Christian Nationalism is a giant threat to our country. A danger to women, to minorities, to the marginalized and to democracy itself. While these white, Christian nationalists believe they’re saving the country from heathenism, what they’re really offering is a theocracy of top down control with themselves at the top. We must see this threat for what it is, and that starts with understanding. Tim Whitaker is the founder of the New Evangelicals, an inclusive, Jesus-centered community that holds space for those marginalized by the evangelical church and advocates for systemic change. Raised deep in the evangelical world – Tim had a crisis of faith watching his church leaders embrace a man who was so antithetical to what he had been taught to believe. He now holds the toxic churches and their leaders accountable, while still offering a home of faith to his fellow Christians. Please join us for this incredibly engaging conversation. As always, if you find worth in what we do, please consider SUBSCRIBING to PoliticsGirl Premium. You’ll get this podcast ad free, along with a bunch of other perks, like the rants directly to your inbox and the knowledge that you’re making this kind of highly researched, factual information possible. If that interests you, please go to https://www.politicsgirl.com/premium and subscribe today!! Thank you so much! xoPG Guest social: https://www.thenewevangelicals.com/ Twitter: @newvangelicals Facebook:The New Evangelicals Instagram: @thenewevangelicals YouTube: @TheNewEvangelicals As always, please RATE and SUBSCRIBE so we can grow the show, open the dialogue, and inspire change moving forward! All show links here!: https://linktr.ee/politicsgirl This episode is sponsored by… https://marleyspoon.com/offer/politicsgirl code: politicsgirl https://moshlife.com/politicsgirlhttps://rhone.com/politicsgirl code: PoliticsGirl https://sundaysfordogs/politicsgirl
It has come to my attention that Iran’s supreme ruler Ayatollah Khamenei has written an open letter to American college students commending their anti-war, pro-Palestine protests. The gall of the man…trying to score points with his virtue signaling. Modern day #Iran is the WORST kind of #Theocracy - run by pious, self-righteous ultra conservative mullahs. The fact the state has a “morality police” tells you all you need to know. This is the country that murders young girls for not having their hair properly covered, after beating them. The country that sentences rappers to death for speaking truth to power. What a sorry state the once great #Persia has become. Thanks to Yashar Ali for alerting me to this matter. I highly recommend his newsletter. #protests#Gaza#GazaProtests
"Alito and his robed gang are modern American fascism's real bulwark—the final reason that this cult of creepy religious bigots really could get their way in the end. There's no law these justices can't abrogate, no protection of citizens they can't demolish with a wave of a manicured hand, for whatever reason they want to make up," (continued in /2)
“Nobody’s suggesting that the woman is not an individual, and she doesn’t … she doesn’t deserve stabilization. Nobody’s suggesting that,” [Alito] snapped.
A bill in Louisiana, HB 777, would make it a crime for librarians to use public funds to join the American Librarian Association or attend an ALA conference, punishable with prison time and hard labor for up to two years.
You may not think about #Tim#Dunn.
Indeed, unless you’re a close observer of Texas politics, it’s likely you haven’t heard of him.
But Dunn thinks a lot about you.
For two decades he has been quietly, methodically, and patiently building a political machine that has pushed Texas forcefully to the right, sending more and more members of the centrist wing of the Republican Party into exile.
A 68-year-old #oil#billionaire, Dunn seeks to transform Texas into something resembling a #theocracy.
👉If you ever wonder why state laws and policies are more radical than most Texans would prefer, the answer has a lot to do with Dunn and his #checkbook.
If you question why Texas’s elected officials no longer represent the majority of Texans’ views, the reason can be traced to the tactics employed by Dunn and the many organizations and politicians he funds and influences.
He has built his own caucus within the Legislature that is financially beholden to him.
And despite his Sunday school pleas for comity, Dunn has deepened Texas’s political divisions:
there are the Democrats and what remains of the mainstream conservative Republican Party.
And then there are Dunn and his allies.
For Dunn, politics, work, and religion all run together.
“I have very deliberately unsegmented my life,” he said in 2022 on a podcast hosted by Ken Harrison, the chair of #Promise#Keepers, a national evangelical group for men.
“I don’t have one approach in business and another approach in ministry and another approach in church . . . I work for God, and God has given me a bunch of jobs to do.”
Dunn directs that work from the center of a hive of his own creation, surrounded by politicians and pastors, fellow oil billionaires, and political consultants, all of whom are carrying out his vision.
I had a GYN checkup along with my annual physical. The nurse filling in forms asked me about history of births, stillbirths, miscarriages, abortions. I told her in this state of #Alabama I'd never tell a doctor if I'd ever had an abortion bc one day the state will come for all women's medical records & start attacking even old ladies like me. So I said the answer for your computer data is NO. I had several miscarriages and didn't even tell her that. #fascism#theocracy#abortion#VoteBlue
Thomas Zimmer on what's at stake in the 2024 election"
"This isn't actually about Biden versus Trump. It's basically a referendum on whether or not an effort at achieving a democratic pluralistic multiracial society should be continued or abolished altogether. It's basically thumbs up or down on, on democratic self government and the civil rights order."
"We face here in America an important election, probably the most important one in our lifetimes, no matter what age you are. We face clear choices this cycle about who we are as a nation, as people, and as what we want the nations’s future to be."
"The best approach to understanding the Right has always been to take seriously and actually grapple with their vision for American society. In that sense, 'Project 2025' is tremendously helpful. Rightwing leaders could not possibly be clearer about the reactionary vision they want to impose on the country."
"One of the key architects of Donald Trump’s plans for a second administration has been quite public about the driving force animating that radical agenda: a 'cold civil war' to be won by those willing to use 'biblical principles' to 'instruct government' to do what the MAGA right wants."
"If you ever wonder why state laws and policies are more radical than most Texans would prefer, the answer has a lot to do with Dunn and his checkbook. If you question why Texas’s elected officials no longer represent the majority of Texans’ views, the reason can be traced to the tactics employed by Dunn and the many organizations and politicians he funds and influences."
If you have never heard of the "Society for American Civic Renewal" (the acronym is pronounced “#sacker” by its members), it’s because they’ve been trying to stay under the radar.
Now that they are getting uncovered, they are attempting to manage the news coming out about them.
They are working to fundamentally reshape America to their vision. It sounds like a classic conspiracy theory — a bunch of rich white men on a mission from God? Really?
The thing is, there’s something about people who have managed to accumulate wealth, whether in business or by other means (like inheritance) that practically breeds hubris.
The prosperity gospel preaches that wealth is a sign that God has especially favored you, and you are privileged to rule over others by virtue of that wealth.
Kovensky has been able to unearth some details on what #SACR is about.
What is it? Among other things…
...The men TPM has identified as behind this group — and they are all men — have a few things in common. They’re all a certain kind of devout #Christian#traditionalist. They are #white. They have means, #financial and social, and are engaged in #politics.
...The members identified by TPM don’t necessarily fit the profile of the disaffected, disgruntled loner or the amped-up, testosterone-fueled militia types often found on the paranoid right-wing fringe. TPM’s reporting has identified as SACR members the president of the influential, Trump-aligned #Claremont#Institute, #Harvard#Law grads, and leading businessmen in communities scattered across America.
...Group members hold a distinct vision of America as a latter-day ancient Rome: a crumbling, decadent empire that could soon be replaced by a Christian #theocracy.
To join, the group demands faithfulness, virtue, and “#alignment,” which it describes as “#deference to and acceptance of the wisdom of our American and European Christian forebears in the political realm, a traditional understanding of #patriarchal#leadership in the household, and acceptance of traditional #Natural#Law in ethics more broadly.”
More practically, members must be able to contribute either influence, capability, or wealth in helping SACR further its goals.
Matthew Sheffield, who was raised in a fundamentalist Mormon family and was once a right-wing Republican activist, explains why it's futile to try to reason with Trump's white Christian nationalist base, whose aim is to dominate and force us to dance to its theocratic tune, not to reason or to accept pluralistic democracy:
"The Christian Nationalists’ God is petty, insecure, cruel, authoritarian. Their God, like their favored presidential candidate, demands above all else obedience and loyalty. Their God sees only a few as 'elect': Mike Johnson and his ilk, straight men, blastocysts and frozen embryos. All the others He casts out. Their God is not inclusive; their Paradise, a fascist state."
"For most of my life, American Christians were cheerleaders for democracy. That’s when we were in charge of the democracy.
Today, oddly, many conservative Christians no longer believe in or support democracy. They seem to favor a kind of theocracy or autocracy — so long as they have control. Anything they can’t control is called communism or Marxism, whether it really is or not."
#Israel subjects its soldiers to absurd disciplinary actions based on religious notions related to work on the #sabbath. They're legislating #Judaism the same way #ChristianNationalists are attempting to impose #Christianity on the whole of the nation. This isn't freedom, it's #theocracy. It's hard to support Israel when they're behaving reprehensibly at every turn.
#Trump & Co. intend to force a #theocracy despite our Constitution expressly forbidding any establishment of religion.
Jews, Muslims, agnostics, atheists, and actual Christians should be horrified by words below from a retired general who has shown his disloyalty to America..👇🏼
Trump’s former (& future?) nat sec adviser Mike Flynn: “If we are going to have one nation under God which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God and one religion under God”
"Trump world was not ready in 2017. Non one understands this more clearly than the American Right. The conservative machine was late to endorse Trumpism and hadn’t been fully mobilized in time to provide the personnel or policy plans. 'Malevolence hampered by incompetence' was a prominent dictum in the early months of Trump’s first presidency…."
"The same extremists lining up to support a federal abortion ban, that would override hard-earned reproductive freedoms in states like Ohio, are now tripping all over themselves to profess their support for IVF and personal choice. Yeah right."
"If there is a silver lining from this ruling out of Alabama, it’s that people are waking up to the radical Christian worldview that has infected right-wing politics and the judiciary…and the threat it poses to our nation."