The Bulwark Podcast - Christians and Political Power

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Political power often changes the church more than the church changes those in power—the most glaring example is the damage Trump has done to the credibility of the white evangelical world. Plus, Bill Barr is a liar, and the evolution of Mike Johnson. Peter Wehner joins Tim Miller. show notes: AP story on Bill Barr and the Mueller Report Pete's piece on the forgotten radicalism of Jesus Christ 

landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees? Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash rentsafeTO. Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Wanted to say thanks for the kind words to everybody who saw me at a Jazz Fest this weekend. A lot of Bullard folks out there. We were blessed with great weather wonderful music i loved grace potter with galactic anderson pack glenn david andrews they were the highlights for

me so you'll probably be hearing those guys on the outros this week but if you want a jazz fest and you want to hear some bulwark talk live we are in philly on wednesday and i'll be there with bill crystal so you might notice that bill crystal's not here today because that show will air on this feed later in the week. But if you're in Philly, New Jersey, Delaware, anywhere on Amtrak, be impulsive. Come grab tickets, thebullock.com slash events. We'd love to see you on Wednesday night in Philly. Okay, today's guest, somebody that I've been wanting to have for a while, one of my favorites when Charlie was in the chair,

Peter Wehner, contributing writer at The Atlantic and The New York Times. His books include The Death of Politics, How to Heal Our Afraid Republic After Trump. He's a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum and served in the Reagan and both Bush administrations. So he's got some bona fides. Mr. Wehner, thanks for doing this, brother. Great to be with you, Tim. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited. Okay. Well, I guess we got to talk about one of your colleagues first from those administrations. Bill Barr. This is the story of our life, right? Bill Barr, both him and Mitch McConnell over the weekend did the I'm for the nominee two-step,

but I don't really want to say his name. But Bill Barr was the most obnoxious of the two. So we're going to listen to him. It's kind of a long clip. I think it's important to hear his whole argument for why he is supporting Donald Trump and why he thinks Joe Biden is a greater threat to democracy. Let's listen to Bill Barr. How can you see that and say that Biden is a greater threat to democracy? Well, where are we losing our freedoms? How are our freedoms being constrained? They're being constrained by the progressive government. And democracy, especially from the Anglosphere democracies, the Five Eyes and so forth, the threat's never been for autocratic government on the right. But how specifically is Biden threatening democracy? The threat to freedom and democracy has always been on the left.

It's the collectivist, socialist agenda. And that is where we're losing our freedom. Parents are losing the freedom to control their children's education. And, you know, people can't speak their mind without losing their jobs and things like that. This is worse than the McCarthy era. Where is that coming from? It's not coming from the right. Those two things that you just noted there, you believe are worse than a president of the United States trying to subvert the will of the people

by overturning the results of the election? No, I think a country, all the things together, like we're not enforcing our borders. We have open borders. We have lawlessness in our cities. We have regulations coming fast and furious, so telling people what kind of stoves they can use and what kinds of cars they have to drive

and eliminating cars and so forth. Yeah, those are the threats to democracy. Eliminating cars is a threat to democracy, Peter. That's really something. You know, he's really churning himself up there trying to stick the landing. I don't know. What did you think about William Barr? Yeah, I thought it was disgraceful.

I thought it was actually a very helpful insight into a ossified and deeply ideological mind. I mean, this is a person who simply cannot vote Democratic under any circumstances. He basically admitted as much. I think part of that is, you know, the habits of a lifetime that he is so used to, like a lot of Republicans, having this sort of Manichean struggle. And they're on the right side and Democrats and liberals are on the wrong side. So I think to some extent, he's reverting to form. But it was embarrassing, I'd say, for a couple of reasons. I mean, let's just take some of the particulars that he mentioned, the open borders. It was a Republican Party, not the

Democratic Party, that sabotaged the strongest border bill probably in our lifetime that Joe Biden supported. And why did the Republicans sabotage the border security bill? Because Donald Trump told them because they wanted chaos on the border. He talks about law and order crime in the streets. 2023, we're having a record drop in violent crime and murder rates after they went up under Trump. Now that was in 2020 because of the pandemic and that has to be taken into account. The reality is that this hellscape, this dystopia that people like Bill Barr describe America as being is contrary to the facts. But beyond that, you know, Barr in that interview and in other interviews has said that Trump was off the rails, that he lost his grip, that he was manic, that he was erratic, that he was unreasonable. He basically has described Donald Trump as a sociopath, as psychologically deeply

unwell. Yet he cannot bring it within himself, even if he said, look, I can't vote for Biden out of good conscience. But he says he's going to vote for Trump. The last thing I'll say is that this is a reflex that I see from a lot of people on the right, which is they try and portray Joe Biden as if he's AOC. I think in a lot of respects, Biden is something of a bulwark against the worst tendencies in the left, not in every respect, but in important respects. So, look, I think the whole thing was jumbled, and I think it was an embarrassment, but it was helpful because it is a window into a mindset that's quite alarming. Yeah, it's a very good debunking of all of his arguments, though.

It's funny, even if they were all true, it still feels like a pretty weak argument, right? Even if Joe Biden was for open borders, you know, and even if we're at risk of losing our freedom to buy the car of our choosing that still would pale in comparison to what Trump did. The one thing I thought was interesting in the answer that was kind of revealing was the word Anglosphere. You know, when he's talking about where is the real threat. Right. And I think this is, you know, you can jump straight to racism or whatever, but there's certainly maybe some latent racially motivated thinking. But to me, it's just more that these guys really, I think, genuinely cannot imagine that this can happen here. They truly do believe that in the Anglosphere, in Australia, the United Kingdom, us, and maybe they don't even include Canada, we're just too strong.

The countries are just too resilient and that's not worth worrying about. We're not weak like Italy or Colombia or Africa, right? Like, I think that there's something to that, that like, you can't imagine that Donald Trump could actually do the worst. I think that's probably right. Although I will say that of all the people in the country, Bill Barr should be in that select handful that knows it could happen because he was there at the time. I mean, he was the one that was getting orders from Trump to try and overturn the election. He saw Trump up close. And we know that we were much closer to losing democracy than we may have thought of it at the time, if not for a few word I would use for people like Barr and Chris Sununu, is greater than other people, the true believers, like Marjorie Taylor Greene. I mean, I think they're nuts.

They're lunatics. But I don't think that they actually are aware of that. I think that they're psychologically unmoored. People like Sununu and Barr are not. They know better. And yet, for a variety of reasons, some of it ambition, some of it fear and cowardice, appointed by George W. Bush, he made a ruling in the context of Barr's actions over the Mueller report and said that basically Bill Barr knowingly altered the facts and the storyline in order to protect Trump and to discredit the Mueller report. So we're dealing with a person who is not honest. Yeah, I haven't actually read that. So we'll grab that and put that in the show notes for other folks who've missed it. I mean, I think it's pretty obvious

from the context of your answer, but how do you assess, you know, this election and Biden? And, you know, I mean, if you said that he's a little bit of a bulwark against the left, but are you gleefully voting for Biden reluctantly, you know, weighing the options? Where are you on it? Yeah, you know, I've said that my 2020 vote for Biden was both a vote that I was least enthusiastic about and proudest of, least enthusiastic because I'm so conservative. And, you know, Joe Biden's never been my ideal candidate, my cup of tea as a candidate. And, you know, his age concerns me and other things concern me about him.

On the other hand, I consider it the most important vote that I cast because of the nature of the threat from Donald Trump. And I'll feel that way in 2024. I will also say this, that if you had told me in mid-November 2020 that this is where we would be in April of 2024 in terms of Biden's stewardship of the country, I would have taken it. I think he's made mistakes for sure. I think the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a huge mistake. There've been some other errors that he's made. But overall, I think his stewardship has been pretty good. He's gotten some good legislation through.

The other thing is just the objective metrics of the country are in pretty good shape, whether you're talking about job growth, economic growth. Inflation now is the lowest in the industrialized world. We've had more years of sub 4% unemployment, I think, in 60 years. So there are a whole number of metrics. Now, whether you ascribe all of that or none of it or some of people to justify morally their support for Donald Trump, because he's such an obviously morally depraved figure. The only way that they can mitigate the cognitive dissonance that that creates within them is to

say the threat is horrifying on the other side, that if Biden wins, America dies. That's not going to happen, but they have to maintain that fiction to justify their stance. This is the, are we the crazy ones moment kind of thing. I'm listening to you say all that though, which is, I agree with you. If you're just talking about the country and the metrics, these are the legislation Biden would pass. This is where the economy would be. Of course, I would have taken it in mid-November, but if then you would have said, and he'd be tied or losing to Donald Trump in the polls for reelection, you know, then I would have not taken that deal, of course. How do you assess that? And I just, I'm listening to you talking, it just seems obvious and plain to me. What,

is there something that we're missing that other people are seeing? Are we just, you know, I don't know, are we in some bubble of privilege? I honestly can't figure it. Yeah, it's a hard one. You know, some of it I imagine is an overhang from the pandemic, that there's just an attitude of a kind of depression in the country. And that's not unusual. I mean, when you have a pandemic of the size that we had, and the world had, that has ramifications, psychological, emotional ramifications. And so I think people are just looking out at things and seeing it through dark prisms. So I think part of it is that. But look, it's a problem for the country.

I've looked at this every way I can. And of course, it's possible that I'm missing things and that I'm blinded by certain things, too. But as best I can tell, this is not a close call for the reasons that we talked about. You know, Donald Trump is a unique threat to the country. And Liz Cheney's probably articulated that better than anybody else. The fact that the country is seriously entertaining him for another term is an indictment of much of the country, primarily the Republican Party, obviously primarily MAGA supporters. But it takes more than that if Trump is going to win. My hunch is that Biden is still going to win, but the numbers don't look good. You know more about that stuff than I do. Well, we had Simon Rosenberg with

Hope You on Friday. Gone to my head, I still think that probably the fundamentals, you know, allow a squeak out of Biden right now. It's kind of what I feel for Biden right now. It's what I feel right now. But boy, it's way too close for comfort and definitely an indictment. How do you make sense of this? Assuming that your critique and my critique is generally correct. Yeah. What do you think explains the fact that this is a real race and that Trump is leading in a lot of polls? yeah what do you think explains the fact that this is a real race and that trump is leading in a lot of polls yeah besides just casting judgment upon tens of millions of people uh what else in addition to that well i kind of do do that um but in addition to that sometimes we're very myopic in america around the world incumbents approval ratings are terrible and this goes to the

post-pandemic and the inflation. I think there's something about inflation that is uniquely annoying, you know, and that even if the math, even if the math works, and I can just tell you that, look, I was with my friends all weekend who are nonpolitical, and they're all pretty well off on balance. And like hearing them just complain about hotel costs and flight costs. And it's just more like they're all doing well, but it's more it's the daily annoyance of having to worry about your financial status about having to go to the grocery store and buy the off brand thing. And so these are people of privilege. And then there are people that are really struggling paycheck to paycheck, maybe they didn't get a

raise and had to deal with inflation, right? Who are they going to blame? Biden. They look back and the pandemic itself feels like this exogenous event that Donald Trump is obviously not responsible for, but the response to it and right. And like the fallout and the policies in the years after kind of do feel like they should be Biden's responsibility. That's unfair. I'm not that I'm just trying to get inside the heads of some of these folks. And so I think that you just have a pretty depraved Republican Party that has rationalized everything about Donald Trump, that's not looking at the facts. And then you add on to that, it doesn't take that many people, 3%, 4% of the country, that inflation is bothering them so much or Biden's age or whatever. You know, then all of a sudden, it was a close race last time. Right. And so that's, that's kind of how I explain it, but it is flummoxing. Yeah, no, it makes sense. I mean,

if, I guess if you grant that the Republican party and MAGA world is with Trump, that just automatically gets them to some large number of people, whatever it is, 40, 41, 42, 43%. So after that, you're, you're talking about the margins and within those margins a lot of factors are going are going to go into it it does return really to what you said which is the depravity of the republican party that's at the core of what's what's gone wrong some of those margins also on the left i guess i should mention biden is not at 100 with his own base and some of that's over gaza i do wonder how do you kind of assess that you've been a long you know supporter of israel and seeing these kind of this kind of rhetoric obviously there's been anti-semitic and some of that's over Gaza. I do wonder, how do you assess that? You've been a long supporter of Israel

and seeing this kind of rhetoric. Obviously, there's been anti-Semitic rhetoric on the extremes on both sides, but what's happening now? How do you assess how Biden's handled it and what we're seeing in the protests? Yeah, I agree relatively well on Israel. I mean, he was there when it mattered.

After October 7th, he went over there twice, some threat to his physical self too. And if you follow what was being said at Israel at the time, you know, he was being greeted as the champion and a great defender of Israel, which he has been his entire life. You know, trying to put pressure on Israel to get aid to Gaza strikes me as a humane thing and a wise thing and probably in Israel's interest. So I think Israel really was suffering from its position. So I think that he's been doing pretty well when the attacks from Iran came. You know, he obviously gave the green light for Israel to protect itself.

So overall, I think he's done well and he's suffering politically because the base of his party is pro-Palestinian and in some cases pro-Hamas. And again, you'll know this better than I, but in Michigan and other states, this could really cost him. So I think he's done reasonably well related to Israel. The campus protests are sickening. I think it's a distillation of what's gone wrong in the American academy for a lot of years now, a lot of decades. You know, it's unvarnished anti-Semitism, which is grotesque. And it's spreading. And I guess it's an indication of the moral inversion that we're seeing in so many places that there's a rise of anti-Semitism after what they've had to experience. For sure. I always do want to say, there's certainly earnest, well-intentioned people

that are part of these protests. You know, I get complaints from some people who I think are very rightly and very worried about the potential for a famine in Gaza and the very real humanitarian problems in Gaza. And I'm totally sympathetic to all that. I know you are too. The problem is when you're at these campus protests and there are signs that are on the same group as you, and these signs say things like, you know, when people are occupied, resistance is justified. And, you know, no Jews allowed on campus

until Israelis move back to where they come from, Europe or America. And like, I guess that's not a direct quote, but that sign was on my alma mater's campus this weekend. You just can't associate yourself with that kind of thing. You know, like maybe there needs to be a splinter protest, right, where people are focused just on the plight of the Palestinian people. And it's not about, at best, anti-Zionism, and certainly at worst, anti-Semitism in many of these cases on these campuses.

Yeah, and it's really fused. I mean, one can obviously and rightly feel sympathy for the innocent Palestinians who are dying. The degree to which that movement has fused into pro-Hamas and a Semitic movement against Israel is really just disquieting, and it's not helping the cause of the Palestinians. I also wonder, just more broadly back to Biden, all of this together, world events, Ukraine, Israel, and others, creates a sense of uncertainty in the world, disorder in the world, and chaos. And I think that Biden is paying for some of that, too. I don't blame him for these events. I actually think he deserves credit for it.

But it's the ambiance. It's the frame that people are seeing. One positive in that, that you mentioned Ukraine and the world chaos is our friend Mike Johnson, who somehow has, you know, I think I said on a different podcast, is Saul on the road to Damascus here. I think that there is potentially a religious underpinning here. I think that he was impressed upon by Ukrainian Christians. And I think that there was a genuine element of feeling like he had a religious obligation, a moral obligation, maybe a better word to do the right thing here, which is refreshing. I mean, I guess, should it be

refreshing? Shouldn't all politicians feel moral obligations to do things? But it's a change of pace from what we've seen in the MAGA party. How did you assess Mike Johnson's conversion? Yeah, I give him a lot of credit. He did something, he did the right thing, and he did the right thing at a cost. There was a threat to his speakership. Now, I think he wisely set this up that he was pretty confident that in moving forward with the aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, it wouldn't cost him a speakership. He wasn't sure about that, And he did change his mind. And he is pushing back against the MAGA wins on this. You know, my sense of Mike Johnson, I don't know him. I've read about him. I know people who know him. I think his faith is authentic.

I have concerns about him. I wrote a piece when he became speaker called The Political Zealotry of Mike Johnson. And I'm familiar with the evangelical subculture that he comes from. So I do have some concerns about him. But I do think that he's honest in the depth of his faithfulness. I'm not sure it's always translated necessarily the right way. And I don't have much question that faith informed this decision. I think he's one of those people who tries to have faith inform virtually every decision that he makes. Now, all of us who are people of faith struggle with whether we're just, in a sense, proof texting the Bible to validate what we

already want to do or what we already believe. But I think he gets high marks. It tells us something about the times in which we live that he does something like this and he gets high marks. It tells us something about the times in which we live that he does something like this and he gets high marks. It should be a pretty straightforward thing. But, you know, you have to judge people in facts and circumstances. And I've been critical of him in the past. So I'm more than happy to say, well done. On that front, navigating all this area.

So there's always something I'm interested in getting your view on kind of navigating faith and politics. There was an interesting sermon that went viral on Twitter last week. I wanted to listen to a little bit of it. I know I sent it to you last week, but I was like, I want to know what Peter Wainer thinks about this. This pastor is Loren Livingston. I know nothing about this pastor, so maybe this is normal for him.

But he's in Charlotte, North Carolina. Well, let's just take a listen to a little bit of his sermon from last week. When you don't read and pray, you say, wow, there's a Bible out now that includes the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Isn't that wonderful? No. No, it's disgusting. It's blasphemous. It's a ploy. Are you kidding me? Some of you are so encouraged by that.

Let me tell you something. The gospel is not an American gospel. It is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But pastor, I bought the Bible. Really? You're telling me that you're encouraged because someone took a government, U.S. Constitution, a document that says we are of the people, by the people, and for the people. The people, the people, the people. And you have put it right beside the Word of God, which is eternal, unchanging, which says of Him, by him, through him, to him, from him are all things. And you're going to put those together and be happy about it? God forbid. Obviously,

this stuff is just maybe refreshing. I think always that's why this goes viral. Now, would this have gone viral 10 years ago? Probably not. But people are like, oh, an evangelical sounding Southern guy that is not doing Trump apologia from the pulpit. But anyway, what was your reaction to that? Yeah, I'll take it. I'll take it. It's not exactly my style. And, you know, that's an evangelical Southern North Carolina pastor. And I bet my bottom dollar he's pastor of a non-denominational church down in North Carolina. But look, I think what he was saying was at its core,

basically right. I mean, he's certainly right when he said it's not an American gospel. And this is a lot of the confusion with Christian nationalism, which is the fusing of nation and Bible and Christianity. And I give a guy like him a lot of credit because I'm guessing his congregation is predominantly Republican and conservative. And he's pushing back really hard about this fusion of church and state. So, you know, my own view in terms of as a person of the Christian faith, and my journey was a long one, was that there is an intersection between faith and politics. And people of faith should care about politics because politics, while it's about a lot of things, is ultimately about justice and the human good and

human flourishing. And you can't be indifferent to that. For a Christian, it's the whole idea of the incarnation of God coming to earth and being part of the human story, the human drama. And that has all sorts of manifestations and ramifications. So, you know, I don't know exactly where he is on those questions, but there's no doubt in my mind, given the context in which we're in now, where you have people like Franklin Graham and Eric Metaxas and Robert Jeffress and Jerry Falwell Jr. and on and on and on, Al Mohler. And they're not only voting for Trump, but they're champions for Trump, who is a man of extraordinary moral corruption.

You know, I give credit to Livingston for pushing back against that. It's the right thing to say. Curious how you think about this now, kind of looking back on whatever, what has it been, 40 years or so, give or take, of the moral majority. And is there maybe just something that is fundamentally corrupting about fusing religion with politics in such a way? Is there a way to draw lines, right? Because I hear you. It seems kind of silly to be like, oh, you should totally divorce your religion from politics in all ways. But what we've seen in practice has just been, you know, how do you kind of think about that now with the benefit of a

little bit of hindsight? I mean, I've long had concerns about that. You know, Jacques Ellul, the French philosopher once said that politics was the great threat to the church, its corrupting effects. And the reality is, if you look through Christian history, it's checkered, but there's a lot that's disturbing. I mean, you look at the German National Church in the 1930s, you know, with Hitler, you look at the Dutch Reformed Church with apartheid in South Africa in the 80s. You look at the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. In America, you know, it's complicated with the abolition and civil rights movement, but there were people on both sides of that, that the main proponents, many of the main proponents in any event of slavery were ministers in the Christian church. And I'd say as a general matter, that power changes the church more than the church changes those in power. And we're certainly seeing that in this

country. It's not the worst manifestation we've seen in history for sure. But if you go back to the start of the religious right, which is really the late 70s, early 80s, Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority, Pat Robertson, the 700 Club, and their involvement. While there have been moments, I think, that were praiseworthy, and I think they stood for some helpful things, and they even at various times saw things that were of concern, I'd say overall, net-net, the effect has been negative. And that they had brought a temperament and a disposition to politics, which has really hurt politics. It's taken the pre-existing passions that exist in politics, understandably exist,

and added a kind of jet fuel to it. Because if you take politics and then you escalate it and say, what we're really talking about is the children of light against the children of darkness. This is God against Satan, and we're on the side of God. And that becomes a context in which politics is played out. It can get really ugly really fast. So I think it's been a problem. And I think Jesus warned that it was a problem. And Christians and his followers have not done as good a job taking to heart his warnings. You know, so I had Rob Reiner on. They did a documentary about the threat of Christian nationalism, which interviewed a lot of genuine Christians. And I did a panel with him about it with William Barber.

It was super interesting. Obviously, that comes from a different perspective from the black church. I never felt like I got a great answer from him on one question about it all, which is where do we tip this over into a place that is dangerous? You know, I mean, I sometimes feel like you get finger waggy at all people of Christian faith that want to advocate for, you know,

things that Carol, things that I disagree with, frankly, even on gay marriage or whatever, but it comes from a genuine place. How do we define that? How do we allow, give people an off-ramp to feel like they can express their evangelical faith or their Christian faith in a way that is, you know, nurturing, in a way that is in balance with a democratic, multiracial country where people have freedom

of religion? Like, you know, that's the part. So, rather than just being like, bad, good, we got to throw this all out with the trash. Yeah, well, I think that's impressive. Your perspective, I think it's a fair one. And I think the fact that you can hold that perspective, even if you disagree with them on some of the particulars, you know, is doubly, doubly impressive. And there is a reflex on the left, I think that tends to be if not anti religious-religious exactly, in some cases it is, in some cases it's not. But it's a world that a lot of people on the left are just not familiar with. And it's an alien world. And in many ways, I think they feel like it's a hostile world. So

they don't give them the benefit of the doubt. You know, somebody like me who spent my life within Christian circles, I mean, I know a lot of these folks have spent a lot of time with them, been in Bible studies with them. And they tend to be really good and decent people who are trying to make their way through, and they have certain beliefs and convictions that they're trying to translate into politics, just like Rob Reiner does, and just like a lot of other people do. I do think that where it crosses a line and where it gets dangerous is in several respects. One is this Christian nationalist movement, And that's not a majority of, I would say, of Christians. But that's the view that it's not just Christian

participation, but as a kind of Christian primacy that they're expecting and the fusion of church and state. So that is a problem. But beyond that, I would say that the main problem now is that virtually the entire white evangelical world has rallied around Donald Trump. And you know, if you went into a basement and you were an atheist and you decided, look, I want to create the perfect figure to try and discredit the evangelical world, I'll tell you what I'll come up with. I'll come up with a man of extraordinary moral depravity who will cross every moral and ethical and legal line you can imagine. And then I'm going to have the white evangelical world rally around him and defend him. And just to add on to that, I'm going to take many

of the same people who took a two by four to a previous American president, let's say Bill Clinton, and hit him upside the head every other day for his moral failures. And then we're going to see that hypocrisy. My point is that I think the damage to the Christian witness of this political moment is extraordinary, particularly among younger people. We've gotten a window into some really troubling aspects of the evangelical and fundamentalist world. And it's a world that I think a lot of people actually don't understand unless you've been in it. I say this all the time at the Republican Party, but it's just so true about the Christian faith too, which is maybe a more important institution. And if somebody messages me and they are college age, like nine times out

of 10, it is a person that comes from a religious family that feels like some of the campus left stuff is alienating or hostile to them, but is so turned off by Donald Trump is so grossed out by that doesn't understand that doesn't understand why their families for it, right? And they're trying to find a way through. How is that person, you know, who now so like, let's say Donald Trump wins, God forbid, in 2028, like, there'll be an entire generation of people that don't remember, you know, the Republican Party, evangelical right, as anything other than is totally associated with Donald Trump.

And just like the long-term negative consequences are potentially astounding. There are a few exceptions, obviously, Russell Moore, our friend, and, you know, others, but David French, like, it just doesn't seem like anybody gives a you-know-what about that. You know, one thing that your listeners may not be aware of, at least if they don't travel in the evangelical world, there's an insight from a very good historian at Calvin University that I think has been on the podcast before, Kristen DeMay, and she wrote a book called Jesus and John Wayne. And so she went through and she analyzed, studied the evangelical movement throughout the 20th century.

And basically what she discovers is, or what she argues, is that in many ways, Donald Trump was a personification of something that they were looking for, sort of perfect fighting machine. I think that helps to understand it doesn't justify what they've done, but it helps people understand because there's this obvious question, which is, look, this guy is a moral wreck. How can people who argued for the importance of virtue and moral values defend him? And I think the answer is the grievances and resentments and anger were just pulsating on the American right. And within evangelical circles, people felt dishonored and disrespected. And I think when Donald Trump came along, he gave voice to that anger. And he said in 2024, too, I'm your vengeance.

I'm your retribution. And that, I think, emotionally resonated with a lot of people. They're really, really angry. There's a lot of hate out there. And that, I think, emotionally resonated with a lot of people. They're really, really angry. There's a lot of hate out there. And they feel like this guy is going to do to them what deserves to be done to them. It's not a pretty side of the evangelical movement by any means. It's antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. But I think it's there. And I think Christians, if they're honest, have to name that and have to struggle with that. Since I'm now in charge and I wasn't asking questions last three years,

I get to ask you about one, about an article that you wrote four years ago, but it was one of my favorites, was your Christmas article 2020. So, we're amidst all the stop the steal nonsense. And you wrote about the forgotten radicalism of Jesus Christ and first century Christians weren't prepared for what a truly inclusive figure he was. For people who maybe missed that or forgotten it, I'd love just to kind of put a quarter in the machine and let you cook on that topic for a few minutes. Oh, thanks. Thanks. Yeah. The reason I wrote it is because I think that a lot of people's impressions of Jesus and the Christian faith have been distorted. And I think one of the aspects of Jesus that people don't fully appreciate is just how radical he was and that his entire ministry was, almost his entire ministry was directed toward the outcasts, the people who were broken,

the people who were wounded. And his main opposition, his main conflict were with religious and political authorities. And the things that he did in the time in which he did it, the way in which he reached out to women who were second and third class citizens, people who were dealing with leprosy, people who were viewed as unclean and unworthy and sinners. And not just that he was with them, but he leaned into their life and that he brought healing to them and that he imparted dignity to them. It was just an astonishing thing. And when you're familiar with a story,

you just kind of read over it, but then you go back and you read the context in which these things took place. And you say, you know, this really was a revolutionary figure, but he was a revolutionary for love. And we can all use that. Really good.

Thank you for leaving us with that. Peter Wehner, please come back to the podcast. His book, The Death of Politics, How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump. Thanks so much to Peter Wehner. We'll be back tomorrow with a friend of mine who I'm excited to have on the podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace. excited to have on the podcast we'll see y'all then peace i'm on my fifth group and my rent's due six and west roof i could see it all hold on to my head that's my little dude look at kinzo swagging like it's prom 140 occasion and get your good suit

fuck your reservation bitch i brought a mob look at where you came from, Californication Sister, little baby, skating in boogie boards And raiding your cookie jar, my radio analog I wanted them Nikes, mama got me lugged and off This one's for all the little dreamers And the ones who never gave a fuck I'm a product of the tube and the free lunch Livin' real, watchin' old reruns And who cares, your daddy couldn't be here Mama always kept the cable long I'm a product of the tube and the free lunch

Livin' real, watchin' old reruns Over the occasion, fuck your reservation Call up all the haters, it's official Californication, emphasis a baby Radio and a cable, I got the dish too And all this fun's for all the little dreamers And the ones who never gave a fuck I'm a product of the tube and the free lunch

Living room watching old reruns And who cares, your daddy couldn't be here Mama always kept the cable on I'm a product of the tube and the free lunch The Board Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Breck.