory–to point out that the absence of truth-telling journalism endangers democratic decision-making–does not seem an overstatement.

Given the reality of all this, I was intrigued by a recent essay by Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memo (which is one of the reliable and perceptive alternative sources available.) That essay attributed much of the currently unsatisfactory nature of our media to Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker, which the essay called “a seminal event prefiguring and laying the groundwork for much of what has happened in the last decade.”

The facts are simple. Hogan was a tabloid celebrity. Gawker published a tape of him having sex with a woman who wasn’t his wife. Hogan sued Gawker for invasion of privacy. At the time, as Marshall wrote, “It was hard to take seriously that this was a righteous fight for the First Amendment…. publishing someone’s sex tape struck me as reckless, difficult to justify in journalistic terms and frankly hard to defend.”

Hogan got a $140 million judgement…. Without $140 million, Gawker couldn’t appeal. The company and its owner, Denton, were forced into bankruptcy. And that was the end of Gawker and its stable of sites. Some of those — Jezebel, Gizmodo, Deadspin, even the Gawker site proper (Gawker Inc. was the company that owned all these sites) have had post-bankruptcy zombie existences. But basically that was it.

That lawsuit was a critical event of our time, and Gawker’s destruction was a body blow to the First Amendment. Hogan’s lawyer, Charles Harder, wasn’t just any libel lawyer. He had whole new ways of going about it. After Harder’s victory for Hogan, his new approaches to attacking media companies were quickly folded into the Trump political movement, not just the strategies but Harder’s firm itself. You see them again and again in numerous Trump and MAGA world lawsuits.

It turned out that Hogan himself was the cat’s paw of Peter Thiel who funded the entire litigation. Hogan himself must have been a wealthy man but the bills of a major libel suit is a very iffy investment. Denton had suspected that someone was footing the bill behind the scenes — perhaps even Thiel. Money seemed like no object in how the lawsuit proceeded. Thiel took all those worries and risks away. Thiel held a grudge over Gawker’s past negative coverage of him and had been plotting its destruction behind the scenes. Thiel’s use of Hogan presaged the current world of billionaire lawsuits in which limitless money can overcome the weakness of meritless litigation. (See the recent Times story on how Elon Musk and MAGA attorneys general have brought Media Matters to its knees.) The rich have always put their wealth on the scales of justice. But Thiel’s actions opened new terrain, as did the explosion of billionaire wealth taking shape at the same time…

Gawker wasn’t damaged. It was destroyed. It ceased to exist. For what was essentially pocket change, Thiel got his revenge. In that one suit, you can see the evil vapors of Trumpism and its oligarchic billionaire milieu congealing into solid matter for everything that was to come. In so doing, Harder and Thiel radically raised the stakes for all journalism in the United States. The combination of billionaire money, novel legal theories, venue shopping and quirks of civil litigation at the state level (the fact that Gawker was prevented from appealing a judgement that never would have survived appeal) changed everything that goes through a publisher’s mind when they click the publish button.

It’s the new Golden Rule: he who has the gold, rules…and sets the narrative…

Comments