Month: July 2022

Finding that balance is hard but necessary

This piece by Tim Miller on a problem facing the Democrats is very insightful and for good reason. When he was a Republican he faced the same questions a few years back when the post-Romney defeat led him and some others in the party to do that “autopsy” that suggested they needed to change their approach. The Republicans are still facing the consequences of their decision not to do that today.

Now you might say that their base is getting everything they want so why shouldn’t the Democrats do the same thing but in this volatile environment, with an ascendant right wing authoritarian movement gaining steam, it’s important for Democrats to carefully consider their strategy. The stakes have never been higher:

Joe Biden is underwater and under attack from all sides. 

The current mantle-holder for the unofficial title of “Dean of the Political Press Corps,” the New York Times’ Peter Baker, wrote a Sunday A1 story about Biden’s age, revealing that the White House had pushed back a scheduled trip to the Middle East out of concerns over the president’s lack of rest. 

The article features a quote from the former “Dean of the Political Punditocracy,” David Gergen, suggesting the president is at the limit of his capabilities. 

“I do feel it’s inappropriate to seek that office after you’re 80 or in your 80s,” said David Gergen, a top adviser to four presidents. “I have just turned 80 and I have found over the last two or three years I think it would have been unwise for me to try to run any organization. You’re not quite as sharp as you once were.”

The conservative media has used the MSM reporting to pile on the president. Despite this widespread fisking of POTUS, the self-appointed media critics of Twitter remain unimpressed. 

These guys aren’t going to let the wizened grey beards giving Biden’s age the A1 treatment get in the way of the grift. So they went after Biden and the media because their focus on this matter has not been strong or deranged enough for their liking. 

One of the chief anti-Biden media critics, Glenn Greenwald, admonished me, maintaining that the media is just now breaking free from an Iraq WMD level multi-year cover-up aimed at ensuring the public is unaware that Joe Biden is old. Why George Soros has chosen this moment to tell the media to break ranks remains unclear. (A feature of right-wing/Greenwald conspiracy mongering is that an evil elite media plot can persist even when the counter-evidence to the plot is on the front page of all the major dailies.) 

Over at the Washington Post, the bIaSeD MSM stuck their teeth into a different subject: unease over the Biden administration’s “struggle” to respond to the overturn of Roe v. Wade. 

Biden’s slow-footed response on abortion was just the latest example of a failure to meet the moment on a wave of conservative rollbacks, from gun control to environmental protections to voting rights. Some aspects of the White House reaction have felt to some Democrats like a routine response, including stakeholder calls and the creation of a task force, to an existential crisis.

“Leadership right now is coming from the streets, and we would love to be met in that effort by the White House and the Democrats more broadly,” said Rachel Carmona, the executive director of the Women’s March, on Thursday. “I think that Biden has an opportunity to step forward in a leadership role in a way that he has not.”

But amidst all this criticism there was one quote from White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield that gets at the crux of Biden’s struggles and is leading to some left-wing rhetoric that is filling me with a familiar unease. 

“Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party. It’s to deliver help to women who are in danger and assemble a broad-based coalition to defend a woman’s right to choose now, just as he assembled such a coalition to win during the 2020 campaign,” she said.

Bedingfield’s dismissive tone has resulted in a massive backlash among progressive activists, many of whom Took To Twitter to express their unhappiness. [And for good reason. What a shitty thing to say, especially about this issue. — d]

There are a few layers here worth digging through, because this is one case where the Twitter progs have . . . a bit of a point. And the tension between them and the White House on this score is eerily reminiscent of the GOP Autopsy experience I wrote about in WWDI. 

So let’s break it down from both the perspective of Biden world and then the activist set. 

From the Biden perspective: 

On the one hand—Practically speaking, the point Bedingfield is making is kind of right?

Biden has demonstrated over time that he is more in step with the electorate than the very online crowd. And Bedingfield’s second sentence about what they should be focused on—delivering help to women who need it—is also correct. As Josh Barro smartly observed, “it’s time for Democrats to move to the bargaining stage of grief about Roe.”  This means that demands to “preserve Roe” are, at this point, a pipe dream and should be put to rest. Democrats would benefit if instead they began to pivot to the art of the possible. Over his career this type of more realistic approach has largely served Biden well politically, so you can see why his team is arguing for it now.

On the other hand—Let’s just be honest, this is not a helpful quote. It’s gratuitously hostile to allies. It is inflaming people who have legitimate grievances. It’s dickish. And it’s reflective of a governing class that is disconnected with the base and not responding to their needs. Which is a dangerous cocktail. 

From the base perspective 

On the one hand—Cut the dude some slack. The Republicans spent a half century with a single-minded focus of getting judges on the court who would overturn Roe, while Democrats’ voting emphasis on judges was spotty, at best. Now that the Republican efforts have come to fruition with a 6-3 majority on the court (thanks to, let’s be real, a seat that was for all practical purposes stolen), Democratic activists want Biden to reverse all that with some made-up executive powers and a 50-50 Senate? This is NGH. And influencers who are claiming that it is doable are just inflaming their own supporters for no good purpose. I start to get night terrors when I hear people like former Sanders advisor Faiz Shakir demanding that Biden “fight.” I’ve seen where the “but he fights” ethos ends and it’s not great. 

On the other hand—The complainers have a point! There’s a lot to be pissed about right now and it doesn’t feel like the Biden admin is fighting as hard as they could be. And if it doesn’t seem like the people you put in power are as pissed as you are, it’s natural to want to replace them with people who share your passion and urgency. That goes double if it seems like not only do the leaders not share your passion but that they are contemptuous of your rage-induced demands for action. 

As a result, we have a combustible situation. 

A governing class who is disconnected with the base and not responding to their needs. 

A base whose expectations are out of whack and being stoked by the media/social media into believing they just need someone who will fight harder for them to get the pony of their dreams.

Democrats need to figure out how to resolve this tension in a way Republicans never did.

This weekend we saw one example of how to do that from Secretary Pete. 

This is a perfect answer by Secretary Buttigieg. pic.twitter.com/SOgNByAwqk

— Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 (@cmclymer) July 10, 2022

Now notice who this was shared by—progressive activist Charlotte Clymer—someone who, if you are not familiar, tends to find herself more on the rage-filled-activist side of these debates. 

She was impressed because in the clip Pete demonstrated that not only was he willing to fight in the Fox lions’ den, but that he’s encouraging peaceful but aggressive action from activists who are filled with an anger that needs a productive outlet. 

This is the kind of thing people are looking for. They need to feel heard. To be told that their action can make a difference. That their side is capable of popping the other side in the mouth from time to time—rhetorically speaking!

Now here’s the important distinction. That doesn’t mean these activists/voters should be babied. It doesn’t mean their demands that the president issue some extra-legal decrees to magically make things better need to be instituted. It certainly doesn’t mean they need to be lied to or that politicians should pretend to believe moronic conspiracies so that their Newsmax-addled voters can remain in a safe space where losing is winning. (Looking at you J.D. Vance.) 

But they do have to, at minimum, be heard and have a sense that their politicians have their back. Biden has done this well at times, but the Bedingfield quote is clear that of late, he’s fallen short, and the tension is building. 

Establishment Democrats need to find a way to balance prudence with pugnacity, or else they are going to experience a fate that I’m all too familiar with.

This sounds right to me. And I have no idea how to achieve it. But I have to admit that I can’t understand why the White House was caught so flat-footed over the Roe decision and didn’t have a strategy to work it immediately, if only for the benefit of the mid-terms. It makes you wonder if they haven’t just given up on winning in the fall — or ever. I don’t get it.

But Miller’s analysis is correct. There are no easy fixes for any of this and the Democratic base is not entirely different from the Republicans in its reflexive attacks on its own party even in the face of structural and electoral barriers. You can’t blame them but it presents a major challenge.

There’s an art to interviewing fascists

So remember that interview last week that Ben Smith did with Tucker Carlson?

Tonight on the @MehdiHasanShow, I did a deep-dive into Carlson's answers (evasions?), his actual views, and what I would have asked him had I done the interview.

Watch/share:pic.twitter.com/19YQBxYySw

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) July 11, 2022

If a reporter does this he or she may lose easy, friendly access to their subject. Oh no.

The latest January 6th committee hearing is scheduled for tomorrow and it promises to be dramatic. From what we can gather, this will be the hearing that grapples with the actual violence of that day and will explore what Trump and his accomplices did to bring it about. The committee apparently plans to discuss the participation of armed militia types, some of whom have already been charged with seditious conspiracy by the Justice Department.

Tuesday’s questioning will be led by Stephanie Murphy, D-Fl., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and there will be live witnesses — although only one has been named, a former spokesman for the right-wing militia group Oath Keepers. Jason Van Tatenhove will reportedly discuss the group’s radicalization and attraction to Donald Trump.

On Friday, Trump’s former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone testified before the committee. He may have shed some further light on what the White House did with information that was shared by virtually every government department about the potential for violence on that day. And who knows what else he had to say? Early reports suggested that Cipollone was less than helpful but the committee put out a statement over the weekend that says otherwise:

“In our interview with Mr. Cipollone, the Committee received critical testimony on nearly every major topic in its investigation, reinforcing key points regarding Donald Trump’s misconduct and providing highly relevant new information that will play a central role in its upcoming hearings. This includes information demonstrating Donald Trump’s supreme dereliction of duty.”

That certainly sounds intriguing. And more specifically, the committee’s spokesman went on to say, “Cipollone’s videotaped testimony will likely be featured prominently during the final hearing.”

But the big news over the weekend was that on the eve of his trial for contempt of Congress for refusing to abide by a committee subpoena, former Trump campaign chief and current podcaster, Steve Bannon, abruptly announced that he was ready to testify after all. He sent a letter to the committee saying that Trump had agreed to waive executive privilege and requested that he be allowed to appear in a live public hearing. (No word on whether he wanted them to remove all the brown M&Ms from the bowl in his dressing room.) Trump confirmed his “waiver” with a typically juvenile extended tweet-like statement:

“I will waive Executive Privilege for you, which allows for you to go in and testify truthfully and fairly, as per the request of the Unselect Committee of political Thugs and Hacks, who have allowed no Due Process, no Cross-Examination, and no real Republican members or witnesses to be present or interviewed. It is a partisan Kangaroo Court,

Despite many in the media’s credulous reporting of this news, it’s not what it appears to be.

First of all, there is absolutely no reason to believe that Bannon has any intention of testifying honestly. Trump’s embarrassing letter makes it clear what he expects and there’s little doubt that Bannon is on exactly the same page. All you have to do is watch some of his “War Room” podcasts to know that. So any thoughts that this is a sudden change of heart are absurd. This is nothing more than a ploy to delay his impending trial, which he has been trying to do since June 30th when he requested that it be moved to October claiming that he can’t get a fair hearing because of the committee hearings.

The Department of Justice mocked his request by pointing out that he’s only been mentioned twice in the hearings for a total of 30 seconds. This gambit is designed to change that by putting him at the center of the story although it’s pretty unlikely that the judge in his case won’t see that.

Even if he does testify, Bannon would not be off the hook because it doesn’t change the fact that he did defy the subpoena for all these months. And the notion that he had the executive privilege in the first place is daft. Although he may have been scheming with the president to overturn the election, Bannon hadn’t worked in government since 2017. Even his own lawyer said that only some of the requests from the committee could fall under executive privilege. And that assumes it exists with respect to Bannon at all, which it doesn’t. (In fact, it really shouldn’t apply to anyone since Donald Trump isn’t the president, but that seems to be in dispute in some quarters.)

Late last night the DOJ dropped a bomb with a filing that pretty much exposed Bannon’s desperate little scheme.

Authorities revealed that one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, Justin Clark, testified to the FBI on June 28th that Trump never invoked executive privilege for Bannon in the first place. That certainly was not helpful to Bannon’s defense and it may explain why Bannon and his lawyers moved to delay his trial the next day. The filing went into all the reasons why the executive privilege claim was always specious and concludes with this slap down:

“All of the above-described circumstances suggest the Defendant’s sudden wish to testify is not a genuine effort to meet his obligations but a last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability.”

Usually arrogant and full of bravado, Bannon does seem to be scrambling.

Journalist Jennifer Senior, who wrote a big profile of Bannon for The Atlantic this month, tweeted this:

Intrigued to see Bannon’s about-face on the J6 committee. When we were last face-to-face (3/30), he was v[ery]excited about his latest scheme: “If we execute, it’ll be classic honey badger.” His plan had been to subpoena the J6 committee members. Didn’t get traction, obv[iously].

Then, on a 5/17 phone call, he told me (and I quote) “The 6 January Committee — go fuck themselves.” Hmmmm. Or not. And on June 7, two nights before the first J6 Committee hearing, he texted me that said hearing would be a “zzzzsnoozz fest”. Not so much.

I have no clue what Bannon will say. But these hearings have clearly had more power than anyone in Trumpworld had anticipated. And the specter of prison can be very motivating.

This is Steve Bannon we’re talking about so even if he does end up testifying it’s hard to imagine that the committee will learn anything of value despite the fact that he was intimately involved in the “war room” at the Willard Hotel in the days before the insurrection and seems to have been aware that something violent was going to happen. He said on his podcast that “all hell is going to break loose” long before people marched to the Capitol. But perhaps the committee has learned all it needs to know about that part of the coup plot.

We’ll find out what they have in tomorrow’s hearing and it’s likely to be disturbing.

Extremists egged on by the likes of Bannon plotted to take over the U.S. Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power. That should never fail to shock. The main questions now are: “What did the president know and when did he know it?” 

When you’re good, you’re good.

To all yinz + youse down the shore today: hope you saw my very nice message ✈️ to one of NJ’s famous longtime residents 🥰 pic.twitter.com/xiVd6q5JIm

— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) July 10, 2022

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BA.5 wants its turn in the spotlight

People near me decided a cruise last month was a good idea. Both returned home with Covid souvenirs. Mild cases, but nevertheless. Another friend went to a rock concert. Unmasked. He came away with a case, too.

America has decided that the pandemic is over. It’s not:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tested positive for Covid and will be working remotely this week, according to his spokesperson.

But not to worry. Schumer will be running the Senate via “his trademark flip phone.”

Joel Achenbach warns that the latest variant is bringing a new wave of infection (Washington Post):

The size of that wave is unclear because most people are testing at home or not testing at all. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the past week has reported a little more than 100,000 new cases a day on average. But infectious-disease experts know that wildly underestimates the true number, which may be as many as a million, said Eric Topol, a professor at Scripps Research who closely tracks pandemic trends.

Antibodies from vaccines and previous coronavirus infectionsoffer limited protectionagainst BA.5, leading Topol to call it “the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen.”

Other experts point out that, despite being hit by multiple rounds of ever-more-contagious omicron subvariants, the country has not yet seen a dramatic spike in hospitalizations. About 38,000 people were hospitalized nationally with covid as of Friday, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. That figure has been steadily rising since early March, but remains far below therecord 162,000 patients hospitalized with covid in mid-January. The average daily death toll on Friday stood at 329 and has not changed significantly over the past two months.

Not changed yet. I’m traveling just now and not seeing people in masks anywhere.

“It’s the Wild West out there,” said Ziyad Al-Aly, an epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “There are no public health measures at all. We’re in a very peculiar spot, where the risk is vivid and it’s out there, but we’ve let our guard down and we’ve chosen, deliberately, to expose ourselves and make ourselves more vulnerable.”

Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan,would like to see more money for testing and vaccine development, as well as stronger messaging from the Biden administration and top health officials. She was dismayed recently on a trip to Southern California, where she saw few people wearing masks in the airport. “This is what happens when you don’t have politicians and leaders taking a strong stand on this,” she said.

With people becoming less vigilant, cases are going under-reported. The Institute for Health Metrics at the University of Washington, suggests infection totals for July are about seven times higher than reported.

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Trump promising more vengeance

Obviously, he’s either coordinating with “his Kevin” or trying to pressure him on the assumption that they have the fall election in the bag. They are already talking about hearings and investigations and even impeachment.

And considering that, you have to admire the total lack of self-awareness in the next post:

Lol. A GOP majority will spend all of its time getting payback — at his direction. But I suppose he means that people have “had it” with investigations into his scandals and corruption. Obviously he thinks they are champing at the bit to get into what’s on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Boo hoo hoo

I took the tour of Monticello last year and found it to be amazing. And I was happily surprised to see that they had taken great care to show Jefferson in all his genius but also all his moral obtuseness. I thought it was so well done, balancing his tremendous global influence on the ideas that we all hold dear about democracy, equality and freedom with the jarring inconsistency of his aristocratic background and dependence on enslaved people to make it possible. They handled all of it and the multi-racial people on my tour, from all over the world and the US, all seemed to be on the same page as I was.

But naturally, the wingnuts are having a fit. (When are they not?)

Monticello is going woke — and trashing Thomas Jefferson’s good name in the process.

The Charlottesville, Virginia home of the Founding Father and America’s third president is one of our best-known national monuments, familiar from its appearance on the nickel since 1938.

But the hilltop mansion designed by Jefferson himself, once preserved as a tribute to the author of the Declaration of Independence, now offers visitors a harangue on the horrors of slavery.

“The whole thing has the feel of propaganda and manipulation,” Jeffrey Tucker, founder of the libertarian Brownstone Institute and a recent visitor, told The Post. “People on my tour seemed sad and demoralized.”

The new emphasis is the culmination of a 10-year effort to balance the historical record, officials of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the nonprofit that owns the estate, have said.

But visitors complain that employees go out of their way to belittle Jefferson and his life.

“The tour guides play ‘besmirchment derby,’ never missing a chance to defame this brilliant, complex man,” Stephen Owen of Enochville, NC, wrote on Facebook.

“Half of the comments on Jefferson were critical,” wrote William Bailes of Chester, Virginia in an online review after visiting in June. “Even my 11-year-old daughter noticed the bias.”

Well, yeah. That’s historically accurate! He was a brilliant, complex man who also had a mercurial personality —- and he owned slaves!!! And he knew it was wrong so he deserves that criticism!

Tucker described his guide last month as “surly and dismissive” of Jefferson’s accomplishments.

“Someone asked if Jefferson had built a machine in the house, and the guide said, ‘Nah, he never built anything, he was just a tinkerer,’” Tucker recalled.

“It was ridiculous. He was the architect of this house and of the University of Virginia — what are you talking about?”

Oh what nonsense. On my tour they spent half an hour, at least, talking about his genius inventions and architectural accomplishments, including the house. I doubt this one was much different.

More whining:

In the past, the managers of Monticello sanitized Jefferson’s history for the 25 million tourists who have flocked there since it was opened to the public in 1923. References to slavery were few, and signs labeled “Servants’ Quarters” marked sites where Jefferson’s slaves once lived.

“Our goal is to present an honest, inclusive history of Monticello in all its aspects as well as Jefferson’s contributions to the founding of the country,” Jenn Lyon, a Monticello spokesperson, said.

But on a visit this week, The Post found, the grievance has become the predominant theme at Monticello, from the ticket booth in the visitor’s center — decorated with a contemporary painting of Jefferson’s weeping slaves — to its final gift-shop display.

Not even the president’s world-famous music room, an octagonal space carefully restored to its 18th century grandeur and decorated with Gilbert Stuart’s original presidential portrait and classical busts, is safe from revisionist disapproval.

A grim modern painting of a faceless figure with a matte black head now looms over the room, positioned so that it directly confronts visitors as they enter the mansion.

The huge 4-foot-by-5-foot work, a new addition to Monticello’s collection, was “commissioned in honor of Juneteenth last month,” said Susan Woodward, The Post’s guide on Wednesday. “It’s quite provocative, I do believe,” she added.

The figure’s “hands and face of featureless tar” represent “the faceless lives of all who served in bondage, witnessing but never recognized,” an identifying card explains.

The anachronistic artwork is just one of many jarring signs of over-the-top politicization at Jefferson’s beloved home.

Guides begin their outdoor tours of Monticello’s gardens and grounds by invoking the Native Americans who once lived on the land.

“How does that land come to be in European possession?” a guide named Justin asked an unresponsive group of vacationers from Germany. “A lot of violence, right?” he prodded.

Placards with conversation starters on the topic of civil rights festoon a patio outside the snack shop. “Is ‘all men are created equal’ being lived up to in our country today?” one reads. “When will we know when it is?” it continues — supplying a negative answer to the first question.

It’s an educational tour of a place that represents both the best and the worst of America embodied in one person. I’m sorry if that’s not comfortable for people but they need to grow the fuck up. That anachronistic painting (which I didn’t see last year) sounds like a very sophisticated way to express the continuity of the inequity that sprang from slavery.

It goes on to complain about the books in the gift shop by  Ibram X. Kendi and Ta-Nehisi Coates without mentioning that there are literally thousands and thousands of items in that huge shop that have to do with everything from horticulture to architecture to various foods and clothing and everything else you can imagine. But I guess they couldn’t see any of that because they were so offended by some Black authors opining on the Black experience in America on the site of a former slave plantation.

They also complain about the use of the word “enslaved” to describe the well … enslaved people and they object to warnings on some of the exhibits, such as those on the quarters where Sally Hemmings and her children (Jefferson’s children too) lived could be hard to take, which they were. After looking at the upstairs of the lavish mansion and then seeing where she lived, you can’t help but be a bit shaken.

I wondered when I went through it if wingnuts would be offended by all this historical reality and of course they are. They still want to celebrate the confederacy so naturally they’d hate any attempt to tell the true story of one of the most important American founders, incorporating all of his contradictions.

But Jefferson is America, warts and all, and they have so little real patriotism that they just can’t face the fact that we have never been a perfect union but had some ideals worth pursuing. They can’t accept that it’s the job of real patriots to at least keep trying to live up to them.

https://youtu.be/bZZ2Y6fAq8o

The one good thing about the Trump phenomenon is that it’s effectively ended any necessity to believe that the Republican party cares about morality or values. They never did but they used their religiosity for years to cover that up. Now it’s out in the open that the religious right really only cares about punishing their enemies just like the rest of them and the entire Republican Party is now organized exclusively around hate. As awful as that is, it’s clarifying.

Here’s a perfect example:

 Eric Greitens resigned as Missouri governor amid criminal charges and legislative investigations, is accused by his ex-wife of abuse and bullying and has run a widely condemned ad suggesting he was hunting members of his own party with a gun. And the Republican is still a leading contender for election to the U.S. Senate.

In the final weeks before the Aug. 2 primary, Greitens remains well positioned to clinch the nomination for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Roy Blunt, who is not seeking a third term. If anything, the onslaught of criticism has made Greitens even more popular among his followers. They say they either do not believe the allegations against him or care more about his overarching message opposing the “radical left” and embracing former President Donald Trump.

“Every politician gets slammed for something or other,” Michael Moynihan, 74, said at a recent Greitens campaign appearance in the eastern Missouri town of Elsberry. “If you’re into politics, buddy, believe me, they’re going to come after you.”

Ron Lowrey, 71, a retired oil and gas geologist from St. Charles, likes Greitens’ resilience.

“He’s a fighter and he’s pushed through that, and that impresses me a lot,” Lowrey said.

Greitans also had an S&M relationship with a girlfriend and blackmailed her into silence with pictures. But apparently, all these Bible thumping true believers actually believe that anyone who goes after RINOs and hates LGBT people, Black Lives Matter and Hillary Clinton is all good in their books. Because he’s a fighter. He might win.

But they feel persecuted anyway

Another rightwing crybaby whining about how Christians are discriminated against because they aren’t allowed to discriminate against others:

It may seem radical to say it these days, but it’s true: America is a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values. Words from scripture are inscribed on our money and our most hallowed institutions, including Congress, the US Supreme Court and state capitols everywhere. Our Declaration of Independence acknowledges our “Creator” as the being from whom all our rights flow.

This does not mean that other religious groups are not welcome in America. Of course they are. People who practice no religion at all are also welcome.

But while the First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion, we are no longer a nation that fully supports the right to hold or express Judeo-Christian views.

What she means is that “Judeo-Christian views” should dominate because it is a Judeo-Christian state (which it is not.) Anyway, nothing new about this. They’ve been caterwauling about this for decades.

Meanwhile, the radical right wing Catholic majority on the Supreme Court is pushing their own agenda while their Christian soldiers are working overtime:

Three weeks before he won the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania governor, Doug Mastriano stood beside a three-foot-tall painted eagle statue and declared the power of God.

“Any free people in the house here? Did Jesus set you free?” he asked, revving up the dozens before him on a Saturday afternoon at a Gettysburg roadside hotel.

Mr. Mastriano, a state senator, retired Army colonel and prominent figure in former President Donald J. Trump’s futile efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, was addressing a far-right conference that mixed Christian beliefs with conspiracy theories, called Patriots Arise. Instead of focusing on issues like taxes, gas prices or abortion policy, he wove a story about what he saw as the true Christian identity of the nation, and how it was time, together, for Christians to reclaim political power.

The separation of church and state was a “myth,” he said. “In November we are going to take our state back, my God will make it so.”

Mr. Mastriano’s ascension in Pennsylvania is perhaps the most prominent example of right-wing candidates for public office who explicitly aim to promote Christian power in America. The religious right has long supported conservative causes, but this current wave seeks more: a nation that actively prioritizes their particular set of Christian beliefs and far-right views and that more openly embraces Christianity as a bedrock identity.

Many dismiss the historic American principle of the separation of church and state. They say they do not advocate a theocracy, but argue for a foundational role for their faith in government. Their rise coincides with significant backing among like-minded grass-roots supporters, especially as some voters and politicians blend their Christian faith with election fraud conspiracy theories, QAnon ideology, gun rights and lingering anger over Covid-related restrictions.

Their presence reveals a fringe pushing into the mainstream.

“The church is supposed to direct the government, the government is not supposed to direct the church,” Representative Lauren Boebert, a Republican representing the western part of Colorado, said recently at Cornerstone Christian Center, a church near Aspen. “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk.” Congregants rose to their feet in applause.

Declaring the United States a Christian nation and ending federal enforcement of the separation of church and state are minority views among American adults, according to the Pew Research Center. Although support for church-state integration is above average among Republicans and white evangelicals, many Christians see that integration as a perversion of faith that elevates nation over God. The fringe vying for power is still a minority among Christians and Republicans.

Like Mr. Mastriano, some of the candidates pushing that marginal view already hold lower-level elected positions but are now running for higher office where they would have more power, said Andrew Seidel, a vice president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“We are seeing them emboldened,” Mr. Seidel said. “They are claiming to be the true heirs of the American experiment.”

At the Patriots Arise event, Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to Mr. Mastriano and the former co-counsel for the Trump campaign’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, told the audience that “what it really means to truly be America first, what it truly means to pursue happiness, what it truly means to be a Christian nation are all actually the same thing.”

At Mr. Mastriano’s victory party on primary night, which included Sean Feucht, an evangelical worship leader who led outdoor events in defiance of pandemic restrictions, he announced that his faith was going on offense. “If I read articles where you’re attacking Christians and painting us in a particular picture that is hateful and intolerant, we won’t have the time of day for you,” Mr. Mastriano said, to cheers.

These people are theocrats and they are running for office. But they will never stop whining about how persecuted they are. They almost have it all but it’s never enough.

Chuck Todd wonders

Chuck Todd thinks Americans may not be able to "handle" a Trump prosecution.

"Do you think the country can handle prosecuting a former president?" Todd asked Gov. Larry Hogan. pic.twitter.com/c5wZOCRKSv

— David Edwards (@DavidEdwards) July 10, 2022

During an interview with Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD), Todd said that charging Trump might be too harsh for “the country.”

“Do you think he should be charged with a crime?” Todd asked Hogan.

“I think that’s for the Justice Department to decide,” Hogan replied.

“Do you think the country can handle prosecuting a former president?” Todd wondered.

“Yeah, I’m not sure they can,” Hogan opined. “But I think no man is above the law so if that’s where the facts lead, that’s what has to happen.”

Chuck Todd is a font of beltway conventional wisdom. If you want to know what the Villagers are thinking, check Chuck Todd. It may be his greatest contribution to our national discourse. And this attitude — the country can’t handle the prosecution of a former president — I suspect is pervasive. As with so many other issues, the CW is that the hysterical, gun-toting minority not only represents Real America but now that they’ve proved they are willing to commit political violence we have no choice but to let them have their way.

Hogan is probably running for president so he’s taking a different stand but the vast majority of Republicans disagree. And sadly, many “don’t make trouble” Democrats are no doubt with them along with the Chuck Todds in the media. The big question is where the legal system will land, whether the DOJ or the Fulton County DA.