This week we talk about the Pledge of Allegiance, Christian Nationalism, and the National Prayer Breakfast.
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This week we talk about the Pledge of Allegiance, Christian Nationalism, and the National Prayer Breakfast.
Links
This episode is brought to you by:
And by our other patrons and those who want no reward.
Contact information, show notes, and links to Social Media and the like can be found at https://htotw.com
The music in this episode is:
Welcome to the Show by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4614-welcome-to-the-show License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
NewsSting by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4124-newssting License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Ditty Pong by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4676-ditty-pong License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Disco Sting by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3653-disco-sting License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Sweeter Vermouth by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4450-sweeter-vermouth License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Full shownotes can always be found at https://htotw.com/22
Humanistic on the World, Episode 22, Christian Nationalism, the Pledge, the Prayer Breakfast, and more. Welcome to the episode of Humanistic on the World. I am Dustin, and joining me is... Me! Yeah, we're doing good today. I actually feel pretty good, so it's nice to be back on the show. Oh, right! So, yeah. I've been feeling pretty bad about, you know, how many episodes we've gotten out in the past, you know, since the relaunch. But the original plan was to do about 20 episodes a year. We did that. So we're on 22. That's the second one of this year, so we did get Episode 20 out in 2022. So... Technically, got it. So we made that. So, yeah, we're moving along, and... We just got to get through the worst fucking month, year, and then things will start pick up, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. And... That's why they call it fuck February. And I did get a, you know, new laptop at the end of December, which was pretty awesome. Doing good with the podcast. And then with this week's episode, I will be getting chapters set up. So each story will have its own chapter, and there will be a transcript as well. So hopefully your podcast app has that, if not. Vio, what program are you using to do all that? This is... Our podcaster friends out there. Whisper. Whisper. From OpenAI, the same company that did the chat GPT. Whisper. And, yeah, it's crazy how well that works. You won't hold that against them. Even on, you know, just running it off the HP Dev1 laptop, it works pretty good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You got to plug all this stuff. Yeah. He doesn't get to talk about podcasting stuff very much, so I'm encouraging him to just let his nerd flag fly. And, yeah, there is a chance I'll also be setting up some more of the podcasting 2.0 stuff, but we'll see. Yeah, and you've still got, you know, the Mastodon account where you can find me at at htotw at Mastodon.social. Nice. Or you can follow the podcast directly and then just find out when a new episode is released by following Dustin at htotw.com anywhere on the Fediverse. Nice. Which is confusing, and I will try to fix this, but I talked about that last time. Yeah. Also, I was able to get into the Facebook account and have deleted the Facebook page. Finally, I have been wanting to do that for so long. Facebook. Because of how old? This is a iteration day. I like it. Yeah. As much as they've been trying to destroy democracy in the world. Yeah. Yeah. Finally. Yeah. We also sell merch. Yep. Oh, which there is a sale coming up on the store. We never talk about that. I keep forgetting it. If we keep forgetting it, then you guys certainly can't know about it. The store will be up to 35% off February 22 to 26. Nice. I think I'll finally grab a shirt. Yeah, I need one for the new logo as well. Yeah. And you can find that at htotw.com slash store. That's really a start a discussion at preschool, son Kylie, in with one. Oh, wait. They can't read. Yeah. That's right. All right. So, Pledge of Allegiance. I'm dedicating this episode to her, by the way, because it was her school that started this whole conversation last week by sending this home with her monthly homework. And one of the things that she's supposed to do that we're supposed to do is introduce her to the Pledge of Allegiance. Yeah. And oh, boy, my heckles went up. I have baggage, guys. I have a lot of emotional baggage tied up with the Pledge of Allegiance. So I don't know if you want to start with that or if you want to start with the history of it. Well, okay. Everybody's got feels. Oh, yeah. And for me, you know, I had to do that at school, going to an Adventist school. We had one time where we had this patriotic music service, the, the mayor was there. I was the bass drum player in the band. And we started with hymns until the sun went down because, you know, Adventists, it was starting during the Sabbath hours. So. Saturday evening, sun goes down and Saturday afternoon afternoon and then the sun went down and then we got to go to the secular patriotic music. And so, and then we had, I think it was during America, the beautiful, the Pledge of Allegiance. I was selected in largely because, you know, I had the like deepest place of any of the students there that was involved to lead the, the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay. So. How old were you at this point? Probably 15. Yeah. Because you were already playing the drum. So. And so yeah, that was, was dropped, playing the bass drum and then get to that part and lay down the, the mallet for the bass drum and pick up the microphone and let everybody including the mayor and the reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. And there wasn't a dry eye in the house, I'm sure. Everybody was so patriotic. America. That, of course, you know, leaving religion several years later. The next time I had to deal with the Pledge of Allegiance was when my niece was graduating from eighth grade. Oh, oh, God. Okay. Yeah. In Fruitland, Idaho. Small, little town, rural town in Idaho. Right. When they had everybody stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. There were a few people who didn't. I did. Everybody was going along until the under God part and I didn't say that part. And like the volume dropped in that room by like 20 decibels. When you're saying it out loud, you don't know it because you're hearing your voice. When you don't say it and you hear how many people also don't say it, it's kind of, it's kind of invigorating. It's like, yeah, a few guys. So yeah. So I never said the under God part ever that I can remember, maybe in first grade, kindergarten first grade, by third grade, I wasn't standing for it anymore, um, which got me in a little bit of a tussle with teachers and so forth. So I figured out very quickly, you stand, you don't put your hand over your heart. That's BS was that that's symbolically even mean. And I haven't pledged the allegiance since then. It's just, I just don't do it. To me, it doesn't make sense, but that's because I humanism nationalism doesn't, it doesn't make sense anymore when you think of it as like a planet population versus a country population versus a religious population. So the more narrow you get, the more uncomfortable it gets. And so I made a point to not do that. I'm for a very, very long time, which is fine. That's my right. That's my choice. But I, we should mention the article that also accompanied this because the week we're supposed to introduce Kylie to the Pledge of Allegiance. And I am already with my big robust speech to a preschooler who doesn't really understand any of this that he has the right to not do it. Like is brought up in the news here. And it's like, oh man, this is just, oh, this is going to, we need to do a podcast episode about this. Yeah. And that was the case of a student at a high school in Boise, refused to stand or recite the pledge. And the teacher yelled at her, made some statement of, well, if it was the mesh, Mexican national anthem, I bet you would have done that one. And he grabbed her, let's check off the racist. And he grabbed her face mask that she was wearing, pulled it back off of her face and released it and let it smack right into her face. Um, yeah, that is very childish for a teacher with authority. So there is, I mean, there is so much to unpack here. My first initial, oh, I'm pissed off moment was that you can't make a student stand for the pledge. You can't. It's unconstitutional. It's anti-American. It is just wrong. You cannot call out a student for their perceived nationality. That is illegal. That is discrimination and is, um, should have gotten the teacher sacked right there. So those two things, uh, he needs a civics lesson and he has been told to go to a cultural sensitivity course. Yep. That was his punishment for this. And then Dustin brought up the good fact that by snapping the mask and causing any kind of pain or injury, he assaulted the student assault and battery assault and battery at that point. Yeah, I'm not going to push that one too much because snapping a mask is like not, you're not leaving a bruise. You're not leaving a mark, which is why he did not get in trouble for it. But he is a teacher with authority and he was picking. He was starting to bullying a student and using his, his physical strength, his teaching position to intimidate somebody into doing something that I don't know why she, I don't know why she didn't stand. I have no idea. And I'm not going to put my personal beliefs on her because I don't, she may have been just trying to piss off the teacher and did a very good job of it. No, she may have had other reasons back on the face mask part, but you can't be snapping face masks on people. The invasion of personal space, the risk because the face masks were being worn to help limit COVID spread in the schools. So at this point, any spread, there are colds and viruses going around everywhere. This was a year or two ago that this happened, right? But that was especially. Yeah. So the, the increase risk to the student from doing that, the increase risk to like, it's not hygienic to be touching somebody's face mask. So there's that issue, there's, and the fact that he fucking touched a student's face. Just you. That's crossing way too many lines. So he was reported, it did go to the licensing board and they decided that he gets to keep his job, because to keep his license, he just needs to go to a cultural sensitivity class. And to me, that is, that's less than a slap on a wrist because that was one of three charges that could be brought up against this guy. He needs a civics lesson. He needs to go down the hall to their American history or government teacher and sit through the class about peaceful protests, the Pledge of Allegiance, what you can and cannot do. And. And also to go through Lee's grand jury for assault and battery. Like, yeah. And I understand people's skepticism with that he didn't, it's not, it wasn't that painful. It didn't leave a mark. The point is that he did it. Yeah. He could have done anything. He could have flicked her ear or tugged on her ponytail. It doesn't matter. You do not touch students in that way. If he's. If it is not a consensual hand on the shoulder or a hug to comfort a student, you do not touch students. Yeah. You know, if he don't bully them, if he'd snapped her bra strap, that would have been clear cut. He would have got fired for that. Absolutely. Face mask. Not fired for this. Yeah. Uh, but okay, digging more into the Pledge of Allegiance, uh, there were two competing pledges of allegiance. The, the earliest one was written in 1885 by Captain George Thatcher, a officer from the Union Army during the Civil War, which is exactly what you would expect, right? So. Pledge of Allegiance. Post Civil War. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. Check it out. With suggestions on how to teach nationalism to children in American schools, primarily the children of immigrants, secondarily the children of Confederates. I understand that after that huge, after that massive traumatic war, that there is this demand and need for people to feel reunited. Mm hmm. And that is where nationalism can do a lot of good. Every building community, that sense of community, is when it becomes exclusionary that I have a problem with it, um, or it gets hijacked by another group, which is what's happening now. So. Bulch's pledge was, we give our heads and hearts to God and our country, one country, one language, one flag. Oh my God. Well, you wouldn't be able to get away with that nowadays, would you? Holy shit. Sorry. There's a lot to unpack on that. You know what I'm going to say. So I'm just going to leave it, um, that one, that one lasted, that one that was used alongside what would become the official one, uh, all the way through the 1923 national flag conference. And then this one got dropped. Okay. Okay. Okay. So then, wow, the one we all know was first published in 1892 by Francis Bellamy allegedly, it was based in part on Bulch's Pledge of Allegiance, along with a magazine promotion for his youth companion magazine and all leading up to the world's Colombian exposition, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's voyage. Okay. I mean, as if Columbus State doesn't already have like enough issues. So there is some debate as to whether Francis Bellamy actually wrote his version or not. Uh, he first published it in August, 1892, in his own magazine, in his own magazine. Uh, however, there has since been found a May, 1892 newspaper report from Hayes, Kansas from talking about a flag raising at a school in on April 30 of that year with an almost identical pledge written by allegedly there is also it is not just by itself is like, okay, so this guy plagiarized some kid or some person, but he's the one that published it and promoted it. So okay, also the competition for this pledge for the youth companion magazine, you know, the competition that Francis Bellamy was running, uh, got a submission from a 13 year old Kansas school boy whose name was Frank E. Bellamy, not Francis Bellamy, Frank Bellamy. Yup, so a Frank Bellamy, 13 year old kid in Kansas in April had a pledge that was almost word for word the same as Francis's. So okay. So the, so the, when, when Dustin was first describing this to me, it's sound like Francis, the magazine editor, Baptist pastor, Baptist pastor, uh, plagiarized a 13 year old kid from us because of due to a submission to his own magazines, but contest or yeah, contest. So I'm thinking, okay, well that, okay, that sounds skeezy, but it's absolutely something that somebody would do. What then what caught me thinking was like, what did that? You know what? I bet Francis didn't go by Francis in school. I bet he went by Frankie and he submitted this probably plagiarized or maybe even self written pledge to his own contest to try and win his own contest by pretending to be a 13 year old boy from Kansas and he didn't even try to make like a decent pseudonym. He just probably used the name he went by in school. I don't, I don't doubt that that was also possible. Yeah. Either plagiarized some student, which was gnarly or he tried to win his own magazine's youth contest, which is like, just sad. Well, okay. To be fair. I can't tell you which one is true, but I mean, that's just, oh, come on. To be fair in the 1890s, the standards for giving credit to people were not as strong. No, no, they cared if you ripped off anybody or they did a little bit, but not, not when you're the editor or publisher of them. That would now be considered plagiarism was standard practice at that time. Yeah. The modern principles. We can look back on it and say, oh, come on, dude, that was, that's not cool. But honestly, what is a 13 year old kid in Kansas care whether or not his pledge was plagiarized? So Francis was probably rather, if this kid existed, was probably rather proud of the fact that it was. Now, what's even more interesting is Francis Bellamy has also said that Bulch's pledge was too juvenile and lacking in dignity. I wouldn't call it juvenile and lacking in dignity, but the fact that he decided to publish a pledge supposedly written by a 13 year old doesn't really support that. But if he got something better from a 13 year old, then he got from a, then what an adult late middle age or older adult, I admit, his was better, absolutely. So anyway, one language is also known that Bellamy, who was a, he was a Baptist pastor. He was also a Christian socialist. He toyed with putting the words, equality and fraternity into the pledge and went with liberty and justice instead. So his pledge that he published was the one that ours minus the one line, right? What was his first version, 1892, was I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Yeah, it was designed to be recited in 15 seconds or less. I wish. It was to be quick to the point and he got because it was for schoolchildren. It was designed for schoolchildren to say as the, usually probably as the flag was being raised at every public school, specifically, it was designed for, this was part of what Bellamy pushed for with President Benjamin Harrison in proclaiming the first ever Columbus Day as a national holiday. He lobbied Congress to get a national school celebration of Columbus Day and sent from the magazine sent leaflets containing his pledge of allegiance to schools across the country. And on October 21, 1892, over 10,000 children recited the verse that short little 15 seconds. He got all that done in two months from August to October. Yeah. Well, he was on a tear. He'd been probably been working on it for a few years up to that point. It's still that's quick work. He had friends in high places that done. So Bellamy made an additional revision adding the word to. So that changed it to I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands. Okay. So instead of just my flag and the Republic, it's my flag and to the Republic. So a that was probably just a cadence issue, specifically, well, that would be a linguistic and that's a grammatical change to your pledging allegiance both to the flag and to the Republic as opposed to pledging to the flag and Republic, which is so weird that Americans pledge allegiance to a flip and piece of fabric pledging allegiance to to the flag is weird pledging allegiance to the flag and to the Republic makes it even worse because you're pledging allegiance to two separate entities. Right. It's grammatically designed to make it two separate entities. It makes the flag actually he chose to do that on purpose. I don't know. It gives the flag precedence over the Republic. Like by logic, the January six insurrectionists were putting the flag in front of the Republic, which fits with the Pledge of Allegiance just fine. They've recited that oath enough times to know it's the flag that matters more than anything else. Burn the Republic. If that's what it takes to save the flag, like never mind that the flag's just made in China. Nobody actually care should care about it. It's just all right. So then 1923, we're going to have a whole episode on the flag code. I know it. In 1923, it got to the big flag conference, the 1923 National Flag Conference, where they updated the language from my flag to the flag and identified it as the flag of the United States. Yeah. That was because that's right, that it doesn't make sense to have a whole nation of children pledging allegiance to, well, a flag and a Republic without actually designated which one with a country full of immigrants. But the change from my flag, that was intentionally trying to make it for all these immigrants. And secondarily, anybody who was in the same union, who had ideas of other flags. Still anti. This one is your personal flag. Yeah. They changed that to the flag of the United States. In 1924, they added of America. Yep. So I wanted to make sure it's really clear, which doubling down, that's good. That's fine. I actually make sense, more sense than the original. Our neighbor to the immediate South is the United States of Mexico. True. Oh, yeah. Okay. That version of the flag, never mind that it's also part of America, technically, but whatever. Oh, yes. And changing from my flag to the flag of the United States, specifically so that immigrants wouldn't confuse which flag they were pledging their loyalty to, whether it was the flag of their home country or their new country, right, have to make sure that's incredibly clear which one. Yeah. Hence the pledge to Mexico comment being particularly. Yeah. Yep. That's, that is the purpose of the pledge in indoctrination. It was, which itself doesn't piss me off quite so much as until they had to f it up. We're getting there. I know. In 19, in 1942, Congress first officially recognized the pledge. And that was in the form of I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Yes. They then Congress then peak, peak allegiance formally identified it as the pledge of allegiance in law, not just for the kids, an attorney from Illinois by the name of Lewis Albert Bowman was the first person to suggest adding the words under God. The daughters of the American Revolution gave him an award of merit for this idea. Wow. That's some grandstanding right there. Yeah. Uh, which we see even now still rock him. He was a chaplain in the Illinois society of the sons of the American Revolution. And at a February 12, 1948 meeting of that organization, he led a reciting the pledge with the words under God, the 1948 is the first time it was publicly recited with those words. Okay. By a private or a private club in 1951, the Knights of Columbus, which of course is the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization and behind such things as the Boise table rock cross, yeah, there are a lot of money, a lot of power. The basically Christian lobbying group, Christian nationalist, the original Christian nationalist lobbying group, well, them along with the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, uh, let a lobbying Christian nationalist groups liking the to use the word knights. Yeah. Anyway, the Knights of Columbus, uh, started using the words under God when they would recite the Pledge of Allegiance and started petitioning Congress to add the words. Yeah. Which went through in 1954 during the height of McCarthyism, wanting to separate the United States from the godless communists, godless communists. So we're seeing a lot of that now again, um, it's like the, he already have it, uh, but that, that was that, I mean, by the time, like I said, by the time I was in third grade, like that was the sinker for me. I was, I was, I've been an atheist my entire life from the day I was born onward. I, there has never been any doubt in my mind that God is a fabrication and bloody blah. So I was not going to do it. I was, I was not going to pledge it like that. I learned it. I repeated it for a couple of years, recognized that there was a line in there that I didn't really understand why it was even there didn't agree with it. So I stopped, but it just, I'm not the only one. A lot of people don't recite that part. One of my favorite parts in National Lampoon Christmas vacation is when they do grace and she starts pledging allegiance and you could distinctly hear the lady not say under God because that's how she was taught to do it. That was added later, apparently very shortly after, but it just, yeah. One group of people who are not supposed to say the Pledge of Allegiance are soldiers in uniform, soldiers in uniform, if their indoors are to standard attention and remain silent, if they're outside, standard attention and salute, they have somebody else do it for not supposed to recite it, even in private. They have not in uniform. Oh, in uniform. Right. They are allowed to not in uniform, but in uniform, soldiers are not per the US flag code soldiers are not supposed to be reciting the Pledge of Allegiance why they always hire somebody else to do it for them. They always have somebody do it, which it's, it's weird. Yeah. Also kind of telling soldiers have to recite real oaths and the Pledge of Allegiance is not a real oath, not a real oath is just, I mean, I throw the word indoctrination around, but that's what it is. It's a lot different than protecting and defending the Constitution. I'm not saying it's completely damaging or evil or anything like that, either. Like I said, when it was like post civil war, reuniting the country, trying to build some kind of community, I get it, the same with children in schools, you have to develop some kind of connection to your community. I just, with what we're seeing with, you know, us against them mentality, it's obviously done damage. We're not superior. We are not manifest destiny. We're just people trying to get by and teaching kids that, you know, our country is better than that. It's just bothers me. All right. It's just it to me, to me, and I'm not putting that on anybody else. If you want to pledge allegiance, that's fine. If you don't like the under God part, don't say it out loud. Half the people aren't anyway. But when it comes to harassing people who have the right to not say it, wow, lawsuits about the Pledge of Allegiance started in 1935. So people felt the same other people felt the same way right off the bat. Jehovah's Witnesses, they can't, they can't according to the religion pledge allegiance to any single country government entity on, on earth. That's not, that's not how, that's not how they roll. So that first case was decided was when Lillian and William Gavitas, who were 10 and 12 years old, were expelled from Meinersville, Pennsylvania public schools for failing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. That was the first case, Jehovah's Witnesses continued suing for years. Now, let's say what you will about Jehovah's Witnesses, all right, I get it. But they were the ones to take this up and it went to the Supreme Court several times and they ruled in a certain way enough times that you cannot claim that you, that a person has to say the Pledge of Allegiance. It is a form of peaceful protest to not, and that is protected free speech. It finally came in 1943 with the West Virginia State Board of Education versus Barnett lawsuit where the Supreme Court ruled six to three that you cannot force students to recite something. Oh, anything? Well, at least not the Pledge of Allegiance. Yeah, and it was a six to three decision and it overturned a 1940 Supreme Court ruling on the exact same topic. The 1940 case, this is over the Gavitas children, the court had ruled that the proper recourse wasn't to refuse to act, but to try to get policy changed. Oh God, I've heard that one before. Follow orders and then try to change it like through the legal route through policy change. And that just, that doesn't work for the most part, I'm sorry. If you have a problem with it, to take it up with the big boys and get the policy change, it's like, that's fine, but I'm 11. Yeah. No. Sometimes the best course of action is to just reviews to participate. Since then, there have been numerous lawsuits about the Supreme Court. Michael Newdow's 2002 lawsuit where the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in his favor that under God was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. Yeah. The Supreme Court threw out the case on the grounds that he didn't have primary custody for his child. Thus did not have- Did not have- This not have standing thing has been so abused. Wow. This is just another case of that. That's a perfect example of how trying to get policy change doesn't work. But anyway, yeah, this is, I mean, it's just, it's been brought up over and over again. There have been numerous lawsuits, lawsuits are continuing to happen. It's especially the under God part because it is an endorsement of religion. And the courts are routinely saying that is ceremonial deism. Which is, in my opinion, endorsing religion. It's not endorsing non-religion. It's endorsing any religion that has a God in it. So guess what, that's pretty limiting and pretty telling and that's endorsement. Alright, let's move on to some news. New survey from PRRI, the Public Religion Research Institute, has found that two-thirds of white evangelicals and a majority of all Republicans are at least sympathetic to Christian nationalism. Yeah. This is, fits with the way PRRI, they were working with the Brookings Institute on this survey. PRRI is doing a really good job when they're looking into Christian nationalism of asking, not asking people if they are Christian nationalists. Not are you or aren't you, not do you support or not support, but... How do you feel on these topics? Yeah. And then identifying are people Christian nationalists based on that. It's like when you have surveys that ask if people are atheists, agnostics, or not religious in whatever way, you end up getting very different numbers than if you ask if people believe in God and you get even different numbers depending on like, there are certain ways you can ask those kinds of questions where you get like 30% of the country being atheists or effectively atheist and other ways where it's not even 10% and it all depends on how you ask the question. Anyway, they've gotten really good at asking the question to identify Christian nationalists and they found that among white evangelical Protestants, 29% would qualify as Christian nationalism adherence and 35% as sympathizers. Yeah. That's actually a lot smaller than I assume. Sympathizers could be turned. Yes. They are halfway. They're the ones that are going along with it. They found that the evangelical identity absolutely correlates with Christian nationalist views regardless of race and ethnicity with 29% of white evangelicals, 25% of Hispanic evangelicals and 20% of black evangelicals. Those are specifically Christians who identify as born again or evangelical are Christian nationalists. So 20% of black evangelicals, 29% of white evangelicals, absolute Christian nationalists. They found 6% of white non-evangelicals supporting Christian nationalism. Okay, that's telling. Also found only 4% of black or Hispanic non-evangelicals being Christian nationalists. So Christian nationalism absolutely is an evangelical problem. Yep. I mean, to me it's like, well duh, but it is nice to actually see somebody come up with some numbers. Yes. Um, I really especially appreciate the people that you can actually call Christian nationalists and then the sympathizers because the sympathizers haven't done anything wrong, but when you look the other way and let things amp up pretty soon there are people getting hurt that you didn't really mean to get hurt, but it was your fault that they got hurt in the first place because you should have said something earlier. Now this means that among white evangelical churches, it's close to even as to whether people are Christian nationalists, Christian nationalists sympathizers or oppose Christian nationalism. So it is important to point out this does mean that there are as many white evangelicals that are not Christian nationalists as really are. The sympathizers are the biggest group. And the sympathizers are the one that could also be turned the other way. The thing that some of us have been particularly bad about in the past is by saying, okay, you're a sympathizer therefore you're as bad as these people who are committing hate crimes. That's not fair, is it? If you are just trying to see another person's point of view and say, oh, okay, well I understand where they're coming from, that does not make them evil if anything that makes them open-minded, but they need to be able to be educated on the long-term damage that some of those stances can cause without demonizing them. This is a lot of this happened with race and LGBT, a plus group where it's like, oh, well you don't like this particular group, well then you're evil and I hate you and I don't want anything to do with you, it's like, well then that person feels ostracized from society, they go deeper the other way, because they don't think that they're ever going to be welcomed on the other side of the aisle and we're right where we are now with extremist sample sides. So to take a breath and say, I understand that you sympathize, I understand that you were trying to see why this is the way it is, but it's going to hurt, but it is going to hurt people and it's not good for the country. Although it is tricky to, you know, the Christian National sympathizers, the white nationalist sympathizers, the homophobic sympathizers, the misogynist sympathizers, the anti-trans sympathizers. Yeah, now that Venn diagram is getting you to a core group of people who are basically not sympathizers anymore, they just straight up are that way, and they say things that are hurtful and damaging and those people need to be called out on that, yes, but it's the ones on the fringes who are like, well, let's say, I don't know, just random example, I don't agree with trans people because I think they're targeting minors. We know that that's not true, but I can understand in the modern media how somebody could get that interpretation. So let's say, all right, fine, you're a bigot, and I don't want anything to do with you because you're anti-trans. It's like, well, oh, okay, so you're calling me a bigot. So I'm going to go talk to these other guys that you're also calling bigots and they're racist and they're a nationalist and they Christian nationalist and all of a sudden they're getting pushed over to the extremes. I honestly think that that is what happened to a lot of people calling somebody in cell to their face, though they're naive, maybe not like totally misogynistic. They just maybe were just need some education on terms and and is some sympathy. That being said, if you get hit, you got to hit back sometimes. So you know, it's it's hard, but I seeing a lot of extremism and it's I think I'm striding. I think the key some of the key takeaway on that would be the response should be mediated to the person. Yeah. Which also means Twitter, exchanges on Twitter are pointless and destroying society because there is no nuance. You don't know the person. It's people spewing garbage, personal attacks through a non-innobate, even not even that you've just not being face to face with a person because you know they can't punch you. If it's somebody you actually know, you can know if if that person is saying something generally out of character or generally in character. Yeah. If somebody suddenly says something that's a little out of character, it's like, I didn't know you felt that way. Well, maybe they didn't and maybe they just need to be encouraged to like think about who that might hurt and reevaluate and if they honestly don't care, that's a red flag. But let's not be, we need to patch and heal some of our divides, I think, and this is hard for me because I was as much a part of that hateful group a couple of years ago as anybody. All right. So continuing on, most Republicans are Christian nationalists, adherents or sympathizers. Pretty much defines the party, not necessarily, but yeah. Across political identifications of Republican, Democrat or independent, 21% of Republicans, 5% of Democrats and 6% of independents are Christian nationalists, adherents, more than four times as many Republicans as Democrats. Surprising, there are Democrats that are Christian nationalists, but the Ted is so big right now. Right. That's not actually that surprising. So they found there's major correlation on parties and as far as people who are Christian nationalism skeptics or rejectors, Democrats are way more likely to be straight up rejectors and independents are most likely to be skeptics. Fair enough. In the perfect world, that's how it should be. Independent should always be the skeptics. But when it comes to something like Christian nationalism, not quite how it pans out. No, that should be everybody should like in an ideal America, they're always going to the people who say, I am Christian, I also love America, that must meet that must make me a Christian nationalist and they will check mark on that survey. And then there's the people who are like, our country is literally going to hell and it is my job to take up arms and make sure that we fix it. Those people are in a different category. Yeah. I don't think they realize that that's like who we're talking about. No, they're not asking people if they're a Christian nationalist, they're asking about values, values and sympathizers and there are some actual, you're definitely like that. They actually believe. So yeah, it's really hard to be in my mind, a humanist and a Christian nationalist, but you can be a humanist, you can be a Christian and you can think that America needs to focus on America and be very patriotic. Those, those don't necessarily exclude each other. So the 5% Democrats is like, okay, I can see that. Not all Democrats are humanists, not all Democrats or whatever. But all right. So, so zeroing in on just the Christian nationalists, they found 40% believe that quote true patriots might have to resort to violence to save our country and that is compared 40% compared to 16% of people who reject Christian nationalism among the Christian nationalists. So the 40% of the, you know, 15% 10, 15% total of the country 12% said that they have personally threatened to use or actually used a gun knife or other weapon on someone in the last few years. And then among, so that's among just the ones who said they would use violence, 7% of all Christian nationalism adherence have threatened or used a weapon on someone. Yeah. Now, 7% of that group is not very many people, but there is a reason why people are scared right now. 7% of 29% of evangelicals is a lot of people, a lot of people. There is a reason why you were afraid to honk at some money if they cut you off in traffic because they might pull a gun on you because there are a group of people, small percentage wise, but when it comes to actual numbers, it's quite a lot who are tired of being pushed around and they are going to fight for their rights and they are willing to pull a gun and they are willing to hurt you or threaten you with a knife or whatever because they feel empowered and that empowerment comes through a lot of the rhetoric that we've been hearing. 7 out of 10 Christian nationalists adherence also still support Donald Trump. So if somebody still has a Trump, he wasn't Christian. What the hell? If somebody still has a Trump flag or sticker, be careful. I have been hearing people saying it's not fair for you to equate me with those people just because I am a conservative or I am a Republican. I am not like those people, but the problem here is that if you have two people who are both wearing a Republican pin, you don't know which one has the gun and is willing to pull it on you and you don't know which one has the gun, but it would never actually pull it on you and you don't know which is the one who doesn't have a gun. For your own safety, you have to assume everyone's a threat and that has become terrifying. With based on this, if you see somebody has a sticker up, if they're driving a pickup, which is dumb, but is still a thing with the sticker of pickups equal this, let me let me continue. If it's somebody who's driving a truck with Calvin kneeling at the cross and a Donald Trump sticker, that person and an NRA sticker, you would be and I know I've seen that combination in Boise. Oh, yeah. I mean, obviously that combination like Biden sticker around the corner, yeah, that would be the chances that person is one of the ones who has threatened or used a weapon against somebody is relatively high. People self identify way more than they reasonably should with bumper stickers, but consider those warning signs. Yeah. They also found a lot of correlation between Christian nationalism and some other ideological views. Oh, here we go. 57% of Christian nationalists disagree that white supremacy is a problem in the US. 70% reject the idea that past discrimination contributes to present day hurdles for black Americans. Oh, OK, so they're the ones that are that think that the systemic problems that we talk about don't exist. Yeah. There's no such thing as we solve this. The civil rights movement happened. Everybody's happy now. Why are you keep making up these weird conspiracy theories because they claim that it's a left wing conspiracy theory and trying to make me feel bad for being white. Whoa, you just made a lot of leaps there that are 71% of Christian nationalists embrace replacement theory as the explanation for immigration, 71%. So there's the yeah, so we got a couple of racial things, religious 23% of Christian nationalists buy into all the old school Jewish stereotypes. It's really fun to watch the Republican Party walk that line. Two thirds of Christian nationalists think we should limit immigration from Muslim majority countries. Right. Because that's all of our problems. We're completely stop it. Right. And 69% of Christian nationalists adherents believe that the husband is the head of the household and that wives should submit to their husbands. There we go. That is compared to only 33% of all Americans. Wow. So yeah, we've got. I mean, it's just, it's, it's hard because I understand as a conservative, a public old school Republican, how you're getting pushed all these, all these labels are getting pushed on you. But the numbers make us wary for good reason. If you want to be a conservative who is small government, you know, that kind of thing fine. You can actually talk about that stuff without contributing to all the racial and patriarchal and, and, you know, BS. You can do that. I understand though that right now in the Republican party, especially they are not making it easy. They are, they are considered a leftist. If you are that way, you have to be whole hog or you have to be out. And that is, that means we need a new party that, that the Republican party needs to split and the extremists need to go one way and get drowned out by the people who are moderate and reasonable and get back to good old fashioned. I don't know if this actually ever existed working across the aisle. Oh, that's my rant. The, the, the, the strong correlation between replacement theory and husband is the head of the household. Yep. I'm sorry. I say that like I'm, I don't know. I'm a woman. It always comes down to the flipping woman. How can we keep her down? How can we make her have more babies? How can we keep her out of work? Look in the archives from before the name change, uh, World Congress of families. Yep. Yeah. It's, it's all there. The sons of the confederacy created this plan and people bought into it and it is spreading in popularity. It's, it's yeah. We will. I mean, it's heading to civil war. I'm not saying that that's necessarily going to happen, but this doesn't look good. We haven't had this much. What was you state of the union address? There wasn't hasn't been this much heckling at it since the civil war. It's not a good sign. It hasn't taken this many votes to get a frickin get a speaker of the house and instead of have we, instead of like how it's supposed to be where you have to pander to the moderates to get the votes, instead the exact opposite happened. Yep. Damn it. All right. Let's go ahead and move on to the, the second and final news story, uh, the national prayer breakfast. Oh, that's still a thing is still a thing, but completely revamped. Okay. Well, okay. They, they discovered a couple of years ago with, you know, Miss Bettina, Russian special agent infiltrating conservative circles and the NRA and the national, and the family and the national prayer breakfast and hooking up with all the top names of right, conservatism. By hooking up, she literally part of her stick was sexual favors. Yeah. Uh, she got in big with the national prayer breakfast and that helped when a Russian spy is helping organize an event for Congress and the president that was enough to get some much needed scrutiny. Yeah. So this year's was quite different with the president, vice president, cabinet members, speakers, or the, the members of, of Congress and they were each allowed one plus one. Okay. They met in the US Capitol. Everybody else were at the Hilton hotel conference room convention center where the national prayer breakfast has traditionally been held. This resulted in the elected officials not being in a room. They weren't accessible, accessible to foreign and domestic influence. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody whispering in their ears. Nobody trying to hook up with deals, schmoozing. I mean, there's a lot of that in politics already. We don't need a whole. So the positive, this wasn't a chance for all those people to gain influence with our elected officials. Great. For a negative, it got moved into the US Capitol building, which makes it more legitimate. Yep. And there's enough protesting of that idea. And for the final bad on it, Joe Biden, I've skimmed through his speech. It's rambling. It has very little substance there. They never do. It's, it's, it's a photo op. And there's an attempt to throw people like us a bone. Oh, that's so sweet, right? This is brief excerpt. Just before Christmas, I offered a message to the country, a message that is at the heart of the Christian faith, but yet is universal, a universal message of hope of joy of love. Whether you're Christian, whether you're Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or any other faith or no faith at all, it speaks to all of us as human beings who are here on earth, blah, blah, blah, that the core Christian message is the right one is the message that speaks to everybody. Yeah. And which is exactly what you would expect for somebody who was raised Christian. It was a devout Catholic. It was a devout Catholic. I mean, I don't blame him for being participating. He is Christian. Yeah. Um, and that's always been like the, the crux of it, you can't, but don't patronize me. And that's exactly what it is. Don't cringy and it's patronizing. We'll see. And I hope people call them out on that. Yeah. I think they would have to his face because you tell a Christian that would say, but I tried to give, I tried to throw you a bone. It's like, great, but your bone doesn't matter when you're under the banner of God. And when you're straight up just dismissing us as being like a part of your universal message. Yeah. Love hope and peace. Yeah. That's, that's fine. That's great. But that's not meaningful. That's not, that's not policy. That's not making life people's lives better live, live, love, laugh. That's what that is. All right. All right, no feedback, no new patrons. If you want to contact us, you can find the contact form at htotw.com slash contact. You can set us an email contact at htotw.com. You can leave us a voice message at 208 996 8667 or use the speak pipe button. 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