The Christian Nationalist Vision for America Is Anti-Democratic
Christian nationalism is not simply a religious movement—it is a political project that challenges the foundations of a pluralist democracy.
Brad Onishi and Dan Miller examine the growing Christian nationalist effort to redefine who counts as a “real” American, from arguments about immigration and religious identity to the defense of Derek Chauvin and the rejection of democratic accountability.
They also break down the recent Christian nationalism debate featuring Doug Wilson, Joe Rigney, Al Mohler, and Paul Miller, and explain why the movement’s vision of a Christian America is fundamentally at odds with religious freedom and equal citizenship. Interview:
Theologically conservative Christians believe apparently contradictory things about Judaism and Jewish people.
On the one hand, they will often describe Jewish people as being “the people of God.” On the other hand, they typically hold that, as non-Christians, Jewish people are condemned to go to hell when they die.
How do these attitudes fit together? Is it possible to hold them together consistently? What do the answers to these questions tell us about conservative Christians’ understandings of Judaism and Jewish identity?
And why are questions like these ones we’re not supposed to ask in church? Join Dan for this week’s episode to find out!
After announcing that we have asked the Supreme Court to rule that the Texas law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools is unconstitutional, we hear Ron Reagan interview Rep. Jared Huffman about his new book No Prophets: The Fight to Save Democracy from Christian Nationalism.
Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, who won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, joined the Democratic Socialists of America in June. She said she doesn’t support all of its policies…
“It’s fair to say that the Iranians have decided that they are going to make life more miserable for Trump in a variety of ways,” said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, a political scientist and vice-provost at Missouri Science and Technology University. “They are certainly going to do whatever they can to hurt him in the midterms...
“The emperor is a fan of Flock,” the man said, though he proceeded to portray the surveillance hardware in an ominous light.
“We must continue utilizing Flock technologies so that we can follow and surveil the rebel scum as they move from playground to playground, from playground to pool, from pool to gymnasium,” he continued…
Carney said his government would announce additional support for Canadian workers and businesses in the coming days, and that Canada’s goal throughout the negotiations had been to secure the best possible agreement, “never a deal at any price or on any deadline”.
The move was supported by Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, who said on X: “Team Canada needs to stand together more united than ever before. The prime minister has my full support for a strong response – tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar. As we fight to protect Canadian sovereignty and economic security, everything needs to be on the table. Ontario is ready to do its part.”…
Defense analyst Stacie Pettyjohn says while the U.S. military is facing long-range missile shortages, prolonged deployments and vacated regional bases, Iran is building cheaper weapons quickly.
It's a word you've heard your whole life, on hymn sheets, on maps, and in some very heated arguments — but what is Zion?
This week, we trace the meaning from a rocky outcropping the Jebusites held in 2 Samuel to God's holy mountain, then watch what happens to a "this city cannot fall" theology after the city falls.
Along the way: the City of David, the steps Jesus may have been dragged up, why Zion had to become portable, and why Dan M will talk about Christian Zionism but stays firmly out of his lane on everything else.
Chapters:
0:00 What is Zion?
1:34 How do you even say it?
2:53 An etymology of dryness
3:42 The stronghold in 2 Samuel 5
4:38 The City of David
6:08 A name older than Israel?
6:34 Ark, temple, holy mountain
7:37 Zion theology
8:42 When Jerusalem fell anyway
10:52 Zion expands and moves
11:38 The steps up Mount Zion
12:28 Zion in Latter-day Saint tradition
15:37 Zion and Jerusalem
17:22 Daughter of Zion
18:28 The word nobody wants to touch
19:16 On Christian Zionism
22:08 Zion in the New Testament
24:12 Thanks for listening
In 1929 a farmer in French-occupied Syria caught his plow on a rock and accidentally uncovered Ugarit, a lost city whose clay tablets have been quietly reshaping Hebrew Bible scholarship ever since.
This week we dig into the Baal Cycle: the elderly patriarch El, the storm god Baal, the sea god Yam, and a goddess named Anat who is genuinely terrifying. If you've ever wondered where the divine council, the rider of the clouds, and the waters above and below actually come from, this one's for you. Interview:
The United States’ national debt has now surpassed $40 trillion, a milestone that forecasters thought the country wouldn’t reach for months.
President Donald Trump drew the ire of many military families, lawmakers, and the public when he was asked if the deployment of the USS Lincoln to the Middle East had gone on too long. He responded by saying, “No no no no…not nearly long enough.”
Florida State Rep. Angie Nixon pulled off one of the biggest upsets of this year’s primary season. The Democratic Socialist beat former Army intelligence officer Alexander Vindman by more than 12 points in the state’s Democratic Senate primary. Interview:
President Donald Trump started this week by threatening Canada with drastic new tariffs, some as high as 50 percent, if negotiators from both countries didn’t reach a new trade deal.
Reporting from The New York Times indicates that the U.S. Navy is helping tankers sneak through the Strait of Hormuz by turning their ship transponders off. American Officials say around 10 million barrels of oil are now making their way to global markets.
And Trump is also pushing for another meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, potentially as soon as this fall. The two last met in 2019 during the president’s first term. Interview:
"The Americans and the Israelis have realized that they cannot handle Iran … in the field of a hard military war, so they have entered into a cognitive war and an economic war," he said during a visit to neighboring Iraq...
“Based on analysis of crime data, our report demonstrated facts about the National Guard deployments that are inconvenient to the Trump administration,” wrote Neera Tanden, Cap’s president and CEO. “This threatened lawsuit’s attack on facts and evidence is baseless. A fundamental protection of the First Amendment is to allow for the publication of facts and analysis that are contrary to the arguments and claims of any administration. A lawsuit is a transparent attempt to silence us. We will neither cower nor bend in the face of it.”…
About a month after alleging Nevada had as many as 16,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials admitted they had confirmed that only 185 were actually non-citizens, according to records obtained by the Guardian...
A more appropriate response to out-of-control deficits would be to repeal the ill-conceived tax giveaways in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, legislation that the nonprofit Bipartisan Policy Center calculated will cost the federal government $4.5 trillion in lost revenues over a decade. DOGE’s mindless cuts to the federal workforce, executed with Trump blessing and encouragement, will cost America a fortune as well...
“This is a slap in the face to every war hero and every service member who has worn the uniform,” said Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP civil rights group. “Doris Miller earned his place in American history through courage, sacrifice, and service,” added Johnson. “Donald Trump only wants to serve himself.”…
Michigan has provided publicly-funded pre-K options since the 1980s, but now they've opened to all families regardless of income for the 2024-2025 school year.
Jordan Ewert, a Wayne County parent whose son will attend a free Pre-K program in the fall, said the program eases financial pressure on his family.
"The free program allows me to focus on paying back my student loans," Ewert said. "His mom and I both work full time, so knowing that he's improving his social and academic skills while we're working is really important to us."…
“At what point did we stop legislating?” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), another senior appropriator, said last month after Voughtprivately pitched Senate Republicans on the latest party-line plan, which would inherently take funding power away from the appropriations committees...
“If you’re focused on everything, you’re focused on nothing,” said a former administration official, who, like others in the story, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “If you’re a job candidate and you want to go work in the government and the writing on the wall is clear now that the Treasury Department is focused on Iran, can you recruit the best people to [help manage jittery investors in U.S. government debt]? Especially if you’ve seen the pattern of departures that you have?”
Two years after falsely linking reproductive rights to gender transition care for minors, GOP lawmakers have packaged the two issues into one amendment in an effort to strip away the right to abortion.
The Trump administration has doled out billions for mining and critical mineral processing companies. Democrats are eager to win back Congress and turn up the oversight screws, investigating any ties to Trump family members...
When Overton worked at the conservative America First Policy Institute, she wrote papers opposing gender-affirming care for minors. She also has questioned the safety of medication abortion and suggested the FDA was wrong to allow it to be prescribed via telehealth.
On Aug 10, President Trump issued a controversial executive order pushing to change the childhood vaccine schedule, and dredging up debunked theories linking vaccines to autism. Speaking at the press conference, Overton called Trump's order "a historic action."…
A man in Virginia was hospitalized with a brain injury and severe bruising all over his face after he was arrested by US immigration agents, according to his lawyers, who shared photos and medical records with the Guardian.
It’s the latest moment of tension between President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts and religious institutions. In addition to the potential violation of a court order, the alleged incursion on a house of worship cuts against the administration’s message that any infringement on religious freedom — such as the anti-ICE protest that disrupted services in Minnesota — would be met with severe criminal consequences...
One of his motivations for first tackling the issue inside the company was seeing how his own teenage daughter was treated on Instagram. He said she received unwanted sexual advances and photos of male genitals as well as misogynistic insults. Later, she told her father that reporting these abuses through Instagram’s established processes was either ineffective or not possible.
"This analysis is laughable. Census data cannot reliably be matched to voter data," David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said in a text exchange with NPR. "That said, it's good to see the president admit these numbers are so small that they couldn't have changed the outcome in 2020."…
“What Wyomingites were not and still are not is extremists,” Short told POLITICO, arguing that by pushing an “extremist agenda” in the state, the local Freedom Caucus tried to “usher in a national-driven agenda that really does not have a home in Wyoming. And I think the voters of Wyoming responded resoundingly last night in saying, ‘not up in here.’”…
Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics tsar, said: “It is shocking that an aide who has potential exposure to the nation’s most sensitive secrets reportedly went without a security clearance for so long. Treating access to confidences as a casual job perk is an outrageous way to handle our national security.”…
Emmanuel*, 27, from Liberia, is one of them. He traveled to Cambodia after being offered what he believed was a legitimate graphic design job. Instead, he says, he was driven to a compound in the jungle, his passport and phone were confiscated and he was ordered to defraud Americans and Europeans through online scams.
When he refused, he was threatened with the “dark room”, a punishment cell where workers were beaten and tortured. Armed guards surrounded the compound to prevent escape.
“There was no way out. I was cut off from the outside world,” he says. “I watched people being beaten so badly for not working.”…
Detainees and their families tell NPR that in the very worst cases the absence of transparency and accountability, and the subsequent failure to adhere to mandated grievance guidelines, is one of the leading factors for the record number of deaths in detention — at least 53 since the start of President Trump's second term...
Earlier on Wednesday, the US treasury announced it would double its buyback of government debt after the bond market balked at ongoing inflation and continued conflict between the US and Iran. Though the move doesn’t increase the debt, it highlights the growing struggle the US is having in attracting investors to help take on its debt...
A 21-year-old recent college graduate was behind an anonymous website that put out widely shared fake election polling in Wisconsin, Nevada and California, the Guardian can reveal...
"A lot of these e-bikes can go 30 miles an hour with a flick of a wrist,” she said. "When they're just wearing a bike helmet, they can still get a severe brain injury.”…
Establishment politicians and the establishment media have described the agenda that progressive candidates are winning elections on as “radical”, “far left”, “extremist” or, in the words of Donald Trump, “communist” . All that is nonsense. On major issue after major issue, the progressive agenda is reflecting exactly what a strong majority of the American people need and want.
Let me take this opportunity to share with you some of the major proposals that most progressives support. And you tell me how “extreme” they are…
To any country watching Trump’s words, it now looks like one of the only paths to prevent conflict with the current administration is to militarize or even go nuclear—a warning South Korea may also be taking to heart...