A bit about C. Peter Wagner's influence

From Tal Lavin's Wild Faith, Chapter 3: Prophets in the Parlor:

Another place you can learn about C. Peter Wagner is in this documentary on YouTube, which I described:

‘Spiritual Warriors’ Documentary on Christian Nationalism at the Capitol Riot: Learn about the New Apostolic Reformation. Tucker Lieberman. Medium. 3 min read. Oct 23, 2024

On Jan 15, 2026, the American Humanist Association sent out an email with this info:

Why does this moment matter?

• The Department of Homeland Security is declaring we share “a nation and a Savior.”
• The Pentagon is hosting Christian worship services during government time.
• ICE agents are pairing Bible verses with arrest threats.
• Lawsuits are advancing that could make religious charter schools federally funded — and coming to your community.
• The U.S. Department of Labor is echoing fascist slogans: “One homeland. One people. One heritage.”

That's how theocracy takes hold: normalize it, embed it, dare anyone to object. And if you aren’t on board, you’re not part of “we the people.”

The real reason behind JD Vance's demon talk Amanda Marcotte, Salon, Apr 1, 2026

Women can vote independently of their husbands

Women can vote. See: Women's suffrage on Wikipedia

The only Trumpworld objections I've seen are based not in outrage that MAGA husbands are being portrayed as abusers, but in outrage that a wife would "lie" and vote contrary to her husband's wishes. They're telling on themselves.

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— Mollie Wilson O'Reilly (@mollieoreilly.bsky.social) November 1, 2024 at 7:46 AM

About Dale Partridge

For context

funny how the cutting edge of the far right is just regurgitated slaveholder agitprop from 1850.

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— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) July 8, 2026 at 3:27 PM

This Christian pastor made it safely from one city to another, but he’s still blaming the crew because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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— Hemant Mehta (@friendlyatheist.com) July 11, 2026 at 3:58 PM

Christian Nationalists are now coming after your favorite childhood books... because the authors are Jewish.

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— Hemant Mehta (@friendlyatheist.com) August 29, 2026 at 2:36 PM

Related

‘Spiritual Warriors’ Documentary on Christian Nationalism at the Capitol Riot: Learn about the New Apostolic Reformation

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by In The Know (@real.talk.us)

Trump Official's Daughter Says Unwed Women Vote 'Poorly' Without 'The Security Of A Male' Evita Duffy-Alfonso, the 26-year-old daughter of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, made her brazen case on Real America's Voice. Marco Margaritoff, HuffPost, Mar 26, 2026

Catch up with Thomas Zimmer's series on Project 2025

Project 2025 is online at project2025.org — click on Policy and read the agenda.

Thomas Zimmer tells us more about it.

Feb 22 article

He recommends that we read the 17-page foreword to the 920-page “Project 2025.” In this foreword, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, "captures and oozes the siege mentality, self-victimization, and grievance-driven lust for revenge." It reveals "how much the power centers of conservative politics have been taken over by anti-democratic extremism," and it does so in a voice from the Right itself. When the NYT interviewed Roberts in January, Roberts expressed approval for 1950s McCarthyist endeavor to root out Communists from the government, that Biden did not win the 2020 election, and that the real threats to American democracy were not the 2021 attack on the Capitol but President Biden and Black Lives Matter protesters. Before his position at Heritage, Roberts was "CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a rightwing think tank in Austin focusing on, amongst other things, fighting for the privatization of education and on making the “moral case for fossil fuels” by rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change. He also served as the president of Wyoming Catholic College." Roberts is thus a "true believer in the reactionary political project" from "the world of reactionary Catholicism."

Part of Roberts's complaint in that foreword is the "toxic normalization of transgenderism," which he links with "sexualization of children" and "critical race theory." He adds: "Contemporary elites have even repurposed the worst ingredients of 1970s ‘radical chic’ to build the totalitarian cult known today as ‘The Great Awokening.’" (Zimmer points out that "a reactionary majority is dominating the Supreme Court" and that, for some reason, this doesn't seem to be enough for the Heritage Foundation.) Of course, "Since the formation of modern conservatism as a political project in the middle decades of the twentieth century, rightwing leaders have often claimed it was five minutes to midnight. To some extent, this is all very much in line with established conservative rhetoric. But what Roberts presents here also captures a more recent radicalization..."

"The Heritage Foundation was established in 1973 as part of an attempt to build a machinery of organizations and think tanks that could help counter what conservatives perceived as the liberal hegemony. Heritage has, for decades, been the most influential, most powerful of these rightwing think tanks – certainly the one closest to the power centers of the Right and the Republican Party. It used to be associated – and associated itself – with Reaganism, and it has rightly been regarded as conservative establishment.

In recent years, however, Heritage has gone into a decidedly more Trumpian direction, defining their own role as “institutionalizing Trumpism” – and not in the sense of containing or taming it, but to make it more efficient."

Project 2025, furthermore, has an Advisory Board of "101 organizations and institutions. It’s a Who is Who of rightwing actors – Alliance Defending Freedom, America First Legal Foundation, Center for Renewing America, Claremont Institute, Hillsdale College, Liberty University, Young America’s Foundation, Moms for Liberty, and on and on and on."

Yet, Zimmer says, "Much of this [what the Heritage Foundation is saying] sounds like Marjorie Taylor Greene might have posted it on Ex-Twitter or said it to rile up the base at a rally." Such deluge of "manufactured rightwing moral panics...defines the center of conservative politics today."

Roberts writes that "socialism" also goes by the names of "Communism, Marxism, progressivism, Fascism," such that these all mean the same thing. "Analytically," Zimmer says, this is complete nonsense....It is not worth engaging a statement like this on substance." But as a historical fact, we should note that "what Roberts presents here is reminiscent of what the infamous 1776 Commission produced, the advisory committee established by then-president Donald Trump in the fall of 2020, with the explicit goal of guaranteeing 'patriotic education.'"

Feb 29 article

Zimmer continues:

"Over the past few months, different factions on the Right have presented detailed plans for what they want to do the next time they get back to the White House. Among them, 'Project 2025,' launched in April 2022 under the leadership of the Heritage Foundation, stands out because it unites much of the conservative movement and the machine of think tanks as well as activist and lobbying groups behind the goal of installing a more effective, more ruthless rightwing regime.

Last week, in Part I of my deep dive into 'Project 2025,' I examined the worldview of the people behind these plans They see themselves as noble defenders of 'real America' against a totalitarian 'woke,' 'globalist' assault. 'Project 2025' is their declaration of war on multiracial pluralism. The “Promise to America” Heritage president Kevin Roberts has offered in his foreword to the 'Project 2025' report perfectly captures the siege mentality, self-victimization, and grievance-driven lust for revenge that are fueling the Right’s plans."

The right wing believes they didn't competently take advantage of the Trump administration while it lasted, so they want to be prepared to take advantage of a second Trump term. They're planning "what amounts to a comprehensive authoritarian takeover of American government" and it is "very much in continuity with the reactionary crusade against public education that has always been a key element of modern conservative politics."

"In their own parlance, “Project 2025” consists of four “pillars”: A policy agenda, spelled out in the 920-page report they published last April, titled: “Mandate for Leadership: A conservative promise” (I); a personnel database, intended to build an army of loyalists (II); a “training effort” that currently consists of online courses they call the “Presidential Administration Academy” to get these loyalists and all political appointees ready to implement the rightwing agenda (III); and, finally, “Project 2025” vows to create “a playbook of actions to be taken in the first 180 days of the new Administration to bring quick relief to Americans suffering from the Left’s devastating policies” (IV) – this fourth “pillar” is, at this point, still distinctly vague and seems to exist only in the form of an announcement of future action."

Mar 21 article

This time, Zimmer says, reactionaries are working in sync. They want "to punish their enemies, 'take back' the country, and restore the 'natural order' of unquestioned white Christian patriarchal rule – a unity that is indicative of a broader realignment on the Right towards an aggressive embrace of state authoritarianism." This time, they have "a fully Trumpified GOP, a reactionary super-majority on the Supreme Court, and with the omnipresent threat of escalating political violence intimidating anyone who dares to dissent."

Project 2025 is a plan to authoritarianize the government by gutting some parts, weaponizing others, giving the president much more power over what remains, and installing Trump loyalists under him.

This is Trump's platform:

"In a speech at the annual meeting of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) in Nashville in late February, for instance, Trump promised to create 'a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias'; to take 'historic action to defeat the toxic poison of gender ideology and restore the timeless truth that God created two genders, male and female'; and to sign an executive order to 'cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children' (Robert P. Jones provide an excellent write-up and contextualization of the speech in his newsletter this week). All of that sounds like it could be coming straight out of 'Project 2025.'"

Zimmer adds:

"...there is, at a macro or maybe philosophical level, an inherent tension between two opposing principles in the vision 'Project 2025' outlines – there is the proclamation to dismantle the 'deep state,' but there is also the desire to use it, to mobilize and weaponize it in service of the reactionary agenda. The former reflects the preferences of the conservative legal movement and the libertarian, market-fundamentalist strand of the Right...This tension has actually always been a constitutive feature of modern conservatism. What emerged as the modern conservative political project in the middle decades of the twentieth century was in many ways defined by an alliance between two distinct factions."

Then, this happened

Heather Cox Richardson says:

"On March 19, [Josh] Kovensky explained how that power was reaching into lawmaking when he reported on a September 2023 speech by Russ Vought, a key architect of the plans for Trump’s second term, including Project 2025. In the speech, which took place in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Vought explained the right wing’s extreme border policies by explicitly marrying Christian nationalism and an aversion to the pluralism that is a hallmark of American democracy. Vought argued that the U.S. should model immigration on the Bible’s Old Testament, welcoming migrants only 'so long as they accepted Israel’s God, laws, and understanding of history.'"

See the Talking Points Memo reporting on Russ Vought.

Earlier this month, Kovensky reported on the Society for American Civic Renewal.

Media Matters (May 2024):

"Project 2025 director Paul Dans told the Australian Financial Review that he thinks a second Trump administration 'will adopt' many of the initiative’s radical right-wing proposals. He also suggested that even if Donald Trump loses, Project 2025’s ideas would live on through the conservative establishment."

CNN (July 2024):

Olivia Troye, a former advisor to Mike Pence, points out that Stephen Miller, Ben Carson, and Ken Cuccinelli are all involved in Project 2025. She says (video): "Trump knows that what is written in this plan is so extreme that it is damaging to his possibility of getting elected." In Troye's opinion, it's not the "fiscal conservatism" or "individual liberties" she believes in. it's "complete overreach by the federal government on our individual liberties." As an example, regarding women who have to go out of state to get an abortion, Project 2025 uses the term "abortion tourism," and Troye objects to this language choice. "No amount of distancing by Donald Trump should be believed because the authors and the collaborators are all part of this operation that's been behind him from even the first term of his administration."

MSNBC (July 2024):

On Ali Velshi's show:

Velshi began, “Now, from the get-go, we all know that wasn’t true so we set out to debunk it and honestly I thought there might be a little more legwork involved in spelling out the web of connections between Donald Trump and Project 2025 but then I realized, all you have to do is look in the table of contents.”

The MSNBC anchor pointed out Trump’s links to the authors of many of the playbook’s chapters, many of whom were actually aides and officials in his first administration.

“I literally don’t have enough time to list every connection between Donald Trump and Project 2025,” said Velshi. “But I can absolutely confidently say that Donald Trump’s claim that he ‘knows nothing about Project 2025’ and has ‘no idea who is behind it’ is, how do we say it in Canada? Complete and utter B.S.”

Of course Trump knows who's behind Project 2025.

Project 2025 Co-Author Says Donald Trump ‘Very Supportive Of What We Do’: Russell Vought told an undercover reporter he’s drafting executive orders for Trump to deploy on his hopeful return to the White House. Arthur Delaney, HuffPost, Aug 15, 2024

July 9 article

Zimmer wrote:

"MAGA extremists and the conservative establishment that is behind Project 2025 are aligned on personnel, policy, and ideology," Zimmer says, but it's not a conspiracy. Simply, "they are fundamentally in agreement about what it is they want to do to the country and the reactionary vision of 'real America' they want to impose on the nation. Moreover, it is a shared desire to punish their “Un-American” enemies that binds them. Project 2025 is evidence of how far the Right has radicalized, how far beyond Trump the problem goes."

In February, Trump spoke to the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) in Nashville, and what he said "sounds like it could be coming straight out of Project 2025, which promises to restore former national glory by purging enemies and deviants from the nation. Look anywhere in the policy report, and what you’ll find is visceral disdain for any kind of pluralism and diversity channeled into a policy agenda aiming to extinguish it."

Zimmer noted:

"Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s closest advisors, quickly followed his leader in emphasizing that “I have never been involved with Project 2025, not one word.” Miller, of course, is the head of the America First Legal Foundation, which is listed as a member of the Project 2025 Advisory Board, meaning they have officially signed off on this operation. Miller has also, as many people were quick to point out, recorded one of the videos for Project 2025’s “Presidential Administration Academy,” a “training effort” that currently consists of online courses intended to get the people Project 2025 wants to bring into the executive ready to implement the rightwing agenda from day one."

Not only is Trump getting bad publicity over Project 2025 right now, but the publicity might be hurting his ego as it gives the impression "that elite operators like Kevin Roberts are the real leaders on the Right."

"Trump is not pulling the strings behind Project 2025, and this operation isn’t being conducted in secret at all. This isn’t the work of a handful of henchmen doing their dark lord’s bidding, but an effort that has united much of the American Right’s elite machinery. And there is absolutely no brainwashing or coercion involved: The people behind Project 2025 are true believers in their extremely reactionary vision for America. Project 2025 should not be conceptualized as a plot designed by an all-powerful evil overseeing everything in the background. Instead, Project 2025 crystallizes the self-mobilization of a rightwing elite that has radicalized to the point where their plans are entirely in line with Donald Trump’s vengeful desires and the fever dreams of the extremist fringe."

Project 2025 isn't a puppet by a single villain.

"It is the manifestation of a comprehensive mobilization of a radicalizing rightwing establishment, intelligentsia, think tank world, and moneyed interest. The people who are responsible for it have not been brainwashed, they aren’t merely scared of Trump or the base, and they certainly aren’t helpless marionettes or pawns in a game. They are willingly, enthusiastically planning to take over the American government and transform it into a machine that serves only two purposes: exacting revenge on what they call the “woke”, leftist, globalist enemy and imposing a minoritarian reactionary vision of white Christian patriarchal order on society.

By the way, Project 2025 lies about its intentions, and it lies about them badly: "'Mandate for Leadership' talks about 'eliminating politicization' – only to then present the whole laundry list of rightwing culture war grievances. DEI! CRT! Trans people! It is a policy agenda aligning entirely with the Christopher Rufo canon of reactionary white male moral panics."

NEW: The Man Behind Project 2025’s Most Radical Plans As Trump tried to disavow the politically toxic project, its director, Paul Dans, stepped down. But the plans and massive staffing database that he prepared — to replace thousands of members of the “deep state” with MAGA loyalists — remain.

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— ProPublica (@propublica.bsky.social) Aug 1, 2024 at 12:51 PM

By the way, in March 2025, when Politico asked Dans if Trump was falling short on Project 2025, Dans said that Trump's delivery was "actually way beyond my wildest dreams."

"On Sunday [August 4, 2024], MSNBC’s Ali Velshi noted it was a “tricky one” because “they actually went down and wrote everything they were going to do and then Donald Trump goes out to these rallies and tells people, ‘I’m not involved in this, I don’t agree with a lot of this stuff, it’s got nothing to do with me,’ which is actually part of what authoritarians sometimes do.”

Snyder, an expert on authoritarianism, agreed.

Trump is “trusting that his people will believe him, no matter what he says,” he explained. “That is part of an authoritarian dynamic where you can lie to your own people and then you can say something completely different the next time and they nod their heads and say, ‘Oh yes, I knew it all along.’ That’s part of what it means to belong to that sort of thing.”

“The shift is basically a scam,” Snyder continued."

— Lee Moran, Tyranny Expert Explains Why Donald Trump's Project 2025 Shift Is 'Basically A Scam': It's "part of an authoritarian dynamic," said Timothy Snyder. HuffPost, Aug 5, 2024

There is "flight tracking data and a photo of Trump traveling with Kevin Roberts in April 2022."
Trump Took Private Jet Flight With Head Of Project 2025, New Photo Shows: The former president has tried to distance himself from the controversial far-right blueprint, claiming he has “no idea” who was in charge of it. Nick Visser, HuffPost, Aug 7, 2024

See also

Project 2025 - The Advisory Board List: Full list with hyperlinks and additional information on each organization. Juliet Jeske, #DecodingFoxNews, July 8, 2024

Cracking the Christian nationalist code: A glossary for the confused: The Christian right has a clearly anti-democratic agenda — but it's concealed with deliberately confusing terms, Paul Rosenberg, Salon, May 26, 2024

Project 2025 believes in three genders, Tucker Lieberman, Medium, July 5, 2024

Delayed publication of Heritage president's book reflects Project 2025 shell game: Media Matters has obtained a galley copy of Dawn's Early Light, which decries IVF, abortion, childlessness, and dog parks, Madeline Peltz, Media Matters, August 7, 2024

Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts compared abortion access to slave auctions, lynchings, and the Holocaust, Eric Hananoki, Media Matters, August 8, 2024

Sources

"“Project 2025” Promises Revenge, Oppression, and Autocratic Rule: The Right’s plans for a return to power are driven by a radicalizing siege mentality and a desperate desire to restore dominance". Thomas Zimmer. Democracy Americana (Substack). Feb 22, 2024

"What 'Project 2025' Would Do to America": The Right has developed concrete plans to make America into a much nastier place for anyone who dares to deviate from the white Christian patriarchal order. That’s what is on the ballot in November." Thomas Zimmer. Democracy Americana (Substack). February 29, 2024

"What Makes 'Project 2025' So Dangerous: Will the Right be able to implement these radical plans? Is Trump on board? What happened to traditional conservatism? Let’s tackle some of the key questions surrounding 'Project 2025'." Thomas Zimmer. Democracy Americana (Substack). March 21, 2024

"Project 2025 director: A Trump administration will likely adopt many of the group’s policy suggestions," Sophie Lawton, Media Matters, May 14, 2024

Allies Against Democracy: Trump and Project 2025: Trump is not the mastermind behind Project 2025. It’s worse: The rightwing establishment has radicalized to the point where their plans are entirely in line with his vengeful desires. Thomas Zimmer. July 9, 2024

Again, there’s a bizarre insistence that power has been stolen from us, the people, despite the Constitution being a power sharing agreement. Just straight up ignoring Congress, ignoring that the executive acts at the will of Congress, and ignoring that Congress represents popular will. #project2025

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— Kaitlin Has Had Enough (@gothamgirlblue.com) Jul 31, 2024 at 9:30 PM

Here’s the 90-day search chart for “Project 2025.” The BET Awards took place on June 30, 2024. That giant spike? That’s just after June 30th. Taraji did that. *Legend*.

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— Kim Shumway (@kimshum.bsky.social) July 23, 2024 at 6:45 PM

Democrats had a great message on Project 2025. It was so deeply unpopular that Trump had to deny any connection. Now that Trump has said he plans to hire key figures from Project 2025 for his administration, Democrats need to sound the alarm. It will still be unpopular.

— Max Berger (@maxberger.bsky.social) November 23, 2024 at 6:43 PM

Democratic leaders did not prepare

Project 2025 was right there providing a roadmap for building a legal attack. Lawyers could have been marshalled to handle it by sections. Instead of running off prematurely, appointees could have been saving docs, databases, and building bulwarks & firewalls to protect & sabotage the new Regime.

— Riggsveda (@riggsveda.bsky.social) February 6, 2025 at 9:07 AM

They desperately wanted to run the UK labour party play: police the left of the party, but otherwise do nothing and wait for the opposition to screw up.

— Daniel Jones (@dcjones.bsky.social) February 6, 2025 at 8:45 AM

A constant of US politics for the last decade+ has been the unsubtle desire among Dem pols for things to actively get worse, so they won't need to lift a finger to still look better than the alternative. They react violently to anyone suggesting this strategy has flaws.

— Ember Bite Aegle (@emberaegle.bsky.social) February 6, 2025 at 8:48 AM

They should have been "organizing the 250+ electeds into groups based on their strengths. instead, youve got a handful of reps/sens out there trying to whack every mole." (Bluesky) "The "not swinging at every pitch" idea from consultants and leadership was astonishing and instructive in equal measure. This is why you lose to MAGA twice, because you think triangulating on how much of the system they destroy is somehow the smart tactic. Not standing against wrong and bad things." (Bluesky) "Their plan was to sit back and let them "screw up" while complaining about the price of eggs. Many of them are still expressing anger that people want them to do something else." (Bluesky)

Speaking of bearing false witness

Louisiana has mandated posting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

"Louisiana classrooms now required by law to display the Ten Commandments," Stephanie Gallman Dianne Gallagher, CNN, June 19, 2024

Here's the law (PDF).

Donald Trump's reaction:

"'Has anyone read the ‘Thou shalt not steal’? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It’s just incredible,' Trump said at the gathering of the Faith & Freedom Coalition. 'They don’t want it to go up. It’s a crazy world.'

Trump a day earlier posted an endorsement of the new law on his social media network, saying: 'I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, AND MANY OTHER PLACES, FOR THAT MATTER. READ IT — HOW CAN WE, AS A NATION, GO WRONG???'"

— "Trump Endorses Ten Commandments In Schools, Urges Evangelical Christians To Vote: Donald Trump has told a group of evangelicals that they 'cannot afford to sit on the sidelines' of the 2024 election, imploring them at one point to 'go and vote, Christians, please!'." Michelle L. Price and Ayanna Alexander, HuffPost, Jun 22, 2024

The reason that people who are secular or pluralistic don't think the Ten Commandments should be put up in public schools and other public buildings isn't that we think it should be legal to steal.

Speaking of bearing false witness.

Read more on Medium: Rep. Jamie Raskin’s book Unthinkable

"An initial review by The Texas Tribune of the proposed textbooks showed that religious references are featured prominently, with texts sourced from the Bible being the most heavily used." Texas is a really large textbook market which then sets the standard for those markets nationwide.

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— Nails Nathan (@chadstanton.bsky.social) Jun 27, 2024 at 6:38 PM

if you squint, you can see some of the last dying vestiges of principled bipartisan conservatism that used to be fairly common in oklahoma governance

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— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) Jun 25, 2024 at 11:01 AM

Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters issued this memo today requiring teachers in all schools to keep a Bible in their classroom and teach from it as a historical document. (Via KOCO 5 News)

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— David S. Bernstein (@dbernstein.bsky.social) Jun 27, 2024 at 12:54 PM

Pope does not want people to be the same

Background

Senior Vatican Cardinal warns ‘demonic’ transgender rights are causing the ‘death of God’, Nick Duffy, Pink News, May 18, 2016

2024

On March 1, Pope Francis addressed a conference at the Vatican. Regarding gender theory, he said: "I have asked that studies be carried out into this ugly ideology of our times, which cancels out the differences and makes everything the same." According to a Reuters article, the Pope mentioned "reading a 'prophetic' book called Lord of the World — a dystopian novel published in 1907 by a Catholic priest about a world where religion has no place — which warned of the risk of cancelling out differences between people."

— Pope says gender theory is 'ugly ideology' that threatens humanity: 'Cancelling out the differences means cancelling out humanity,' Francis said, Thomson Reuters, March 1, 2024

I have two comments here.

Religion is notably an area in which a human being can change their mind, change how they show up in the world, and thus change the way in which they are different. The Catholic Church throughout history has notably tried to pull people out of their original religions and draw them into the Catholic fold. It is hypocritical for the Pope to warn about a movement that allegedly "cancels out the differences and makes everything the same. This is projection. If you really want human difference, you want non-Catholics.

Furthermore, if you really, really want human difference, well, you want trans people.

Vatican Blasts Gender-Affirming Surgery, Surrogacy As Violations Of Human Dignity In a document called "Infinite Dignity," the Vatican also repeated its rejection of "gender theory." Nicole Winfield, AP, Apr 8, 2024

The 'gun enthusiast' who leaked U.S. classified docs about Russia's invasion of Ukraine

A Washington Post article: "Leaker of U.S. secret documents worked on military base, friend says." [that's my unpaywalled gift link] Subtitle: "THE DISCORD LEAKS | The online group that received hundreds of pages of classified material included foreigners, members tell The Post." Shane Harris and Samuel Oakford. April 12, 2023.

Here's the article's lede:

"The man behind a massive leak of U.S. government secrets that has exposed spying on allies, revealed the grim prospects for Ukraine’s war with Russia and ignited diplomatic fires for the White House is a young, charismatic gun enthusiast who shared highly classified documents with a group of far-flung acquaintances searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic."

Regarding that article, Jeff Sharlet says today:

"The leaker, according to one of his sect of devout Christian teens. This is what I call in THE UNDERTOW an 'innocence cult” of the Right, an implicitly misogynist conflation of strength & purity, God & guns, + the bastardized gnostic gospel of the Trumpocene, secrets & codes.' ... Remember when OK GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe anticipated shape of things to come w/ mantra “God, gays, guns”? (Long time ago. Prescient proto-fascist.) Ukraine leak is result of such theology, trickle down American fundamentalism, ascending imaginary peaks of conspiracism. ... I’m against antifascists throwing “grooming” back at fascists. Term itself can be moral panic weapon. But here—adult gathers depressed teens in secret meetings to rule by aesthetic of “fitness,” violence, & piety in service of criminal expression of his ego—what to call that? ... [there is] a fundamental white supremacist conspiracy theory, designed to seduce 'normies' by convincing them that hate crimes are really government plots." — see the Twitter thread by Jeff Sharlet, 13 Apr 2023

Transphobia within Christianity

It's fascinating how gender crits will disparage trans acceptance as a "religion" or "theology" (as if those are inherently bad or invalid things), but meanwhile ignore how their own views on sex and gender are the dogma of the prevailing religion in our society (Christianity). https://t.co/yJc5W1Sx2H

— Donnodubus (@donnodubus) September 20, 2022

"the performed terror of any deviance from the most aggressively stereotypical 1950s gender roles that the Christian right engages in ... Bleeds into their terror about gender identity, the existence of transgender people, LBGTQIA+ acceptance, but also Quiverfull and Trad Wives and garbage like the pseudo military men's prayer camps and Ministries and...The level of fear and anxiety doesn't explain the hate and violence, but the two go hand in hand." — Thomas Lecaque, 13 March 2023, Twitter

Cisgenderism is being taught as a religion: https://t.co/nvPSMEiXEc pic.twitter.com/FwYE9heBap

— 🌼 Zinnia Jones 🐍 Judgment Snake (@ZJemptv) April 1, 2023

That last tweet links to "Showing love and compassion, teaching the truth: confusion of gender ideology." Lily Nguyen Dunkle, The Catholic Virginian. March 17, 2023.

If you're at all interested in how nationalist and genocidal policies are hidden under the the rhetoric of "protecting children" you absolutely must read this. What Russia is doing to Ukrainian children is what unleashed Christian nationalism looks like. https://t.co/Vzi8891WD5

— Gillian Branstetter (@GBBranstetter) April 2, 2023

Reed linked to this story: "In further blow to Russian LGBTQ+ community, lawmakers move to ban gender transitioning procedures", Dasha Litvinova, Associated Press, LA Times, June 14, 2023. That story says: "Senior lawmaker Pyotr Tolstoy, who is among the bill’s sponsors, has said it is intended to “protect Russia with its cultural and family values and traditions and to stop the infiltration of the Western anti-family ideology. Russia's LGBTQ+ community has been under growing pressure for a decade as President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church embarked on a campaign to preserve what they deem the country's 'traditional values.' * * * The only option for those seeking to transition through medical care or changing their gender in documents would be to leave the country, according to human rights lawyer Max Olenichev, who works with the Russian LGBTQ+ community. ...there is little doubt it will pass because about 400 members of the 450-seat house signed it, including the house speaker and the leaders of all political factions. The independent Russian news outlet Meduza reported that such a massive show of unity has happened only three times before under Putin, most recently when 385 Duma members signed on to a bill last year to ban 'propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations' among adults. That initiative was quickly rubber-stamped, and by December 2022, any positive or even neutral representation of LGBTQ+ people in movies, literature, or media was outlawed. The bill severely restricting trans rights came just a few months after that."

Speaking of leaving the country, there's help for trans people leaving the countries where it's becoming unsafe..."

2023: Support for Christian Nationalism

The darkest blue states have up to 60% support or sympathy for Christian Nationalism.

Source: PRRI, American Values Atlas, March–Dec, 2023

Early 2024: Introduced anti-LGBTQ laws

The darkest purple states have introduced 16 or more pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation within the first two months of 2024.

Do you see a similarity in the map?

That's where we are

Also, this opinion:

"Transphobes talking about science is no different than learning about evolution from a creationist. The idea that there are only two sexes, two genders, and they must be complementary but opposed is white christian nationalism steeped in racism, colonialism, and misogyny. Reject it everywhere. Honestly this is why I resent scientists and science journalists who’ve bought in. The people who’d throw a fit if the NYT ran a piece about how maybe Earth really is 6,000 years old, but accept manufactured trans controversy from the same zealots who want a homogenous, patriarchal, christian world. We know many organisms - including us - aren’t sexually binary, and are capable of changing sex characteristics. We know white oppression has tried to squelch gender variation at every turn, throughout history. So the idea that gender or sex is binary and immutable? It’s racist, fundamentalist rot." (Bluesky 1, 2, 3)

I don't actually care who believes what kind of Christianity is 'real Christianity'

"the dismissal of authoritarian Christianity as ‘fake’ Christianity only serves to reinforce Christian hegemony by perpetuating the equation of ‘Christian’ with ‘good’ in the common imagination... " -chrissy stroop www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/stop...

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— Talia Lavin (@swordsjew.bsky.social) October 12, 2024 at 11:16 PM

If there's one thing I could get every single well-meaning Christian to understand, it's that "real Christians are X" is an explicitly religious argument that depends on religious truth claims. And when you ask non-Christiana to accept that, you're demanding that they accept your religious claim.

— Charles L. Richter is his own thing (@richterscale.bsky.social) October 12, 2024 at 11:28 PM

See this video, at 24:30, for a few seconds. Robert P. Jones briefly describes the ambivalence of the Christians: They personally know gay people so they don't want to discriminate, but at the same time they don't want to give up their cultural dominance over themes of gender & sexuality. They need to assert dominance over someone, so they pick trans people, since they don't believe they personally know any.

Southern Baptists kick out Saddleback Church for having a woman pastor

A while back, I wrote about "What’s Odd About ‘The Purpose-Driven Life’" for Medium. I'm thinking of the Purpose-Driven Life's author, Rick Warren, right now, because I learned from another writer on Medium that the Southern Baptist Convention kicked his Saddleback Church out of the denomination. It's because the church has a woman pastor. Given other general behaviors of the denomination, it doesn't surprise me, but the event is worth noting.

See also my posts on this blog: Evangelicals disappointed in Trump's behavior and Inconsistencies in crediting suffering and success to God

U.S. Representative openly embraces the term 'Christian nationalism'

The First Amendment does say "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," but that does not stop lawmakers from endorsing Christian nationalism.

Cross by sspiehs3 from Pixabay

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says that Christian nationalism is nothing to fear because it's the only thing that can stop school shootings, crime, and sexual immorality, declaring that anyone who opposes it is a "domestic terrorist." pic.twitter.com/0WhcAfFeCT

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) June 3, 2022

Remember how researchers of Christian nationalism were called „alarmist“ and „hysterical“ because they warned of its dangers? Well, the Right has started to openly admit that they in fact ARE Christian nationalists. Just fyi. https://t.co/wnpiOA5M9H

— Annika Brockschmidt (@ardenthistorian) June 3, 2022

One of many, many related phenomena we might bring up is that some guns are Christian.

I am not over the fact that a gun company made a gun named the Crusader, stamped Psalm 144:1 on it, it's in such high demand that there's a 12-18 month waiting period, and we don't treat it as a call for religious terrorism.

— Thomas Lecaque (@tlecaque) June 6, 2022

I. Am. Literally. A. Historian. Of. The. Crusades. https://t.co/Z2PfHTTCGL

— Thomas Lecaque (@tlecaque) June 7, 2022

Hemant Mehta blogged: "On July 1 [2022], a slew of conservative Christians, including conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and anti-abortion zealot Abby Johnson, gathered..." The event was hosted by Gene Bailey who said they should pledge to "watch over the nation and make sure it’s run according to conservative Christian principles." He asked them to recite something called the "Watchmen Decree."

On July 23, 2022, Marjorie Taylor Greene told Next News Network: “We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists."

If you're interested in context, please see my posts on Sarah Posner's Unholy and Katherine Stewart's The Good News Club (both on this blog); Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez and American Rule by Jared Yates Sexton (on Medium — these links get you around the paywall); and The End of White Christian America by Robert P. Jones (on Goodreads). In September 2023, Jones has a new book, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future, and in an interview refers to White Christian Americans' "counterfactual myth of impossible innocence."

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Doug Mastriano is the Republican Party nominee for Pennsylvania governor. He supports QAnon and Christian nationalism. He's promoted his campaign on the social media site Gab, which was founded by Andrew Torba. Torba said, as Raw Story paraphrased it, that "he believes American conservatism should be for Christians only, and that conservatives should reject right-wing Jewish figures such as Ben Shapiro and Dave Rubin."

Torba's words:

>"We don't want people who are Jewish. We don't want people who are, you know, nonbelievers, agnostic, whatever. This is an explicitly Christian movement because this is an explicitly Christian country. We're not saying we're going to deport all these people or whatever. You're free to stay here. You're not going to be forced to convert or anything like this because that's not biblical whatsoever. But you're going to enjoy the fruits of living in a Christian society under Christian laws and under a Christian culture and you can thank us later."

Oh, an update on Ben Shapiro in 2025:

Fascinated how the guy who made superstars of Matt Walsh, Candace Owens, Jordan Peterson, and Michael Knowles thought that unfettered racism and every phobia in existence wouldn't eventually include anti-semitism

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— The Serfs (youtube.com/theserfstv) (@theserfstv.bsky.social) October 12, 2025 at 2:21 PM

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The US isn't a Christian nation, but that's a myth that enables its believers, says Jared Yates Sexton, "to understand the world and accept the type of violence and oppression that is coming." (tweet, July 27, 2022) One of their sayings is "There is no crime for those with Christ," meaning the ends justify the means. (tweet from the same thread) There was violence and political scapegoating between Catholics and Protestants ever since Protestantism arose. Then, in the US, "the Founders wanted to destroy the religious-backed institution of the monarchy, which relied on the Christian mythology in order to hold power. They wanted to move to a different system where entrenched wealth and power could be shifted." (tweet from the same thread) "Because Christianity held such power, the Founders and others like them formed secret societies and organizations where they could discuss options to move beyond the old systems and form something less chaotic and beyond the old hierarchies." (tweet from the same thread) It was the instinct of liberal democracy to have a religion-free government, and the instinct of conservatism to assume that liberals wanted "to destroy Christianity itself...[and that this was] part of a larger, sinister plot. This is the definitive mindset of conservatism and their goal is to reconstruct the hierarchies of the past." (tweet from the same thread) There is "the original conspiracy theory: that a sinister and evil plot is being carried out to destroy Christianity and destroy the nation." (tweet from the same thread) The New World Order conspiracy theory is also used by Putin and Orbán. The Christian myth "gives them a world to live in in which these things can be carried out." (tweet from the same thread) Trumpism prepared the way. QAnon is a modernized version of "sinister, Evil plots that can only be answered by violence and the destruction of liberal democracy." (tweet from the same thread) Sexton adapted this information from his forthcoming book, The Midnight Kingdom (January 2023).

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Quote from NPR's Morning Edition (July 1, 2022):

"These legal wins for the Christian Right, though, are happening at a time when a growing majority of Americans are strongly opposed to their views.

'This is the most disproportionate power that the Christian Right has had in my lifetime,' says Robert Jones, CEO and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute — a nonpartisan group that conducts research on the intersection of politics, culture and religion."

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Thom Hartmann, "So where did all this right-wing religious nuttery come from?," Salon, July 12, 2022:

"...what's so astonishing about the entire situation is that we have reached this point not because the American public wants religious doctrine running our law, and not because most religious people agree with an arrogant prick working at Walgreens.

Instead, it's because a small group of right-wing billionaires didn't want to pay their taxes, wanted to get rid of their unions and didn't want regulation of the pollution from their refineries and other operations.

Seriously.

They put billions of dollars over five decades into a project to seize control of the legislatures of a majority of the states, jam up the U.S. Congress and pack the Supreme Court — and it was all about taxes, unions and regulation.

So where did the religious nuttery come from?

The right-wing billionaires and the corporations and foundations aligned with them knew back in 1971 — when Lewis Powell laid out their strategy in his infamous "Powell Memo," the year before Richard Nixon put him on the Supreme Court — that most Americans wouldn't happily vote to lower billionaires' taxes, end unions and regulation of gun manufacturers, or increase the amount of refinery poisons in our air.

How to convince the public that taxes, regulations, and organized labor cause more harm than benefit? Not only "five decades and billions of dollars to subsidize think tanks and policy groups," not only right-wing media like Fox News, not only an alliance with the NRA to increase the number of guns 8-fold in the US over the four decades since Reagan was first elected. No, they also needed Jerry Falwell, "an inveterate grifter, hustling Jesus to build a multimillion-dollar empire while ignoring Jesus' teachings about humility, poverty and the need to care for others. A new, muscular Jesus — a Jesus who endorsed assault weapons and private jets for preachers — came to dominate much of America's Protestant Christianity."

The result of the politicized Christianity, of course, is that in 2022 we no longer have abortion access in all 50 states because we lost Roe v. Wade.

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Very difficult to overstate how dangerous this is. A Supreme Court justice suggesting that "secular society" is a risk, that the government somehow favors or even is dependent on religion and believers over others is a step toward theocracy and away from our founding principles. https://t.co/3kid6XiGQS

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) July 30, 2022

This is the work of white Christian nationalism. It is the work of incipient fascism. It is the work of those who seek to enshrine the narrow superstitions of a small minority in laws and rulings that will in fact replace religious freedom with religious obligations.

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) July 30, 2022

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"Our national poll included 2,091 participants, carried out May 6-16, 2022, with a margin of error of +/- 2.14 percent.

We started by asking participants if they believed the Constitution would even allow the United States government to declare the U.S. a “Christian Nation.” We found that 70 percent of Americans — including 57 percent of Republicans and 81 percent of Democrats — said that the Constitution would not allow such a declaration. (Indeed, the First Amendment says Congress can neither establish nor prohibit the practice of a religion.)

* * *

Fully 61 percent of Republicans supported declaring the United States a Christian nation. In other words, even though over half of Republicans previously said such a move would be unconstitutional, a majority of GOP voters would still support this declaration."

— "Most Republicans Support Declaring the United States a Christian Nation: New polling shows the appeal — and limits — of a Christian nationalist message." Stella Rouse and Shibley Telhami. Politico. Sept. 21, 2022.

Annika Brockschmidt (Twitter: @ardenthistorian) wrote a book about the rise of the religious right and white Christian Nationalism in the US. The book is in German. Amerikas Gotteskrieger: Wie die Religiöse Rechte die Demokratie gefährdet

Episode of Trumpcast: "White Supremacy, Tulsa, and the Mythology of America." One more conversation before this weekend’s ill-fated Trump rally. Description: "Virginia Heffernan talks to author Jared Yates Sexton about evangelical mythology, Bill Barr, rural understandings of globalism, the Confederacy, the coming Trump rally in Tulsa, how some Christian Trumpists may view COVID, and the “cult of the shining city."

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Robert Reich observes (Substack, July 13, 2023):

“Put on the full armor of God. Stand firm against the left’s schemes,” Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis proclaimed at the Christian Hillsdale College (substituting “left’s schemes” for the “devil's schemes” of Ephesians 6:11).

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The paradox is that religious observance has shown a steep decline over the past quarter century. In 1999, Gallup found that 70 percent of Americans belonged to a church, a synagogue, or a mosque. In 2020, the number was 47 percent. For the first time in nearly a century of polling, worshippers were the minority in America.

Does this precipitous decline help explain the militance of white Christian nationalism? A fierce minority religious movement has taken over the Republican Party — giving the GOP fervor and purpose that are now being championed by Republican appointees to the Supreme Court, Republican state legislators, and Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump.

We're in this situation now.

"Christian nationalism, separate from the Christian religion, is a political ideology that seeks to merge Christian beliefs and symbols with national identity and public policy. Christian nationalists believe that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and Christianity should be infused in all aspects of American society. They believe that their god is the only thing that should influence laws and determine our rights, and as such, any laws and any governing body that is not based on the authority of their god, is essentially meaningless. For Christian nationalists, our government, the television shows we watch, the music we consume, how we structure our family life, how we engage with one another, and more, should be informed by their god. The true danger of this ideology lies not in that they believe this (although plenty could be said on that), but in that they are actively trying to enact it into our policies."

— Unveiling Christian Nationalism: Examining its Influence Through Current Legislative Trends, Meredith Thompson, The Humanist, March 15, 2024

Seen in May 2024

One of the most important things you can do as an ally and as fighter of fascism is stop laughing at evangelical Christians and realize they mean every single word they say. They’re not funny, they’re absolutely terrifying. Take them extremely seriously and act accordingly.

— Erin Biba (@erinbiba.bsky.social) May 26, 2024 at 4:14 PM

Responses to this included (paraphrased):

• They worship power.
• They will reject their own family rather than give up any of that power.
• They will use their power to cause harm.
• They're trying to bring about the apocalypse.
• They're aware of what they're doing.
• They're organized and shrewd.
• They apply the concept of "religious freedom" inconsistently — they mean it for them and no one else.
• They're conscious and intentional about their inconsistency, which means you can't shame them simply by pointing out their hypocrisy.

Recommendation: Listen to Chrissy Stroop www.bugbeardispatch.com (and on Bluesky)

June 2024

It's long past time for a broader discussion about what "Christian" means in America. It is far more a political identifier than a shared faith: 43% of Evangelicals reject the divinity of Christ.

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— Max Kennerly (@maxkennerly.bsky.social) Jun 18, 2024 at 8:55 AM

Washington Post opinion: "Trump has changed what it means to be evangelical"

July 2024

Josh Hawley embraces the Christian nationalism label at NatCon:

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— Sarah Posner (@sarahposner.bsky.social) Jul 9, 2024 at 12:41 PM

Marjorie Taylor Greene

"sees what her fellow Republicans either don’t see or aren’t willing to acknowledge: Trump’s second administration has already failed and will doom its party in upcoming elections. And she wants to get credit for being the first prominent elected Republican to say this out loud.

Late on Friday, in a statement that took everyone by surprise, Greene announced that she would be resigning from Congress in January. Once one of Trump’s most vocal allies, she had been fighting an increasingly bitter war with him in recent months, attacking him on everything from health care to the Epstein files to foreign policy. Trump, she has argued, is betraying his movement, selling out his voters as his administration ignores rising costs, attempts to hide embarrassing secrets, and props up a failing government in Argentina and a murderous one in Israel." (Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Playing the Long Game: The resigning Georgia congresswoman understands something that other Republicans don’t. Alex Shephard, The New Republic, November 25, 2025)

See also: The biggest myth about White Christian nationalism (12 min read), John Blake, CNN, Jan 25, 2026

On March 22, 2026, CNN will air Pamela Brown's video report, "The Rise of Christian Nationalism," on The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper. See this interview with Robert Jones aired on March 20.

"And in Oklahoma, the Christian nationalist founder of Pastors for Trump, Jackson Lahmeyer, announced his candidacy for Congress this week in the city he calls “Tulsarusalem.” Lahmeyer gained notoriety during the COVID pandemic for selling vaccine exemption slips and making inflammatory statements on social media. He preaches about a religiopolitical war between good Christians and evil “Luciferians.” A member of Trump’s National Faith Advisory Board, Lahmeyer purports to be a defender of religious liberty, though he does not believe the First Amendment applies to Muslims."

— email from American Atheists, March 27, 2026

New Survey Reveals An Alarming Number Of Women Support Christian Nationalism: How men and women support Christian nationalism is consistent, but there's one key difference. Monica Torres, HuffPost, Mar 30, 2026

The Religious Right is desperate these days to pretend that "Christian Nationalism" is (1) a recently-invented term and (2) a pejorative invented by their enemies, but neither of those claims is remotely true. Here's a short thread, but I'm sure other historians will have examples too.

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— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) May 17, 2026 at 10:38 AM

Of this, Task Force Publishes Report on Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias and Restoring Religious Liberty (April 30, 2026), Scott MacConomy, Director of Policy and Government Affairs for the Secular Coalition for America, says in an email sent by the organization that the report "tries to argue that government actions sometimes infringed on religious liberty and portrays conservative Christians as targets of ideological hostility. In reality, the report mostly relies on anecdotal evidence and coincidences to conclude that members of the religion that includes almost two-thirds of the American population, 87 percent of members of Congress, and 100 percent of the Supreme Court are victims of bias and persecution. ... Next year they will release a second report full of policy recommendations, likely to include recommendations to expand religious exemptions and roll back civil rights protections. I think we should start referring to this as Project 2027. It’s going to be that bad."

Related:

"Sriram Krishnan, who has served as the White House senior policy adviser for AI, is leaving his role at the end of June [2026], an anonymous source told The Washington Post.

Krishnan played a major role in the Trump administration's 28-page “AI Action Plan," which, in part, was concentrated on "winning the AI race" through expanding AI infrastructure and removing regulations. He also helped create Trump's executive order restricting state-level AI laws.

To me that seems related because those are AI policy documents that say that AI must not have ideological bias.

Gorsuch Calls Out U.S. Conservatives For Pushing Myth Of White, Christian Founding, Ryan Grenoble, July 27, 2026