When Extremists Take Over . . . You Run for Office (+ Bonus Content: Dawkins' God Delusion)
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Kaylee Peterson is running for congress in Idaho. She's a thirty-something working-class mom who saw her hometown taken over by extreme right-wing politicians through coordinate funding and marketing campaigns. She explains why big money interests and Christian nationalists are teaming up in her state and creating one of the most radical political climates in the country - ravaging public schools and decimating the health care system, not to mention cultivating a sense of intimidation all over Idaho.
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My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Today I have two parts of our episode.
First part is an interview with Kaylee Peterson, who is running for Congress, is a Democrat running for Congress in Idaho.
One of the reasons I wanted to have Kaylee on was to talk about the ways that the city she grew up in, Eagle, Idaho, has been radicalized over the last couple of years.
Kaylee is somebody who is from a working class background, went back to school at age 30 Developing a career, but also having kids and getting married.
And realized just how many seats were unopposed in elections across Idaho.
But perhaps more importantly, saw the community she grew up in completely transform within just a couple years.
Folks moving in from California, A lot of outside interests funding elections and representatives and candidates and a real kind of shadow network, to use Ann Nelson's term, of people On one hand, fighting culture wars, reproductive rights and book banning and Christian nationalist agenda.
But on the other hand, working to deregulate land use in Idaho for developmental purposes.
Kaylee talks a lot about that.
She untangles a kind of web of big money interest, Christian nationalist visions for this part of the country, the ways that targeted and intentional campaigns can take over small towns.
And so we're talking about Idaho today, but I think that many of you across the country have seen similar things happen, whether you're in the South or the Midwest, whether you're in the Upper Plains.
All over the United States, there are coordinated campaigns to take over school boards, city council seats, county supervisor positions, and so on.
And they really start with this narrow vision of what it means to be an American and the ways that our social society should work.
And behind them, Are big money interests that have other agendas.
And I think Kaylee does a really fascinating and compelling job unpacking how all of that works.
So I hope you enjoy my interview with her and the ways that she helps us see an on the ground view of the effects that these takeovers have on things like education, on hospitals, on the ways that people in her community have to drive 400 miles sometimes to receive medical care, depending on what is going on.
All of that for me is just an emblem.
It's a window into what is going on across the country.
After that, if you're a subscriber, I hope you will stick around because I want to talk about Richard Dawkins.
Richard Dawkins is one of the most famous atheists in the world.
He's written a book called The God Delusion.
He's somebody who has grown to great fame, and yet he recently says that he prefers Christianity
Over Islam and he says that he would choose Christianity over Islam every time he also says That he's not a believing Christian, but that he's a cultural Christian There is so much going on there y'all and I want to unpack it for a couple minutes after my interview with Kaylee So if you're not a subscriber yet subscribe now so you can get that bonus content.
I do it every Monday And that's what I'm talking about today All right, here's my interview.
Hope y'all are good.
Enjoy it.
We'll see you on the other side.
It's 2024, y'all.
An election year that will change our lives forever.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco.
And today I am joined by Kaylee Peterson, who is running for Congress in Idaho's 1st District and going to tell you all about Kaylee here in a minute.
But just want to first say, Kaylee, thanks for joining me.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm a huge fan of the podcast and more importantly, the topic.
It's something near and dear to my heart.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for coming on.
And you are in Eagle, Idaho.
Your family has been in and around Eagle for six generations.
Eagle is a suburb of Boise and is a place that I think is in some ways a microcosm for the rest of the country.
There's a lot happening locally in terms of change, in terms of radicalizing politics.
But let me start with you.
Why in the heck are you running for Congress?
I think it surprised me more than anybody else in my community or in my circle.
I'm just a working class mom.
Me and my family, my husband's a mover.
We have two incredible kids just kind of making it by.
I actually went back to college at 30 years old because of the state of politics in America.
And I saw kind of the de-evolution of political dialogue and discussion and wanted to jump back in.
And it was my freshman year at a community college here in Idaho.
I'm double majoring in political science and criminal justice.
And there was this Facebook post begging people to be just put their names on the ballot because 60 to 70 percent of the races in Idaho were running uncontested.
And to me, when I hear uncontested, that means 60 to 70 percent of the races People have no choice.
They're not heard.
And 60 to 70 percent of the politicians have no accountability because there's no threat to their office or their position.
And so I raised my hand, and after a couple meetings, they asked me to run a full congressional race.
And I was already very familiar with my opponent Russ Fulcher and his connection to the Freedom Caucus, his connection to January 6th and the efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
So I jumped right in and haven't looked back.
It's incredible to think that over half of the elections for any seat up and down the state would be unopposed.
That's incredible.
But again, as somebody who travels across the country and gives talks on these issues, I hear that over and over and over, that school boards, mayors, whatever it may be, go unopposed.
Part of what's happening in your own backyard, I think, is also important.
As I said, your family's been an Eagle for six generations, but how have you seen Eagle change over, say, the last five or six years?
So drastic that it's hard to even compare the Eagle that I grew up with.
And we have to remember that 20 years ago, Eagle was not this kind of affluent suburban center.
It was an incredibly rural agricultural space.
I come from six generations of really old school Idaho farmers that still to this day in his 80s uses duct tape to fix absolutely everything.
And then we saw because of our kind of close proximity to Boise in the downtown center, the development started to kind of creep further and further and further.
And now there's very, very little agriculture left comparably.
But then what we saw after the 2016 election and kind of with this hyper partisan state of today's politics, We saw really, really far right and conservative voices move in with the specific intention of kind of cultivating this community of other far right influencers, other far right actors, and they just continue to kind of bring more and more people in.
And so it's an incredibly hostile area.
It's an incredibly politically aggressive area.
I usually use my favorite example is the 4th of July parade.
I did about six of them from North Idaho to South Idaho.
And the worst experience I had was in my hometown in the Eagle 4th of July parade.
When they announced who we were, the Eagle Democrats, people booed, chanted, threw candy back at us, told us to go back where we came from.
So it's kind of created this really hostile, aggressive Which is just the antithesis of everything I grew up with as old school Idaho values.
It's interesting that people would say, go back to where you came from.
Your family's been in Idaho six generations.
We've established that.
And yet I know for a fact that a lot of the folks in Eagle are newcomers.
I can think of somebody I went to high school with who just moved there.
And is very, you know, Californian, can't be more excited to be in Eagle, Idaho, because it is so conservative.
It is so not woke.
It is so not Governor Newsom.
Would you be willing to speak about the influence of folks moving from California and other parts of the country on the hyper-partisan politics?
It's really fascinating.
It's like a sociological experiment that's gone really wrong.
And I think a lot of people hear, well, we just want to get back to good old conservative values.
But it goes so much further than that, because what I would consider old school conservative values is Fiscal responsibility, less government intervention, live and let live, kind of free market principles versus some sense of regulation.
But what we're seeing right now is they're calling themselves blue state refugees.
It's important to keep in mind, Eagle was just found to be the number one place for retired state employees to retire in the country.
So we have people living their entire lives in California, California education, California pensions, then retiring to Idaho with this really extreme narrative of what conservative values are to them.
And unfortunately, their idea of conservative values is really this narrative that far right groups have been pushing, which is that we are a Christian nation, which is that the government should be able to regulate women's body autonomy, health care, relationships.
And it's been really intense to watch Eagle go from this really quiet, live and let live, kind of communal attitudes where everybody knew each other, even if you disagreed with somebody, you waved, and then if your neighbor really needed you, they were there, to this really...
It's all about homogeny and kind of sameness and this community where you're accepted based off of your political affiliations.
I interviewed or actually I was interviewed by the former president of Boise State.
And when I asked him about radicalization in Idaho, the very first place he mentioned was Eagle.
And he mentioned some mayoral races and campaigns in Eagle that really do kind of Exemplify everything you're talking about.
So we've established that there's out-of-towners who are really coming in and trying to make Idaho something that they create in their own image.
How has that played out in races like for mayor and other city spots, city council, etc.? ?
I like to say that extremism is bred through the exhaustion of the everyday average working class American citizen.
Because when we talk to people who are just living their normal daily life without being day-to-day involved in the political process, they see this divisive idea.
They see Californians coming in with extreme conservative values.
But what we see, and what I see as a congressional candidate, is these really orchestrated, organized, strategic efforts by really, really well-funded organizations to progress this radicalized idea of conservative values.
And then that is passed down, and we see it even in local races.
Here in Eagle, we had Our mayoral race between Jason Pierce, who was the incumbent and also backed by a lot of the far-right special interests, versus Brad Pike, who was a newcomer, kind of working class firefighter.
And we saw a massive, massive influx of out-of-Eagle and out-of-state money all of a sudden being poured into this Eagle race.
And we also saw some really shady tactics used in mailing, independent expenditures.
So it's not just the hyper-partisan politics that people are experiencing in their day-to-day life, but behind the scenes, it's far more orchestrated and insidious than I think a lot of people realize.
Just wondering now about the state level.
So here we have, I mean, this is sort of incredible, right?
To think about a place like Eagle, which as you said, a generation ago was a rural agricultural region and place, and now is having money pour in from all over Idaho, all over the United States for a mayoral race.
You know, from my understanding, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't live in Eagle.
I'm not an Idahoan.
But, you know, going back 15 or 20 years, the mayor of Eagle might have been a kind of Republican in the sense that you spoke about.
Somebody for small government, fiscal responsibility, socially conservative.
Not going to lie, probably not someone I'm going to end up agreeing with on some things, maybe most things.
But it seems as if we're in a state now where in Eagle and in Idaho in general, that kind of Republican is Is not viable that unless you are at a Christian nationalist extremist in the image of Marjorie Taylor Greene, it's kind of hard to get elected.
Is that a fair assessment?
Honestly, it's an understatement.
I think this kind of loyalty or die attitude that we see in not only the Idaho GOP, but in organizations like the Idaho Freedom Foundation, who back many of the far right candidates that we're seeing at the state And federal races.
I mean, I am going against an opponent.
My opponent, Representative Russ Fulcher, is not only connected to the Freedom Caucus at the federal level, but is also connected to the Idaho Freedom Foundation and sat on the board until he went to Congress.
And so this idea that you have to believe exactly as these really hyper radicalized far right actors believe, or they're what we call rhinos.
And this is a name that gets thrown around online.
We've seen some of the most kind of revered Republican leaders in the state get called a rhino, a Republican in name only.
And it's fascinating because what I'm seeing here in the Eagle Race is almost exactly the mirror image of the tactics and the messaging that we're seeing at the federal race.
And it's actually the very same organizations that are involved in both.
So really, when all of this funnels back, all of this messaging, all of these policy stances, all of these campaign tactics, Are coming from usually just a few sources working to kind of collaborate and get all of these people in line doing exactly what they want them to do.
Tell us about the the Idaho Freedom Foundation.
What do they stand for?
What are the kinds of policies they're trying to put forth and what is their vision for Idaho?
I mean, when we talk about the privatization of education in the state, Idaho Freedom Foundation is probably top.
They're at the forefront of that argument.
Their idea is that all of the federal funding that we have going into public education should be routed to private religious institutions, to homeschooling with absolutely no government oversight.
We also see them at the forefront of the abortion bans and legislation on health care in this state.
They are the very organization that is saying that there should be no rape or incest exceptions, that there For instance, we have the ETMLA Supreme Court case.
They are at the forefront of trying to prevent an emergency exception in the trigger laws that we saw in Idaho.
But more than that, it's also we're seeing more and more them pushing this narrative that America is a Christian nation, and therefore really Christians should be the only ones in In political leadership roles.
And so it's this really frustrating mix because what I also see is they tend to lean really, really heavily into the complete deregulation of private interests.
And in Idaho, where we're over 60 percent federally owned lands, those private interests can gain quite a lot through deregulation.
And that's, I think, where we see this partnership of these really, really well-funded organizations pouring money into races that don't make a lot of sense until we look at the policy stances on deregulation, lack of taxation, conditional land permits.
Open development.
And then it starts to make a lot more sense why we have Christian nationalists working with kind of big corporations with millions of dollars.
I just want to hover on this point because I think a lot of folks are just going to have an aha moment.
So it sounds like what you're telling me is there are folks pouring money into races like the Eagle Idaho mayoral race or Idaho District 1, your congressional race.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation is On one hand, fighting culture wars.
Hey, this is a Christian nation.
Hey, let's give money to homeschooling.
Let's deregulate public education and so on.
Let's fight the culture wars on abortion and make sure that, you know, we have one of the most strict laws in the country, so on.
And yet, behind the scenes, what people don't realize is the candidates who might get elected on those culture war issues are the very candidates who will be the cogs in the machine, who help deregulate land ownership and land use in the state, meaning there is just so much money up for grabs for private interests that might be able to get their hands on it.
Is that a fair assessment of what you just said?
And am I putting the pieces together in the right way? - Absolutely.
For example, because I was really confused.
Why was the Eagle Mayoral race such a big ticket issue that they were funneling hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars through this local race from these kind of national and federal groups?
And the tactics that they would use, for instance, his opponent, Brad, who is now our mayor, was an old school Republican.
He's not a liberal.
He's not MAGA.
He's not on the Trump train.
So what they did is they created two separate sets of mailers.
So to Democrats, they sent a mailer claiming that Brad was a MAGA far-right Republican.
And to Republicans, they sent a mailer that Brad was a rhino and a liberal and a Democrat sympathizer.
And so it's these kinds of tricks where we see But then what also is most interesting is why.
And then you look at Jason Pierce and his stances on development in the Eagle area where we really are one of the more affluent areas in the state.
Real estate is a big ticket issue and there's a lot of trying to balance water rights and smart growth and protecting agricultural lands.
With the high demand for property in the area.
Now Jason Pierce happens to be very, very friendly to some of the largest developers in the area.
Jason Pierce also is the one who sets the agenda for City Council to make sure that things are heard.
And so in order to develop some of the larger developments in our area, you'd have to go through Jason Pierce and then it makes sense.
Why?
And you actually look at the companies that did independent expenditures that were putting money directly through this campaign, and they're the same properties that are benefiting and profiting off of some of the largest developments in the area.
And we see the same thing federally.
My opponent, Representative Russ Fulcher, we just went through the last couple years of his contributions, and you see these massive corporate contributions directly correlate to his committee assignment and votes on legislature in the House.
And so there's so much money going around.
And it's frustrating because, you know, I'm a rural Democrat.
There is no money in my race.
I come from a working class family.
We live paycheck to paycheck.
I'm not independently wealthy.
And so we see why millions and millions of dollars each year are funneled through people who don't stand for American principles, who are really kind of standing on white supremacy, Christian nationalism, and these anti-government militias.
And it's all for corporate profit.
And it's frustrating.
You sound conspiratorial talking about it, but that's the facts.
That's what we see.
It doesn't sound conspiratorial at all.
It makes total sense.
And I'm just shaking my head thinking about it.
I have so many other questions.
I want to ask you about being a working class person in Idaho, how do these policies hurt families like yours when it comes to reproductive rights or health care?
How does the far right turn in the state legislature affect a family like yours?
It's devastating.
And it's probably a lot of people ask, why do I stick to the race?
Why do I dedicate 24 seven of my life?
And it's because I'm dealing with people who are directly impacted by these kinds of policy.
And so I have a staffer in the state who has to drive 400 miles to find an OB provider that is under their insurance.
I mean, most of the families that I meet are struggling to make rent.
They can't afford child care, and that's if they can even find it.
I mean, I have a 12-year-old and a 7-year-old.
I have not yet been able to find a child care option that me and my family can afford.
So a lot of times you'll see my kids with me on the road, and it's only through the help of volunteers on the campaign and people in my community who want to support us.
Every person that I talk to has these very real issues that make it almost impossible for them to really strive for this American dream.
And the American dream right now isn't luxurious.
It's basically, I want to be able to pay my bills and, you know, maybe go on a road trip with my family in the summer.
And to watch people who have to drive out of state just to get very basic health care needs met, to watch women who have lost pregnancies and had to drive out of state to have them terminated away from friends and family in their own communities so that they would avoid septic shocks, the shock is devastating.
And I and I deal with these people every single day.
And it's a huge motivating factor.
I can imagine.
From the outside, it seems as if there's a brain drain in Idaho, meaning that there are doctors, there are surgeons, there are nurses who are leaving the state because of not only the restrictive laws surrounding reproductive health, but also the climate at hospitals, people protesting, people Feeling as if they need to be rude or confrontational with hospital staff and doctors.
How does that look on the ground from your perspective?
It's terrifying.
Actually, I was just watching kind of this Idaho neo-Nazi Vincent James Fox.
He had this video where he was telling conservatives and far-right actors in Idaho to get confrontational.
They said, liberals make you feel bad for your beliefs, so you need to be confronting them and make them feel just as uncomfortable.
But what that actually equates to is political aggression, death threats, violence.
I mean, when Ammon Bundy led a protest outside of a local hospital in our area, that hospital had to go on lockdown.
People in ambulances on the way to the hospital had to be rerouted.
These are life and death stakes.
And while that may be at a much smaller level day to day for most Idahoans, it is very much there.
To step up and run for public office, the very first question I get from progressive voices is, is it safe?
There's a very, very real looming threat of physical harm when you run as a progressive voice in a state that really encourages that kind of confrontation and that really strict policy stance, which is why I go out there, because I work really specifically with Republicans, with independents, with unaffiliated libertarians and constitutionalists.
Because I want to show them that the very real policy solutions that would actually make their life better are not these culture war antics that far-right actors are proposing, but very real simple policy solutions to make sure that people have living wages and healthcare opportunities and Teachers that are paid well enough to not flee the state the second Washington has an opening.
So it's building relationships back with community members who have kind of been hearing this same false narrative over and over again.
And it's going to take more and more candidates stepping up at the local level despite the threat of violence and despite that kind of intensity to build that trust back in rural America.
So that's what we're working on.
You mentioned teachers.
I'm wondering the effects of these policies in this climate on education.
You know, we talk a lot on this show about Moms for Liberty, about attempts to ban books, about attempts to control libraries and librarians.
How does this have an effect on education in Idaho, specifically public education in Eagle and beyond?
It makes it so that public education itself is just struggling to survive.
There is not a single place in my district, and when people look at my district, it's all of northern and central Idaho and the entire southwest side.
So it's a 500 mile long district with 19 counties.
And from the very northern tip to all the to the southern district, every single student I talked to had Devastating consequences, either crumbling infrastructure, schools that were leaking, not enough room where we have students learning in hallways and teachers' lounges, to just the teacher shortage itself showing itself.
When COVID happened, my daughter was in third grade, and unfortunately, her teacher lost her fiancé to COVID.
And they could not find a single other person to fill in.
And that teacher continued to teach for two weeks before they could find somebody to step in.
And you just think about these individual cases where It is not just a problem, but it is directly harming people on a day-to-day basis.
It's harming students.
It's harming having an educated workforce to try and incentivize good economic interests in the state.
It's harming our teachers because they're leaving or we're unable to fill positions with qualified teachers.
And so they're trying to rework the statutes to allow people with no training into public schools.
So it's just every single element of education is harmed.
And we see those ripple effects, not just in education, not just through our students, but through our local economies, through our population growth, through the lack of young families that are coming back to Idaho to start families.
So it's it's difficult and we see it everywhere.
I want to talk, you mentioned that your district, the one you're running in, is 500 miles in terms of its size, 19 counties.
I want to talk about rural voters.
What are the challenges that rural folks are facing and what are some of the ways that we don't always appreciate what they want out of government?
I interviewed Representative James Tallarico from Texas and he talked about how It was really rural counties in Texas that helped to stop some of the proposals around school vouchers because people living in rural areas, some of them don't have a private school in their town.
So they're like, why would I want to give money to the private school?
My kid can't even go to a private school because there's not one for 100 and 200 miles.
I'm just wondering, what are some of the things you hear from rural Idahoans that they want out of government that we don't always appreciate when we hear about the culture wars and the MAGA movement and so on and so forth?
Well, the challenges for rural voters are those really basic social programs and functions of government that we in really urban areas don't often appreciate, such as even the United States Postal Service.
To that, it can be a lifeline to rural voters who depend on that for medications, prescriptions, communication.
Not to mention education and the lack of school choice in these areas when people are talking about parental choice and school choice.
Well, for rural voters, that doesn't mean anything.
They're struggling to just get kind of basic needs met.
There isn't choice for them.
So they're just looking at being under and defunded by these policies.
It's difficult though, because rural voters are so much harder for us to reach.
In my area, like I said, it's 500 miles long.
These are incredibly diverse communities, even though they're all rural Idaho, their communities look very different.
Many of them are dealing with different issues.
For me, I look at Idaho County here and the need to support our volunteer firefighters and emergency services.
In these areas, it's not guaranteed that when something happens, someone's going to be able to respond quickly to your home.
These are volunteer departments that are in no way state funded.
They have to rely on grants just to get funding for really basic gear.
So for every rural community, it's different.
But the unique challenge for us as candidates is how do we take a fraction of the funds and resources that our opponents have, And do a hundred to a thousand times the work to reach 900,000 people in these really diverse communities.
And that's what we've been focused on.
That's what my campaign's all about.
And that's why I've been running for nonstop for the last two years and promised I'd run for the next two cycles to get that work done.
Well, the way you put it, it seems daunting, and I think that leads to my last question, which is, you know, you have been running.
You're going to keep running.
You have young children who are often with you on the campaign trail.
You have a husband who's working, and y'all are trying to make it all kind of make sense in terms of family, bills, taking a vacation once in a while, and dedicating yourself to this race.
One of the things I've always maintained over the last few years is that just by running There's a win because that seat is not going unopposed.
That candidate is not going to be able to win without accountability.
And there's always somebody on the other side presenting another vision for governance, for human flourishing, for a way of life that is not restricted to the Christian nationalist worldview and the far right worldview that we see.
I'm wondering how you view your campaign.
You know, whether you win this time, whether you win next time, what's the value in continuing to show up for people in Eagle, people all over Idaho and everywhere in between?
I think the greatest lie that we've ever been told by the far right is that this is hopeless, especially in rural America.
And it can feel hopeless.
And I know to everyday Americans that are juggling job and kids and stress and life who are too exhausted to get involved in the political process, it can feel daunting and a little hopeless.
But I want people to leave with a lot of hope, because what I look at is the last two years that I've been running this campaign, already, just by running, just by traveling, just by doing the work that we're doing, really listening to rural communities, doing bipartisan outreach, having these difficult conversations with voters that we would never otherwise try and reach out to.
I can't believe the amount of progress that we've already made, and that's with almost no attention and no money.
So I look at where we are now and every single legislative district in the state now has a candidate, which is a first in decades.
This is historic for us.
But not only that, when I first started, I'd go to these really rural communities and I would sit down with three community members who would show up to an event.
I'm going to these same places and we're seeing 35, 40, 50 people show up.
So the work that we're doing is setting a foundation.
We're really building the infrastructure, not just to show that it can be done, but also to support people that are brave enough to step forward.
I tell every single person I meet, if they want to run for office, give me a call.
Because you're going to have good days, you're going to have bad days, but more importantly, we're in this together.
And it's important that we remind ourselves that we're a community.
We need to support one another.
We need to continue looking forward.
And it'll get there.
It might not be as quickly as we'd like, but I know that as long as we continue doing the work, this is how real social change and social movements happen.
So there's hope.
I love that.
One of the things I've seen in my research and my life experience is that the other side does not view this as a temporary battle.
They see this as a cosmic war.
And I don't want to be in war.
I have no interest in being in war.
But what I do have, though, is an interest in In a way of life, American life or otherwise that is one that helps as many people as possible flourish.
But that means a process.
It means a campaign.
It means a lifelong and a process that goes beyond my life to others.
Uh, if we think that we're going to just win an election, then go play pickleball and have brunch because it's all over.
That's just not how this works.
So I just love your perspective that says, look, we, we, it could be tomorrow.
It could be 50 years from now, but we're going to just keep moving and, uh, and, and keep pushing.
And I think a lot of people need to be reminded of that perspective.
So really appreciate that.
Where are ways that folks can link up with your campaign and things you're doing and all the travels you're making up and down your state?
Well, luckily there aren't a lot of Kayleys running for Congress, so if you go to Kayley for Congress, you will find me.
Kayleyforcongress.com is our website.
Kayley for Congress, and that's K-A-Y-L-E-E-F-O-R, Congress.
All of the social media platforms, or at least the ones I know about.
But I try and tell people because I know what it's like to be so exhausted just being a working class family to not really know how to get involved.
But every single person, no matter where they're at in life, can make a massive difference.
Even something as small as sharing a social media post.
Because I look at what it costs me to try and reach voters, and if every person that had 400 Facebook friends shared my social media post, that's, you know, 400, 1,200, 2,600 people that we could be reaching just because somebody pressed like, follow, share.
So whether it's donating money, whether it's volunteering time and doing phone calls, or even just following us on social media so that we get a little balance to the death threats, every single person can make a real difference to all the local candidates and down ballot issues out there.
I really appreciate that.
Thank you for sharing, and that's a nice way to look you up.
Kayleigh for Congress.
You're the only Kayleigh running for Congress, so that helps.
Well, thank you for your time, and thank you for your perspective on a place that I know a lot of people are wondering and worried about, and a place I've spent a lot of time thinking about because of so many friends and family having moved to Idaho.
As always, friends, find us at Straight White JC, find me at Bradley Onishi, and if you haven't yet, subscribe, become a premium member, and get all the perks, our bonus content on Mondays, our bonus episodes, ad-free listening, our Discord server, and all the rest.
And if you're a subscriber, stick around, because I'm going to be talking about Richard Dawkins and Christian nationalism right now.
Why would an atheist have any concern about religion in terms of which one is more popular?
If I'm an atheist, if I'm one of the most famous atheists in the world, who cares which religion is more popular?
Especially if you're Richard Dawkins, somebody who thinks that by abolishing religion or banishing religion from human society, we might all be better off.
Well, recently Dawkins chimed in about Easter and Ramadan, and he said some things that, honestly, he's been saying for 15 years, but he was pretty clear.
The friendly atheist on Substack, Hemant Mehta, had a great post about this, and I want to use that post to guide some of my comments today.
So, here is Dawkins talking about what he sees as Christianity's diminishing role in public life.
Well, I must say I was slightly horrified to hear that Ramadan is being promoted instead.
I do think that we, we are culturally a Christian country.
I call myself a cultural Christian.
I'm not a believer, but there's a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian.
You know, I love hymns and Christmas carols and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos.
I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense.
It's truth that, statistically, the number of people who actually believe in Christianity is going down, and I'm happy with that.
But I would not be happy if, for example, we lost all our cathedrals and our beautiful parish churches.
I think it would matter if we substituted any alternative religion that would be truly dreadful.
Now Dawkins is, of course, British, and he's talking about the United Kingdom and England in specific.
And he says very clearly, I think we are a Christian country and I call myself a cultural Christian.
This is like a religion professor's dream.
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