Straight White American Jesus

Brad and Dan begin by discussing the recent AFPAC conference, where the far-right figure Nick Fuentes compared Putin to Hitler in a positive way, while giving a speech full of racial and ethnic slurs. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar attended the conference--and Greene gave an address after being introduced by Fuentes. Dan unpacks the historic significance of this chapter in the GOP's intimacy with what are essentially Neo-Nazi White supremacists, while Brad compares Greene's remarks to the KKK of the 1920s.Interview with Kelly J. Baker: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/PPY9950636314?selected=PPY8028158396In the second segment, Brad investigates the responses of QAnon adherents and other conspiracists to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. He links the polarization and instability in our public square back to Russia's cyber warfare during the 2016 presidential election.The show wraps with reflection on what these issues mean in light of the news that the J6 Select Committee has evidence to prosecute Trump and close allies for various crimes related to January 6th.Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery: https://www.traumaresolutionandrecovery.com/Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJCOrder Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Produced by Brad Onishi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do we mean when we talk about “recognition”? What is it to recognize someone in their identity? What is it to recognize ourselves in a particular way? What happens when someone doesn’t recognize me in the way I identify myself? What happens when I don’t recognize someone others in the way they recognize themselves? This episode explores the complex dynamics of recognition and the significance of identity and recognition for understanding our current cultural politics.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJCOrder Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Produced by Brad Onishi and Dan MillerEdited by Shannon Sassone Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad speaks with the Danté Stewart about his journey into, and then out of, the White Church. Stewart grew up a Black Pentecostal until he reached university. There he began attending a White megachurch. He spent years in White churches convinced that the Jesus worshipped there--one coded as a White American, as superior to the one found in the Black church, as the true and right way to be a Christian and an American--was saving him from his own blackness. The murder of Trayvon Martin, the election of Donald Trump, the massacre of the Charleston 9--these events and more slowly opened his eyes to the way White Jesus had made him anti-black.Danté Stewart's Shoutin' in the Fire: An American Epistle: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/672938/shoutin-in-the-fire-by-dante-stewart/Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJCOrder Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Produced by Brad OnishiEdited by Shannon SassoneMusic by Documentary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad and Dan discuss Putin's war on Ukraine and the Christian nationalist/GOP responses at home. They focus the first segment on how the only people on the global stage defending Putin openly are Donald Trump and select politicians and leaders from the GOP. This leads to an exploration of the Christians who admit that they identify more with Putin's Christian values than Joe Biden's leadership.Link to Brad's interview on Putin and American Christian nationalists: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/im-a-fascist/id1441649707?i=1000519920471Video of Lauren Witzske praising Putin: https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1496937857839153168The second segment explores the frightening anti-trans legislation at play in Texas.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJCOrder Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Go follow https://www.tiktok.com/@adhdeconstruction!Produced by Brad Onishi and Dan Miller Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode explores the concern that people act against their own social or political interests because of their identity. Because they privilege their identity, they oppose political, social, or economic policies that would be beneficial to them. Dan argues that this is a mistaken conception, and that we have to recognize that identity and interests are entangled with each other in complex ways. Changing how we understand the relationship between identity and interests is the key to advancing transformative politics.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJCOrder Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Produced by Brad Onishi and Dan MillerEdited by Shannon SassoneMusic by Matt Puckett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

*Correction*: "Jeff" says that Locke's church is in McMinnville, TN. It is in fact in Mt. Juliet TN. Brad didn't catch it in the conversation. Both he and Jeff were a bit tense--wanting to get the story right and bring listeners into the scene, without giving away Jeff's identity. Our apologies.Brad speaks with a man he calls Jeff (identity hidden) who went undercover at the book burning led by Pastor Greg Locke. The book burning happened ominously in the wake of the banning of Art Spiegelman's acclaimed graphic novel on the Holocaust "Maus" in a nearby school district.Jeff wrote an article on the event: https://leftcoastrightwatch.org/2022/02/pro-coup-tennessee-pastor-holds-anti-masonic-anti-disney-bonfire/Here is an excerpt:In between threatening to kick in Dunkin Donuts employees teeth and refusing to follow his own dictates opposing divorce, Greg Locke is a pastor at Global Vision Bible Church (formerly Global Vision Baptist Church.) It takes little to find offensive comments on from him.“Your kid could be demonized and attacked, but your doctor calls it autism.”“Transgenderism is not a civil right. It’s not normal, it’s anti-biblical. And I’m sorry, just because I have morals and values that does not make me a discriminatory bigot. I’m sick of the day and age in which we live when people call good evil and evil they call good.”Recently Locke also put out more serious calls to join things like the Black Robe Regiment, a far-right nationalist group of pastors that advocates preaching a “patriotic view” of American politics. Locke’s idea of patriotism meant encouraging his followers to attend the January 6th insurrection during sermons and railing in support of Trump’s lies about election fraud. But Locke also calls for more local forms of violence. Recently, he organized burnings of so-called “demonic” items like the Harry Potter and Twilight children’s/young adult books from almost two decades ago. LCRW attended one incognito on Wednesday last week and will tell the tale later.Burning books isn’t new to Greg Locke. In 2019 he jumped to twitter to post a video of himself burning a book titled “The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American.”Locke’s beliefs are firmly rooted in Christian Fundamentalism. The church he leads, Global Vision Bible Church, originally identified itself with the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement (IFB)—one of the most conservative groups of Christians in the nation. He dissociated from the IFB in mid 2011, claiming that the leadership of the movement had tried to pressure him into taking on a “legalistic mindset of man-made regulations.” Locke claims he pledged to remain amicable with the IFB despite parting ways. Incidentally, in 2019 in Knoxville an IFB pastor and sheriff’s detective called for the trial and summary execution of queer people.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJCOrder Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Produced by Brad OnishiEdited by Shannon SassoneMusic by Matt Puckett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steve Bannon is a familiar figure by now. One of the super villains from the Trump administration, he is still a force in right-wing politics in the USA and across the globe. He reportedly pushed Trump to overturn the election by any means possible. He is often referred to as a White nationalist whose misogyny and racism need no further explanation. But what if Bannon's worldview is more complex, more sinister, and more weird than you ever expected?Brad speaks to Dr. Benjamin Teitelbaum about his new book, War for Eterinity: Inside Bannon's Far Right Circle of Global Power Brokers: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/war-for-eternity-benjamin-r-teitelbaum?variant=32123408941090Inspired by a radical twentieth-century ideology called Traditionalism, Bannon and a small group of right-wing powerbrokers are planning new political mobilizations on a global scale—discussed and debated in secret meetings organized by Bannon in hotel suites and private apartments in DC, Europe and South America. Their goal? To upend the world order and reorganize geopolitics on the basis of archaic values rather than modern ideals of democracy, freedom, social progress, and human rights. Their strenuous efforts are already producing results, from the fortification of borders throughout the world and the targeting of immigrants, to the undermining of the European Union and United States governments, and the expansion of Russian influence.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJCOrder Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Produced by Brad OnishiEdited by Shannon SassoneMusic by Matt Puckett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad and Dan begin by discussing the Jericho Marches connected to the "Freedom Convoy" protests in Ottawa. Drawing on work by the writer Chrissy Stroop and scholar Thomas Lecaque, they discuss how the Jericho story provides a narrative in which both American J6 and Canadian convoy protesters/rioters are able to use as a way to build group cohesion and justify their actions.Chrissy Stroop on Christian nationalism and the Canada convoy: https://conversationalist.org/2022/02/17/freedom-convoys-extremism-poses-long-term-damage-to-canadian-civil-society/Thomas Lecaque on the Jericho Marches: https://www.editorialboard.com/that-freedom-convoy-in-ottawa-its-partly-inspired-by-a-biblical-account-of-divine-massacre/In the next segment Dan walks us through the new John Durham/Hillary Clinton/Spygate distraction making the rounds in the MAGA Universe.In the final segment, Brad links Charlie Kirk's freakout about the Super Bowl halftime show to the long entanglement among Muscular Christianity, American imperialism, and toxic masculinity.Jack Moore on the connections among all three: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/may/08/muscular-christianity-and-american-sports-undying-love-of-violenceSubscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJCOrder Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is the relation to class and identity? Does a focus on identity and identity politics overlook, trivialize, or eliminate the significance of class or economic inequality in contemporary politics and social conflict? This episode suggests that a focus on identity does not discount, and is not at odds with, a focus on class or economic inequality. On the contrary, Dan argues that class is a dimension of identity of vital relevance for understanding, and changing, political and social culture.Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJCOrder Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ronTo Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Produced by Brad Onishi and Dan MillerEdited by Shannon SassoneMusic by Matt Puckett-"Yellow Leaves" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Filmmaker Kat Gellein Viken, co-creator of impactful documentaries on churches and conspiracy, delves into the unsettling ties between data collection and religious manipulation. She reveals how churches are weaponizing parishioners' data for political ends. The discussion also uncovers the surprising alliance of yoga moms with far-right movements, showing how wellness spaces became breeding grounds for conspiracy theories, particularly during the pandemic. A fascinating exploration of faith, misinformation, and the war on democracy!