The third highest-ranking official in the federal government has done little to conceal the extent of his Christian nationalism. House Speaker Mike Johnson has decried American culture as ‘dark and depraved.’ He has compared himself to Moses. He has called the separation of church & state “a misnomer.” And this weekend, he was in Colorado, stumping for Gabe Evans in the seat which Johnson says may decide control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November.
Doesn’t sound very Christlike, does it?
D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation,” released in 1915, is widely regarded as one of the most hateful films ever created. It glorifies the racist terror perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan, while demonizing the Black people those crimes were perpetrated against.
A few months ago, I was cautiously optimistic that the national news media had started paying attention to Christian nationalism – a movement which I and many others view as one of the most pressing threats to American democracy, and which is a major animating force behind Donald Trump’s current presidential campaign, but is rarely discussed as either. After seeing how the national media covered Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance’s recent appearance at a traveling revival carnival helmed by one of that movement’s leaders, though, I realized my optimism was clearly misplaced. Some in the media are paying attention, but they still aren’t getting it; what they think is a sideshow is actually the main event.
When Joe Biden and Donald Trump made their decision to run again for office, I was thinking “This is no good.” In fact, I was certain it was a terribly awful, horribly bad predicament we were facing. How had it come to this, that we were looking at a rematch of the aged – men who had long ago stopped putting in a full, hard day’s work, if ever, and who had clearly chosen to ignore what millions of us were thinking about their severely diminished fitness to hold that powerful position.
When the CELL first opened in 2008, Melanie Pearlman, the executive director, remarked to a Denver Post reporter that the exhibit transcended partisanship. Everyone could agree, after all, that terrorism should be countered.
The twice-impeached former president, Donald Trump, introduced a new word into political discourse last month: “remigration.”
