Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is set to have his first campaign event Monday in Iowa, and during a weekend interview, he said as president he would ‘destroy leftism’ and ‘woke ideology’. The Morning Joe panel discusses DeSantis’ remarks and how they play to a small audience.
This is the republicans clearly showing they do not want democracy but instead want to rule. They are drive to rule over the people instead of being civil servants. They demand districts that they cannot lose and no democrat can win no matter who the people wish to represent them. They demand to pick their voters and enforce their will on them rather than pass the laws the people want. Why? Because power gives them access to personal wealth and also the ability to force their church doctrines on the public regardless if the public has the same religious faith. The ability to push their god on everyone, forcing everyone to worship as they do is paramount to them. Making it the law to follow what their religious views are is more important to them than personal liberty or democracy. Hugs
The measure would affect any county that has a population of more than 4 million people – Harris County is the only county in the state that meets that criterion.
Harris County is a bright blue spot in a red state. Donald Trump won Texas’ presidential election in 2020 by six points, even as he lost the county by 13 points to Joe Biden.
This is brazen gaslighting! This is a major victory for Texas GOP authoritarianism and and big defeat for democracy. You are targeting Harris County to eliminate its independent elections administrator, so you can suppress votes & overturn elections results you don't like. https://t.co/UCL5KAn2e0
The first bill, S.B.1070, would abolish the elections administrator position in counties with more than 3.5 million people—which *only* includes Harris County.
The Texas Legislature is sending two election bills to Gov. Abbott (R) for signing: #SB1933, which would allow the state to take over election administration in Harris County, and #SB1070, which would allow Texas to leave the data voter organization ERIC. https://t.co/efLSpv5bmN
— Democracy Docket (@DemocracyDocket) May 29, 2023
#SB1933 will allow the secretary of state to take over election administration if they have "good cause to believe" that recurrent election problems exist in a county. The bill would only apply to counties with over 4 million residents. Only Harris County fits that criterion.
— Democracy Docket (@DemocracyDocket) May 29, 2023
I fully expect to see similar legislation in other red states.
Republicans can’t win elections fairly, so where gerrymandering has given them the power they either block people from registering and voting, or stop counting their votes through stunts such as this.
Texas will settle for nothing less in the long term but a neoapartheid with white people in absolute control of brown people. That’s what I see whenever majority Latino districts are disenfranchised, there’s always a creepy old white guy like Mr. Century 21 jacket up there involved, churches and oil money.
This is terrifying for a secular country and personal liberty. Hugs
The rise of Donald Trump on the backs of conservative Christian voters has led to a national debate over Christian nationalism and the role of religion in American culture. But few people agree on what Christian nationalism is.
White #MAGA QAnon Jesus image carried during the Jan. 6, 2021, invasion of the Capitol. Photo by Tyler Merbler/Flickr/Creative Commons
(RNS) — Julie Green had good news when she stood up to speak during the ReAwaken America Tour’s latest stop last week at the Trump National Hotel Doral near Miami.
God had told her that Joe Biden was on his way out, she said, according to videos of the event. And God’s people were going to win.
“We’re in the greatest battle for the soul of the nation this nation has ever been in since the founding of this nation,” said Green, an Iowa pastor known as a charismatic prophet and fervent supporter of former President Donald Trump.
God’s people, as Green’s theology makes clear, are her fellow Christians. And they would win, she added, because they would not give up: “You’re not quitting on what is rightfully yours,” she told the audience.
Green’s comments captured an essential element of Christian nationalism: The idea that America belongs to and exists for the benefit of Christians.Green’s fellow ReAwaken America Tour speakers — disgraced former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Eric Trump and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, alongside pastors and prophets — are some of the loudest and best-known proponents of the ideology, which helped fuel Trump’s rise to the White House and has made national headlines since the Jan. 6 riot.
But its ubiquity, and the charge it carries in the current political debate, has made Christian nationalism a seemingly infinitely malleable term, one directed at times at anyone who supports Trump or any part of his agenda, and adopted by some who call themselves Christian and take patriotic pride in their country.
That doesn’t stop anyone from having an opinion about Christian nationalism, Perry said. “Either they’re very much for it or they’re very much against it.”
Perry argues that Christian nationalism is not a synonym for evangelical Christians. And not everyone who “votes their values” — a term often used by politically active conservative Christians — qualifies as a Christian nationalist. Nor do people who want religion to play a part in public life, he said.
Perry and Whitehead have defined Christian nationalism this way: “a cultural framework that blurs distinctions between Christian identity and American identity, viewing the two as closely related and seeking to enhance and preserve their union.”
In an interview, Perry contrasted that view with “civil religion”— when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. invoked the promises of the Declaration of Independence or President Barack Obama led a grieving congregation in singing “Amazing Grace.” These moments combined spiritual ideas and political moments.
Christian nationalism, Perry said, is more about who should be in charge.
“The difference between Christian nationalism and civil religion is Christian nationalism says this country was founded by our people for a people like us and it should stay that way,” said Perry.
In order to see how many people subscribed to this idea, Perry and Whitehead looked at data developed for the 2017 Baylor Religion Survey, which asked Americans to respond to statements such as “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation” and “The federal government should advocate Christian values.” The Baylor researchers also asked about prayer in school and the separation of church and state.
In an interview, Perry said that some of the Baylor questions were a start, but the answers they yielded were too vague. He and Whitehead, along with other researchers, have fielded several national surveys in the past two years that Perry said have helped differentiate Christian nationalism from other, adjacent beliefs.
In 2022, the Pew Research Center found that 60% of Americans surveyed agreed the nation’s founders intended the country to be a Christian nation. Forty-five percent agreed the U.S. should be a Christian nation. But even among those who say the country should be a Christian nation, only about a quarter said the country should be declared a Christian nation (28%) or should advocate for Christian values (24%). About a third said the government should stop enforcing the separation of church and state.
A recent survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found that 10% of Americans embrace Christian nationalism, while an additional 19% are sympathetic to its ideals.
Paul Djupe. Courtesy photo
Paul Djupe, a political scientist at Denison University and co-author of an upcoming book called “The Full Armor of God,” recently retested some of the Baylor survey questions with some modifications. He wanted to know, for example, what people meant by America being a Christian nation and what it means to promote Christian values.
Does the latter mean promoting a more just society or one that sees everyone as made in God’s image? Does it mean values like loving your neighbor? Or does it mean enforcing Christian views over other views?
When Djupe modified Baylor’s statement “The federal government should advocate Christian values” to add “for the benefit of Christians,” he found there was little drop-off in support for that statement, leading him to suspect that those who support that statement had a more exclusive view of those values.
His survey also asked people to respond to the statement: “The Church should have a final say over whether legislation becomes law in the U.S.” Those who supported such a veto correlated highly with those who scored high on Baylor’s Christian nationalist scale.
Djupe found enduring support for a doctrine known as the “Seven Mountains Mandate,” which claims Christians should rule in seven sectors: home, religion, schools, business, media, entertainment and government.
The idea was popularized by leaders such as Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade, a prominent evangelical campus ministry now known as Cru, and Loren Cunningham, longtime leader of Youth with a Mission, whose “7 spheres of influence” echoed the seven mountains.
“Christian Nationalists are Strong Believers in the Seven Mountain Mandate” Graphic courtesy of Paul Djupe
It was later adopted by charismatic leaders such as Lance Wallnau, known for his prophecies that Trump was God’s anointed.
“It’s like king of the mountain, only with much higher stakes,” said Djupe.
Matthew D. Taylor, a Protestant scholar at the Institute for Islamic-Christian-Jewish Studies in Maryland, says that the idea of dominion over all areas of life is central to what he refers to as Christian supremacy, a term he prefers to Christian nationalism.
Christian supremacy, he said, is more about Christians ruling over others. Taylor, creator of the “Charismatic Revival Fury” podcast series, which looks at the role charismatic Christian beliefs played on Jan. 6, pointed to prophets such as Green, who supported Trump because God told them who he wanted to be president.
“That’s deeply anti-democratic,” he said. “You can say, God has appointed this person. But that is not how democracy works. “
Taylor said that existing research into Christian nationalism is concerned with beliefs about the history and identity of the United States, but it misses the idea that “Christians should be privileged in society and should exert a coercive effect on society.”
“I think a lot of times people are trying to say, ‘America was founded with Christian values and these things are embedded within the essence of America,’” he said. “But it doesn’t say much about policy.”
In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, a man holds a Bible as Trump supporters gather outside the Capitol in Washington. The Christian imagery and rhetoric on view during the Capitol insurrection are sparking renewed debate about the societal effects of melding Christian faith with an exclusionary breed of nationalism. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Sarah Posner, a journalist and author of “Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump,” recalled seeing Christian nationalist themes in 2011, at the Response, a God and Country prayer rally organized by then-presidential candidate Rick Perry. “It was definitely ‘we need to take back America,’” she said.
But before the Trump era, that meant using democratic means. Since 2020, Posner said, the focus has been on rejecting the results of elections. “Before Trump, no one had permission to stage a coup.”
She said that the arguments over specific definitions of Christian nationalism can overshadow the movement’s main focus, which is power.
“Christian nationalism is not a pejorative. It is a description,” she said. “They have said that America is a Christian nation. How much clearer do they have to be?”
Julie Ingersoll. Photo via Twitter
Julie Ingersoll, professor of religious studies and author of “Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstruction,” pointed out that Christian nationalists don’t necessarily share a single theology. Influential religious figures such as R.J. Rushdoony and other conservative social and political activists known as “reconstructionists” have long believed that Christians should have dominion over the world. But their theology is different from that of charismatics like Julie Green.
“It’s fluid and messy,” she said. “People want to make it neat and clean and divide these groups up and put them into little boxes with labels on them. Because that is more comfortable.”
But Ingersoll said religious differences between Christian nationalism and the broader evangelical movement are less important because, she argues, both are as much political as they are theological.
Still, she stresses that when Christian nationalists say that their candidate or party was chosen by God to win, they really mean it. And they may not be willing to let democracy get in the way of God’s will.
“The niceties of democracy fall by the wayside when you are on God’s side fighting Satan.”
A controversial six-week abortion ban bill is headed to South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster’s desk to be signed into law after the measure cleared the state Senate Tuesday. The state Senate approved a House-amended version of the bill by a vote of 27-19, after that chamber passed it last week.
A bipartisan group of five women lawmakers in the state Senate banded together to try to stop the bill from passing Tuesday. Republican state Sen. Katrina Shealy, before she voted no, attempted to push through an amendment to change the limit on abortions to 12 weeks, and 20 weeks for victims of rape and incest.
“Men are 100% responsible for pregnancies,” said Shealy, as she introduced her amendment. “Men are fertile 100% of the time. So, it is time for men in this chamber and the ones across that hall and all across the state of South Carolina to take some ejaculation responsibility.”
“It’s time for men in this chamber and the ones across that hall and all across the state of South Carolina, to take some ejaculation responsibility,” South Carolina Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, says in her remarks. pic.twitter.com/5o0x4CZFAS
— Maayan Schechter (@MaayanSchechter) May 23, 2023
The bill passed despite protest from the Senate's five women. “We in the South Carolina Legislature are not God. We do not know what’s going on in somebody else’s life. We do not have the right to make decisions for someone else," Sen. Katrina Shealy said.https://t.co/GnOxZpnLBW
If you’re a man, who isn’t a physician, you likely know diddly about women’s reproductive system. Women have ALWAYS carried the total responsibility of contraception, pregnancy and all that goes with it, yet it is primarily men making these arbitrary laws governing what women can and cannot do with our bodies, while they accept zero responsibility for the circumstance. All I have to say is, straight men better pray to their Jesus that women never rule because when it happens vasectomy, at the request of the woman, will become LAW. SNIP, SNIP mother Fuckers. Sorry boys, no ill will towards y’all. 😂
If they are going to pass laws prohibiting abortion, I have no problems with a law that requires vasectomy for all men over the age of 16. You can reverse it only upon proof of marriage, and a signed statement from your wife that you are ready and able to raise children. You will have to prove you have the income or assets to provide for your children, and the mental stability etc just like people have to prove for adoption. This will have the added benefit insuring that children have real parents.
Men never understand how difficult and dangerous contraceptive medications are for women. The pills are difficult to manage and are not 100% effective. They also pose risks of breast and uterine cancer and the devices pose risks of infection, sterilization and tubal pregnancy. Women’s choices for contraception all carry significant risks, including invasive surgical procedures. For men a vasectomy is a fast, in office procedure, with minimal risk and usually reversible. But, men don’t want to be bothered or have their potency jeopardized, it’s preferable to let women take 100% of the risk.
I’m reminded of how many forced birthers apparently believe women get pregnant all by themselves.
And as a side note, I still remember the forced birther people who lambast women for having sex at all eagerly kissing Roy Moore’s ass and claimed his creepy predator behavior was biblical and shit.
Well she definitely has addressed the unmentionable other half of the problem We always point the finger and point AT the pregnancy but never HOW the pregnancy began Oh no the male is always a silent champ
I’m imagining abortion bans leading to a new trend of paternity lawsuits, child support judgments and pissed off dudes. And maybe that’s the only path back to sanity.
Notice what the parents and teachers say. They claim the Christian majority if forcing a Christian view on their kids that they don’t agree with and is not needed, also that in order to promote their Christian conservative views the religious majority on the board is willing to destroy the school district. Hugs
Things have gotten so bad that even Republicans in the district are complaining:
“I think they look at us as this petri dish where they can really push all their agenda and theories,” said Joe Dohrn, a Woodland Park father who described himself as a staunch Republican and “very capitalistic.” “They clearly are willing to sacrifice the public school and to put students presently in the public school through years of disarray to drive home their ideological beliefs. It’s a travesty.”
…
“They’re trying to push a certain agenda down to these kids,” Amy Schommer, a mother in Woodland Park, said of the school board’s adoption of American Birthright. “I’m a conservative but I’m not against my kids learning something they disagree with. They’re trying to fix problems that don’t exist here.”
… Witt, as president of the school board in neighboring Jefferson County, supported a plan in 2014 to ensure the district’s curricula would promote patriotism and not encourage “social strife.” Witt said students who protested the board policies at the time were “pawns” of the teachers union. After he and two other conservative members of the board were recalled, Witt became executive director of an organization that oversees charter, online and other schools and helped launch Merit Academy.
Merit Academy was the charter school approved by the district.
Woodland Park School District is seeing an exodus of staffers after Christian Nationalists put their agenda over students’ needs
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In 2021, Christian Nationalist preacher Andrew Wommack told the members of his political group Truth & Liberty Coalition that, with all the conservatives in their part of Colorado, “we ought to take over Woodland Park.”
“We have enough people here in this school we could elect anybody we want,” he said. “We could take over this place.”
Wommack had moved to Woodland Park to launch Charis Bible College, and now he wanted his people to take over the local government. Or at least the local school board. It’s the kind of rhetoric that conservative Christians have been using for decades to urge their followers to run for local office as a way to influence policy. Wommack himself insisted last year that he got “78 or 80” of his preferred candidates elected in local races (out of an estimated 178 his ministry was backing).
Perhaps that’s an exaggeration. But in this particular case, they actually pulled it off.
Reporter Tyler Kingkade of NBC News just published a shocking article detailing what happened after those conservative Christians took over a local school board that, in theory, should have been far removed from culture war battles.
But when you put ideologues in positions of responsibility, you can’t expect them to do the right thing. That’s exactly how it’s played out.
Woodland Park School Board meeting (screenshot via YouTube)
For example, the local school board, now controlled by Christian Nationalists, adopted a conservative social studies curriculum called “American Birthright” that’s focused on American exceptionalism and whitewashes our nation’s ugly history. It says the federal government shouldn’t have any authority over public schools, that teachers should avoid teaching about current events and media literacy, and that telling kids to vote amounts to activism. (Notes Kingkade: “[American Birthright] includes Bill Clinton’s impeachment but not Donald Trump’s.”)
The program was already deemed unfit for students and rejected as extreme by the state’s school board. They said adopting this program would have “damaging and lasting effects on the civic knowledge of students and their capacity to engage in civic reasoning and deliberation.”
The new school board embraced it anyway.
School board president David Rusterholtz added Christian prayers to board meetings:
“This division is much more than political — this is a clash of worldviews,” Rusterholtz said at a board meeting in January. He concluded his remarks with a prayer for the district: “May the Lord bless us and keep us, may His face shine upon us and be gracious to us.”
Beyond that, according to Colorado Public Radio, he has also “used his official board email address to proselytize, inviting fellow board members to join his church and receive Jesus as their savior.”
Then they imposed a gag order and fired teachers who criticized the moves publicly.
Then the newly hired superintendent decided not to apply for grants worth up to $1.2 million that previously covered the salaries of 15 counselors and social workers because he wanted to focus on academics, not emotions… even though the latter has a direct impact on the former.
And now a large chunk of the staffers and administrators are leaving the district:
As the school year winds down, many of the Woodland Park School District’s employees are heading for the exit, despite recently receiving an 8% raise. At least four of the district’s top administrators have quit because of the board’s policy changes, according to interviews and emails obtained through records requests. Nearly 40% of the high school’s professional staff have said they will not return next school year, according to an administrator in the district.
It’s no wonder they want out. There’s no accountability anymore and the conservatives on the school board are more interested in enacting their personal agendas than doing what experts believe is best for students. When one board member resigned in the wake of the conservative victories, he could have been replaced by someone with a strong background in education and a track record of supporting students. Instead, his replacement was someone who had donated to the campaign of another right-wing board member.
When the superintendent resigned, he was replaced by Ken Witt.
Who is Ken Witt, you ask?
… Witt, as president of the school board in neighboring Jefferson County, supported a plan in 2014 to ensure the district’s curricula would promote patriotism and not encourage “social strife.”Witt said students who protested the board policies at the time were “pawns” of the teachers union. After he and two other conservative members of the board were recalled, Witt became executive director of an organization that oversees charter, online and other schools and helped launch Merit Academy.
Merit Academy was the charter school approved by the district.
His appointment was actually more egregious than that because the board members essentially chose him in secret. Their only interview of Witt happened behind closed doors even though state law requires all district-related discussions between three or more board members to be public.
Kingkade managed to obtain surveillance footage of their meeting. The full conversation (which is inaudible) lasts for about 8 minutes. Witt was hired two days later.
The district staffer who urged the board to release that footage months ago was fired. That person’s boss quit as a form of protest.
Things have gotten so bad that even Republicans in the district are complaining:
“I think they look at us as this petri dish where they can really push all their agenda and theories,” said Joe Dohrn, a Woodland Park father who described himself as a staunch Republican and “very capitalistic.” “They clearly are willing to sacrifice the public school and to put students presently in the public school through years of disarray to drive home their ideological beliefs. It’s a travesty.”
…
“They’re trying to push a certain agenda down to these kids,” Amy Schommer, a mother in Woodland Park, said of the school board’s adoption of American Birthright. “I’m a conservative but I’m not against my kids learning something they disagree with. They’re trying to fix problems that don’t exist here.”
But none of this will make a difference unless enough of these people vote for board members who care more about students than conservative propaganda. The next elections are in November and three of the board’s five seats will be up for grabs, allowing a non-crazy majority to help undo some of this damage.
The question is whether enough people in the community will care enough to vote in that election. School board races have notoriously low turnouts, but if right-wing Christians aiming to destroy the public schools doesn’t inspire enough people to get off their asses to vote for better candidates, nothing will.
This is incredible reporting from Kingkade and a devastating look at what happens when right-wing rhetoric becomes reality. The people who have a vendetta against public schools should never be placed in charge of them.
“They’re not interested in improving the school district,” said one teacher who is leaving. “They’re interested in killing it.”
When people don’t pay attention to local elections, however, that becomes very possible—especially when conservative pastors rally their congregations into thinking these elections are existential crises.
The end result is that the best teachers and administrators may leave the district while the worsening schools lower property values and drive away the sorts of people who might consider moving there.
Everyone loses when Christian extremists hell-bent on turning public schools into extensions of their churches get this kind of power.
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White #MAGA QAnon Jesus image carried during the Jan. 6, 2021, invasion of the Capitol. Photo by Tyler Merbler/Flickr/Creative Commons
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