556 Comments

Dear Professor Cox Richardson,

I think the White Christian Nationalist wing of the Republican party should be named and shamed. Instead, you just wrote about "enforcing religion." I think the language you chose is too mild.

It's not just "religion" they want to enforce, it's a particular variety of white people's Christianity. They are White Christian Nationalists bent on shaping our laws and our public sphere to fit their religious doctrines. This, in a supposedly secular nation, is offensive and illegal, even unconstitutional.

So calling it "religion" is like George Santos calling his pack of lies "resume embellishment", in my world.

I am senior clergy in a minority faith, and have been a religious rights activist for decades, so it's a sensitive issue to me personally. Thank you for considering my point.

Blessings on your work.

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“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” ~ MLK

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On one hand, the prospect of constant chaos among House Republicans appeals to me. They will weaken a broken party even more and provide endless perverse entertainment. But then I realize that it will badly hurt the country, slowing the remarkable progress of the last two years as critical problems increase and intensify.

Something has to give.

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GOP total disregard for Public Welfare is linked in myriad ways to the decline in bargaining power of Labor which is linked in myriad ways to income inequality, all of which enables the GOP anti-democratic movement. What is the optimal way to unravel this pernicious feedback loop?

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Dec 30, 2022·edited Dec 30, 2022

So, I keep wondering about the intelligence of people who keep re-electing religious demagogues and cruel misers and white supremacists to political office. To me, it seems like our political experiment won't achieve stable success until enough of the population internalize the values of true equality at the core of a strong democracy. We've made compromises to avert a civil war, yet we got one anyway. We tried to make government work for all Americans and got such a pushback that set the stage for Trump. We need another ingredient in the recipe for democracy, but I don't know what it is.

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Dec 30, 2022·edited Dec 30, 2022

Profesor Richardson, today’s letter woke me up. At least reminded me how Hitler gained power. We should be more than worried. You wrote about the repub base, “Rejecting the equality at the heart of liberal democracy, many of them hope to enforce religious rules on the rest of the country and admire Russian president Vladimir Putin and Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán for replacing democracy with what Orbán has called “Christian democracy,” or “illiberal democracy” that enforces patriarchal heterosexual hierarchies. That reminds me of how Fascists including Hitler and Stalin, as well as Putin and Orban, gain power. This Atlantic article from October 2022: “The way the Nazis used ‘the politics of legality’ to gain absolute power after a failed coup is an ominous lesson about the fragility of a republic.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/nazi-germany-hitler-democracy-weimar/671605/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

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Trump’s tweet reveals: he has no idea of what Marxism is about; he’s an unabashed racist (no surprise); and he doesn’t know the difference between Chinese and Taiwanese. He also doesn’t think that someone who was naturalized over 50 years ago is American.

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The anti-immigration rhetoric amongst Republicans and drumpf loyalists is vicious and hate-filled. It also reflects their failure to understand asylum seekers. I posted on Facebook a comment about the mean spirited actions by Abbott and DiSantis in busing migrants to DC and Martha’s Vinyard. The replies were vitriolic, shockingly so.

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The Speakership contest is likely to be the most consequential in US history. It represents the best chance to marginalize the far right wing of the Republican party and to preserve effective government.

My biggest concern is that if a bipartisan coalition forms around a candidate from outside the chamber that the choice will be tied up in frivolous litigation since it has never been done before.

The real test will be whether any coalition Speaker could strip Committee assignments from guys like far right extremist Jim Jordan on grounds that he defined Congressional subpeonas. The other issue is whether it is wise to have an unelected Speaker be next in line after the VP in the Presidential succession. Unless of course it was George W. Bush. But he doesn't personally have the legislative creds to be particularly effective in the role.

Still thinking Brian Fitzpatrick, Republican co-Chair of the problem solvers caucus who has voted with Democrats 67% of the time during th last Congress and won relection with a comfortable margin wouldn't be a better choice.

But either way it will take a lot of Democratic support to overcome the Freedom caucus crazies. Hakeem Jeffries needs to get Democrats on the same page about this.

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I'm confused (not unusual). Can I be a Marxist, a Fascist, a liberal, a Progressive and a Democrat all at the same time?

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“The year 2022 has seen an important split in the Republican Party.”

Their deal with the yellow-haired devil has circled back to rip the Republican Party apart. The charismatic party leader is now the monkey on their back; screeching in their ears and scratching at their eyes. And no one deserves that cute, just adorable little monkey more than Mitch McConnell.

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Gym Jordan, the proof you should never let a PE coach do more than decide whether to order Chinese takeout for lunch is back to doing what he does best - projection. Complain about the Biden Administration doing what he and Trump did for the past seven years.

"What they need's a damned good whacking" as the Beatles pointed out about the Piggies.

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I still think that the so-called Christian zealots are doing what Christian zealots have always done, use religion to gain and keep power. Christianity is the method to their madness. Haven’t seen one “Christian virtue” exhibited by any one of these maniacs, top of the list are Franklin Graham and Ginni Thomas.

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"Once they show you who they are, believe them" Maya Angela (paraphrased)

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"in the case of extremist Republicans, to use the government not to provide a basic social safety net, regulate business, promote infrastructure, or protect civil rights—as it has done since 1933—but instead to enforce right-wing religious values on the country. "

Please google Leonard Leo, to learn more about how that effort is funded and enforced. Leo is the money grub hub of a vast network of dark money he funnels from dodgy donors to antidemocratic causes. And particularly to overturning civil rights protections and the Separation of Church and State. It's not just the Federalist Society and stacking the Supreme Court.

Lisa Graves of TrueNorth Research is a very good source.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/12/1111606448/supreme-court-independent-state-legislature-theory-honest-elections-project

https://truenorthresearch.org/2020/10/snapshot-of-secret-funding-of-amicus-briefs-tied-to-leonard-leo-federalist-society-leader-promoter-amy-coney-barrett/

https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/whitehouse-testifies-on-the-right-wing-capture-of-our-courts

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/us/politics/leonard-leo-courts-dark-money.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/us/politics/leonard-leo-network.html

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Trump and his cronies remain what they have always been; criminals.

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