Quotes About Politics

we no longer remember a time when neither party had a monopoly on God.

Christian nationalism looks backward on a fictionalized history of America's allegedly Christian founding. It looks forward to a future in which its versions of the Christian religion and its adherents, along with their political allies, enjoy positions of exceptional privilege and power in government and in law.

The roots of the present crisis in the American political party system lie at the juncture of money and religion

Perhaps the most obvious paradox of Christian nationalism is that it preaches love but everywhere practices intolerance, even hate.

Leave the matter of religion to the family circle, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions," said President Ulysses S. Grant in 1875. "Keep the church and state forever separate.

We are so used to the idea that the First Amendment is for liberals, and that it is our bulwark against fascist movements, that we fail to notice when it has been turned around and used as a wedge instead.

We don't notice when it shows up across the street or quietly takes up residence in our classrooms. And we just don't take its proponents at their word. Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and any number of other leaders of the Christian Right have told us that they abhor our public schools, and that they pray for the day when such schools cease to exist.

replace our foundational democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity, answering to what some adherents call a "biblical worldview" that also happens to serve the interests of its plutocratic funders and allied political leaders.

This is not a "culture war." It is a political war over the future of democracy.

Russian leaders see America's Christian right as a tremendously useful vehicle for influencing American politics and government in a manner favorable to Russian interests.

Other observers may reasonably use terms like "theocracy," "dominionism," "fundamentalism," or "Christian right." I use those terms where appropriate, but often prefer "Christian nationalism" in referring to the whole, because it both reflects the political character of the movement and because it makes clear its parallels between the American version and comparable political movements around the world and throughout history.

The Bible is inherently political in that it routinely speaks against people who abuse their power in order to oppress other people.

It is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power.

The real issue at the Capitol Ministries fund-raiser is that the proponents of this antidemocratic vision no longer seem to feel the need to disguise their ambitions. They, too, are getting ready to king.

From the beginning, the New Right sought radical change. They would establish themselves "first as the opposition, then the alternative, finally the government," according to Conservative Caucus chair Howard Phillips.

What today's Christian nationalists call "religious liberty" is in reality a form of religious privilege—for their kind of religion.

The biggest fraud of Christian nationalism—that the United States was founded as a Christian nation—is also the movement's source of its greatest weakness.

Trump seems pleased to play the role that his followers have assigned him. He is obliging them by behaving like a monarch—or, some might say, a mad king.

One political party endorses ultraconservative varieties of religion and it is exploiting them to lock in power. This is how the Christian nationalist movement works.

Christian nationalism is not a religious creed but, in my view, a political ideology.

While many Americans still believe that the Christian right is primarily concerned with "values," leaders of the movement know it's really about power.

The PAC was one of four affiliated super PACS in the network, including Keep the Promise I, a PAC managed by Kellyanne Conway, which received $11 million from Robert Mercer, and Keep the Promise III, which received $15 million from the families of Texas fracking billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks.

Yet the fundamental difference today is that one party is now beholden to a movement that does not appear to have much respect for representative democracy.

As the historian and author Randall Balmer writes, "It wasn't until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right's real motive: protecting segregated schools."33