The Midterm Boogeyman of ‘Christian Nationalism’

The so-called Public Broadcasting Service is anything but a “service” to Republicans. Tune in any night of the week. As a whole, Republicans are extremists; Republicans are insurrectionists; and Republicans are terrible, racist, sexist Christians.

On Oct. 11, the “PBS NewsHour” warned all about the threat of right-wing “Christian nationalism” and what it means for the midterm elections. Anchor William Brangham reported, “A growing movement led by right-wing politicians is increasingly challenging a centuries-old value of America’s political system: the separation of church and state.”

PBS ran clips of Republicans Kari Lake, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Doug Mastriano, Dan Cox and Ron DeSantis all speaking about drawing on their religion in public life or how, as Boebert said, “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church.”

Media liberals hate the idea that Republicans lean on religion for their political ideas. They are so aggressively for separating church and state that they almost think religious conservatives shouldn’t be allowed to vote, since they’re a threat to democracy — or at least to the Democrats.

PBS anchor Laura Barron-Lopez naturally turned to Jan. 6 to associate all conservative Christians with rioting: “We saw a lot of Christian imagery in the crowd on Jan. 6, when rioters stormed the Capitol, and faith being used to justify violence there.”

The “NewsHour” found an agreeable expert for their secular feminist worldview. It was a professor of gender studies named Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of the book “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.”

But PBS and Du Mez are preaching to the liberal choir that the Christian right is a menace that is eroding democracy and pushing “voter suppression” somehow. There’s no conservative counterpoint to this midterm messaging on taxpayer-funded TV. That’s somehow not eroding democracy.

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