Steve Jonas for BuzzFlash: The American Christian Nation Party (Republican)
Is America headed toward a Christian theocracy? (Sean Wolf)
November 24, 2021
By Steve Jonas, MD, MPH
As many of my readers know, under the pseudonym "Johnathan Westminster" in 1996 I self-published a book with the title "The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022." It was a "fictional future history," purportedly published in 2048 on the 25th anniversary of the Restoration of Constitutional Democracy in the United States. The third version of the book was published in 2013 under the title "The 15% solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S., 1981-2022 [emphasis added]." It is available on Amazon.
Both book titles apply to what is happening now before our very eyes, especially the first one. I and an increasing number of observers (including some traditional [often now former] Republicans) are writing about the first series of events with increasing frequency. In contrast, this column is about the matter referred in the title of the third version, which, as it happens, certainly goes right along with the drive towards fascism being undertaken by the Republo-fascist Party. That is, a focus on "Christianity" nestled up to the Republican Party and the policies that it is pursuing.
For example, recently I received in the mail from my Republican Representative Lee Zeldin (Long Island, NY, 1st Cong. District) a "Confirmation and Survey" being circulated by the "Faith and Freedom Coalition" entitled "The Christian Voter Registration Project." The contents of the survey, carefully worded to be sure, are focused fully on the current policies of the Republican Party (including a major dose of pulling down the Biden Administration and preventing it from accomplishing anything that it has on its agenda). The language solicits the support of the recipients of the "survey," presumably "Christian" voters (that is the Republican/voter type of Christian) to support such an agenda.
The "Founder and Chairman" of the Faith & Freedom Coalition is one Ralph Reed. Now I recognized that name. For Reed was around when I was writing my book in the mid-1990s. In fact, he appears on p. 17 (3rd version) of chapter 2, "Fascism in America: An Overview." Reed was a youngster in those days, certainly more rough-and-tumble in his appearance and his presentation than he is now (when he appears on Bill Maher's TV show wearing a nice-looking suit and pushing his policies with reasonable-sounding tones). But he was rough-and-tumble in his tactics and his language back then. He was not circulating questionnaires trying to "convert" Christians to support his (Republican) agenda. In those days (as he also is now, of course) he was pursuing a more open voter-suppression agenda --- the original "15% Solution" --- through essentially the same organization with a different name: the "Christian Coalition." ("Faith and Freedom" is obviously less threatening to the present outside audience.) As Reed put it back then, as stated in a fund-raising letter of the time (see p. 17 of the book), his primary strategy was to "paint my face and travel at night. You don't know that it's over until you're in a body bag."
Ralph Reed no longer has to paint his face and travel at night, or think about body bags. For he is right up there (or down there, depending upon your point of view) with the crème-de-la-crème (or crime) of the Republican Party. Listed as supporters and strong endorsers of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and Ralph Reed (by name) are: Ted (off to Cancun) Cruz, Sarah (role model for Marjorie Taylor Greene) Palin, (by the way, if you Google "Crazy Congresswoman," without even adding "from Georgia," Greene's name pops up first, with Lauren Boebert second), Ben Carson, Michele Bachmann (who makes the "crazy Congresswoman" Google list at 9th, even though she hasn't been in Congress for some years now), Rand (I had to invent my own ophthalmology board) Paul, Marco (much too bland) Rubio, Sean (can't think of one for him) Hannity, Mark (who just can't pronounce his name in the usual way) Levin, Newt (founder of the modern Republican Party --- not really something to be proud of in historical terms) Gingrich, and of course Pence and Trump. As Gingrich, the very model of the modern racist Republican, said of Reed's "Faith and Freedom Coalition," what it "is doing is historically important for the future of our country and the future of children and grandchildren."
And indeed, if you read the literature that comes in the "Faith and Freedom Coalition Christian Voter Confirmation and Survey" packet the program it promotes surely would be "historically important" (although in an historically negative way, by orders of magnitude). For this is what the current program stands for: the thorough melding of the "Christian voter" with the Republican Party (that is what I characterized in my book as the Republican-Christian Alliance), and the following policies (in the order of importance as presented in the survey): no Statehood of Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia (for of course they would most likely be Democratic seats, and you know what color[s] they would be); maintaining the Right-wing majority on the Supreme Court exactly the way it is; preventing "opening the floodgates to mass migration from the Third World to create millions of new voters for socialism; and increasing the proportion of "evangelical or conservative Christian voters," over 80% of whom voted for Trump in 2016.
Most interesting is that the list of substantive reasons why "Christians" should support the Republican Party is confined to these three items: no statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., maintaining the composition of the Supreme Court, and preventing "mass migration." What the material doesn't get to is what all the endorsers on the list above support, in addition to those three items: banning abortion nationally; attacking gay-transgender rights (although they have to be careful about that; they've got too many gay supporters, like the far-rightist Peter Thiel); cutting taxes for the wealthy; doing nothing about the Petro-chemical industry and the impending disasters that will result from global-warming/climate-change; increasing voter suppression; changing the way the Constitution is used in practice in the matter of electing the President (to achieve the same result); not only not expanding a range of governmental programs that would enhance the lives of millions of Americans but cutting back on any such programs where possible; dealing with the crumbling national infrastructure; increasing the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court to the extent possible; doing nothing about policing in the nation other than making it worse; enhancing the spread of the corona-virus (not spoken, of course, but a clear result of the Republican "anti-mandate" campaign); and so-on-and-so-forth. In other words, the classic Republican agenda, plus, oh yes, the drive to end bourgeois Constitutional Democracy as we know it.
But even more interesting is that none of the elements of the above list, which is right out in front in the Congress in which virtually all of the endorsers do serve or have done, is presented in the circulated appeal. What there is are solely three "hot-button" issues. But that's it. Plus "support registering more Christians to elect more Republicans, to make sure that this, this, and this DON'T happen." Ralph Reed indeed doesn't have to "paint his face and travel at night." It's all right out in the open with the Republican-Christian Alliance. And nobody is making that alliance more apparent than Reed and his listed, very well-known, buddies, along with lesser lights like Lee Zeldin (desperate, I guess, for any vote he can get, even from folks who think that he, as a Jew, is the devil incarnate).
In my book, I future-historically projected first a "Republican-Christian Alliance," then an "American Christian Nation Party" (as the successor to the R-CA), and then an apartheid state called the "New American Republics," under the ACNP. People like Ralph Reed make it clear in the fund-raising materials liked the one that happened to drop into my mailbox that that is the direction in which they want our nation to be going. As is well-known, there is an increasing number of voices, no longer limited to the Left like myself, but even including an increasing number of prominent Republicans (with some becoming former Republicans), who are sounding the alarm about the prospect. If somehow the majority of the U.S. liberal ruling class which is perfectly happy with what we have now, that is a bourgeois constitutional democracy in support of capitalism doesn't get its act together and soon, our nation will become exactly what the Republican-Christian Alliance, otherwise known in my book as "The American Christian Nation Party [Republican]," has clearly said it wants it to become: that is some form of the book's "The New American Republic."
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Steven Jonas, MD, MPH, MS is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at StonyBrookMedicine (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 35 books. In addition to his position on OpEdNews.com as a “Trusted Author,” he is a regular contributor to BuzzFlash.com, and on occasion to Reader Supported News/Writing for Godot and From The G-Man. His own political website, stevenjonaspolitics.com, is an archive of the 1000 or so political columns he has published since 2004, with the current columns being added to it as they appear. He was also a career triathlete, 36 seasons, 256 multi-sport races, and writer on the sport (books and articles). He now is officially retired from racing.
He has a blind-copy distribution list for his columns. If you would like to be added to it, please send Dr. Jonas an email at sjtpj@aol.com.
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