It's come to this

Yesterday Senator Ron Johnson said his Democratic opponent, Mandela Barnes, believes there's something called "institutional racism," which means, you know, that he thinks all of you are racists (he's speaking to a crowd almost entirely white). He says it seems clear, therefore, that his Black opponent hates you, so why would you vote for someone who hates you?

That's Wisconsin's Senator Johnson last night on the stump. He's running against Mandela Barnes, who has been the state's Attorney General. Mandela Barnes, who is African-American, says Senator Ron Johnson is the worst Wisconsin senator since Joseph McCarthy. 

Campaign rhetoric gets ugly in every election, but some say this year it's more toxic than it's ever been. The country is in terrible shape right now because civility has simply left the building. People won't be good to each other, but if they do they can't make cold, hard cash by way of screaming headlines, and they get screaming headlines only when they scream outrageous things. Research has long ago proved the tweets that get the most clicks are the stingers; thus, social media plays a role in this decline as does the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump, whose made a career out of belittling opposition with lies and derogatory nicknames. Even his fans agree; but they love him for it. The man still claims, 65 courtrooms later, that he won the 2020 election by "millions of votes in a landslide." Thus, so do millions of diehards, the vast majority of them white.

It's "the big lie."

In The Flag and the Cross, Phillip S. Gorsky and Samuel L. Perry argue right from the get-go that "white Christian nationalism is the greatest threat to the witness of the church in the United States today." It's a book no one in a MAGA cap will ever touch, nor would any January 6-er, despite their carrying a Christian flag in one hand and the stars-and-stripes in the other.  The book is chock-full of CRT. That's right. Gorsky and Perry are exactly what militant Trumpy parents don't want their kids to read and certainly wouldn't themselves. 

Why? Listen. 

“There is a satanic portal above the White House, you can see day and night. It exists. It is real. And it must be closed. And it will be closed by prayer." That's Roger Stone, of all people, a Trump sidekick for decades, who's speaking at a ReAwaken rally, an affair that looks like a old-fashioned revival. For years, Roger Stone hasn't told the truth about anything.

Stone is one voice, but there are others, including a preacher named Mark Burns who, at another Reawaken meeting in Ohio said that God would “raise up armies” to help conservatives “shut down” Democratic-run America. The Republicans constantly play the God-card, turning any opposition voices into utterances from the big black soul of Satan. It's that easy--"I'm righteous; you're evil. Next question?" 

Such propositions get notice from American evangelicals, who know their numbers are in decline. What "Replacement Theory" (touted by most Fox News hosts) argues is that blacks and browns from hither and yon are going to replace you and me (if you're a white man like me). Soon, white people will not be a majority in America--that's plain demographic fact. What the MAGA world knows is that white folks have lost power and strength and reach, lost all of that to an enemy of the God white people worship. Who is that enemy?--Democrats, the Libs, who, you know, are really socialist communists, like me.

What Gorsky and Perry offer is that our national petulance has been a long-time in the making: "The Capitol insurrection was like the eruption of a volcano. The pressure had been building for decades. The election simply sent that pressure shooting toward the surface, where it erupted into violence on January 6."

Of course, if you think what happened on January 6th was nothing at all, if January 6 didn't amount to a hill of beans ("Look at the Black Lives Matter riots in 2019!), then the history of this new "Christian Nationalism" is of little relevance. 

What Gorsky and Perry argue in this researched study is that the rudimentary character of right-wing Christian nationalism has been around since the days of the founding fathers, since before that--really, since Plymouth Rock. 

White Christian nationalism’s “deep story” goes something like this: America was founded as a Christian nation by (white) men who were “traditional” Christians, who based the nation’s founding documents on “Christian principles.” The United States is blessed by God, which is why it has been so successful; and the nation has a special role to play in God’s plan for humanity. But these blessings are threatened by cultural degradation from “un-American” influences both inside and outside our borders.

The study concludes, as many of us on the left do, that democracy itself is at stake this week. You either believe in democracy, a rule by the people, or you don't--you'd rather lots of undesirables wouldn't, even couldn't vote. You either believe that in democracy everyone has a voice, or you don't. 

The truth?--way back when, my Wisconsinite father (a wonderful, loving Christian man, a community leader, an elder in the church, President of the Christian school board) liked Wisconsin's Senator Joseph McCarthy. He did. In the 1960s, Dad thought Martin Luther King was a "social agitator" who wanted to turn the culture on its head, to scramble all the most cherished American values. If King wasn't an outright communist, he most certainly pal-ed around with people who were. That's what my dad thought.

What Gorsky and Perry offer is a broad appraisal that establishes MAGA passion is not new, even if its greater today, more dangerous than it's ever been. 

How dangerous? Seems to me that Trump has redefined some of our most honored words--what does it mean to be "evangelical" today? or Christian? What does it mean to be a patriot? 

Vote tomorrow, if you haven't already, and when you do, don't vote for anyone anywhere close to Donald Trump.