BYLINE SUPPLEMENT — ‘A Triumph for Fanatics’ — Anne Nelson on the ‘Porous Frontier’
My latest investigation on the origins of the erosion of the separation of church and state was published in Byline Supplement today — it includes a vital interview with Shadow Network’s Anne Nelson
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The hardest part of this work for me is the agonizing hours and days that separate when I finish an investigation and when the investigation is published. My journalist heart has gotten used to the immediacy of the written word — even sometimes pressing send on Bette reports before I proofread, cuz what’s a few typos when you’re fighting fascism.
I was weaned on ‘news delayed is news denied.’ But my interview with Anne Nelson, published today in Byline Supplement is right on time.
Just when people might think of taking their eye off the authoritarian shock event of radicalized extremist and Trump proxy Mike Johnson being named House Speaker, I turn a glaring spotlight back on him. It’s important.
My new report — 'A Triumph for Fanatics': The Erosion of the Separation Between Church and State — returns to the ‘70s and follows the targeted effort to trash the Constitution in fealty to Christian nationalism.
Here is an excerpt:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”—First Amendment, US Constitution
Speaking of himself in third person, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said on Fox News:
“What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun, and I said, ‘Go pick a bible off your shelf, and read it. That’s my worldview.”
Putting a religious zealot in such a powerful position is an authoritarian shock event, said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the author of Strongmen — Mussolini to the Present.
"What a triumph for fanatics everywhere to have this person as House Speaker,” she tweeted.
The erosion of the US Constitutional protection — freedom of religion — has been decades in the making.
In 1981, an Arizona Republican Senator named Barry Goldwater — an arch-conservative — gave a speech on the Senate floor and continued the conversation with a reporters’ breakfast.
"I don't like the New Right," Goldwater said. "What they're talking about is not conservatism."
He asked people to "look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon”. He said each of these examples can be traced back to "injecting religious issues into the affairs of state” — alarming when funnelled through current events.
"By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars,” he said.
His fear, he said, were pro-life groups and the Moral Majority which he warned “could tear apart the very spirit of our representative system, if they gain sufficient strength.”
… Anne Nelson, the author of Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right, said the “conservative resurgence of the GOP is a “joint project” of religious groups, “fueled by the oil and gas industries”.
“People are so focused on Trump, and what I keep trying to tell them is they don't need Trump,” Nelson told Byline Supplement.
She said the weakest spot is the Internet.
“I call it the porous frontier,” she said. “We have been invaded by hostile interests. And nobody's been defending the frontier.
For the full report, please take out a subscription to Byline Supplement and help support a small global team of investigative reporters.
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We just have to see that the battle for democracy is broader. It's deeper.—David Pepper
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