Brad and Dan examine the competing ideals often put forth by the GOP: 1) Be an individualist who thinks for herself vs. 2) work to unite the country behind a common cause.
They discuss how these ideals are often contradicted by the GOP's actions and policies. First, they look at the ouster of Liz Cheney for thinking for herself by opposing Trump's Big Lie. Put in her leadership place: Elise Stefanik, someone who went from freethinking moderate to Trumpian acolyte. Then there is Mitch McConnell, who blames Biden for a lack of bipartisanship but says out loud that his goal is 100% to block the administration's goals. Finally, there is the wild goose chase of an audit in Arizona, where conspiracy theorists are sniffing for bamboo and looking for nonexistent watermarks in an effort to overturn an election that happened six months ago--if the election doesn't go how you want, tear down the nation. Is that how the saying goes?
They finish with an explainer on the worker shortage debate raging in the wake of COVID and some brief comments on the Josh Duggar Case.
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Axis Mundi You're listening to an irreverent podcast Oh visit irreverent.fm for more content from our amazing lineup of creators
welcome to straight white american jesus My name is Brad Onishi, faculty in religion at Skidmore College.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center UCSB.
I'm here today with my co-host.
I'm Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
Good to see you, Brad.
You too.
We have reached May, which in higher ed is the time of emergence.
Dan, I always think of this period, like when classes have ended, as like somebody, like a sea creature emerging from, you know, emerging from the lagoon.
And you just have to like get all of the barnacles and seaweed off of you before you can actually feel like yourself again.
And I just, we're in that moment of like, we are no longer underwater, but we are still covered in like barnacles and seaweed.
There's like sea anemones on your face.
There's, you know, some stray fish, you know, somewhere that they shouldn't be.
And, you know, you're just trying to get back to like normal, but it's going to take a week or two.
You paint a vivid picture, and the exciting thing about that is that because we started later at my college because of COVID, I'm still in it.
So yeah, I still very much feel that.
I think calling me like the creature from the Black Lagoon or something would probably be like a kindness at this point, compared to sort of what I feel like.
All right, well, let's talk today about a range of issues.
This is going to be one of those days where I actually think we're going to just jump around more than usual, and we're going to try to sort of tie it together through a broad thesis.
And so, Dan, we were talking earlier, and here's the idea, friends, is we want to talk today about a range of issues, from GOP leadership to what's happening in Arizona and the vote audit, audit in quotes.
I want to talk about critical race theory.
I want to talk about, you know, Caitlyn Jenner's, you know, run for governor.
There's just a lot going on, but one of the themes that we've been thinking about is the idea of the GOP having two kind of competing messages.
And this comes in part from an interview I did with the sociologist Philip Gorski this week, and that interview will be up in a few days.
But there's an idea here where the GOP is telling you two things at once, and the two things really don't go together.
So one of them is, be an individual who thinks for themselves, who takes personal responsibility, who is not part of the sheeple, who just doesn't follow because leaders tell them to, blah, blah, blah, right?
So we all know this sort of individualist trope.
Be an individual.
Choose for yourself.
Okay?
Pull yourself up by the bootstraps.
There's another narrative and another message that says, be a good American who supports the nation.
Don't be divisive.
Get on with the program.
Support the people in charge, right?
You know, we have a nation that's under attack or in controversy or fighting a difficult time, so everyone needs to be together and united.
And a lot of those of you out there who've been part of churches will feel the same thing.
That churches sometimes tell you to have an individual relationship with God and a very personal thing, but then when it comes to the church and leadership, you have to be on board with the program and you can't be divisive and so on and so forth.
And so, we want to sort of examine how this works, that at times the GOP is like, hey, be an individual, but then when you're an individual and you go against the group, you get in a lot of trouble, okay?
So let's, and then at times, Dan, I mean the other side of this is at times, it's be a good American who supports the nation, blah blah blah.
All right, so what do we mean?
Let's give examples so people can actually understand what we're after here.
I mentioned this the other day, but I'm going to mention it again.
Liz Cheney, The third most sort of powerful Republican in Congress is probably going to lose her leadership position.
She is a congressperson from Wyoming and is under scrutiny because she continues to criticize the big lie that Trump is telling, continues to say that January 6th was a huge problem, that Trump bears responsibility for it, and so on and so forth, okay?
She is not alone.
There is a situation in Ohio where there is the Ohio Republican Party Central Committee just passed a motion calling on Anthony Gonzalez to resign his House seat over the Trump impeachment vote.
Congressman Gonzalez voted to impeach Trump, and now the party is saying you should resign.
You thought for yourself.
You took the opportunity to think about what it is you thought was right.
You did that, and guess what?
It means you need to get out.
You need to get out of the party.
So, Dan, I'll throw it to you.
Fill us in a little bit about Cheney and what you see happening here in terms of why she's being ousted, and then we can link it up with Mitch McConnell and some others and tie it back to our thesis for today.
We got all of our favorite players in here.
So yeah, I mean, she comes out and let's, you know, there are lots of reasons why she's critical of Trump and there are plenty who think that, you know, this is also a calculated political move on her side that at some point in the future this is going to, you know, situate her well to have done this.
But yeah, you're right, this notion, and often the people on the left are criticized for being, you know, sort of group thinkers and so forth.
I just want to highlight a point, I'll come back to this later, but in saying this, in my view, we're not claiming that like, I don't know, that the GOP is unique in this, think for yourself, unless it's the group.
My view is that we're always really wrapped up in complex ways and individual and group identity and so forth, but that's, It's one thing to acknowledge that and know that.
It's another thing to be the GOP and build this brand that we're all about, individual thinkers.
So, as you say, she comes out and she's been doing this for a while.
And back in, I think it was February, the GOP leadership still supported her, right?
So Kevin McCarthy stood behind her.
Mitch McConnell stood behind her.
She sailed through kind of a vote to remove her and so forth.
This time it's different.
Steve Scalise, the second in charge in the House, has been very clear that she should be removed.
Trump, of course, has been beating this drum for a long time.
Kevin McCarthy is sort of very deliberately and clearly like just stepping out of the way of this kind of oncoming train aimed at her.
So, it seems as if it's a matter of time until she leaves.
Well, how does this relate to Mitch McConnell, right?
Over in the Senate, he was asked how he felt about this, whether he supported her, whether he supported efforts to remove her.
And he avoids the issue by going to something else, but this is, I think, the real key that also gets to this notion of what exactly is the, as it were, groupthink in the GOP right now.
Excuse me.
He avoids the question, but what's his response?
He says that the GOP is quote, 100, or he says this about himself, he says quote, 100% of my focus is on stopping this new administration.
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