April 30, 2025 • 51 mins
followtheleighder is writing her masters thesis on Project 2025. She joins Michael Regilio to discuss. More at dogmadebate.com
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hey, I'm Adam carolahed Gillette.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Not only listening, I'm a guest.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
I'm a penn and teller, and I am the fourth listener.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
And I am the fourth listener, and that must make
me at least the fourth listener. It's Dogma Debate with
your host Michael Rigillio. For extra content and to join
the conversation, please head over to Dogma Debate dot com
and join our Patreon And welcome to what promises to
(00:33):
be a fascinating, if not scary episode of Dogma Debate.
Because I have Lee Larson here, and Lee is something
of an expert on Project twenty twenty five, and if
you've ever listened to Dogma Debate, you know that I
am super freaked out by Project twenty twenty five. So
this is the guest I have been waiting for. Lee,
Welcome to Dogma Debate.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Awdie, thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed catching
up on your episodes and getting to know the world
that you've built and for your followers, and really I'm
just appreciative to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Thank you, Oh thank you. So how did how did
we how did you become such the expert on twenty
Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, so I am finishing up my masters I am
a Master's in Theological Studies candidate. I will have my
my thesis inde November or December. I got a double
check and I chose to write. The title of my
thesis is United States of Empire, the Religious Right Project
(01:34):
twenty twenty five and the US Military. And I started reading.
It was just approved maybe like three weeks ago or so,
been kind of no longer than that. But I've been
reading along the way, and the more I read, the
more I was just like, this is real. This needs
(01:57):
to be publicly talked about. And didn't want to wait.
I know, I posted on TikTok my findings and people
were like, you got to publish your thesis and I'm like,
you're not going to have that for a while, but
we can't wait until November and December to start talking
about this. So I started just with the history of
the rise of the religious right. We can go all
(02:20):
the way back to the founding of US, but really
there was a turning point with the civil rights movement
and Carter and Reagan, and so that's where I started
with my TikTok series just on the history. I wrapped
up yesterday on the Trump administration. And you know, it's
(02:41):
wild because I felt like I sounded like a conspiracy theorist.
By the end of my fifth video, I was like,
and then and this is also, and like I'm like,
they're baptizing people at these Trump rallies, and like if
you don't show photos, people don't believe you. And I'm like, no,
it is part it's a warped it's it's you can't
(03:05):
even make heads or tails of it. It's a grift.
It's they they're selling all the merch. You can get
a Maga hat, and you can get baptized, and you
can get a corn dog and you can see whole cogan.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, what does that happen? Grab a Trump meme coin
while you're there. Well, let's be clear about this because
I was doing a little of my own research and
this is very interesting where you know Michael Anton, who's
one of the authors of Project twenty twenty five, as
well as Russell vote this is the one thing they
(03:39):
agree with the left on. They said that the left
likes to category or to call them names, that they
don't really agree with, you know, and and that the
one thing they were like, oh no, that's absolutely correct
is Christian nationalists. They're like that, we don't take a
fence at that's accurate. That is what it's all about
(04:00):
out So from the word go, this is Christian nationalism
and this is their blueprint. So why don't we start
from the beginning of where where your your series on
TikTok starts. And by the way, let's get the plug
in right away. It's follow the Leader, and why don't
you spell that for everybody?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah, so follow the Lee and my name is Lee
l e I g H. That's how it's spelled in
the TikTok handle and Instagram and YouTube and substack blue
sky those really I haven't been too built up yet.
But follow the Lee L e I g H d
e er lead.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, and you're going to learn all this stuff. But
we're going to go over it right now. So let's
start with you know, we've talked a lot about Christian
nationalism on this show. It certainly freaks me out. I
truly believe that Christianity has been I wouldn't say timid,
but held held back a little bit by the modern
age and by secularism, and we know what they're like
(04:56):
when they're not held back and when they have all
the power. And we're getting back to that faith where
they have all the power. And this is where things
get really ugly. So if you don't mind, why don't
you walk us through how this whole thing started.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, so it's I liked how you said that that
there was a sort of restraint on it. There's also
been just such changes so we can talk like in
the nineteen fifties and I'm looking at my notes to
make sure I have all my dates right, we had
democrat or I guess quote unquote progressive politicians that were
(05:35):
looking to put like that, we're looking to get Christianity
more into the government. We had. I didn't realize this
until my studies that Eisenhower was baptized in office. Like
that's wild to think about the oppresient not know that either. Yeah,
like big public display. There was Truman who was invited
(05:59):
and made a public specter. Cool about the English Revised
Standard version of the Bible being released, like standing there
there was you know with the whole photoshop just.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Clarious was he pro or against it? Because with religious people.
You never know, like I know that the Catholic Church
was against the English version of the Bible when it
first came out. Was Truman pro or against the English
version of the Bible?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Pro was celebratory of it. It was like a whole
spectacle and really like and this is where it gets
messy because for most really until going into like the sixties,
you could say that America was predominantly Christian just in
(06:45):
like sixty six percent. I mean, we had the Humanist
movement and that was fantastic, the transcend Nittalist movement with
the Roe and Emerson in the eighteen hundreds. But there
was Christian whatever that meant going to church and all
the mainline Protestants, and you had Catholicism. But it wasn't
(07:05):
this like culty thing like that it is now, or well,
it's always been a little there's always been this cool
but there it was just kind of almost like part
of American society, like you couldn't escape it. And I
mean even like I said Eisenhapper that in God we
(07:28):
trust on the currency and on the postage stamp.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Right, those we're added, as you know, because communism was
perceived as godless and so I'm not sure what year
it was, but it wasn't so long ago. I think
it was the nineteen fifties is when we added in
God we trust to the currency.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah, and it was by a Democrat. And like there's
always been like when you go to d C. There's
Saint John's Episcopal and also the Washington National Cathedral. They
host presidents. There is a specific pew at Saint John's
Episcopal and I'm speaking I was originally episcop baptized Episcopalia,
(08:11):
and then raised in the Disciples of Christ tradition by
the Saint John's Episcopal Church. There has a pew that
is saved for presidents called the President's pew, and I
want to say, it's like pew number fifty four or something.
And that has been used by many presidents over the
last one hundred plus years. Teddy Roosevelt was the one
(08:33):
that held the mallet for the photo shop to hit
the cornerstone of the Washington National Cathedral in nineteen oh
seven as president. So there's always been this Like even
though right he said multiple times in all of his
writings he doesn't identify so strongly with his Christian faith
as he did as a child, But there's always been
(08:55):
this sense of like mixing sort of faith and maybe
if they didn't have this spirituality that we have now
or whatever, but feeling like they needed to have a
God involved in in the government. In fact, that was
one of George Washington's like first things. He was like,
(09:17):
all right, we're gonna revolt against the English, and we're
going to create an army, and that army is going
to have a chaplain like that was one of the
first roles he was, like, well, spiritual caregiver for the
army or for the revolutionaries. But so and even I
(09:37):
was I was reading a book too about how mainline
Protestants and moderate and progressive Christians have like played a
role in this project twenty twenty five, how we have
like allowed the in God we trust or we have
or the Truman or just even like bringing in sanctuary,
bringing in flags into sanctuaries. What, Yeah, that's exactly what
(10:02):
happened with Nazi Germany, like.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Right, And I couldn't help but think as we were
talking about putting the in God we trust on the
money that every s S soldier had got mit uns
on their belt buckle, which was God with us. And
it's just a reminder that the minute, yeah, you think
you got the creator of the universe on your side,
you can kind of get away with anything.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Oh yeah, and like and that is interesting too. When
I like started talking about this, I was like, I
don't I don't think that we should have the in
God we trust her. I don't think we should have
these different even like just anytime this, Like, I mean,
here's another kind of questionable thing. Taxpayers pay for prison chaplains,
(10:52):
military chaplains, fire chief chaplains, or police, like, is that
true separation of church and state? Like, it gets really
dicey when when we talk about true separation. And then
even when I talk to either some people about it,
they're like, oh, I don't I don't know if I
want that to be taken away. And so people have
different levels with how much they want the church to
(11:15):
be separate from the state or religion separate from the state.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Right, And I'll just point out that churches don't pay taxes,
so churches don't pay for chaplains, and atheist numero Uno
Michael Riggilio sitting here does pay for chaplains. Certain irony there, Yeah,
I will point out that Christians love to point out
(11:39):
that the separation of church and state, that's in a
letter from Thomas Jefferson to the such and such of Danbury, Connecticut,
and that it's like, no, it's in the First Amendment.
I mean, yeah, I mean it's there should be no
religious test I mean. But again that they don't care
about that. They see this as founded as Christian nation,
(12:01):
and come hell or high water, they're going to return
us to a Christian nation.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Which is just such a misleading direction. Anyway, I wrote
a paper if you last semester that was talking about
how this idea of Christian America as a Christian nation
assumes that Christianity's monolith, and like, that's not what happened.
You had all these European settlers who were already fractured
(12:29):
by the Protestant Reformation coming over here as Baptists or
Methodist or Episcopalians or Catholics, and they were already in
disagreement of what it even meant to be Christian. So
it's like Quakers and Puritans you had. You had a
lot of different ideas of what Christianity meant. And so
(12:51):
I'm looking at this like okay, well, which Christian. Which
Christian then are you going to be?
Speaker 1 (12:59):
The answer is evangelical, right.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
And that's it's and that's part. That's a huge reason
why Jefferson, Madison and Mason were so separation of church
and state pro separation was because they watched religious tyranny
in England and in Scotland. I mean, they watched all
of this go down and they're like, you know what,
let's just not let's just separate it and let's have
(13:26):
nothing to do with it. And Madison was even he
was a lawyer and he defended or yeah, he defended
separation of church and state numerous times after the Constitution
was written in the courts for different cases. So it's
not even that they just like set it in this
(13:46):
one document, this one time. It's like, no, they affirmed
this over and over and over in the early founding
to make sure that this thing stayed separate. Because people
like as much as I don't know, just as much
as some folks in America like to put these men
on pedestals, like these men were hated for separating church
and state, like it was not popular, it was not cool.
(14:09):
They thought that America was going to lose the American
Revolution or any subsequent war, because like you said, they
weren't trying to have God on their side, and so
it's yeah, I know what you mean. Though. There was
(14:29):
a gal yesterday on TikTok who posted like, Christian nationalism
is not a bad word, right, we should be proud
of that, and I was like, okay, so we're saying
the quiet parts out loud now, all.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Right, oh they're screaming it. I mean Trump had a
speech I think it was a may have been back
in twenty sixteen where he's like, why do they say
nationalist is a bad word? I am proud to be
a nationalist. I am a nationalist. And it's like, well,
so were the Nazis. Again. You know, I am so
(15:03):
tired of people saying you can't compare anything to the Nazis.
What about when it's so comparable to let's say, the Nazis,
And you know, I always have to make this distinction
where it's like, we're not comparing Trump to Hitler forty five.
We're comparing Trump to Hitler thirty three, and we're trying
to stop him from becoming Hitler forty five. But the
(15:25):
comparisons to the Nazi takeover, which was through democracy. They
were technically voted into power, and then the minute they
were in they started using German laws and the German
constitution against itself to consolidate power and become a dictatorship,
to become a fascist state. In fact, Joseph Gerbel said
(15:48):
that it was so easy because baked into the German
democracy were the tools to destroy German democracy. That they
used democracy against it. And that's happening all over again.
And so I'm not afraid of that comparison, and to
hell with you if you have a problem with it.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
No, and the patterns of looking at a fragile economy
blaming outsiders as the problem going like they started in
the churches. Like that was they went straight to the
churches where vulnerable people are going to be on Sundays,
(16:28):
and they said, we'll save you. We're here to you know,
we're here to make this better. Fly our flag. And
you can just slowly and quickly for that matter, but
just give people just slowly over time, just watch these
people change. Like you know, you think about those folks
(16:52):
in the churches, like they it didn't like you said,
it didn't just go to nineteen forty five, overnight, Like
it was a slow like feeding of this sort of fear,
not sort of fear fear xenophobia, ultra like nationalism, which
(17:13):
is just like a very large word for tribalism, like
just like hunkering down. You can only trust us, you
can't trust anybody else. We're the best, and this I
don't know even I even have a hard time recently.
I last summer, I had the opportunity to go to
(17:33):
Scotland and Sweden and came back just like so almost
angry about how horrible our lack of public transportation is
around the United States, right, And I was trying to
tell that to my dad and I have like almost
had like no relationship at this point because he has
(17:55):
drink the Maga kul aid. But a year ago he
called to ask me about it, and I was talking
just being like this was crazy, Like I just got
these train passes and these bus passes on my phone
and I just betep beep, like hopped on, hopped off
all over both of these countries. And it was awesome
(18:15):
because not only was it great for me as like
a thirty year old solo traveler, but I got to
see like, you know, disabled folks or elderly folks who
can't drive, like be able to go visit family members
that Like, it was like the access that all these
different people had to being able to be mobile. And
(18:39):
I was trying to explain this to my and he like,
like they don't. It's like the American exceptionalism runs so deep,
Like you can't criticize it because it's like you can't
tell them that our public education is like what thirty
eighth or something like, Yeah, it's it's delusional, it's beyond.
(19:02):
You can't even talk to them.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
No, no, you can't. And let me guess the minute
you talk about good public transportation or education. In other countries, taxes, oh,
they pay through their an iatois. They say they have
a higher standard of living, they're healthier, they have a
higher happierness index, they have more vacation time, and that's
(19:24):
what their taxes get. Like, what are you courting your
money for If you have a shorter, more miserable life
with no vacation time and you work eighty hours a week,
who cares what your taxes are. If we all pull together,
it's like group on, we all pull together and we
buy these things together as a group, and the things
we buy are safety nets and health insurance and accessibility
(19:48):
for the disabled, and all these things are going away.
And it's in large part because of Project twenty twenty five.
Project twenty twenty five is not the name of it
it started. It currently is and always has been mandate
for leadership, and I think the first draft of it,
it's been around for a long time. It's just been
rewritten over and over again. And the first draft actually
probably came out of the Reagan administration.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
If I'm not mistaken, Yeah, we can jump right into it.
We kind of did. We would on Nontanga. But so yes,
the official document came with the Reagan administration, but really
it was Nixon's administration that someone on his team was like,
I just wish that we had a game plan. So
(20:30):
on the day one, we hit the ground running and
we knew exactly what to do. And the religious right
was building their case at this point and they're like,
we got you, so we'll take it before Nixon.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
It's a card.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Where do you even start? But okay, So following the
Civil War, there was this sense of like we're moving
away from the city, society's broken, We're just going to
go be our own saying, have our own communities. You
see that with a lot of conservative seminaries like out
in the middle of nowhere, just like we're just going
(21:07):
to go be away from society. And this was fine
until nineteen twenty five with the Scopes trial and the
Scopes trial essentially it was in Tennessee and it came
down to creationism and evolution being taught in public schools,
and they were very upset that they could not teach
(21:27):
creationism in public schools. And this is where they start
this argument that the government is trying to tell us
what we can and cannot do. Now, this is where
the government is trying to attack us. They're not allies,
and they're still building their case in other ways. Like
I said in the nineteen fifties, like Eisenhower gets baptized,
(21:51):
Truman is holding up the New Bible release. They are
working and built. This is one thing that is the
most terrifying. They are extremely good at coalition building. They
don't need people to all agree like and they start
(22:16):
working with business leaders. They start getting like they have
this installation of money and by the time Carter comes around,
they think Carter is going, oh, where are we, Oh no, no,
but my books.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
The Brown versus the Board of Education. So the desegregation
of schools, they didn't like that, particularly for.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
The Christian private Christian schools.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
So now we're at the Bob Jones College, the Bob
Jones College will refuses to accept black folk and to
their school, and it makes it all the way to
the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court Court and I
R s are like, well, then you'll lose your tax
exempt status. You have to integrate, Like that is discrimination.
You have to integrate. And at this point they're like,
(23:06):
you're trying to teach us. You're telling us we can't
teach creationism, and you are telling us who we can
and cannot accept into our private schools. This is too
much government overreach. Government's attacking Christianity. So this is by
the sixties. There's also like the free love movement and
divorce and birth control. So you've got these these things
(23:32):
going on. By the seventies, you've got environmental regulations and the.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
One which plays into this heavily obviously.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, Roby Wade. And they thought they had a hero
in Jimmy Carter. They were like, cool, he's a Southern
boy Georgia. He does Sunday school for his Southern Baptist church.
Like he's going to be our Christian good old boy
that's going to save the day, would it. He wouldn't
(24:01):
take the bait. He would not support them on prayer
and schools. He stood by the Supreme Court ruling on
the tax exempt status of that private Christian school that
would not accept people of color, and was very much like, no,
faith is extremely personal and it has no place in
the government ruling on this, and they literally called him immoral.
(24:25):
They're like, you are an immoral person. You're not on
our side, and left him alone. No, they did not
leave him alone. They started to actively attack and work
against him.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Right, but they abandoned him right.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
So, but at this point they have now worked across
the board to get this mandate going, and they came
out in nineteen eighty one with the first official mandate
for leadership. It includes other documents worked on by their
conservative conservative theologists along the way. But this is like
(25:02):
it was something like three thousand pages, and it was
heavily fiscally It was really fiscally conservative. When at first
there wasn't a lot of social conservative things yet, but
the Heritage Foundation, which was headed up by Jerry Folwell,
he was the one to say that evangelicals need to
(25:25):
play a larger role in American politics. I think back
during the early nineteen hundreds, evangelicals had the lowest voter
registration of any church demographic, wanted nothing to do with society.
And he was like, no, instead of having nothing to
do with it, we need to be all in it.
We need to make this for ourselves. And so Jerry
(25:49):
Fallwell's heading that Joseph cos of Coors Beer is also
a major sponsor and founder of the Heritage Foundation, And
so by the time like Reagan comes around, they have
this document ready to go. They he was the governor.
He was he was the governor of California. He passed
(26:11):
one of the most liberal abortion bills like in the
country at the time, and he was a divorced man.
Like it was like, how did this guy who was
divorced and passing liberal abortion bills like suddenly become the
face of the religious right. And they gave him a
script and a lot of money, and I mean truly
(26:37):
like marched him around all sorts of churches and large
conferences and and and he played the role. He tapped
into that early post civil rights white fear, and he
started his campaign and a town in Philadelphi, no excuse me, Philadelphia, Mississippi,
(27:04):
in which not even ten years before KKK members had
killed civil rights activists, went to that Bob Jones college
that I mentioned earlier, that one that wouldn't accept black students,
went and called it a great institution, which is very
(27:25):
like reminiscent of when Trump went to Charlottesville, Virginia and
called the Unite the Right rally, like, oh, there's great
people on both sides, Like it's very so many parallels
in connection.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Dog whistle, I mean, in Reagan's case, in Trump's case,
it was bullhorn.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
But get on the megaphone.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah. But and let me just be clear that, I
mean a lot of the abortion up until this point
was not an evangelical issue at all. In fact, they
considered that to be a Catholic thing. Yeah, but at
the time that they needed to unite the right in
the early seventies, with the rulings about desegregating their institutions
(28:07):
came around, they knew that they couldn't take the keep
the black people out as the rallying cry that that
would make them demonize. So they needed a different issue,
so they went with abortion. Abortion was not the original issue,
and the people who originally created abortion as a rallying
cry to unite the Christians in America were doing it
(28:29):
very disingenuously. They didn't believe it. So it is built
on the entire pro life movement is built on disingenuous lies.
Oh but there you haven't. That's not to say that
the people that fight for pro life nowadays, you know,
aren't don't truly believe this in their heart. But the
(28:52):
movement is built on a house of lies.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yes, and they really like, I mean, we're spot on
Christianity Today, which was the major magazine of the time,
supported Roe V. Wade. The Southern Baptist Conference came out
of the public statement supporting Roa V. Wade, Methodist Episcopalian.
A lot of mainline was like, yeah, this is a
(29:17):
Catholic issue. It's also a privacy issue, it's a medical issue.
Like we're going to leave it alone, and and we
support a woman needing to do whatever she needs to do.
And they went to like they were like, we need
to we need to focus on this and they went
to fringe communities around the country and really like used
(29:44):
a lot of that fear marketing that you see even
today about the heartbeat and or just all the imagery
and like or the rhetoric around how abortion is. Because
these women were actually irresponsible, these harlots, these you know,
like that like.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Whatever they do this day, we still hear that.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
They and they really pushed that. So it went from
rooted in racism to now we've now we've opened it
up to sexism. They didn't immediately jump to sexism. In fact,
they wanted to go after homophobia or homosexuality. But homosexuality
(30:30):
was like in the eighties, I mean, that's that's Elton John.
That's like it's becoming public and more and more people
are in, uh or out. I guess you can say
out or you know, it's it's not it's too mainstream.
I guess it's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
And so they missed the anti gay train by about
twenty years.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yeah, and so there and so they scrambled and and
that's when they were like, oh, ro V Wade and
then we'll target you know, the heartbeat and the fetus
and these like images, these graphic images and we'll run
with it. So yeah, by the time, like and like
(31:17):
Reagan is running around the country like supporting all of this.
He's in office continuing to praise God and bring God
all in this more so than like and it's weird
to say, like Eisenhower got baptized and Reagan was like more.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
But like.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Just this sense of we're gonna fix and clean up
society because it's broken. And these liberals have just there
these sexual detias. I mean, it's the same things they're
saying to this day, just new new enemy and I'm
(32:00):
trying to make sure I have my notes here. They goodness,
what's interesting, particularly around the conservative fiscal policy that they
wanted to mandate. They George H. W. Bush spoke out
(32:23):
against them when he ran against Reagan early on and
was like, no, that's voodoo economics. That's not going to
fix this country. Like, no, that's that's those are bad ideas.
And then Daddy Bush quote unquote his dad had been
in politics in Connecticut as a Connecticut Center Senator Prescott Bush.
(32:44):
If George H. W. Bush ever wanted to be president,
he was going to have to fall in line. And
so when he was Reagan's vice president, suddenly he was
all for it and supporting and all of this, and
it drastically. However, you want to say this about Georgia,
he was a moderate, and then because he was running
(33:08):
out of Texas, he had to kiss the ring, he
had to change his I don't think for a second
that George hw Bush really cared too much about abortion.
He was raised Episcopalia, and his own denomination came out
in support of it, and then suddenly like he's got
opinions on it. The Episcopalian church also was like in
(33:29):
nineteen seventy six, like talking about pro and inclusive queer
in ministry and in the church. So it's wild that
like here we have this moderate Northerner who is now
trying to pander to the southern white Christian vote. You've
got Reagan out here just like visiting racist college campuses
(33:54):
and praising the Lord and leading this revivalism, and now
Republican conservative ideology is wrapped into Christianity like almost inseparable.
There was you know the but what's even nuts about
the economic policies of Reaganomics. When George hw Bush took
(34:18):
over in the nineties, we were in the United States
was two point eight trillion dollars in debt. They doubled
the deficit because of cutting taxes to the rich and
doubling the military. And they that's what they tell them,
that's the same thing. They're like, you, we need to
support our military, support our truth. And then it's just
(34:39):
it's just.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Right. But under Reagan, they you know, we saw the
first signs of shrinking the size of the government. Reagan
had a famous line that like the most dangerous words
ever spoken, or I'm from the government and I'm here
to help or something like that. I can't remember the
exact quote, but the idea that he used to say
that the government is not the solution to the problem.
The government is the problem, you know. And this entire
(35:03):
idea of which Project twenty twenty five, you know, and
it's really it's modern incarnation is doing. And then we
have that with Doge is just decimating the federal government.
This has been the dream of the far right for
fifty years now.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Yeah, And that was like one of the things Reagan
did too. He cut the Civil Rights Commission, or tried
to he tried to decimate it by putting in people
that wanted it out anyway, or they wanted it out,
and they were anti women in the workplace, anti women's rights,
(35:42):
anti civil rights. Like it's it's the same thing, like
appointing people to these government departments and cabinet positions that
think government is inherently the worst thing, that we should
have this entirely small leadership of this way of governing,
(36:06):
and and then therefore sabotaging every single move about it.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, nothing like what we have now, which is on
absolute steroids. I mean we have wild secretary for the
Department of Education who literally said I'm here to make
myself unemployed to destroy this department. I mean that is
just insane.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
It's like it's it's so cultish. You can't trust the
government unless but you can trust me, like even like
I'm going to drain the swamp. And then he is
the swamp. He is, he's the swamp monster, like.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Our swamp monster, our swamp monster. I mean, things just
began to really spiral out of control. And I'm jumping
ahead a little bit, but we did reach the point
where there was a famous article written in a conservative
magazine in twenty sixteen in which they called the election
(37:11):
the flight ninety three election, and it was a call
to conservatives that we have to storm the cockpit, even
if it means killing the country, committing national suicide. It's
either that or the Liberals will put in the final
pieces to their final plan and will be done forever.
(37:33):
In fact, Russell Vote, I believe, said and I quote,
in twenty sixteen, we are in the last stages of
a complete Marxist takeover of the country twenty sixteen. Now,
Russell Vote, by the way, is one of the authors
of you know, Mandate for Leadership aka Project twenty twenty five.
Let's go back to twenty sixteen if we can. Why
(37:55):
would somebody say the last stages of a complete Marxist
take Either you don't know what Marxist means, or let
me see. There was a guy elected in two thousand
and eight, so if he did two terms, that would
take him to twenty sixteen. His name was BarackObama. Oh right,
(38:21):
that old issue still sticking around. When it's the black guy,
it's a Marxist takeover.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
This moderate, this center right democrat, this nineteen fifties Republican
named Barack Obama was the late stages of a Marxist takeover,
but they had turned the fever pitch up to the.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Point where it was just I mean flight ninety three,
storm the cockpit, like even if you die, it's worth.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
It, yes, and a lot of the hate. So I'm
gonna twenty sixteen, two thousand and eight, like post nine
to eleven was a the steroids for American nationalism. And
you had George W. Bush who was in office, who
had gotten sober through the church and who had no
problem talking about God and Christianity, but in which they loved.
(39:16):
He was also against abortion, but he was a lot
more progressive on immigration than what they wanted, and he
was after nine to eleven, while of course we went
to war, he brokeered and met with pro Muslim leaders
for peacemaking and peace building, which they hated. They wanted
(39:38):
this American Bible Jesus goes after the Middle East Muslims,
and Bush wouldn't budget on it. And so you see
this surge of In fact, he talks about that like
how nationalism is dangerous and how we're still like you know,
working with world leaders and they that's when you start
(39:59):
to hear it. You start to see the tea party
pop up that Washington, that George Bush and the Republicans
have sold out. They're just Washington establishment and this religious
right like surges and how Washington has abandoned them. And
then of course the left is upset about how Bush
(40:19):
handled nine to eleven in their own way, and so
they bring in Barack Obama and this could not have
been like their worst the religious rights worst nightmare. You've
got a black man who has ascended to the highest
office in the land. His healthcare initiative, as Affordable Care
Act Obamacare, is mandating that employers cover contraceptives. So remember
(40:43):
I don't remember that hobby Lobby was one of the
loudest remembering, Oh yeah, how dare the government tell them
and interfere with their religious views? You've got him passing
defensive marriage. Queer marriage is now legalized federally. There were
He does acknowledge God or faith in a few of
(41:05):
his speeches, but he's trying to be He's an academic.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
He's his last name is who I mean, his middle
name is Hussey, middle name God? Is he talking about that?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
All?
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Lah?
Speaker 1 (41:16):
I tell you what.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
And and and that's a big thing. You got the
Birther movement. I want to see his birth certificate, and
this whole thing of we have this like black pseudo
Muslim queer loving baby killing, like the government's gone to
hell like in their in their eyes, and which is
(41:43):
wild that those things upset them, but nothing that Trump
is done. Like they that Barack Obama is the Christian nightmare.
But yet they have warped and deluded themselves into believing
that Trump is now King David and like this that
(42:06):
he and they've created this whole narrative that the United
States is like Israel, like this is their promised land
and they're the Israelites and they need to take it back,
and they've got a divine leader in Donald Trump. And
like at first I was like that, there's no way,
how do you make that jump? And as they do
(42:26):
at these Trump rallies, they are baptizing people. You can
buy a Maga hat and you can get baptized. You
can hear a quote unquote sermon from Eric Trump where
Eric invokes the Bible and talks about how what great
Christians they are by the Trump Bible. Oh yeah, it's
(42:49):
and it's so intertwined in them, this this tribalism, like
this America is the greatest country in the world. And
without gs and without Trump, it'll fall because we can't
trust George W. Bush apparently, and whatever the left gives us,
(43:11):
I mean, the left like ran it's funny, it is
kind of funny, Like when you say it, it's like,
so then they had Barack Obama and they hated him,
and so the left ran Hillary Clinton and that's when
their heads just caught on fire like a woman. Yeah,
and now we've really done it and can't believe you
(43:33):
give us this and.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
They betrayed themselves so easily, where it's like she had
a private server. It's like pre Heseth was texting war
plans on a publicly available app that anybody on his
on his private phone. Oh, we don't care. Oh so
what was the issue with Hillary? Oh the other thing? Yeah,
(43:59):
she was a woman.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
God Drew Yes, Andrew Whitehead, who is the leading scholar
of white Christian nationalism and Trump specifically like this era
his team. After surveying, however, many people said that okay,
well hold on before I deliver the results. Not only
was it Hillary Clinton that was doing this. Also in society,
(44:23):
more and more women are achieving higher education and excelling
in the workplace, taking on leadership positions. Now these alpha
Christian men are having to answer to women CEOs or
women bosses. Divorce rates arising, birth control is widely accessible,
(44:44):
planned parent abortion, all these things. And at the same
time they're getting reports that whiteness is dying, that by
nineteen forty two, the whites will be in the minority,
and so they're feeling like this emasculation and this loss
of power in control, this like hierarchy they've built for
themselves where it's that whites are the true Christians and
(45:09):
that underneath the white Christianity is like the hierarchy and
the home this patriarchy, and that it is being threatened.
And now you're going to tell me that I have
to possibly have a female president. And so there's this
whole social aspect going too. And Andrew Whitehead, the leading
(45:30):
scholar of the Trump and White Christian nationalist studies, ran
this survey and of the top reasons, sexism was the
number one reason that people voted for Trump that were
pro MAGA, followed by anti black sentiment, followed by xenophobia
and immigration and Islamophobia, and then it was economic concerns.
(45:57):
And I think about that when I think about like
the price of eggs. That was their big thing. It
was like eggs are too expensive? And I was like,
is that you just didn't want to buy? You just
didn't want to vote for a mixed race woman like
in Harris like just say that. And and so it's wild.
They they thought they were being emasculated, and that Trump
(46:21):
who is now telling his leader his followers, you can
just grab women by the like, I don't know what
your podcast allows in your okay, So Trump's out here saying,
you know, he's also making He's quote unquote telling it
like it is. He's saying all the quiet parts out loud.
(46:42):
He's doing all the things that his followers have felt
like they can't say because the Liberals are policing their
language and cancel culture. And all of this is built
up until you just have this guy that loves the spotly,
(47:04):
that has to have his name on everything from buildings
to stakes to casinos to reality TV shows. And he's like, yeah,
they I'll say whatever you want to get clicks and
likes and votes. Like, and do I think that Trump
believes a lot of what he says?
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (47:22):
I also don't think he can I think he just
likes to be provocative and just say things like he
is like just erasist, sexist, asshole, and he'll go out
of his way for the virality of it, so to
go viral with everything. He just he can't get enough
of it. And the religious right, why, like I said,
(47:49):
they're out here justifying, bending over backwards, trying to justify
his sexual misconduct, his horrible business acumen. How he's gone
bankrupt multiple times. He hasn't paid his smarties.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
What smart businessmen do. They go broke a bunch of times.
You didn't know that. Hey, that's that's the art of
the deal.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
The deal.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
Lose all your money and then borrow more money from yeah,
and then lose all that. I can't believe you didn't
know that. That's the smart thing to do.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Oh and.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Right, and again, as I said early on, the religious
right is extremely good at coalition building. Like you, they
don't like the government interfering with their religion, but they
will go to other groups like oil and coal and energy.
And they might be Christian, they may not, but whatever,
they'll go and be like, I know that you don't
(48:46):
like all the government regulations slapped on you, like do
you want to buddy up on this. And they did
the same thing with the tech companies and the crypto
I mean that's part of the crypto. Part of Crypto's
whole thing is like no regulation. It's you know that,
that whole thing. So if any of these hyper individualistic,
rugged individualism, we can't be governed type, we don't. We
(49:11):
want to be popular or profitable or powerful, whichever one.
You can't tell us what to do. The government is
wrong in all ways, and that's how we have Trump
and then now and then of course you at twenty sixteen,
and then you get into COVID and it starts a
whole new ship storm because now the government's telling them
(49:32):
to get vaccinated and not to go to work and
like all this stuff, as if the American government was
the only government doing that, Like most governments were like, hey,
we're going to get you vaccinated, We're going to separate
like and but it's no, it's this whole American government
can borderline conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
You've as well Trump's president, by the way, that these
conspiracies continue to go fuck the government, Prue Trump. But
Trump is the government. Vaccine has microchips in it. Trump
developed the vaccine. It doesn't matter. It's cognitive dissonance. But
it does get us to the worst case scenario, which
I always say, which is two terms of Trump consecutively.
(50:16):
Was not the worst case scenario. I didn't think it
at the time because it didn't even occur to me.
But it turns out the worst case scenario is one
term of Trump and then four years off to lick
his wounds. Plot is revenge and have people like Russell Vote,
the Heritage Foundation come in and say, we have a
game plan for how you're going to do it next time,
(50:37):
and we're going to hit the ground running and this
is what we're gonna do. And it is a Christian
nationalist movement, but it is also a deeply anti government
issue and it is I mean, at its heart, and
we're seeing this every day, it's anti tax. I mean,
the income tax is the bane of their existence and
that is what tariffs are. They want to get rid
(50:58):
of the income tax, and they think you can do
that because we used to raise a lot of money
through tariffs pre the implementation of the income tax, and
they all want to get back to that. And that
is what I want to talk about with you. If
we could in the Patreon only section of this show,
(51:19):
which is what is actually in Project twenty twenty five
now that we understand it is a Christian nationalist movement
and that they are going to implement their wildest dreams
on us and are implementing their wildest dreams. And the
way you can listen to that part of the episode
is by going to Dogmadebate dot com and join our
Patreon and hey, if you got something to say to
(51:41):
me while you're there, there's the be a guest button.
Go ahead and hit it. Fill out the form, tell
me what you want to talk about, and I'll bring
you on the show. That's Dogmadebate dot com.
I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Hey, I'm Adam carolahed Gillette.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Not only listening, I'm a guest.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
I'm a penn and teller, and I am the fourth listener.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
And I am the fourth listener, and that must make
me at least the fourth listener. It's Dogma Debate with
your host Michael Rigillio. For extra content and to join
the conversation, please head over to Dogma Debate dot com
and join our Patreon And welcome to what promises to
(00:33):
be a fascinating, if not scary episode of Dogma Debate.
Because I have Lee Larson here, and Lee is something
of an expert on Project twenty twenty five, and if
you've ever listened to Dogma Debate, you know that I
am super freaked out by Project twenty twenty five. So
this is the guest I have been waiting for. Lee,
Welcome to Dogma Debate.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Awdie, thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed catching
up on your episodes and getting to know the world
that you've built and for your followers, and really I'm
just appreciative to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Thank you, Oh thank you. So how did how did
we how did you become such the expert on twenty
Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, so I am finishing up my masters I am
a Master's in Theological Studies candidate. I will have my
my thesis inde November or December. I got a double
check and I chose to write. The title of my
thesis is United States of Empire, the Religious Right Project
(01:34):
twenty twenty five and the US Military. And I started reading.
It was just approved maybe like three weeks ago or so,
been kind of no longer than that. But I've been
reading along the way, and the more I read, the
more I was just like, this is real. This needs
(01:57):
to be publicly talked about. And didn't want to wait.
I know, I posted on TikTok my findings and people
were like, you got to publish your thesis and I'm like,
you're not going to have that for a while, but
we can't wait until November and December to start talking
about this. So I started just with the history of
the rise of the religious right. We can go all
(02:20):
the way back to the founding of US, but really
there was a turning point with the civil rights movement
and Carter and Reagan, and so that's where I started
with my TikTok series just on the history. I wrapped
up yesterday on the Trump administration. And you know, it's
(02:41):
wild because I felt like I sounded like a conspiracy theorist.
By the end of my fifth video, I was like,
and then and this is also, and like I'm like,
they're baptizing people at these Trump rallies, and like if
you don't show photos, people don't believe you. And I'm like, no,
it is part it's a warped it's it's you can't
(03:05):
even make heads or tails of it. It's a grift.
It's they they're selling all the merch. You can get
a Maga hat, and you can get baptized, and you
can get a corn dog and you can see whole cogan.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, what does that happen? Grab a Trump meme coin
while you're there. Well, let's be clear about this because
I was doing a little of my own research and
this is very interesting where you know Michael Anton, who's
one of the authors of Project twenty twenty five, as
well as Russell vote this is the one thing they
(03:39):
agree with the left on. They said that the left
likes to category or to call them names, that they
don't really agree with, you know, and and that the
one thing they were like, oh no, that's absolutely correct
is Christian nationalists. They're like that, we don't take a
fence at that's accurate. That is what it's all about
(04:00):
out So from the word go, this is Christian nationalism
and this is their blueprint. So why don't we start
from the beginning of where where your your series on
TikTok starts. And by the way, let's get the plug
in right away. It's follow the Leader, and why don't
you spell that for everybody?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah, so follow the Lee and my name is Lee
l e I g H. That's how it's spelled in
the TikTok handle and Instagram and YouTube and substack blue
sky those really I haven't been too built up yet.
But follow the Lee L e I g H d
e er lead.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, and you're going to learn all this stuff. But
we're going to go over it right now. So let's
start with you know, we've talked a lot about Christian
nationalism on this show. It certainly freaks me out. I
truly believe that Christianity has been I wouldn't say timid,
but held held back a little bit by the modern
age and by secularism, and we know what they're like
(04:56):
when they're not held back and when they have all
the power. And we're getting back to that faith where
they have all the power. And this is where things
get really ugly. So if you don't mind, why don't
you walk us through how this whole thing started.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, so it's I liked how you said that that
there was a sort of restraint on it. There's also
been just such changes so we can talk like in
the nineteen fifties and I'm looking at my notes to
make sure I have all my dates right, we had
democrat or I guess quote unquote progressive politicians that were
(05:35):
looking to put like that, we're looking to get Christianity
more into the government. We had. I didn't realize this
until my studies that Eisenhower was baptized in office. Like
that's wild to think about the oppresient not know that either. Yeah,
like big public display. There was Truman who was invited
(05:59):
and made a public specter. Cool about the English Revised
Standard version of the Bible being released, like standing there
there was you know with the whole photoshop just.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Clarious was he pro or against it? Because with religious people.
You never know, like I know that the Catholic Church
was against the English version of the Bible when it
first came out. Was Truman pro or against the English
version of the Bible?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Pro was celebratory of it. It was like a whole
spectacle and really like and this is where it gets
messy because for most really until going into like the sixties,
you could say that America was predominantly Christian just in
(06:45):
like sixty six percent. I mean, we had the Humanist
movement and that was fantastic, the transcend Nittalist movement with
the Roe and Emerson in the eighteen hundreds. But there
was Christian whatever that meant going to church and all
the mainline Protestants, and you had Catholicism. But it wasn't
(07:05):
this like culty thing like that it is now, or well,
it's always been a little there's always been this cool
but there it was just kind of almost like part
of American society, like you couldn't escape it. And I
mean even like I said Eisenhapper that in God we
(07:28):
trust on the currency and on the postage stamp.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Right, those we're added, as you know, because communism was
perceived as godless and so I'm not sure what year
it was, but it wasn't so long ago. I think
it was the nineteen fifties is when we added in
God we trust to the currency.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah, and it was by a Democrat. And like there's
always been like when you go to d C. There's
Saint John's Episcopal and also the Washington National Cathedral. They
host presidents. There is a specific pew at Saint John's
Episcopal and I'm speaking I was originally episcop baptized Episcopalia,
(08:11):
and then raised in the Disciples of Christ tradition by
the Saint John's Episcopal Church. There has a pew that
is saved for presidents called the President's pew, and I
want to say, it's like pew number fifty four or something.
And that has been used by many presidents over the
last one hundred plus years. Teddy Roosevelt was the one
(08:33):
that held the mallet for the photo shop to hit
the cornerstone of the Washington National Cathedral in nineteen oh
seven as president. So there's always been this Like even
though right he said multiple times in all of his
writings he doesn't identify so strongly with his Christian faith
as he did as a child, But there's always been
(08:55):
this sense of like mixing sort of faith and maybe
if they didn't have this spirituality that we have now
or whatever, but feeling like they needed to have a
God involved in in the government. In fact, that was
one of George Washington's like first things. He was like,
(09:17):
all right, we're gonna revolt against the English, and we're
going to create an army, and that army is going
to have a chaplain like that was one of the
first roles he was, like, well, spiritual caregiver for the
army or for the revolutionaries. But so and even I
(09:37):
was I was reading a book too about how mainline
Protestants and moderate and progressive Christians have like played a
role in this project twenty twenty five, how we have
like allowed the in God we trust or we have
or the Truman or just even like bringing in sanctuary,
bringing in flags into sanctuaries. What, Yeah, that's exactly what
(10:02):
happened with Nazi Germany, like.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Right, And I couldn't help but think as we were
talking about putting the in God we trust on the
money that every s S soldier had got mit uns
on their belt buckle, which was God with us. And
it's just a reminder that the minute, yeah, you think
you got the creator of the universe on your side,
you can kind of get away with anything.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Oh yeah, and like and that is interesting too. When
I like started talking about this, I was like, I
don't I don't think that we should have the in
God we trust her. I don't think we should have
these different even like just anytime this, Like, I mean,
here's another kind of questionable thing. Taxpayers pay for prison chaplains,
(10:52):
military chaplains, fire chief chaplains, or police, like, is that
true separation of church and state? Like, it gets really
dicey when when we talk about true separation. And then
even when I talk to either some people about it,
they're like, oh, I don't I don't know if I
want that to be taken away. And so people have
different levels with how much they want the church to
(11:15):
be separate from the state or religion separate from the state.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Right, And I'll just point out that churches don't pay taxes,
so churches don't pay for chaplains, and atheist numero Uno
Michael Riggilio sitting here does pay for chaplains. Certain irony there, Yeah,
I will point out that Christians love to point out
(11:39):
that the separation of church and state, that's in a
letter from Thomas Jefferson to the such and such of Danbury, Connecticut,
and that it's like, no, it's in the First Amendment.
I mean, yeah, I mean it's there should be no
religious test I mean. But again that they don't care
about that. They see this as founded as Christian nation,
(12:01):
and come hell or high water, they're going to return
us to a Christian nation.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Which is just such a misleading direction. Anyway, I wrote
a paper if you last semester that was talking about
how this idea of Christian America as a Christian nation
assumes that Christianity's monolith, and like, that's not what happened.
You had all these European settlers who were already fractured
(12:29):
by the Protestant Reformation coming over here as Baptists or
Methodist or Episcopalians or Catholics, and they were already in
disagreement of what it even meant to be Christian. So
it's like Quakers and Puritans you had. You had a
lot of different ideas of what Christianity meant. And so
(12:51):
I'm looking at this like okay, well, which Christian. Which
Christian then are you going to be?
Speaker 1 (12:59):
The answer is evangelical, right.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
And that's it's and that's part. That's a huge reason
why Jefferson, Madison and Mason were so separation of church
and state pro separation was because they watched religious tyranny
in England and in Scotland. I mean, they watched all
of this go down and they're like, you know what,
let's just not let's just separate it and let's have
(13:26):
nothing to do with it. And Madison was even he
was a lawyer and he defended or yeah, he defended
separation of church and state numerous times after the Constitution
was written in the courts for different cases. So it's
not even that they just like set it in this
(13:46):
one document, this one time. It's like, no, they affirmed
this over and over and over in the early founding
to make sure that this thing stayed separate. Because people
like as much as I don't know, just as much
as some folks in America like to put these men
on pedestals, like these men were hated for separating church
and state, like it was not popular, it was not cool.
(14:09):
They thought that America was going to lose the American
Revolution or any subsequent war, because like you said, they
weren't trying to have God on their side, and so
it's yeah, I know what you mean. Though. There was
(14:29):
a gal yesterday on TikTok who posted like, Christian nationalism
is not a bad word, right, we should be proud
of that, and I was like, okay, so we're saying
the quiet parts out loud now, all.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Right, oh they're screaming it. I mean Trump had a
speech I think it was a may have been back
in twenty sixteen where he's like, why do they say
nationalist is a bad word? I am proud to be
a nationalist. I am a nationalist. And it's like, well,
so were the Nazis. Again. You know, I am so
(15:03):
tired of people saying you can't compare anything to the Nazis.
What about when it's so comparable to let's say, the Nazis,
And you know, I always have to make this distinction
where it's like, we're not comparing Trump to Hitler forty five.
We're comparing Trump to Hitler thirty three, and we're trying
to stop him from becoming Hitler forty five. But the
(15:25):
comparisons to the Nazi takeover, which was through democracy. They
were technically voted into power, and then the minute they
were in they started using German laws and the German
constitution against itself to consolidate power and become a dictatorship,
to become a fascist state. In fact, Joseph Gerbel said
(15:48):
that it was so easy because baked into the German
democracy were the tools to destroy German democracy. That they
used democracy against it. And that's happening all over again.
And so I'm not afraid of that comparison, and to
hell with you if you have a problem with it.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
No, and the patterns of looking at a fragile economy
blaming outsiders as the problem going like they started in
the churches. Like that was they went straight to the
churches where vulnerable people are going to be on Sundays,
(16:28):
and they said, we'll save you. We're here to you know,
we're here to make this better. Fly our flag. And
you can just slowly and quickly for that matter, but
just give people just slowly over time, just watch these
people change. Like you know, you think about those folks
(16:52):
in the churches, like they it didn't like you said,
it didn't just go to nineteen forty five, overnight, Like
it was a slow like feeding of this sort of fear,
not sort of fear fear xenophobia, ultra like nationalism, which
(17:13):
is just like a very large word for tribalism, like
just like hunkering down. You can only trust us, you
can't trust anybody else. We're the best, and this I
don't know even I even have a hard time recently.
I last summer, I had the opportunity to go to
(17:33):
Scotland and Sweden and came back just like so almost
angry about how horrible our lack of public transportation is
around the United States, right, And I was trying to
tell that to my dad and I have like almost
had like no relationship at this point because he has
(17:55):
drink the Maga kul aid. But a year ago he
called to ask me about it, and I was talking
just being like this was crazy, Like I just got
these train passes and these bus passes on my phone
and I just betep beep, like hopped on, hopped off
all over both of these countries. And it was awesome
(18:15):
because not only was it great for me as like
a thirty year old solo traveler, but I got to
see like, you know, disabled folks or elderly folks who
can't drive, like be able to go visit family members
that Like, it was like the access that all these
different people had to being able to be mobile. And
(18:39):
I was trying to explain this to my and he like,
like they don't. It's like the American exceptionalism runs so deep,
Like you can't criticize it because it's like you can't
tell them that our public education is like what thirty
eighth or something like, Yeah, it's it's delusional, it's beyond.
(19:02):
You can't even talk to them.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
No, no, you can't. And let me guess the minute
you talk about good public transportation or education. In other countries, taxes, oh,
they pay through their an iatois. They say they have
a higher standard of living, they're healthier, they have a
higher happierness index, they have more vacation time, and that's
(19:24):
what their taxes get. Like, what are you courting your
money for If you have a shorter, more miserable life
with no vacation time and you work eighty hours a week,
who cares what your taxes are. If we all pull together,
it's like group on, we all pull together and we
buy these things together as a group, and the things
we buy are safety nets and health insurance and accessibility
(19:48):
for the disabled, and all these things are going away.
And it's in large part because of Project twenty twenty five.
Project twenty twenty five is not the name of it
it started. It currently is and always has been mandate
for leadership, and I think the first draft of it,
it's been around for a long time. It's just been
rewritten over and over again. And the first draft actually
probably came out of the Reagan administration.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
If I'm not mistaken, Yeah, we can jump right into it.
We kind of did. We would on Nontanga. But so yes,
the official document came with the Reagan administration, but really
it was Nixon's administration that someone on his team was like,
I just wish that we had a game plan. So
(20:30):
on the day one, we hit the ground running and
we knew exactly what to do. And the religious right
was building their case at this point and they're like,
we got you, so we'll take it before Nixon.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
It's a card.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Where do you even start? But okay, So following the
Civil War, there was this sense of like we're moving
away from the city, society's broken, We're just going to
go be our own saying, have our own communities. You
see that with a lot of conservative seminaries like out
in the middle of nowhere, just like we're just going
(21:07):
to go be away from society. And this was fine
until nineteen twenty five with the Scopes trial and the
Scopes trial essentially it was in Tennessee and it came
down to creationism and evolution being taught in public schools,
and they were very upset that they could not teach
(21:27):
creationism in public schools. And this is where they start
this argument that the government is trying to tell us
what we can and cannot do. Now, this is where
the government is trying to attack us. They're not allies,
and they're still building their case in other ways. Like
I said in the nineteen fifties, like Eisenhower gets baptized,
(21:51):
Truman is holding up the New Bible release. They are
working and built. This is one thing that is the
most terrifying. They are extremely good at coalition building. They
don't need people to all agree like and they start
(22:16):
working with business leaders. They start getting like they have
this installation of money and by the time Carter comes around,
they think Carter is going, oh, where are we, Oh no, no,
but my books.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
The Brown versus the Board of Education. So the desegregation
of schools, they didn't like that, particularly for.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
The Christian private Christian schools.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
So now we're at the Bob Jones College, the Bob
Jones College will refuses to accept black folk and to
their school, and it makes it all the way to
the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court Court and I
R s are like, well, then you'll lose your tax
exempt status. You have to integrate, Like that is discrimination.
You have to integrate. And at this point they're like,
(23:06):
you're trying to teach us. You're telling us we can't
teach creationism, and you are telling us who we can
and cannot accept into our private schools. This is too
much government overreach. Government's attacking Christianity. So this is by
the sixties. There's also like the free love movement and
divorce and birth control. So you've got these these things
(23:32):
going on. By the seventies, you've got environmental regulations and the.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
One which plays into this heavily obviously.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, Roby Wade. And they thought they had a hero
in Jimmy Carter. They were like, cool, he's a Southern
boy Georgia. He does Sunday school for his Southern Baptist church.
Like he's going to be our Christian good old boy
that's going to save the day, would it. He wouldn't
(24:01):
take the bait. He would not support them on prayer
and schools. He stood by the Supreme Court ruling on
the tax exempt status of that private Christian school that
would not accept people of color, and was very much like, no,
faith is extremely personal and it has no place in
the government ruling on this, and they literally called him immoral.
(24:25):
They're like, you are an immoral person. You're not on
our side, and left him alone. No, they did not
leave him alone. They started to actively attack and work
against him.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Right, but they abandoned him right.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
So, but at this point they have now worked across
the board to get this mandate going, and they came
out in nineteen eighty one with the first official mandate
for leadership. It includes other documents worked on by their
conservative conservative theologists along the way. But this is like
(25:02):
it was something like three thousand pages, and it was
heavily fiscally It was really fiscally conservative. When at first
there wasn't a lot of social conservative things yet, but
the Heritage Foundation, which was headed up by Jerry Folwell,
he was the one to say that evangelicals need to
(25:25):
play a larger role in American politics. I think back
during the early nineteen hundreds, evangelicals had the lowest voter
registration of any church demographic, wanted nothing to do with society.
And he was like, no, instead of having nothing to
do with it, we need to be all in it.
We need to make this for ourselves. And so Jerry
(25:49):
Fallwell's heading that Joseph cos of Coors Beer is also
a major sponsor and founder of the Heritage Foundation, And
so by the time like Reagan comes around, they have
this document ready to go. They he was the governor.
He was he was the governor of California. He passed
(26:11):
one of the most liberal abortion bills like in the
country at the time, and he was a divorced man.
Like it was like, how did this guy who was
divorced and passing liberal abortion bills like suddenly become the
face of the religious right. And they gave him a
script and a lot of money, and I mean truly
(26:37):
like marched him around all sorts of churches and large
conferences and and and he played the role. He tapped
into that early post civil rights white fear, and he
started his campaign and a town in Philadelphi, no excuse me, Philadelphia, Mississippi,
(27:04):
in which not even ten years before KKK members had
killed civil rights activists, went to that Bob Jones college
that I mentioned earlier, that one that wouldn't accept black students,
went and called it a great institution, which is very
(27:25):
like reminiscent of when Trump went to Charlottesville, Virginia and
called the Unite the Right rally, like, oh, there's great
people on both sides, Like it's very so many parallels
in connection.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Dog whistle, I mean, in Reagan's case, in Trump's case,
it was bullhorn.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
But get on the megaphone.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah. But and let me just be clear that, I
mean a lot of the abortion up until this point
was not an evangelical issue at all. In fact, they
considered that to be a Catholic thing. Yeah, but at
the time that they needed to unite the right in
the early seventies, with the rulings about desegregating their institutions
(28:07):
came around, they knew that they couldn't take the keep
the black people out as the rallying cry that that
would make them demonize. So they needed a different issue,
so they went with abortion. Abortion was not the original issue,
and the people who originally created abortion as a rallying
cry to unite the Christians in America were doing it
(28:29):
very disingenuously. They didn't believe it. So it is built
on the entire pro life movement is built on disingenuous lies.
Oh but there you haven't. That's not to say that
the people that fight for pro life nowadays, you know,
aren't don't truly believe this in their heart. But the
(28:52):
movement is built on a house of lies.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yes, and they really like, I mean, we're spot on
Christianity Today, which was the major magazine of the time,
supported Roe V. Wade. The Southern Baptist Conference came out
of the public statement supporting Roa V. Wade, Methodist Episcopalian.
A lot of mainline was like, yeah, this is a
(29:17):
Catholic issue. It's also a privacy issue, it's a medical issue.
Like we're going to leave it alone, and and we
support a woman needing to do whatever she needs to do.
And they went to like they were like, we need
to we need to focus on this and they went
to fringe communities around the country and really like used
(29:44):
a lot of that fear marketing that you see even
today about the heartbeat and or just all the imagery
and like or the rhetoric around how abortion is. Because
these women were actually irresponsible, these harlots, these you know,
like that like.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Whatever they do this day, we still hear that.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
They and they really pushed that. So it went from
rooted in racism to now we've now we've opened it
up to sexism. They didn't immediately jump to sexism. In fact,
they wanted to go after homophobia or homosexuality. But homosexuality
(30:30):
was like in the eighties, I mean, that's that's Elton John.
That's like it's becoming public and more and more people
are in, uh or out. I guess you can say
out or you know, it's it's not it's too mainstream.
I guess it's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
And so they missed the anti gay train by about
twenty years.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Yeah, and so there and so they scrambled and and
that's when they were like, oh, ro V Wade and
then we'll target you know, the heartbeat and the fetus
and these like images, these graphic images and we'll run
with it. So yeah, by the time, like and like
(31:17):
Reagan is running around the country like supporting all of this.
He's in office continuing to praise God and bring God
all in this more so than like and it's weird
to say, like Eisenhower got baptized and Reagan was like more.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
But like.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Just this sense of we're gonna fix and clean up
society because it's broken. And these liberals have just there
these sexual detias. I mean, it's the same things they're
saying to this day, just new new enemy and I'm
(32:00):
trying to make sure I have my notes here. They goodness,
what's interesting, particularly around the conservative fiscal policy that they
wanted to mandate. They George H. W. Bush spoke out
(32:23):
against them when he ran against Reagan early on and
was like, no, that's voodoo economics. That's not going to
fix this country. Like, no, that's that's those are bad ideas.
And then Daddy Bush quote unquote his dad had been
in politics in Connecticut as a Connecticut Center Senator Prescott Bush.
(32:44):
If George H. W. Bush ever wanted to be president,
he was going to have to fall in line. And
so when he was Reagan's vice president, suddenly he was
all for it and supporting and all of this, and
it drastically. However, you want to say this about Georgia,
he was a moderate, and then because he was running
(33:08):
out of Texas, he had to kiss the ring, he
had to change his I don't think for a second
that George hw Bush really cared too much about abortion.
He was raised Episcopalia, and his own denomination came out
in support of it, and then suddenly like he's got
opinions on it. The Episcopalian church also was like in
(33:29):
nineteen seventy six, like talking about pro and inclusive queer
in ministry and in the church. So it's wild that
like here we have this moderate Northerner who is now
trying to pander to the southern white Christian vote. You've
got Reagan out here just like visiting racist college campuses
(33:54):
and praising the Lord and leading this revivalism, and now
Republican conservative ideology is wrapped into Christianity like almost inseparable.
There was you know the but what's even nuts about
the economic policies of Reaganomics. When George hw Bush took
(34:18):
over in the nineties, we were in the United States
was two point eight trillion dollars in debt. They doubled
the deficit because of cutting taxes to the rich and
doubling the military. And they that's what they tell them,
that's the same thing. They're like, you, we need to
support our military, support our truth. And then it's just
(34:39):
it's just.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Right. But under Reagan, they you know, we saw the
first signs of shrinking the size of the government. Reagan
had a famous line that like the most dangerous words
ever spoken, or I'm from the government and I'm here
to help or something like that. I can't remember the
exact quote, but the idea that he used to say
that the government is not the solution to the problem.
The government is the problem, you know. And this entire
(35:03):
idea of which Project twenty twenty five, you know, and
it's really it's modern incarnation is doing. And then we
have that with Doge is just decimating the federal government.
This has been the dream of the far right for
fifty years now.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Yeah, And that was like one of the things Reagan
did too. He cut the Civil Rights Commission, or tried
to he tried to decimate it by putting in people
that wanted it out anyway, or they wanted it out,
and they were anti women in the workplace, anti women's rights,
(35:42):
anti civil rights. Like it's it's the same thing, like
appointing people to these government departments and cabinet positions that
think government is inherently the worst thing, that we should
have this entirely small leadership of this way of governing,
(36:06):
and and then therefore sabotaging every single move about it.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, nothing like what we have now, which is on
absolute steroids. I mean we have wild secretary for the
Department of Education who literally said I'm here to make
myself unemployed to destroy this department. I mean that is
just insane.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
It's like it's it's so cultish. You can't trust the
government unless but you can trust me, like even like
I'm going to drain the swamp. And then he is
the swamp. He is, he's the swamp monster, like.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Our swamp monster, our swamp monster. I mean, things just
began to really spiral out of control. And I'm jumping
ahead a little bit, but we did reach the point
where there was a famous article written in a conservative
magazine in twenty sixteen in which they called the election
(37:11):
the flight ninety three election, and it was a call
to conservatives that we have to storm the cockpit, even
if it means killing the country, committing national suicide. It's
either that or the Liberals will put in the final
pieces to their final plan and will be done forever.
(37:33):
In fact, Russell Vote, I believe, said and I quote,
in twenty sixteen, we are in the last stages of
a complete Marxist takeover of the country twenty sixteen. Now,
Russell Vote, by the way, is one of the authors
of you know, Mandate for Leadership aka Project twenty twenty five.
Let's go back to twenty sixteen if we can. Why
(37:55):
would somebody say the last stages of a complete Marxist
take Either you don't know what Marxist means, or let
me see. There was a guy elected in two thousand
and eight, so if he did two terms, that would
take him to twenty sixteen. His name was BarackObama. Oh right,
(38:21):
that old issue still sticking around. When it's the black guy,
it's a Marxist takeover.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
This moderate, this center right democrat, this nineteen fifties Republican
named Barack Obama was the late stages of a Marxist takeover,
but they had turned the fever pitch up to the.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Point where it was just I mean flight ninety three,
storm the cockpit, like even if you die, it's worth.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
It, yes, and a lot of the hate. So I'm
gonna twenty sixteen, two thousand and eight, like post nine
to eleven was a the steroids for American nationalism. And
you had George W. Bush who was in office, who
had gotten sober through the church and who had no
problem talking about God and Christianity, but in which they loved.
(39:16):
He was also against abortion, but he was a lot
more progressive on immigration than what they wanted, and he
was after nine to eleven, while of course we went
to war, he brokeered and met with pro Muslim leaders
for peacemaking and peace building, which they hated. They wanted
(39:38):
this American Bible Jesus goes after the Middle East Muslims,
and Bush wouldn't budget on it. And so you see
this surge of In fact, he talks about that like
how nationalism is dangerous and how we're still like you know,
working with world leaders and they that's when you start
(39:59):
to hear it. You start to see the tea party
pop up that Washington, that George Bush and the Republicans
have sold out. They're just Washington establishment and this religious
right like surges and how Washington has abandoned them. And
then of course the left is upset about how Bush
(40:19):
handled nine to eleven in their own way, and so
they bring in Barack Obama and this could not have
been like their worst the religious rights worst nightmare. You've
got a black man who has ascended to the highest
office in the land. His healthcare initiative, as Affordable Care
Act Obamacare, is mandating that employers cover contraceptives. So remember
(40:43):
I don't remember that hobby Lobby was one of the
loudest remembering, Oh yeah, how dare the government tell them
and interfere with their religious views? You've got him passing
defensive marriage. Queer marriage is now legalized federally. There were
He does acknowledge God or faith in a few of
(41:05):
his speeches, but he's trying to be He's an academic.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
He's his last name is who I mean, his middle
name is Hussey, middle name God? Is he talking about that?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
All?
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Lah?
Speaker 1 (41:16):
I tell you what.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
And and and that's a big thing. You got the
Birther movement. I want to see his birth certificate, and
this whole thing of we have this like black pseudo
Muslim queer loving baby killing, like the government's gone to
hell like in their in their eyes, and which is
(41:43):
wild that those things upset them, but nothing that Trump
is done. Like they that Barack Obama is the Christian nightmare.
But yet they have warped and deluded themselves into believing
that Trump is now King David and like this that
(42:06):
he and they've created this whole narrative that the United
States is like Israel, like this is their promised land
and they're the Israelites and they need to take it back,
and they've got a divine leader in Donald Trump. And
like at first I was like that, there's no way,
how do you make that jump? And as they do
(42:26):
at these Trump rallies, they are baptizing people. You can
buy a Maga hat and you can get baptized. You
can hear a quote unquote sermon from Eric Trump where
Eric invokes the Bible and talks about how what great
Christians they are by the Trump Bible. Oh yeah, it's
(42:49):
and it's so intertwined in them, this this tribalism, like
this America is the greatest country in the world. And
without gs and without Trump, it'll fall because we can't
trust George W. Bush apparently, and whatever the left gives us,
(43:11):
I mean, the left like ran it's funny, it is
kind of funny, Like when you say it, it's like,
so then they had Barack Obama and they hated him,
and so the left ran Hillary Clinton and that's when
their heads just caught on fire like a woman. Yeah,
and now we've really done it and can't believe you
(43:33):
give us this and.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
They betrayed themselves so easily, where it's like she had
a private server. It's like pre Heseth was texting war
plans on a publicly available app that anybody on his
on his private phone. Oh, we don't care. Oh so
what was the issue with Hillary? Oh the other thing? Yeah,
(43:59):
she was a woman.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
God Drew Yes, Andrew Whitehead, who is the leading scholar
of white Christian nationalism and Trump specifically like this era
his team. After surveying, however, many people said that okay,
well hold on before I deliver the results. Not only
was it Hillary Clinton that was doing this. Also in society,
(44:23):
more and more women are achieving higher education and excelling
in the workplace, taking on leadership positions. Now these alpha
Christian men are having to answer to women CEOs or
women bosses. Divorce rates arising, birth control is widely accessible,
(44:44):
planned parent abortion, all these things. And at the same
time they're getting reports that whiteness is dying, that by
nineteen forty two, the whites will be in the minority,
and so they're feeling like this emasculation and this loss
of power in control, this like hierarchy they've built for
themselves where it's that whites are the true Christians and
(45:09):
that underneath the white Christianity is like the hierarchy and
the home this patriarchy, and that it is being threatened.
And now you're going to tell me that I have
to possibly have a female president. And so there's this
whole social aspect going too. And Andrew Whitehead, the leading
(45:30):
scholar of the Trump and White Christian nationalist studies, ran
this survey and of the top reasons, sexism was the
number one reason that people voted for Trump that were
pro MAGA, followed by anti black sentiment, followed by xenophobia
and immigration and Islamophobia, and then it was economic concerns.
(45:57):
And I think about that when I think about like
the price of eggs. That was their big thing. It
was like eggs are too expensive? And I was like,
is that you just didn't want to buy? You just
didn't want to vote for a mixed race woman like
in Harris like just say that. And and so it's wild.
They they thought they were being emasculated, and that Trump
(46:21):
who is now telling his leader his followers, you can
just grab women by the like, I don't know what
your podcast allows in your okay, So Trump's out here saying,
you know, he's also making He's quote unquote telling it
like it is. He's saying all the quiet parts out loud.
(46:42):
He's doing all the things that his followers have felt
like they can't say because the Liberals are policing their
language and cancel culture. And all of this is built
up until you just have this guy that loves the spotly,
(47:04):
that has to have his name on everything from buildings
to stakes to casinos to reality TV shows. And he's like, yeah,
they I'll say whatever you want to get clicks and
likes and votes. Like, and do I think that Trump
believes a lot of what he says?
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (47:22):
I also don't think he can I think he just
likes to be provocative and just say things like he
is like just erasist, sexist, asshole, and he'll go out
of his way for the virality of it, so to
go viral with everything. He just he can't get enough
of it. And the religious right, why, like I said,
(47:49):
they're out here justifying, bending over backwards, trying to justify
his sexual misconduct, his horrible business acumen. How he's gone
bankrupt multiple times. He hasn't paid his smarties.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
What smart businessmen do. They go broke a bunch of times.
You didn't know that. Hey, that's that's the art of
the deal.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
The deal.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
Lose all your money and then borrow more money from yeah,
and then lose all that. I can't believe you didn't
know that. That's the smart thing to do.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Oh and.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Right, and again, as I said early on, the religious
right is extremely good at coalition building. Like you, they
don't like the government interfering with their religion, but they
will go to other groups like oil and coal and energy.
And they might be Christian, they may not, but whatever,
they'll go and be like, I know that you don't
(48:46):
like all the government regulations slapped on you, like do
you want to buddy up on this. And they did
the same thing with the tech companies and the crypto
I mean that's part of the crypto. Part of Crypto's
whole thing is like no regulation. It's you know that,
that whole thing. So if any of these hyper individualistic,
rugged individualism, we can't be governed type, we don't. We
(49:11):
want to be popular or profitable or powerful, whichever one.
You can't tell us what to do. The government is
wrong in all ways, and that's how we have Trump
and then now and then of course you at twenty sixteen,
and then you get into COVID and it starts a
whole new ship storm because now the government's telling them
(49:32):
to get vaccinated and not to go to work and
like all this stuff, as if the American government was
the only government doing that, Like most governments were like, hey,
we're going to get you vaccinated, We're going to separate
like and but it's no, it's this whole American government
can borderline conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
You've as well Trump's president, by the way, that these
conspiracies continue to go fuck the government, Prue Trump. But
Trump is the government. Vaccine has microchips in it. Trump
developed the vaccine. It doesn't matter. It's cognitive dissonance. But
it does get us to the worst case scenario, which
I always say, which is two terms of Trump consecutively.
(50:16):
Was not the worst case scenario. I didn't think it
at the time because it didn't even occur to me.
But it turns out the worst case scenario is one
term of Trump and then four years off to lick
his wounds. Plot is revenge and have people like Russell Vote,
the Heritage Foundation come in and say, we have a
game plan for how you're going to do it next time,
(50:37):
and we're going to hit the ground running and this
is what we're gonna do. And it is a Christian
nationalist movement, but it is also a deeply anti government
issue and it is I mean, at its heart, and
we're seeing this every day, it's anti tax. I mean,
the income tax is the bane of their existence and
that is what tariffs are. They want to get rid
(50:58):
of the income tax, and they think you can do
that because we used to raise a lot of money
through tariffs pre the implementation of the income tax, and
they all want to get back to that. And that
is what I want to talk about with you. If
we could in the Patreon only section of this show,
(51:19):
which is what is actually in Project twenty twenty five
now that we understand it is a Christian nationalist movement
and that they are going to implement their wildest dreams
on us and are implementing their wildest dreams. And the
way you can listen to that part of the episode
is by going to Dogmadebate dot com and join our
Patreon and hey, if you got something to say to
(51:41):
me while you're there, there's the be a guest button.
Go ahead and hit it. Fill out the form, tell
me what you want to talk about, and I'll bring
you on the show. That's Dogmadebate dot com.
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