After weeks of news stories about the Bible-believing Johnson, described as both dangerous and dumb, political strategist James Carville seemed to up the ante over the weekend when he compared the new House Speaker and his Christian faith to al-Qaeda terrorists.
In hit piece, L.A. Times sharing its version of valuesParrish Alford, AFN.net A California school board president is being attacked for her views and political wins by the liberal Los Angeles Times that has its own biased beliefs in the newsroom, says an education expert. Last week, a Times story blasted school board president Sonja Shaw, a parent’s rights advocate, for leading a movement that began in the conservative-leaning community of Chino Valley. The story points out, with much despair, the parental rights issue is now spreading across liberal California and attracting an “odd and sometimes menacing fellowship of Chrisitan evangelicals, vaccine conspiracy theorists, anti-government militias, and more moderate parents.” Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for education studies at the Family Research Council, says Shaw and Chino Valley are guilty of the “great sin” of notifying parents if their child says he or she identifies as the opposite gender. That policy flip-flops other school districts that keep parents in the dark. The newspaper is portraying Shaw as a terrible person, Kilgannon told the “Washington Watch” program, because the newsroom has replaced a Christian worldview with a humanistic one. “It is absolutely what's taking place,” she observed. “They are advocating for their belief system, and the faith that they have in those beliefs, that they hold about the human person.” |
“Mike Johnson and what he believes is one of the greatest threats to the United States today,” Carville warned. “I promise you I know these people.”
“You’re talking about Christian nationalists?” Maher, an atheist and crude religious skeptic, interjected.
“This is a bigger threat than al-Qaeda,” Carville continued.
Carville, who is known for being both smart and unhinged, went on to bizarrely allege Speaker Johnson opposes the U.S. Constitution and even a democratic form of government.
“Mike Johnson himself says what is democracy but two wolves and a lamb having lunch,” Carville, referring to the famous political adage, told Maher and his audience. “This is what they really, really, really believe.”
The twisted irony of Carville’s accusation is the wolves-and-lambs analogy is often quoted by political conservatives, such as Speaker Johnson himself, because it illustrates protecting the minority from majority rule. The congressman pointed out in a 2016 interview the U.S. was purposely created by the founders as a “constitutional republic,” not a democracy.
Johnson’s views about the role of government and religious faith are being described by his critics as “Christian nationalism,” such as a Time Magazine story published in October. That article criticized Johnson for suggesting America was founded with Judeo-Christian roots, even though our rights come from a "Creator" according to the Declaration of Independence.
The story by Time was written by two liberal academics who research "white Christian nationalism." In the article they also criticized Speaker Johnson for suggesting the concept behind “separation of church and state” is to protect religious congregations from “encroaching” government power.
Toward the end of the article, the researchers allege Christian nationalists believe in discriminatory traditional values, are willing to use violence to defend those values, and hate ethnic minorities. After writing those inflammatory accusations, the authors then conclude so-called white Christian nationalists also unfairly view themselves as victims by "elites" who hate them.
Christian nationalism, the article concludes, "is antithetical to a stable, multiracial, and liberal democracy—an ideology clearly guiding the now-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives."
A 'democratic republic' based on religious faith
At the same time Carville is warning Maher’s audience Speaker Johnson is threatening their freedoms, political conservatives are witnessing Democrats threaten to abolish the Electoral College; use OSHA to force a vaccine mandate on private employers; censor online “misinformation” that offers opposing views; attempt to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot; and ignore U.S. Supreme Court rulings on student loans and college admissions – all in the name of “saving democracy.”
Reacting to Carville’s accusations on the “Washington Watch” program, constitutional attorney Ken Klukowski said the U.S. Constitution protects Speaker Johnson’s left-wing critics from the “scare-mongering” scenarios they are saying about him.
The country’s founders did not establish a “Christian nation” but formed a “democratic republic,” Klukowski said, “where a Judeo-Christian moral philosophy was a common denominator throughout the laws of this country.”
On the topic of a theocratic form of government, another left-wing accusation against Speaker Johnson, show host Tony Perkins said a theocracy is a government led by and enforced by religious leaders, such as the ayatollahs in Iran.
“In America, under our Constitution,” Perkins told his audience, “the same people who believe in the Judeo-Christian philosophy also put a provision in the Constitution to guarantee that the political leaders would never be able to establish an official national religion and coerce citizens to have to become part of it.”
In a second, related "Washington Watch" interview with Perkins, guest Chad Connelly said liberal journalists seem to be moving from the term "Christian nationalism" to "theocracy" to describe hated conservatives.
"When you turn that back on them," he said of the media, "they don't know how to define it."
Connelly, a Republican leader who leads Faith Wins, says nobody he has ever met in politics or in religious circles believes in a theocratic form of government. That doesn't mean, he added, Christians should be forced to ignore the role of our Creator.
"God's role in our nation created the freest, most successful nation in the history of mankind," he said.
Back on his HBO show, 10 months ago, Bill Maher warned his own audience about a national religion called Communism. That political philosophy mistakenly believed mankind can "reinvent" human nature, the libertarian atheist pointed out.
"Whoever didn’t take to being a new kind of mortal being, a lot of pointing and shaming went on," Maher said of the communist revolutions. "Oh, and about a million dead and the only way to survive was to plead insanity for the crime of being insufficiently radical.”
