Brad and Dan begin by discussing takeaways from Kansas, where voters soundly rejected a state amendment proposal to ban abortion. In one sense, it offers hope that pro-abortion movements and candidates can push back in the wake of the Dobbs decision and make headway in the fight for women's rights, reproductive rights, and healthcare in this country. On the other, it will provide fodder for the American Right to argue to conservative voters that the only way forward is a national ban on abortion.
Brad then takes a deep dive into Viktor Orbán's appearance at CPAC and what it means that the American Right looks to him as a model for the illiberal democracy they want to create here. He draws on his own work and that of Sarah. Posner to show that the current conservative fascination with Orbán was fueled by the Religious Right and Christian nationalists.
Andrew Marantz at the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/04/does-hungary-offer-a-glimpse-of-our-authoritarian-future
Sarah Posner at Vice: https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3b4kk/is-authoritarian-europe-becoming-the-new-hope-of-the-religious-right-v26n1
The episode finishes with a look at the Arizona primary results. Down the GOP ticket in AZ election deniers won their races, meaning that the state could be run by proponents of the Big Lie very soon. It is, in essence, a test run for the kind of illiberal democracy we see in Hungary.
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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 after a week break because I was gone with my co-host.
Dan Miller, Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
It's always nice to see you, Brad.
And I've been thinking of you in California, and I'm like, oh, it's almost as hot in Massachusetts now as it probably is there.
So, you know, I'm with you in spirit, if not in presence.
I will say, yes.
I don't even want to talk about it because we've had, where I live, here in the Bay, we've had a very mild summer and there's been no fires in our area, but I just don't even like saying that out loud because then I just have to wonder what's going to happen tomorrow.
You just started like four fires in California.
Good job, Brad.
It's amazing how we live here because I do feel like You know, I'll be driving and I'll see some smoke and I'll be like, oh man.
And I get on Twitter, you know, when I park and be like, is there a fire or is there not?
And it's just how it goes.
And there are fires here.
And if you're suffering from a fire up north in Northern California or other places where we're with you, we're thinking of you.
Um, okay, Dan, you spent last week, you had an issue, you know, family stuff happened with a family dog.
I'm not going to tell the story.
If you want to, you can.
We don't have to, but I will say that I know it's hard as parents.
Sometimes we don't, you know, we don't like always have like wins.
But at least you're not Alex Jones lawyer who accidentally sent his whole phone to the other lawyer.
So, you know, like maybe if you're out there listening or Dan, if this is, you know, you today as a parent, you're like, man, I should have done that better.
Like the other day, I messed up my my 10 month old daughter's food a little bit.
And, you know, I kind of didn't do the right food, the right.
I don't know how it goes.
It's supposed to give her carrots, but I gave her blueberries.
Oh, man.
You know, at least I didn't send.
the other lawyer, Alex Jones, whole phone.
You know, does that make you feel bad?
I mean, can you, do you feel like you can do that today, Dan?
Like if you have a minor mishap with your kids, you can at least remind yourself that you didn't do that.
At least I didn't like potentially ruin somebody's life.
Like, I mean, that phone is now going to the J6 select committee and, You know, I mean, like, at least if you mess up today, right, you like forget the one grocery bag in the car and some frozen peas spoil.
At least you didn't send the entire phone to the other lawyer.
To the opposition, right?
And maybe you send somebody to put it.
We could be so lucky if it actually had those consequences, I think.
But yeah, so yeah, it does put it in perspective.
And for anybody who did hear, yes, I brought home a little three-year-old Italian Greyhound to my kids the other day and it escaped like hours later.
But we recovered it, so it was not a complete parent fail.
Instead, I like to think that my kids will remember the tenacity with which I tried to recover this dog for five nights and five days and eventually did, and hopefully I can be hero parent instead of failure parent.
And I did not do anything like, you know, sending my daughter's social media stuff to her frenemies at school or something like that.
Yeah, there it is.
So that would be the analogy.
I hope you're writing a screenplay because that sounds very biblical to me.
But, you know, I want Pixar.
I want I want one day to sign on here and see that you've got like a brand new fancy office because you've signed a deal with Pixar for the show.
Here we go.
We've got a seminar that is starting soon, people, and there's a couple spots left.
So, if you'd like to sign up, go to StraightWhiteAmericanJesus.com and get in there with Sarah Mosliner and Purity, Culture, Race, and Embodiment or Disembodiment.
A lot of you have reached out and are saying, hey, I'm in need of scholarship, you know, is there any way?
And I'll just say, Reach out to us.
If you're out there and you're like, I'd love to do that, but I can't afford it.
Send us an email and we'll get back to you and we'll try to figure something out.
We'll do our best.
Okay.
So if you are like, I want to, but there's no way I can afford it.
So forget it.
Send the email and let's get together and see what we can work out.
All right.
Other than that, we have Dance Up Dance Series on Wednesday, still going.
It's in the code.
And on my end, I'm very excited, Dan.
I got to hold the advanced copies of my book this week, so that felt good.
You, for five nights, were chasing a dog.
For the last five nights, I've been sleeping with a book under my pillow.
I wake up in the middle and I just sort of make sure it's still there and that it's actually real.
I'm realizing that sounds a little creepy as I'm saying it.
So I, you know, I, it's not, it wasn't meant to, it was, it was meant to be cute.
But Dan, if, if you feel like this is, we've reached a place where, yeah.
What I actually think should happen is that your partner should remove the book while you're asleep.
And then just in the morning, pretend that like, there's no knowledge of this book and it was all just a, just a dream and see what that does to the mental health of Brad Onishi.
I'm glad that my partner does not think like Dan Miller is what I'm realizing right now.
I'm glad that my, we are only partners on this podcast because.
Okay.
All right.
Things are good.
Things just got a little personal, you know, like we just, we talked about books and marriages and dogs.
Usually we're not, we're not delving into these kinds of things.
So a lot of people listening right now are like, I'm going to keep fast-forwarding until I hear the word Christian nationalism, and then I will know that you're done with your nonsense.
Well, we do have plenty of it, so, you know, the time has come.
Just in case anybody's ever like, oh, they must be doing this because there's nothing about Christian nationalism this week.
It's never fear.
It's still with us.
And some foreign Christian nationalism as well as we get into it.
So we usually do Reasons for Hope at the end, but let's start with Reasons for Hope.
At least one, Dan, and that is the fact that in Kansas, many of you know this already, but we'll just kind of go over the bare facts here.
Voters resoundingly rejected a constitutional, what would have been a new constitutional amendment To in essence, ban abortion in the state and turnout was enormous.
This took place at the same time as the primaries.
And so this was not a kind of like coinciding with a presidential election.
Dan, there are a lot of independent voters in Kansas.
And so if you think about being an independent, a lot of times you're not going to vote in a primary because you're not going to vote for a Democrat or Republican perhaps.
And so.
This is one of those times when you really don't expect the whole state to turn out.
So the projection was that about 36% of the electorate would turn out to vote, and they ended up with something just around 50.
And so they blew the kind of turnout numbers out of the water.
The numbers in terms of voting for, excuse me, voting to reject this and in essence protect abortion in the state of Kansas far outpaced the votes for Biden, right, in the state in 2020.
And so it's not like these were just all Biden voters who decided to show up or something like that.
So Dan, in one sense, I think this is really obviously just unexpected great news.
And in some ways, I think many are like, hey, this is a good sign for the future.
Like there's a chance that the overturning of Roe v Wade that the Dobbs decision is gonna completely backfire in the GOP.
Others are like, you know, I'm not sure.
So I have some thoughts, but I'll throw it to you.
You see the Kansas stuff, you see what happened here.
Is this a, it's obviously good news, but is this a sign of more good news or should we be wary? - Thanks for listening to this free preview of our SWAG episode.
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