The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy by Philip S. Gorski, Samuel L. Perry

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy by Philip S. Gorski, Samuel L. Perry A bracing examination of a force that imperils American democracy Most Americans were shocked by the violence they witnessed at the nation's Capital on January 6th, 2021. And many were bewildered by the images displayed by the insurrectionists: a wooden cross and wooden gallows; "Jesus saves" and "Don't Tread on Me;" Christian flags and Confederate Flags; even a prayer in Jesus' name after storming the Senate chamber. Where some saw a confusing jumble, Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry saw a familiar ideology: white Christian nationalism. In this short primer, Gorski and Perry explain what white Christian nationalism is and is not; when it first emerged and how it has changed; where it's headed and why it threatens democracy. Tracing the development of this ideology over the course of three centuries―and especially its influence over the last three decades―they show how, throughout American history, white Christian nationalism has animated the oppression, exclusion, and even extermination of minority groups while securing privilege for white Protestants. It enables white Christian Americans to demand "sacrifice" from others in the name of religion and nation, while defending their "rights" in the names of "liberty" and "property." White Christian nationalism motivates the anti-democratic, authoritarian, and violent impulses on display in our current political moment. The future of American democracy, Gorski and Perry argue, will depend on whether a broad spectrum of Americans―stretching from democratic socialists to classical liberals―can unite in a popular front to combat the threat to liberal democracy posed by white Christian nationalism.

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I think he gets a robe if he shows up a few more times. We have Samuel L. Perry on the show with us today. He is the author of his latest book, The Flag and the Cross, White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy. Just came out April 1st, 2021. I believe his co-author is Philip S. Gorski. Do I have that pronounced rightly? Yep, that's right.

There we go. Samuel Perry is an award-winning scholar and teacher. He is among the nation's leading experts on conservative Christianity and politics, race, sexuality, and families, along with numerous articles published in leading academic journals. He has authored and co-authored four books, including Growing God's Family, Addicted to Lust, Taking America Back for God, The Flag of the Cross, of course, which just came out, and he's working on a forthcoming book, it says here. So there you go. Welcome to the show, Samuel.

How are you? Hey, great to be here. So glad to be back. There you go. There you go. I wanted to give you a bad time. I'm like, why did you write that book on lust about me? So give us your plugs.

What people can find you on the interwebs to get to know you better. Yeah. So associate professor of sociology at the University of Oklahoma. And you can follow me at ProfSamPerry on Twitter. There you go. Is Prof for Profit or for Professor? No, P-R-O-F, yeah. So definitely not Profit as in money, but Prof as in Professor.

Professor Sam Perry. There you go. And I love your Twitter feed, man. I mean, just following you stuff is awesome. People should definitely subscribe. Do we get your Twitter plug in there? Yeah, ProfSamPerry. That's me.

There you go. And I try to keep it educational. You get some opinions every now and then, but I try to make that kind of a – I have a lot of data that I post. And so if you're into data on religion and politics specifically, that's where I try to post a bunch. Yeah, it's a great learning thing. And if you care about our democracy, definitely subscribe. So what motivated you to write this book? Yeah, so we put this book together right after January 6th.

So January 6th took place. And I mean, I think all of us saw this chaotic event and it was just baffling. I was tweeting, or not tweeting, I was on a text chain back and forth with some fellow professor friends of mine. And we were just were just like man this is something that is is absolutely crazy but as we watched it we watched we were watching this footage and we started to notice hey did you guys see that cross did you guys see that jesus save sign did you all see those those people praying or singing or these you know these impromptu worship sessions and then when the videos came out of what took place

inside the chamber, you saw this, the guy with the horns who was screaming and the furry, you know, like the kind of fur coat, like the QAnon shaman, he says this prayer in Jesus's name on the Senate chamber. And we were like, this is something we have to talk about. And so the reason we wrote this book is because Phil and I are convinced that things like January 6th, I think it's really easy for us to just dismiss them as fringe. Like there are these really wacky, chaotic events that, and for some reason they had some kind of connection to Christianity. And that seems really weird. And what we're arguing in the book is, is that's really best thought of not as a, some kind of fringe event, but as an eruption of forces that have been moving beneath the surface for a long time. And they're still there and they're still building. And so we are trying to explain what those forces are and why they're dangerous for our democracy.

So if you would give us an overall arcing of the book, I mean, you kind of gave me a little bit of a dipstick there. Give us some, maybe tease some of the details out on the book that are in there. Right. So we argue that white Christian nationalism is both a deep story of America's past and a vision for its future. So it's connected to this myth of who we are as Americans, that we have this kind of special relationship of God, that America is where God pays attention,

that we are founded on biblical principles and God has blessed us with prosperity. And because of that, it is incumbent upon true American patriots to make sure it stays Christian, to make sure it stays for people like us. And those who can't hear, I'm putting up quotes there.

So people like us means white, traditionalist, conservative Christian, primarily men, but women can come along with that, native-born conservatives. And so the idea is we are going to, we're a shrinking minority. This group knows that they are demographically declining. And so they are currently and we're seeing this now unfold be a shrinking minority, they can make sure that they hold on to cultural and political power.

So really, that's that's what we're arguing is what is white Christian nationals? We try to describe it. It's a very short book. We try to make it a primer, very accessible, and it's very cheap. You can get it on Amazon now for $17 brand new. I mean, we try to make it very and what we're trying to argue is just that this is a this is is a threat to democracy because it has no regard for democracy. These are not people that want to increase participation in American politics and culture. These are people who want to circumscribe that and limit it to the to the worthy few people like us. And in the desperation, like you mentioned, I mean, you know, I've seen Republican voters talk about this. They know in 2050, it's projected that, you know, the white people will become a minority.

That's why they're anti-immigrants. That's why they, you know, I mean, I was just reading recently the reminder of the Trump administration taking, you know, under what's his face, taking and making it so that immigrant women that were coming to this country couldn't have children. It was a form of what was going on in Nazi Germany. And you talk about what this country was founded on. You know, the great lie that started with, I believe, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but the great lie of the shiny city on the hill, the Puritan, I think it was, sort of thing. And 450 years of that and and i was raised in a highly white nationalist religion

mormonism um jesus they can't even publish uh brigham young's journal because they've seen what's in it but he was it was a highly racist religion for i don't know up until the 76 1976 when they found they couldn't sell it in africa and so and so oh we have to change for we have revelation from god or we can't sell this thing for money in in africa so i was taught that that jesus chose each one of us to go on different places of the earth and that i was a special little being that was placed in america and poor people that are placed in other parts of the country or the world were just maybe not good souls or some sort of crap out there. That's what I was taught.

And of course, I grew up with the John Wayne and a lot of the stuff that went on that had all that subtle sort of thing of white nationalism, the whitewash sort of history of this country, which is a thing. But I grew up with that. That was my mentality that, well, I'm a special little being who was chosen by God to be in America. And we live in this delusion. And now we're in this thing where, like you mentioned, these guys have finally realized the Betsy DeVos's who want a theology theocracy is they've realized that they can't win and they're dwindling population. And so the only thing left is to seize power in a fascist or authoritarian takeover and just take the power. Yeah, I mean, so we actually can demonstrate this.

So like some of my co-authors with experimental research, they have found when they take Christians and they tell a group of Christians and they remind them of demographic decline, they remind them like, hey, you know, by 2050, you guys are going to be a minority religion. They respond with more Christian nationalism. In other words, it actually triggers a response to say,

you know what, this is a nation for us, for people like us, and we were founded as a Christian nation. We need to kind of lean into this idea. And the reason that is is because it's a threat response. So it's this idea that our cultural and political influence is under attack. And so we need to respond with not only a show of force, but strategic and militants and even radical efforts to make sure that we can't be marginalized and that our way of life and this is the kind of

language our way of life america as we know it is under attack is under siege and what they mean is our privilege our our authority our cultural power is being taken away from us by outsiders and these outsiders they're usually, you know, everybody from like racial and ethnic outsiders to moral outsiders. So there's sexual minorities, there's racial minority immigrants, there's religious minority. And so it really is, I mean, when I describe it like that, it is intuitively anti-democratic and borderline.

I mean, I think, you know, I'm not saying that everybody who subscribes to this ideology is about to go storm the capital but i do believe it's there to be active you know by a savvy politician who's angry enough to rally people together definitely and we and we i mean we came within inches of of losing our democracy just inches i mean if if pence had gotten into that car that the Secret Service was trying to put him in, this would be over. You know, if two attorney generals, an attorney general and his assistant had decided not to sign on to the letter to try and go seize, you know, voting booths. I think there's, and basically Pence deciding kind of against his

will because he called everybody and said, don't really have to do this. When you're calling Dan Quayle for advice on the Constitution, it's like, is that like a new thing? Come on, Dan, you're really reaching for whether you should do it or not. But if he had chosen another path, this democracy would be over. And, you know, people don't realize it. People are just running around eating burgers going, oh, fucking whatever. They don't understand how destructive a fascist and authoritarian government is and how easy it is for it to fall like Hungary and stuff.

You know, I've seen, and people think, well, this is hysteria. No, I've seen Republican voters in interviews and focus groups say out loud that the part of it is the shame of what we've done for 450 years to minority communities but a lot of it is that white power and they and they go you know what if they this is what the republicans will say quote they if when when we lose power and minorities get in power they will treat us as badly as we treated them and that's what their fear is based on. That they'll become, you know, enslaved, marginalized, and all the horrible things that we've done to minority communities for 450 years.

And that's the fear. And that fear is really valid when it comes to like, well, fuck it, we're just going to take the capital. Yeah, well, I mean, so that's, you know, what you described is something that political scientist Paul Jupe calls the inverted golden rule. That is, expect from others what you would do to them if you've given the chance and have done to them. And that really is what we're seeing. But think about this. So Republicans haven't lost, haven't won one popular vote in the president in decades, right since since since bush so so george w bush won won the popular vote once against kerry in 2004 other than that it's been straight losses in every popular vote for the presidential election they know that they cannot win uh

a presidential election if it's not for the the intricacies of the electoral college and like being able to to jockey for very specific kind of sections and states and kind of you know polarization is kind of allowing that to happen or to gerrymander or to or to essentially create districts and elections to where they can they can punch above their weight in terms of their numbers because their numbers are shrinking like it in terms of like that just the demography older groups of americans are dying off and not being replaced by more and more conservatives america is drifting leftward on all of these social issues and so what you see and this is we can we can document this in in survey after survey after survey america on most social

issues is drifting left so if you are a a dyed-in-the-wool conservative and you don't want to accept transgender rights gay rights you don't want to accept immigration reform and you don't want to accept civil rights for growing civil rights for people of color and for women these kinds of minority populations you have got to you've got to get active quick and what you've got to do is you got to make sure that even though your group is a shrinking minority, you guys can stay in power. And you do that by creating new election laws. You do that by strategically planting justices all over the country. There's a great book I would recommend to folks. I would recommend they read our book. I think The Flag and the Cross is a good primer on what we're talking about. But another book that was written in 2018 called How Democracies Die by Levitsky and Sibla.

And it's just – I mean they just trace how a lot of regimes that start as democracy, these leaders get elected. And then as soon as they get elected, they compare it to sports. They change the rules of the game. They sideline the opposition. They buy off the refs. And they make it so that they can never be taken out of power. And that's what you have with Putin. That's what you have with Orban. You have with around the world, these authoritarian regimes. And we are at risk.

Yeah, and people don't realize it. I mean, Hungary fell in 2020 to full authoritarianism. It was building over time. But, yeah, he took over. I was just reading about Venezuela, and I guess the Ortega family is finally capitulating to some of the, with the Russian war, capitulating to some of the sanctions from the U.S. government. But the Ortega family, it sounds like the Donald Trump family took the presidency. It's just the whole thing sounds like Don Trump Jr. and he's got his wife as his vice president.

It's like insane when you see, and people don't realize, you know, how easy these things can fall. We should also recommend your book, Taking America Back for God, Christian Nationalism in the United States. You know, when Trump first won the election, I started, you know, I started going, I need to find out what this white nationalism crap is about.

And I found out it's just a rebrand of the KKK. It's just like a renaming of KKK. And like a third of Christians subscribe to this, evidently, according to some of the polls. And then about another third of Christians just kind of of go yeah well we're kind of with them but we we don't like how extreme they are but we'll vote with them because you know it's about power and and this whole thing in this in this country where churches now i mean you see it on the right wing watch churches now aren't they're not up there talking about jesus i mean i imagine some are but it seems like a lot

of churches are out you know talking about biden they were talking about obama and right you know it was it was crazy well so in in what you're describing is i think the result and we've seen this within the last few decades and it's growing worse and worse so it used to be and i could show you data on this like in the 1970s and early 1980s, you were just as likely to be an evangelical Democrat as you were a Republican. Like the two things weren't synonymous, in other words. Nowadays, when we think of white evangelical, we think strong Republican, right? Like 80% or more voted for Trump twice. You know, it's just a very, very kind of locked step with that. If you're a white

conservative Christian, you vote Republican. It's just understood. Well, the more that that happens, the more those two things just become synonymous. Well, of course, like, you know, speaking about speaking against Obama, speaking against Biden, speaking on behalf of Republican candidates almost is just like you're preaching from the Bible now. I mean, it's just like it's just like it's that standard Christian rhetoric or dialogue. Now, they might not do it so openly, but I have been to churches where Trump spoke. I've been to First Baptist Alice, where they were chanting USA in the audience, and some of the people in the audience next to me started changing the chant.

We love you. We love you. This isn't a church. You know, so like I this, this merging of religion and politics in a way that is, is people are having a difficult time distinguishing and it's getting more difficult. Yeah. I mean, when you look at what Betsy DeVos wants and what she's been building with the Center for National Policy over the last 40 years, starting with her father, you, you start to really get worried about, I mean, they've been working to overturn SCOTUS, to build SCOTUS out and fill it with their judges. And they finally won from what we just saw recently with the abortion exposure. That's right. Yeah. And people are

going and people realize, you know, between overturning voting rights, making it so that you can basically build an oligarchy. You've talked about this, where you can build an oligarchy and, you know, you can buy your politician now and run this country and all that stuff. It's just insane. And people have no idea. They're just wandering around, posting pictures on Instagram and going, everything's fine. Yeah, democracy's been here for almost 250 years.

It'll be around for a long time. Yeah, we don't have to caretake that thing. And they don't realize how powerful these are. And this happens in authoritarian takeovers. In fact, we had Ruth Bengeit on the show talking about her book, Strongman, and want to talk about giving me nightmares with her stuff in the book. Most of the right-wing takeovers of a government come from a time like what we're going through now, where women's rights go up, you have LGBTQ rights

go up, and it's basically a seizure of power by right-wing religion to go, nope, you're not doing that, we're taking back everything. And it's a violent seizure, and it's ugly when it comes into play. And people are just like, you know, it's kind of like the Russian war right now. People are like, yeah, we don't have any big wars. We don't have to worry about having any, you know, World War III's. Everything's fine, hunky-dory. You know, even we were kind of asleep at the wheel. I mean, frankly, when I was seeing the thing go down, I'm like, Biden needs to go land a whole mess of U.S. troops.

And this is before he'd attacked i'm like buying if i was buying i'd go move like several hundred thousand u.s troops right into ukraine because it's like if you're going to attack ukraine you're going to start a war with us checkmate but you know i'm not president so i guess there's that but but still i mean you think he wouldn't have been able to attack i mean it just wouldn't wouldn't have, I mean, it would have been insane to attack, but I don't know. We might be dealing with a madman. Well,

yeah, we're actually, uh, I mean, on the right, this is kind of, you know, I was just working on a,

an article right now. This isn't in the book, but we've got this new data talking about, you know, Americans attitudes toward even after the invasion. Yeah. We find that, that the kinds of things that we're describing in our book,

Christian nationalist ideology, it's actually powerfully associated with respecting Putin's leadership. I mean, you know, because if you're a Christian nationalist, you like that style of leadership. You like that authoritarian traditionalist, take my country back, kick everybody else out, and, you know, offensive kind of nationalism. This isn't like the Zelensky kind of patriotism that we're all applauding right now where he's sticking up for his country and defending his own land that's when we call that patriotism that's a good thing you know we want those kinds of things but the kind of nationalism that says i'm going to go into other countries and prove how strong and take you know those kinds of take those steps and exercise military force because we find christian nationalism is is hawkish and pro-military and

pro-strength and right now pro-Putin? The interesting thing about that is I always wonder why the fantasy was of the Republicans going after having this love affair with Putin and Russia for the last, I don't know, what, five, six years or something. And I didn't realize what it was. And then I forget the name. I have the video saved somewhere. But someone put it down. And basically, the synopsis roughly was they love Russia. Russia is a largely white country that bans minorities and controls them. There's a huge religious background. The billionaire who's also a Greek Orthodox, not Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox minister who the Pope recently scolded.

And you can't do wars without it. I mean, Putin recently appeared at his church to support his war and most and what's funny is most of these sort of authoritarian and fascist rises are done hand in hand with the church hitler same thing all of it you have to have the church's endorsement to do these fascist authority and takeovers no one talks about this stuff and the danger of it but they love russia because it's the great white country for them and they love the authoritarian rule and so it's become the wet dream i think of of white nationalists i mean we're we're seeing that and i think you're you're right this usually involves religion because oftentimes it's it's a return to some kind of a traditional past and religion is a part of that so it's not

it's not because really like and i want to be i want to be fair here like i don't think christian nationalism or any kind of religious nationalism that we're seeing around the world has anything to do with like loving jesus you know what i mean like these are not people who want to like be good neighbors and want to like you know follow j Jesus's lifestyle and like his teaching. These are people for whom Christian identity is almost. It means American, not Muslim, not atheist, not socialist. It means American good, solid, you know, patriot, you know, traditionalist morals and that kind of. It's just an identity like that, which is why they can applaud somebody like Putin or somebody like Orban or somebody who is promising to return or Bolsonaro in Brazil. Someone

who is promising to return a country to its Christian past. Not in the sense that we're going to treat people as Christians should treat other people, but because we're going to put a flag in the ground and say this is a nation for us, by us, and controlled by us. No matter whether or not we go to church at all, which they don't,

or whether they care, which they don't. You know, it's just an identity. Yeah. I mean, I'm an atheist, and I probably follow Jesus more than anything. I mean, I follow the golden rule. There's a lot of good things in the Bible. It's a good self-help manual or motivation manual, self-help manual. I mean, there's a lot of them.

The Buddhists have, you know, everyone's got like a, I think you'd call the Koran, maybe there's some good advice in there. You know, even I sometimes will go, what would Jesus do? Try and be a better person, Chris. Don't be such a jerk. You know, I mean, one of our favorite things with atheism was like, hey, can we get Christians to be like Christians? Can you just, you know, right.

You have this Bible. Can you, have you heard of it? It's over there and there's some, there's some goods. Like, I'm not sure that this is what Jesus wanted. And I've read the Bible as a kid. Yeah. So, but yeah,

what are some other things we want to tease out about? Some of the, you know, I think it's, it's, it's, it's at the, it's,

it's at the, the center of, of one of the reasons why we have a difficult time uniting as a country, right? So like, I think I'll give you an example. We talked about this a little bit in the, in the book,

COVID-19. I mean, you know, it use a metaphor, if an asteroid was headed towards Earth, I think we would we would we would for that moment put aside our petty differences in order to come up climate change and COVID were that asteroid. I mean, they were these kind of global catastrophic disasters, and they are, that should have theoretically united us. And yet COVID came and we were even more polarized as a result. really questioning scientific expertise, being unwilling to trust the authorities, more trustworthy of Trump, who is already an anti-vax, anti-science, anti-media kind of guy. And so as soon as Trump said, oh, I don't know about this COVID thing, or I don't know about vaccines or like, hey, we don't want to shut down the economy and that kind of thing, immediately became a conservative and progressive thing. And so white Americans who subscribe to Christian nationalism are the least likely to get vaccinated, least likely to trust medical experts, least likely to wear a mask, most likely to trust Trump for their COVID-19 information.

And so even things like we've seen with the pandemic are highly connected to this kind of Christian nationalist ideology that we document in the book. Yeah. You know, let me run something by you yeah because to me i i have a theory that if it wasn't for january 6 we still would have had an overthrow of our government so there were evidently i'm trying to google this here there were evidently at least 100, I'm seeing 147 here on Google, but I'm not sure if this is the number I'm looking for. But there was a plot within the GOP in the House to not certify the vote under Pence. And Pence was going to throw everything into, basically the plan was, in fact, what's his face calls it, the Green Bay sweep. And what they were going to do was they were going to vote to decertify or whatever.

They weren't going to certify the votes in those states, and they were going to have enough of the electorate do that, that what that would do was the plan was it would throw it into the House as a vote, and since at that time the GOP controlled the thing, they would reinstall Trump as president, which I guess you can technically do, I guess, according to the rules. So they were planning on that overthrow. That was their plan, to my understanding, of what they were going to do with the vote. January 6th threw that whole thing into a shit storm and somebody should really look into this because it may

be from what I've read and understand but I'm no scholar from what I read and understand January 6th the attack actually helped save us it's kind of a fucked up thing to say like it's a good thing there

was a mob thing and people got killed. And, you know, I mean, it actually saved us because those guys were planning on doing it. And I think what it did is it shocked so many people, even acolytes like McCarthy that we're now seeing coming out, where it shocked them so much as the dangerous point that they were in. And it had to put their lives on the line. That's the only way these fucking people wake up. It had to put their lives on the line. But that was the only reason that they went back in that chamber,

and most of them, I think there were still some that voted against it, but that was the only reason it went forward, is because people went, holy shit, we are at the tipping point. But even then,ence was using the coded language that he planned to use to when i don't know if you remember when there was a coded language he used that no one had no vice president ever used before that suggested that there might be issues with the vote and it was supposed to be the queue up for those house members to vote against the ratification the vote or whatever it's called someone should look into that yeah i know i hadn't i hadn't heard about that but it's that's

that's that's shocking that the january 6th events might have actually disrupted some some more organized plots that they had and this was something that no it actually did i read a lot about it and like no one's ever really come out and said, you know what? January 6th saved our dick. And I could be wrong on if it totally saved us, you know. But evidently there was enough of those guys that had sat down and planned it out. There was, you know, all the usual suspects that were at the head of the team for it. But they had the GOP committee member or House members ready to do it. And the whole, it was the Green Bay sweep.

They were going to kick the football into the house the house would vote the new president and re-elect trump because gop controlled the numbers because in the house when they vote uh for this specific vote i think it's under the constitution for this specific vote it's it's a per state and it's not per house member so you can't stack it. So it's some fucked up math where they could seize power. And they were talking about this openly. I was seeing articles before the thing that this was the plan. It was coming out.

It was leaking everywhere. Oh, wow. So that might be a new book you can do. Yes, it's amazing. Anything more you want to tease out about the book and what's inside of it? People really need to follow you and read your stuff, man. Yeah, I think where we end in the book is we try to end. I mean, it is not a book that really ends on a very high note.

I mean, just because I think we are in some dire circumstances right now. And frankly, I think the American public, those groups, those people that you are talking about, Chris, where we're just kind of going about our business and taking our kids to soccer and watching Netflix and just kind of sleeping through this. I think there is a larger number of people that need to wake up and recognize that this is a very problematic set of circumstances. We're actually seeing this unfold with the judiciary right now, Supreme Court decisions. I would wager that

Oberfeld v. Hodges is next. And I don't think that that is a far-fetched expectation to assume that they would come after other precedents, the things that have been set in overturned because of who the Supreme Court represents now. But I think where we try to end in the book and try to challenge people is to try to say we need to build coalitions. I don't like talking about Christian nationalists and calling people by that. I prefer to talk about the ideologyitions. I don't like talking about Christian nationalists and calling people by that. I prefer to talk about the ideology itself because I don't want to call people fascists and racists and just stop the conversation. I want to talk about this really negative thing called this Christian nationalist ideology, white Christian nationalist. And then I want to say, hey, can we all agree that this is a bad thing?

Can we agree that this is a toxic ideology that we would be better off without? That is un-American, un-Christian, and unhelpful, undemocratic. So if we can agree on that, then what we need to do is we need to build coalitions of people who may disagree on a lot of things, but we agree on this one thing. We agree that this is a problem, that we want to defend democracy, that freedom is a good thing, and authoritarianism is a bad thing. And we don't want to become like Russia or Hungary or Brazil or these other places. And so I think that's where I want to challenge people is let's figure out ways that we can cooperate to fight a common enemy. That's an American thing. You know, to cite the sad part about – I said once on a show – let me clear my voice here.

I said once on a show, and I clear my voice here. I said once on a show and I have something written that I haven't formalized, but the, it basically goes like this. The sad part of the sad part of American or human nature is that we learn, we only learn from the darkest parts of our body, the bottom of our, of our history, you know, the darkest moments. That's when we learn our lessons. We have to go completely dark. We can't learn off of the history you know the darkest moments that's when we learn our lessons we have to go completely dark we can't learn off of the history you know the one thing man can learn from his history is man never learns from his history and therefore we just go in circles right now

and i'm i'm hoping and it's it's it's it's sad that you have to hope this but hopefully what people are learning from the putin war and what russia is doing is we're waking up and going wow this whole world's been getting more right-wing authoritarian we see more explosion of populism and everything else i mean we just saw what was it penn and and what's his face in france you know the tight race yeah i mean you can imagine if she would have won and she would have thrown the whole the whole you know alliance against russia right into the toilet i mean it would have been crazy but hopefully what people are seeing and they're seeing of course now the corruption how the military is completely just a mess because of

decades of corruption and and stuff hopefully people are seeing hey maybe russia isn't that cool maybe authoritarian isn't that cool maybe democracy is cool but then on the other hand you see that you know joe biden you know i sometimes i wonder in this country too this is another book for you some sometimes i wonder if in this country too we we've just become the kim kardashian who is the guy who used to run the shows that were just toxic where they bring couples on relationships and they'd fight is it dot springer springer we become jerry springer of america uh where we love toxicity we love overdone personalities and toxic crap and drama and it's really funny to me we finally have a president again who acts like a normal president he does his job you know great leaders who do their jobs

they're not they're talking about all the great stuff they do they go do their jobs that's what you want them to do you don't want them sitting there talking about stuff and of course in trump's thing just talking and lying about everything he's done and people believe he's actually doing something but you know you you see the difference of his poll numbers compared to trump and you're just like holy crap and and he's doing great leadership but people are just like no we want a bombastic bombastic jerry springer type leader right we're just it seems like we're white trash america more than ever before. You know, it's really tough, I think, especially on the Democrat Democrats face this common problem. This is just, you know, I think political science is true as a truism that Democrats are notoriously ineffective, primarily because they the Democratic Party is actually a coalition of multiple interest groups, whereas Republicans are actually very united religiously, racially, and ideologically. It's white, conservative, it's very Christian.

Democrats, you've got black Protestants who are conservative on some things and liberal on other things. You've got white seculars and atheists like yourself, and you've got white mainline Protestants who, again, are progressive in some ways and conservative in other ways. So Democratic leaders oftentimes have to wrestle with all of this ideological diversity within their party in ways that Republicans don't. And so, they end up looking like kind of

wimps. They end up looking like people who are these bold, kind of strong, follow-me leaders because they actually have to build consensus more than Republicans. Does that make sense? It's a challenge for any Democratic leader to actually build consensus in a powerful way, whereas Republicans can just kind of hammer five sentences over and over again and get the hearty amen, and they rally their base with those kinds of things.

Yeah, and then, of course, the conspiracies and the craziness. I posted a video on Facebook the other day of a guy who, I can't remember what he calls it, but he's got a numerical QAnon pattern to A through Z, 1 through 26. And he's literally telling some guy, John F. Kennedy is our president right now, and John F. Kennedy Jr. is the vice president. And you're looking at it, and you're just going, holy crap. Well, it's a great book, and I encourage everyone to read it. One last thing here, because I don't want people to think I was smoking the crack out. And this is the one I was talking about earlier. This is from January 7th from New York Times.

147 Republicans voted to overturn election results. And this was going on before the mob took over. And this is the quote from from them the disruption came shortly after some republican lawmakers made the first of a planned series of highly unusual objections based on spurious allegations widespread voter frauds to state's election results the chambers were separately debating an objection to arizona results when the proceedings were halted when the capital was locked down they were in full green bay sweep to, I forget the guy who was behind that. He was in the presidency, the administration.

In fact, right now, he's refusing to testify in the Justice Department. Hopefully, we'll prosecute him. But they were in a full plan to throw that thing in the House and take the presidency. And they would have if it hadn't been for the mob. The mob actually broke it up. Someone needs to really talk about the killer, anything, those two dots.

Anyway, Sam, you have a brilliant feed and I love it. I encourage people to subscribe and learn more, educate yourself, what's going on. Give me your plugs so people can find you on the interwebs. Yeah,

just a prof Sam Perry on Twitter or at prof Sam Perry. And yeah, follow me for data on religion, politics, everything in between. I try to keep it educational as much as possible so that people can learn. There you go. Order up the book, guys. The Flag and the Cross, White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy. There'll be a link on the Chris Voss show.

Also grab Sam's other book. What's the other book, Sam? So I don't have to wait for... Sure, sure, sure. Taking America Back for God, Christian Nationalism in the United States. There it is. I highly recommend you guys review it. Your appearance on the show, I think it was last year, the year before.

COVID seems like 10 years to me at this point. It's completely lost freaking time. But it was just amazing, especially, you know, some of the things that are going on in this country. Anyway, thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it, Sam. Hey, thanks so much for having me. that are going on in this country. Anyway, thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it, Sam. Hey, thanks so much for having me. This is great. There you go.

Thanks so much for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Forge. That's Chris Foss. See everything we're doing over there. All of our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all those crazy places the kids are playing. And YouTube.com, Forge. That's Chris Foss. Thanks, Richard.

We certainly appreciate it. Great conversation. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.