Kareem Abdul-Jabbar responds to PRRI's latest poll, which finds that a majority of Americans across almost all faith lines and in almosst all states support legal access to abortion. But white Christian nationalists strongly oppose this:
"As Tears for Fears warned, 'Everybody wants to rule the world.' That’s why we have to be so vigilant in monitoring every group’s motivations."
"Christian nationalists are one of the worst possible groups to have any say in our government because they are at their core against the U.S. Constitution. They want everyone to live under Christian rule, even though there is very little consensus among Christians on what Christianity is."
"More than half of Trump supporters in 2024 are evangelicals. Imagine that. People who profess to be Christian continue to support a vile, law-breaking, Constitution-defying, racist, abusive, lying, insurrectionist."
Greg Sargent talks with Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, about Trump's bible grift. He notes that evangelical leaders are conspicuously quiet about what Trump is doing with the bible. Is he making promises to them that he'll let them install a Christian nationalist government if he's elected?
"You can hardly ask for a better example of Christian nationalism [than this bible combining the scriptures with the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Pledge of Allegiance]."
"This ideology is a tool for a leadership-driven political machine that turns this mythology that the US was founded by and for white Christians into political power."
Paul Waldman on why Trump's bible grift may be comical, but it's not funny:
"We had been led to believe that what evangelicals wanted was a candidate who was like them, who knew the hymns, could quote scripture, and held Jesus in his heart. But that turned out not to be true. What they wanted — and they may not have known it themselves until Trump came along —was someone who would validate their hatreds and promise them power."
"As Sarah Posner, author of Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump told me not long ago, Trump has effectively sidelined religious right leaders because he’s the leader of the religious right now, and the fact that he knows nothing about the Bible or evangelical culture is irrelevant.
They see him as their ally in a battle against demonic forces; Trump is essentially their weapon in a holy war."
The Guardian editorializes about why, rather than spin comforting fables about why Trump's Iowa win may mean little in the grand scheme of things, those of us concerned about the damage another Trump term would do to the world need to pay attention:
"It is an ominous portent that he had persuaded voters, especially religious ones, that it was better to win with vice than to lose with virtue."
“White evangelicals heartily endorse a crook and a rapist apparently because they expect that he will put in place the world they envision, one controlled by white, patriarchal evangelical Christians.”
"God Made Trump": that's the title of a video Trump posted on social media last Friday, designed to wow his white evangelical fanbase, who will be thrilled to hear lines like this:
"On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, 'I need a caretaker.' So God gave us Trump."
And there's more, if you care to read the linked article and watch the clip….
Spencer Overton takes a close look at how white Christian nationalists have increasing influence and control in the Republican party of Wisconsin — and not only Wisconsin. He writes,
"Their religious interpretation of the US’s founding has propelled these groups not only into fights over elections administration but also against vaccine requirements and protections for transgender people."
And see Tim Alberta's new essay, "The Only Thing More Dangerous Than Authoritarianism," which states that "the forces of Christian nationalism are now ascendant both inside the Church and inside the Republican Party" — and this is dangerous for the nation and for churches, as well.
Pauline Jones and Andrew Murphy report on how the determination of right-wing Christians, largely white and almost exclusively Republican, to chip away at rights of targeted minority communities like the LGBTQ community erodes American democracy. This should concern all of us since the bloc controlling the current Supreme Court is determined to further the goals of this right-wing Christian minority.
Jim Stewartson on how and why christofascists are seeking to drive us all off the cliff:
"The instability, hatred and rising threats of violence, specifically the push towards 'race war,' 'holy war,' 'spiritual war,' etc. from propagandists is not just rhetoric. It’s the actual goal, not just of a few extremists, but of large swaths of society."
“Since his rise to power, with winks and nods to white supremacists and claims such as ‘I am your voice,’ Trump became the symbol of white Christian entitlement and power in a rapidly changing country. MAGA, with its siren song of loss and nostalgia in that final word ‘again’, was crafted as a rallying cry for this sentiment.”