In my second semester of grad school, I was properly introduced to Dr. Angie Maxwell. I had heard about her book The Long Southern Strategy and knew it would provide the political history that would help on the GOP side of my thesis.
It was such a delight to talk with Dr. Maxwell and really dive deep into the history of conservative politics and southern politics with her.
This week has been extremely busy at work, so no annotations for now. If you have questions about specific topics or people and want more details, reply to this message and I’ll get you some citations. :)
We’ll take next Thursday off, obviously, but coming up soon is my conversation with Kristin Kobes Du Mez. Thanks for following along!
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The Legacy of White Supremacy for Christians in America with Robert P. Jones
At 11 o’clock, the local NPR station plays Fresh Air. I was driving somewhere on July 30th somewhere between 11:15 and 11:30 and was absolutely captivated by Terry Gross’ guest. He was talking about the systemic racism of white evangelicals, among other things, but I didn’t catch who it was. I remember sitting in the parking lot of a store until I finally heard Terry Gross say, “I’m speaking with Robert P. Jones, the author of the new book White Too Long.” I immediately bought the book, devoured it, and KNEW that I needed to have him as a source for my thesis podcast.
This book and this conversation were so instrumental in helping me articulate the points I was trying to make, and I was so grateful we could find some time to chat.
At 4:30, I talk about the difference between Mainline and Evangelical Christians. From a denominational standpoint, Mainline Christians tend to be Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians… basically anything that’s not Baptist or non-denominational churches.
At 13:47, Jones mentions Manifest Destiny, which is a haunting rabbit hole to go down if you haven’t heard that phrase since social studies in middle school.
At 15:06, I mention Ann Swindler and the cultural toolkit. I talk about this some in the podcast, but she’s done a TON of research on this idea and it’s really worth looking into.
At 15:35, I mention Michael Emerson and Christian Smith. Their book Divided by Faith is one that Jones cites and was a really useful resource for me, too.
At 22:18, he quotes MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I wanted to transcribe part of it here cause it’s so good. “I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.”
At 23:50, I bring up Bloody Sunday. This was, of course, the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.
At 30:45, I bring up the Racism Index. Here’s an NBC News op/ed Jones wrote that describes it in part.
At 40:23, Jones describes White Evangelicals move from being “values voters” to “nostalgia voters,” which ties quite nicely into Phil Gorski’s commentary.
Jones is extremely active not just on Twitter, but with his own substack as well.
Next week I talk with Angie Maxwell, the author of The Long Southern Strategy and a professor at the University of Arkansas.
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Nobody should be surprised by Trump, according to Gwenda Blair
It’s obvious that to have a podcast about Donald Trump, I needed to interview someone who has written extensively about Donald Trump. I was drawn to Gwenda Blair because she has not only written about Trump, but about both his father and his grandfather. The deep knowledge of what formed him made her a very appealing source to interview.
Because of the way the podcast came to be, much of our conversation was left on the cutting room floor. I’m excited to finally get a chance to share our full conversation.
Not a ton of annotations on this one, just a reminder that this was an incredibly fascinating conversation you should listen to.
At 2:20, Blair mentions Robert Moses, who was a major builder in New York City.
At X:XX, Blair talks about Norman Vincent Peale, who as mentioned, was well known for his book The Power of Positive Thinking.
At 12:50, she mentions Roy Cohn. Cohn first became known as Senator Joe McCarthy’s chief counsel during the Red Scare hearings in Congress, but later became a fixer for Trump.
At 1:02:51, she mentions the secularization of American life. I’ve mentioned Ryan Burge on here before and a new article has come out since then where he writes that Evangelical is just becoming another word for Republican, and he’s got the data to back it up. SUPER fascinating read.
At 1:04:17, I mention a Gallup poll. Other polling like that from Pew showed that he won 77% of White Evangelicals.
Next week’s interview is with Robert P. Jones. This was truly one of my favorite interviews of the whole process. I hope you’ll join me.
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Episode Three - Understanding the Christian Right with Daniel Williams
Early in my research I kept coming across the same name: Daniel K. Williams. As I was using key terms in searches for research, article after article with his name on it popped up. I cited two different articles as well as his book God’s Own Party in the research paper element of my thesis. And our conversation was really influential in providing greater detail for some of the bigger ideas and topics I was working on.
This conversation is across two different interviews, so there’s a little bit of bouncing around in this episode.
At 9:34, Williams talks about America being a “Judeo-Christian” nation. There’s a lot of scholarship talking about how this is really just a talking point of the Cold War era, which Arthur Allen Cohen talks about, among other experts I read.
At 11:20, I bring up the story of Graham coming to Nixon’s vacation home, but I flubbed the date, got distracted, and we never returned to it properly. Short version: Nixon asks Graham to come to his vacation spot in Key Biscayne Florida for his blessing to run for president. Graham tells him, “Dick, I think you should run… you are the best prepared man in the United States to be President.” This quote came directly from Williams’ book God’s Own Party.
At 15:14, Williams talks about Graham’s stance on civil rights. Graham wasn’t as vocal as some may have liked, but he was generally in favor of Martin Luther King, and was certainly more favorable to civil rights than other Evangelical leaders of the time.
At 20:21, he talks about Falwell’s general dislike of Jesse Jackson. The two butted heads many times. Williams argues Falwell “changed” from being a segregationist in the late 1960s. Personally, I would disagree with that sentiment. I believe he moved from being a segregationist to being a dog-whistle segregationist, but again, Williams is an expert.
At 21:01, Williams mentions “welfare queens.” This was a major talking point of Reagan, who used this derogatory racial stereotype to describe a woman who would abuse the social welfare system. If you want to hear a great story about the “real” story of the welfare queen, listen to this episode from On The Media.
At 34:50, he brings up James Dobson, who is famous for his program Focus on the Family and was a major player in the issues that White Evangelicalism has brought us in the last several decades.
At 35:07, Williams talks about the Moral Majority’s ten point platform, which you can read here.
At 41:07, I mention Tim LaHaye. LaHaye, besides be a co-author on the Left Behind series, had a massive career before that as a megachurch pastor and cohort of Jerry Falwell.
At 45:46, Williams mentions Richard Viguerie, who was a Barry Goldwater supporter and also direct-mail strategist who played a key role in aligning White Evangelicals with Republicans.
At 1:02:06, Williams mentions Ralph Reed, another critical behind the scenes player in the Christian Right alignment. WNYC and The Atlantic’s podcast The Experiment did a great twopart series on him.
At 1:02:47, Williams mentions John Piper. John Piper is a name many Christians know, but in case you don’t, one thing he is known for is telling women whose husbands physically abuse them that they should be willing to “endure it for a season.”
At 1:02:58, he brings up Franklin Graham, who is the son of Billy Graham, and ardent support of the former president.
At 1:09:43, Williams talks about Father Coughlin. Father Coughlin was a really antisemitic and problematic radio personality, among other things. There’s actually a really fascinating episode about him by Reply All.
At 1:31:30, Williams mentions Maine senator Olympia Snowe, one of the last truly moderate Republican senators who constantly worked to be as down the middle as she could.
At 1:34:05, I talk about a “blue dog” democrat. Apparently there are still a few of them around, but fiscally liberal/socially conservative politicians are a rare breed these days.
Daniel William’s most recent book is called The Politics of the Cross. As far as I can tell, he lays off social media, which is probably a hint we should all take.
You can follow me on Twitter to keep up with my day job and my thoughts on the Boston Celtics.
If you listened to the episode and made it this far, let me know what you think. I hope you enjoyed it. Next week conversation is with a biographer of Donald Trump for over 40 years, Gwenda Blair. There’s A LOT we didn’t include in the OG podcast from that conversation, so you will not want to miss that one.
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Episode Two - The Abortion Myth with Randall Balmer
In 2008, I voted in my very first election. I didn’t quite realize how much of an impact the Pro-Life voting bloc played into Republican politics at the time. For a political party that was so opposed to abortion, why didn’t George Bush do anything about it in his 8 years in office? Or his father? Or Ronald Reagan?
After the election of Donald Trump, I became even more confused with White Evangelical voters and their persistence that he was a Pro-Life President. When I sought out to answer why Republicans and White Evangelicals supported and endorsed him in 2016, I came across Randall Balmer’s Politico article. I remembered seeing him on The Colbert Report. I knew I needed to interview him, and he agreed almost immediately.
Like the previous episode, we cover a lot of ground in over an hour. Here’s some notes to keep up with our winding conversation.
At 14:33, we talk about Balmer’s biography of Jimmy Carter, Redeemer.
At 20:59, we discuss the 1968 symposium held by Christianity Today on the issue of abortion. In short, they said, “the group generally endorsed abortion guidelines approved in May by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. But it said abortion is a last resort, should not be a general means of population control, and should be permitted in individual cases only after careful consideration.”
At 25:37, Balmer brings up W. A. Criswell, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, who applauded the Supreme Court’s ruling.
At 27:07 the name Paul Weyrich comes up in passing. Weyrich is a man I didn’t really talk about in much detail in my OG pod or with Balmer here, but man is he fascinating. Founder of The Heritage Foundation, the originator of the term “moral majority.”
At 33:24, Balmer mentions Bill Brock, who went on to be the Secretary of Labor under Ronald Reagan.
At 43:46 Balmer mentions Reagan appointments like Robert Billings who played a role in the rise of the Moral Majority, as well as Gary Bauer who worked as an under Secretary of Education in Reagan’s administration and eventually as a Trump advisor.
At 45:33, the topic of judicial appointments comes up. Reagan nominated 5 different justices, George HW Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, and George W. Bush nominated John Roberts (now chief justice) and Samuel Alito.
At 47:36, Balmer mentions Michael Farris who is the chancellor of Patrick Henry College, whose school is trying to become a leader in Evangelical jurisprudence.
At 54:25, Balmer mentions his book about the separation of church and state. It’s called Solemn Reverence.
At 1:03:13, Balmer says that early Evangelicals supported women’s voting rights. Here’s a fascinating article from The Tennesseean about an element of that.
At 1:10:29, Balmer points out that Trump had over 30,000 false or misleading claims during his four years as president. By comparison, Obama had just 18 over 8 years.
Randall Balmer’s latest book, which is very much in the same vein of my research, is called Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right. He’s also a smart man in that he doesn’t use social media publicly.
You can follow me on Twitter to keep up with my day job and my thoughts on the Boston Celtics.
If you listened to the episode and made it this far, let me know what you think. I hope you enjoyed it. Next week our conversation is with Daniel K. Williams.