Weekly Roundup: What Everyone Is Missing About Scott Colom Beating Cindy Hyde-Smith (Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller; Straight White American Jesus podcast)

In this episode of Straight White American Jesus, Brad Onishi and Dan Miller break down Scott Colom's historic Senate win in Mississippi and the story that most outlets are missing. Colom will be the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction, and the first ever to be popularly elected, after defeating incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith in one of the hardest states in the country to vote, where turnout surged roughly 35% over the last midterms. 

Then comes the history few are discussing: Hyde-Smith attended a segregation academy founded in 1970 to resist integration, and she later enrolled her own daughter at another one. Brad traces the thread back to Brown v. Board of Education, the 1969 Holmes County lawsuit over tax exemptions for whites-only private schools, and Randall Balmer's argument about the racial origins of the religious right, including Paul Weyrich's strategy of packaging moral politics in non-religious language. 

Brad and Dan also discuss what Democrats can learn from Colom's campaign, the Republican response to the midterms, and the challenge to Chuck Schumer from Senator Chris Van Hollen.

Interview: 

https://axismundinetwork.substack.com/p/what-everyone-is-missing-about-scott