Brad and Dan demonstrate how the only standard of Republican orthodoxy left is whether or not one supports Trump's Big Lie. Through examples from Liz Cheney, to Kevin McCarthy, to Internet-trolls-turned-congresspeople such as Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert--one thing is clear: if you don't believe in and support the Big Lie, you will be ousted from the GOP. This portends a scary future wherein democratic processes are eroded at every turn. It also means that January 6th is the beginning, not the end of the Big Lie's effect on our public square.
They finish the episode by discussing the new God Bless the USA Bible from Zondervan, a White Christian nationalists dream come true.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, Faculty of Religion, 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.
It's good to see you, Brad.
I think that the temperature in Massachusetts, like if it was like another 10 degrees warmer, might finally sort of be on par with where you're at in California.
It was a little cloudy this morning and I had to put on a sweater, so you might be right.
You might be right about that.
I will say it was 90 degrees on Tuesday, so that was... You also put on a sweater at like below 80, I think, right?
So... That's true in California.
Yeah, I got the Uggs out and the snow hats.
It is... Wait, we could talk about this forever.
We're not going to do it.
All right.
There's people listening right now, Dan, that are like, just get to the topic!
So we're going to do that.
All right, here we go.
A lot to talk about today that falls under this umbrella.
You ready?
The GOP is the party of the big lie.
If we were making an outline, that would be our sort of header, right?
The GOP has become the party of the big lie.
It is characterized by that.
One of the things that worries me, Dan, about where we're at is that it is clear that in the wake of January 6th, we have two parties in this country, and one of them is willing to Overthrow, undo, restrict, clog, whatever word is appropriate, the democratic process, the democratic structures of the country, in order to gain power.
Someone was pointing out the other day on Twitter that You wonder if the Republican Party will ever recognize the legitimacy of a Democratic president again.
I mean, it started with Obama in recent years, right?
Obama was born in Kenya.
He wasn't even born here.
He can't be president.
And now we have Joe Biden, who's the most white, vanilla grandpa ever.
And he's not legitimate because he didn't really win the election.
Dan, at some point it becomes a pattern of like, oh, the Democrats win, it's not legit.
It becomes a rule of thumb rather than an aberration.
That's a problem.
You cannot have a two-party system where one of the parties is like, well, It's OK if we need to overthrow the whole game in order to get what we want, right?
And that's what we see here.
And I know some of you are all thinking like, Brad, come on, there's a lot going on that you all should be talking about today.
Why are you talking about the big lie?
Because that is the umbrella for everything we are going to talk about today.
Liz Cheney, Matt Gaetz, testimony in front of the House of Representatives this week.
Things related to Kevin McCarthy and his relationship with Capitol Police.
All of that.
We'll get to Marjorie Taylor Greene, right?
We'll get to a lot of things.
We'll get to Lindsey Graham.
A lot of sort of newsworthy headline type things you're probably wondering if we're going to get to.
In my mind, Dan, they all fall under the GOP as the party of the big lie.
Let me start you with this and I'll throw it to you.
It is now come out that Trump's response to Mayor Bowser, Mayor Bowser is the mayor of Washington, D.C.
On her request for the National Guard to come in on January 6th, Trump said, quote, do whatever is necessary to protect the demonstrators that were executing their constitutionally protected rights.
They basically, actually, that's not a quote from Trump, but it's a quote about Trump's sort of position on this.
So in essence, let me just be clear, sorry to be confusing.
Trump said, whatever you need to do to protect the demonstrators, and demonstrators here means those attempting the coup, those breaking down barriers, those battering police officers with weapons.
Whatever you need to do to protect them, okay?
Not the lawmakers, not the police, not the staffers.
His focus was on protecting the people trying to enter the Capitol violently in order to stop the certification of the election.
It's come out now through testimony that Trump took three—the sort of call from Trump's acting Secretary of Defense took three hours to clear the Capitol.
He didn't have a great explanation for that, and many people have pointed out on Twitter, if you think back to last summer, the Capitol was preemptively occupied by law enforcement during the Black Lives Matter uprisings.
They preemptively Occupied the Capitol.
And here we have a three-hour delay even as the Capitol is getting besieged with no, obviously, preemptive occupation.
Dan, this is, in some sense, old news.
In some sense, it is not.
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