A tale of two states: Hope and progress vs. the hate and fear of Christian nationalism
Commentary by Jim Downard | FāVS News
After the presidential election of Donald Trump is the right time to mull over what went on at the conference on the threat of Christian nationalism held in Spokane late October. This conference was organized by Idaho activist Josiah Mannon and Sam McGuire, national field director of American Atheists.
Living here in Washington State, as I do, with so many liberal protections in place, from libraries adding books rather than removing them, to health facilities driven by the needs of patients rather than the demands of extremist ideologies, it’s rather dismaying to hear how stressful things are just across the border in Idaho … only some 25 miles away, but 200 or more years behind.
It’s confounding to hear of citizens right next door, whose families had to deal with death threats from the racist Aryan Nations not that many years ago, only to have to confront a white supremacist reboot, Patriot Front intimidation parades rolling through town like pickup truck Storm Troopers.
That’s the street thuggery side.
Now, let’s follow the power side.
Others want to control the levers of power, everywhere, and any way they can.
It’s Doug Wilson trying to turn Moscow into a Christian nationalist theme park, rife with sexual abuse and no accountability.
It’s the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee going full tilt to get a majority elected to the library board — and why did Idaho think a library needed to be politicized in that way to begin with?
So now they have a clog of ideologues who don’t even have a library card but are filled to the eyeballs with ignorant bigotry unchecked by reason or care, to nanny state their way around all the people their narrow ideology would rather not be there.
That meant axing the “Rainbow Squad” craft meetings for LGBTQ+ kids, though ironically that safe space was picked up by a local church (one not of the Doug Wilson stripe, of course) who live their faith rather more directly and decently.
As has been sown (by a clandestine and scary bunch), so must the rest of us reap
Readers of FāVS may recall my prior post on the cast of characters circulating around today’s Trumpistas, a well-heeled network of theocrats and ideologues lubricating the very Christian nationalist buddies the conference was organized to expose and (hopefully, cross fingers) marshal effective civic countermeasures.
On the money bags side, Andrew Seidel of Americans United stressed how Leonard Leo’s Federalist Society spent half a billion dollars to take over the courts with judges far from impartial. We’ve seen their dire handwork already, retrograde rulings like Dobbs overturning Roe v. Wade, or that “Get-Out-of-Responsibility-Free” Card granting presidents an imperial immunity for whatever they might do while in office.
They’ll be mucking up our legal landscapes for decades to come, regardless of how our 2024 election turns out. Though with the right Congress, presidents and state houses, so much can be done to redress their goofs, by legislation and amendment.
As to who the foot soldiers are in this dark crusade we need to fight against, a lot of the Idahoans making life miserable for their fellow citizens are from elsewhere, but not that far away.
Author and ex-preacher Bradley Onishi saw firsthand the migration of disaffected California extremists to Idaho, seeking to achieve amidst the isolated pines an authoritarian privileged dystopia the rule of law was thwarting back in the Sunshine State.
“All the universe, or nothing! Which shall it be?”
Let’s think big for a minute.
At pivotal times people have to make choices, things that set the course to futures desirable or not.
In H.G. Wells’ 1936 sci-fi projection of a technocratic future in “Things to Come,” civilization had to be rebuilt from the bottom up after a cataclysmic world war had brought progress to a halt. A 2035 citizen is presented with the mind-boggling choice of turning inward, letting go of never-ending invention and progress, grasping for an idyllic past the film had spent an hour showing was no such thing … or embracing the uncertain challenge, going for all the universe, exploring and learning whatever we can, for as long as we can, until the stars themselves grow cold.
Too cosmic for you?
Closer to our real wartime experience in WWII, Captain Renault in “Casablanca” faces the choice to arrest bar owner expatriate Rick after he’d bumped off the Nazi Major Strasser (the sort Trump might like for Joint Chief of Staff?) so that the freedom fighter Victor Laszlo and his wife Ilsa could fly away to continue their work. He decides to “arrest the usual suspects” instead, and teams up with Rick to support the freedom fighters.
That’s the spirit that saved civilization, back when fighting fascists wasn’t a dicey thing.
Choosing the universe over ‘nothing’
The choices we face today in 2024 may not be as dramatic as rebuilding after a world war or embarking on the exploration of galaxies. But make no mistake about it, what we do now will have repercussions for posterity.
Choices on individual freedom, economic progress and a world with less fear than we found it, including a climate that can be enjoyed rather than dreaded, which cuts down on mega-storms washing into your living room.
The citizens of Idaho are on the front lines of a choice about what future we want our descendants to live in, and we in Washington cannot be oblivious bystanders.
Don’t we want to build a future worth living in, not one we regret as a tragic litany of missed opportunities?
How to achieve that involves communication, honesty and coalition building. Far from being only a collision of secular and theocratic values (though in many ways it is), what we citizens face is the challenge of uniting over what values so many of us share — which the white nationalists so glaringly don’t — honesty, kindness, compassion and as much smarts as possible.
As Kate Bitz of the Western States Center reminded, “We need people of faith. People of faith need us.”
Together we can do so much. Divided … well, then it’s just listening to the Patriot Front trucks roll by, drowning our imagination and yearnings with petrochemical belches and gunfire.
I prefer the universe, rather than their flimsy substitute of “nothing.”
What do you think?
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.
To add to the gloom and warning, Jim Downard might have mentioned that conservative Catholics like Dan Foreman have joined forces with the Wilsonites to take over once liberal Moscow. Foreman, who regards Moscow as a “cesspool of liberalism,” and who recently told a Nez Perce tribal member to “go back where she came from,” has been reelected as our state senator.
Another full yipes on that one
Fellow history and science nerd here with gratitude. I was just reading about the brains of religious extremists, particularly damaged brain networks as a result of submitting a human to prolonged fundamentalism. I’m not holding my breath for a Surgeon General’s warning on religiosity, but those MRIs are something people should be aware of.