Weekly Roundup: Hunter Biden Explained, Pope and Civil Unions, and the American Values Survey
Opener: Brad and Dan each get 2 minutes uninterrupted on the last debate
Explainer: Hunter Biden non-scandal mularkey
Explainer: Pope announces he is in favor of same-sex couples having civil unions (but not marriages?)
Deep Dive: The American Values Survey from PRRI
-critical issues for Republicans and Democrats (one thinks COVID is a big deal; the other doesn't)
-how White Evangelicals are different from any other religious group in the country
-attitudes toward race, income inequality, and climate change across party and religious lines.
Audience Question: What do we think of court packing?
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Hello, my name is Brad Onishi, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Skidmore College.
This is Straight White American Jesus, hosted and produced in partnership with the Kapp Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and today here with my co-host, I'm Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
So good to see you, Brad, as always, as we do this from like opposite coasts.
Well, and so before we do anything today, Dan, we, you know, folks are always looking for good news at this point.
So you got some good news yesterday, and I think people should celebrate with you a book under contract with Routledge Press.
Routledge Publishing House and your book will be out early summer and I believe it is called Queer Democracy but I can't remember the subtitle so you want to tell us more about it?
Yeah, so it's called Queer Democracy.
I think the subtitle is, I don't even know, Dysphoria and the Body Politic, something like that.
It's still sort of, as people may not know, the title and subtitle are like some of the last things to be worked out, right?
So you come up with them early and then the publisher doesn't like it and you change it.
But yeah, it's informed a lot of the things we've talked about.
We've talked about a talk that I'm giving next week that people can access at Landmark College.
Um, it's related to that.
So I'm excited.
I've been working on it.
I was on sabbatical last spring.
Um, but yeah, it'll be out probably in the summer, but it talks about, among other things we talk in there about, uh, American religion and politics and populism and nationalism and Christian nationalism.
And so many of the themes you and I have been talking about, uh, and things that you and I have been saying that, you know, regardless of what happens here in just under two weeks with the election, All of this stuff is still going to be with us, so I'm excited to have that coming out, and I'm happy to tell people about it if they want a sort of geeky take, even geekier than I am on the podcast about some of these things.
Well, I'll just say it's a huge accomplishment.
Your second book, you got it done.
During the pandemic, you're helping kids do school online, you're a good partner, you're a great podcaster, and now we get your second book.
So friends, if you'd like a preview of the book, next week, October 27, Dan is giving a talk that will be on the American political sphere, the fantasy of white Christian nationalism, and just things we talk about all the time on this show.
So we will share the link once again.
We shared it once, we'll share it again.
And anyway, look forward to the talk and look forward to the book.
We will see if we can get Dan Miller to give us some signed copies to send out to lucky listeners.
You know, maybe include a picture of Dan, you know, holding the book, or I don't know, Dan, We'll have to think of something.
That sounded weird.
Maybe we don't need a picture of you.
I don't know.
Anyway, sorry.
This is going into uncharted territory.
A shaky start today, Dan.
Okay.
I'm going to blame the debate, because we all had to endure a third debate last night, and folks have been wondering if we're going to talk about it today.
So, here's what we're doing.
Last night, we finally had a debate that was semi-watchable, just because there was a real moderator.
to the moderator last night, Kirsten Welker, and there was also some rules in place that seemed to help things move better.
So Dan, we're going to do a short segment on the debate.
Some folks want to hear about it.
Some folks are tired of it.
So Dan Miller, two minutes uninterrupted on the debate.
The floor is yours.
Yeah, and if I go over, you can mute my mic and cut me off, right?
And I also, to reflect back on the vice-presidential debate, I don't think, I'm looking at the screen, I don't think I have any flies on my head, so.
Okay, good, good, good.
Yeah, so, I mean, just sort of some quick hits, people kind of wanted this.
I think one of the things is Trump clearly is listening to somebody.
He was much more put together and calm and Sounded like he you know had a much better view of sort of actual policies and things like that Still lied a lot, but it wasn't like sort of yelling over people and doing it Big takes takeaways for me are number one like all kinds of studies show that typically debates don't actually affect races that much unless somebody just sort of Melts down or something crazy happens that didn't happen.
And so if you're Trump and you're behind that wasn't good for you People keep saying that you know, Trump needed a game changer and he clearly didn't get it.
I think that's true I do think that if the first debate had gone like this debate went I think Trump would be in a better place now I think If Trump had hit the themes that he hit the way that he hit them in this debate, if he'd, you know, come out of like Labor Day doing that, I think he'd be in a better place.
But I don't think it fundamentally changed anything.
There were some missed opportunities by Biden.
There was one point where he's talking about opening resafely and restaurants needing like plexiglass dividers and Trump fires back and says it's too expensive for them and I was like literally yelling at my screen for Biden to jump in and say tell that to Mitch McConnell and the Senate who won't pass the funding and like he missed that but overall I think it's the same.
We're a broken record, right?
Like, everybody who was convinced was going to be convinced.
I think it's pointless to look at quote-unquote who won.
I think it's interesting to see who people say won, right?
To see, like, how it went through with that.
But I saw numbers this week saying that only 5% of people say that they're undecided, and pollsters think a lot of those are kind of lying anyway.
And only 3% say that they can actually be persuaded from something different.
a number of something like 43 million people who've already voted.
So I don't think it's going to fundamentally change anything.
I'm kind of glad that it's sort of past us.
But I just think that a week and a half out or whatever we are, the time for big changes in the debate have sort of passed us by.
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