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Dec. 18, 2021 - Straight White American Jesus
08:15
Weekly Roundup: Texting to Stop a Coup

Brad and Dan begin by discussing the text messages to Mark Meadows revealed by the J6 Select Committee. They dig into why this confirms all the worries we had about the plot to overthrow the election. They also underscore the callousness of the then Commander in Chief who ignored the pleas of fellow citizens to stop an attempted coup in progress. Brad then does a deep dive into Kyrsten Sinema in order to understand her opposition to abolishing the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation. The episode finishes with a spotlight on the words of Rafael Warnock, who asked this week why the Senate was willing to change the rules for the economy, but not for democracy. Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC Order Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163 SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ron To Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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AXIS Moondy AXIS Moondy You're listening to an Irreverent Podcast.
Visit irreverent.fm for more content from our amazing lineup of creators.
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
And I'm here today after a break last week with my co-host.
Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
Good to see you, Brad.
Thanks for, you know, holding down the fort for another week.
Yep, and it's that time of year, Dan, where I am so tired.
I mean, newborn aside and other stuff aside, it's just the semester and the grading and everything else.
But as soon as I see your face on the Zoom, I'm ready to do it.
Let's go.
Straight white American Jesus.
It's time to move.
I'm energized.
And there's a bunch of reasons for that.
A couple things, though, before we get started.
We have like one, maybe two, if you're really nice, spots left in Dan Miller's seminar coming up in January.
It starts the first Tuesday in January, so you got a couple weeks, and if you'd like to join, check out our seminars tab at StraightWhiteAmericanJesus.com.
Pure America, religion, race, nation, and we've done it before.
It was amazing, and we're doing it again, so check that out.
If you'd like to grab one of the last remaining spots there.
Also, friends, I'm trying something new and want to just say if you'd like to join me, I'm trying something on what's called the Wisdom app.
It's a new app and it's designed for people to be able to have conversations and talk with creators and other people.
And so, December 20th, which is Monday, at 4 p.m.
Eastern, 1 p.m.
Pacific, I'll be on the Wisdom app under my username, Bradley Onishi, and if you'd like to join me there, then download the app, create an account, it's super easy, and we can talk, all right?
So, December 20th, 4 p.m.
Eastern, all right?
Okay, Dan, let's jump in.
We're going to talk about the slow-moving coup in our country and some explosive text messages that came to light this week.
We'll talk about the other senator, the other Republican senator in the Democratic Party, Kyrsten Sinema.
We've done a lot on Joe Manchin.
And I just want to talk about cinema and the filibuster.
And then we'll talk about Raphael Warnock and an unexpectedly sexy topic, which is budgets.
All right.
So before we get to all that, Dan, let's talk about Mark Meadows.
What happened this week?
Yeah, we'll keep everybody in suspense because nothing has sex appeal like budgets, right?
Like that's that's how it works.
Yeah.
So this week and, you know, even before this week, over the last couple of weeks, the Senate or excuse me, the the House investigation into January 6th has really sort of gained steam.
And the way that it's done that is they've they've started to we've started to hear more about the texts and Other kinds of conversations that were going on in the White House and in particular around and to and from Mark Meadows who, you know, obviously had an inside view on all of this and like I want to start with just just what for me are some of the big takeaways from this.
And then get into just a couple of the specifics because, as you say, people wonder, like, when are we going to stop talking about January 6th?
It happened.
It was bad.
It was scary.
If you're a Republican, you're going to say, well, it wasn't that big a deal.
Or some of them will even say these people were it was just like a regular tour of the Capitol or whatever.
But the first big takeaway is the GOP knew the gravity of what was going on.
Excuse me, when it was going on.
Right.
They knew what was happening.
And what we've seen is that Trump allies, Trump family members, Donald Trump Jr., people like this, were texting and pleading with Donald Trump and with Mark Meadows to be more active in trying to put a stop to what was happening as events were escalating on January 6th.
We know that Trump, you know, said everybody, you know, told everybody to be peaceful and some things like this, and it felt very half-hearted, and what has come out is that Trump was watching TV, as we all suspected, and he loved what he was seeing, as we all suspected, and he reveled in it.
But what this makes clear is that many of the same people who, since January 6th, have said, well, it was no big deal, there was nothing really going on, Donald Trump did everything he could to stop it, it really had nothing to do with him anyway.
They thought on the day that it did.
They thought he had the power to stop it, and he wouldn't.
And they were begging and pleading with him to stop, and he didn't do it.
So, this just comes out and highlights the significance of the fact that they knew what this was, right?
We're not drumming this up.
Anti-Republicans are not making this up.
The Republican Party knew what was going on, right?
As they were becoming appraised of the situation that Mike Pence was being evacuated by the Secret Service, they're pleading with Trump while Trump is busy, you know, castigating Pence to others.
But the other piece of it is, you know, so we know that they knew what was going on.
We know that Trump was reveling in the chaos.
But it just highlights the significance of the GOP closing ranks since then, right?
That the day of, they saw what was happening.
I think for a lot of the GOP, quite frankly, all this talk of blocking certification was a lot of grandstanding.
It was a lot of, we're going to talk about this.
We know that Jim Jordan now sent a text.
Forwarded a text to Mark Meadows the day before, January 5th, outlining a legal argument of how Pence could block the certification.
But I think what this shows is that for a lot of people, this was a lot of talk.
They knew that it was not going to be uncertified.
They knew that Biden had won.
And when, pardon the language, when the shit got real, they were like, oh my god, we've got to bring this back.
But Donald Trump didn't, and wouldn't.
And then the second piece of that for me is the GOP got right on board with that, and that is what we have seen since.
And it speaks to what you're saying, the slow-moving coup, the effort to, the cult of personality that is Donald Trump, and populist nationalist rule that we've talked about so much, and maybe I'll say more about that.
All of this, you know, efforts by the GOP to hold on to power at all costs.
So, it's been really explosive stuff, and we talk about things being sexy or not sexy.
The idea of getting these texts was really tantalizing, and the GOP fought really hard to block it, and we know now why, because it confirms basically all of the worst fears And most sort of pernicious suspicions that we had about the GOP and Donald Trump and the relation of January 6th So I throw it over to you of just what you've been thinking and feeling as as you've seen these things come to light over the last week week and a half whatever it's been
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