Weekly Roundup: Putin, Neo-Nazis, and the American Right
Brad and Dan begin by discussing the recent AFPAC conference, where the far-right figure Nick Fuentes compared Putin to Hitler in a positive way, while giving a speech full of racial and ethnic slurs. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar attended the conference--and Greene gave an address after being introduced by Fuentes. Dan unpacks the historic significance of this chapter in the GOP's intimacy with what are essentially Neo-Nazi White supremacists, while Brad compares Greene's remarks to the KKK of the 1920s.
Interview with Kelly J. Baker: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/PPY9950636314?selected=PPY8028158396
In the second segment, Brad investigates the responses of QAnon adherents and other conspiracists to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. He links the polarization and instability in our public square back to Russia's cyber warfare during the 2016 presidential election.
The show wraps with reflection on what these issues mean in light of the news that the J6 Select Committee has evidence to prosecute Trump and close allies for various crimes related to January 6th.
Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery: https://www.traumaresolutionandrecovery.com/
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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, UCSB, and 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.
We always talk about this time of the year in the academic world being a little exhausting, but I think we're both feeling it right now, so it's nice to see you and be with a kindred spirit for a few minutes.
Yeah, we're definitely—this is the trudging through sort of part of the academic year.
March is a false friend.
It's not I always tell the kids February is mean but March is that That kid who wants to be your friend at lunch, but then turns on you right and I feel like that's what's going on right now Hey, Dan before we we jump in Some kind of exciting stuff happening.
I think and want to make sure folks hear about it.
So I We are now, and I'll let you talk about what you're up to in a minute here in detail, but we are now both officially practitioners for the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery and that means that we are able to do different things with the center which helps people recover from and heal from religious trauma.
I've been doing that for about six months and seeing Folks one-on-one and I did a group on purity culture, and it's been pretty amazing, but now Dan you're on board and so What do you got kind of on the docket?
Yeah, so I'm excited about it.
We've talked about this before.
I should be up on their website, you know, hopefully the, I guess this is the end of the week, but you know, over the weekend.
But I, starting at the end of March, am also like you, I'll be meeting with individuals, but also running a group focused on recovering from toxic religious language.
And so, It's stuff that you and I talk about.
It's stuff you and I have experienced.
We hear from people all the time in this context who talk about this.
And for us, I think, for both of us, the work with the Center is very much in line with what we do.
There's a link to our podcast on their website.
But I hear from people all the time that talk about, you know, the experience and what it feels like to have the language of faith weaponized against them or to be told that they are impure, right?
That's a topic we talk about.
I've been meeting with people who talk about hearing that their church loves the sinner but hates the sin, but we still accept you, we just don't expect who you are or what you feel or what does it mean to be a quote-unquote a believer and all of these.
So that's what we're going to do is look at the That kind of language and the effect it has on people and the effect it has on our bodies, the way that somebody will think that they're free of that.
And then when they encounter somebody or they drive by a church building or they walk into a church, it's like they physically feel like they are back to the pew that they were in when they were 15 and hearing that queer people were going to hell or whatever it is.
So we just want to let people know that those those opportunities are there.
They can check out the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery.
And while I'm on that, one more update.
In the old school Dan Miller, I'm still old school, and I'm still using email.
I get some pretty funny emails from people who basically accuse me of being a dinosaur, but I will own my dinosaur-ness.
But I am now using a different email dedicated to the work that we do, which just makes everything easier to sort of track.
And so I'll throw this out there.
It's Daniel Miller, S-W-A-J, Daniel Miller Swag for Straight White American Jesus at gmail.com.
So I always want to hear from people.
People are using the email I've used before.
I still have that email and I'll still respond to those.
But I'm trying to shift my correspondence and things with With the podcast and with the Straight White American Jesus seminars we do and all of that work to danielmillerswage at gmail.com.
So I'll throw that out there.
Brad is laughing at me and my dinosaur stories.
I'm a little older than Brad.
So, I mean, I still rode a triceratops to class when I was an undergrad.
They had like a special dinosaur parking area.
So email is a big step up.
Little known fact, we do this show via Dan Miller's landline.
And so I actually have to call him and he answers on a rotary phone.
With a cord that he stretches from the kitchen into his office, and that's how we do this show.
So this will really date me, but when I have to do my dial-up modem, I have to disable call waiting so that it doesn't interrupt my internet connection.
So for the old people like me that even get that joke...
Yeah, Dan Dan has an AOL CD with 500 hours of internet on it that he's running out on so alright friends Speaking of language Dan and language mattering and language being important over the weekend there were two members of Congress Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar who attended what was in essence a white nationalist convention and stood next to somebody who for for lack of a better term is a
Nazi sympathizer and so I'll throw it to you kind of what happened here with with Green and Gosar and the conference known as AFPAC.
Thanks for listening to this free preview of our SWADGE episode.
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