WEBVTT - 8 | The Paradox 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:04.359 Flashpoint is released weekly and brought to you absolutely free, 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:09.080 but for ad free listening, early access and exclusive bonuses. 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:13.480 Subscribe to tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus dot com or on 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:14.480 Apple Podcasts. 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.759 You're listening to Flashpoint, a production of tenderfoot TV and 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:25.200 association with iHeartMedia. The views and opinions expressed in this 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:29.360 podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast. 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.159 This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.519 suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.880 In nineteen ninety four, two years before the Centennial Olympics, 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:49.200 John Britton, a physician who provided services for legal abortions, 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:54.480 and his bodyguard, were murdered by a man named Paul Hill. 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:57.600 That same year, Hill was interviewed from jail on camera, 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:05.640 an interview that Eric Rudolph saw. After seeing it, Rudolph wrote, quote, 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:11.039 Christianity had become a religion without testicles, and Paul Hill 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:15.360 seemed like a perfect anomaly, a genuine American hero in 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:18.760 an age of cowardice. I'd read about such people in 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.600 history books, but I didn't think they existed anymore. I 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.200 knew then that the era of hot air was over. 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.679 People were finally bridging the gap between their rhetoric and 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.319 their actions. I knew then it was time for me 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:39.679 to act as well, and that he did. The faulty 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:43.400 premise of the lone wolf is often invoked to describe 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:48.080 extremists like Paul Hill and Eric Rudolph, but Rudolph and 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:52.080 Hill both self identified as soldiers in the Army of God. 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:56.360 Militant Christian identity groups like the Army of God and 0:01:56.440 --> 0:02:00.000 the Church of Israel are understood today to be tendrils 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.559 in a network, part of a thing we now call 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:07.279 leaderless resistance. This idea has been around for a while, 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.119 but it first came to prominence for most Americans back 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:15.040 around nine to eleven under a different name, sleeper Cells. 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:21.680 Today they operate under names like the Proud Boys, the Oathkeepers, 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:28.360 the Three Percenters, even QAnon. There is no singular, unifying organization, 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:34.960 no individual leader, no headquarters, just an amorphous murmurration, a 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:40.960 spiraling tangle of battalions shitting everywhere, sometimes even blocking out 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:47.440 the sun. There is, however, a unifying ideology in ideology, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.799 with a long list of common causes. In ideology that's 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.480 against a whole lot of things. It's against abortion. 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.680 The alleged planned parenthood shooter just shouted in a courtroom 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.840 that he killed three people out of Colorado Springs clinic 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:08.280 to quote protect the babies. Doctor George Tiller was shot 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:10.720 and killed, and his murder is sparking new fears for 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:12.960 the safety of other abortion providers. 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.840 The first explosion blew out windows at the North Atlanta 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:17.400 Family Planning Clinic. 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.720 Against gay rights, the beating of a gay college student 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.320 in Wyoming, Twenty one year old Matthew Shepherd remains in 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.760 critical condition after being left for dead in a field. 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.000 Colorado Springs, where overnight at least. 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.520 Five people were shot and killed at an LGBTQ nightclub. 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:37.200 It happened outside a lesbian club called The Other Side. 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:41.000 The first bomb injured five people. Against civil rights. 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.800 In the name of the greatest people that have ever 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:50.320 cad with her, I say segregation now, segregation to Mara 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:52.520 and segregation forever. 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.320 The deadly shooting inside at Charleston, South Carolina church is 0:03:57.360 --> 0:03:59.520 being investigated as a hate crime. 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.200 Friends, the twenty one year old high school dropout was 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.800 a loner and unabashed racist with a deep hatred for 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:06.520 black people. 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:10.160 Carr in Charlottesville chaos in the streets. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.160 The bar flowers into a crowd of people. Who's a 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:14.760 blood all of the ground, people screaming. 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:17.640 I have never seen such a horrific light you, racist 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:18.720 attack in my entire life. 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.760 But this particular ideological strain is all the more insidious 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.719 because it's cloaked in a robe of righteous religious conviction. 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:35.680 There are have now broken into the US capital, fucking 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.680 cub We love on the state of America to be reborn. 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:44.120 As the traders within our government. 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:49.880 We love you, only you, in course only mark Eric 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.440 Rudolph bombed the Olympics. Then he bombed an abortion clinic, 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:58.039 a gay bar, and another abortion clinic. Then when he 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.839 could sense that he was being hunted, he ran. But 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:04.760 he didn't do all this by himself. He was part 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.599 of something bigger. This escalation on the far right has 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:12.480 been happening for a long time. In these days it's 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:17.800 gained a very real foothold in the mainstream comporical cap 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:19.880 We have a right. 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:20.400 To the campo. 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:48.480 So how did this happen? Episode eight? The paradox. 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:55.120 It's always hard to know where to begin these stories. 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.920 That's Neil J. Young, historian and all author of We 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.880 Gather Together a book that debunks many common misconceptions about 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.080 the religious right in interfaith politics. 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.320 I think a lot of historians have pointed to the 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:15.279 late seventies and the sort of cultural backlash to the 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:18.120 things that had been happening in the decade, the legalization 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.800 of abortion in the early nineteen seventies from the previous decade, 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:26.080 allowing Bible reading and public prayer in public schools. I 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.960 think the nineteen sixty four election is an important moment 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:34.760 in which conservatives really begin to galvanize as a force 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:36.320 within the Republican Party. 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:41.040 The nineteen sixty four presidential election was a contest between 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:45.840 Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson in Republican Barry Goldwater. Back when 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:50.040 we started making this podcast, Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign seemed 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.200 like a reasonable point in history to start the story. 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:58.239 And to all inline fellow Republicans, Zurosembel and Americans across 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.960 this great nation who do not care for our cause, 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.159 we don't expect to enter our ranks in any case, 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:12.920 I would remind you that extremism in the defense of 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.160 liberty is no vite. 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:21.720 And let me remind you also that moderation and the 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:27.040 pursuit of justice is no virtue. 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:30.520 It was two years before Rudolph was born, in an 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:34.720 indisputably turbulent moment in American culture, and I wanted to 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:36.880 understand what led up to this point. 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:42.920 It's an important moment because conservatives really coalesced around Verry Goldwater, 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:45.840 and even though he himself was not what we would 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:49.000 describe as a religious conservative or even a religious person, 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:53.480 particularly fundamentalist in the American South and the American West 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:55.360 saw him as their great hero. 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:58.680 It was a moment for the right that kicked off 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:02.240 a grassroots movement and hugely influenced the far right of 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.800 the moment, the alt right of the future, and eventually 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:11.480 even today's mainstream right as history remembers. Lyndon B. Johnson 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.760 won the election in a landslide. It looks like a 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:18.720 devastating loss for Barry Goldwater, who only won six states, 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:21.520 but looks can be deceiving. 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.520 And so when he lost, they didn't take it as 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:28.520 a permanent defeat, but rather as a moment to continue 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.800 organizing and building the networks that I think brought about 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.840 the conservative revolution that most of us see in the 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:37.880 nineteen eighty election of Ronald Reagan. 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.480 And I'm asking you as I ask all Americans, and 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.480 together we'll make America great again. 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:47.120 Thank you very much. 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:53.000 There's no unique or simple narrative about America right. 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.479 Matthew D. Taylor is the senior scholar at the Institute 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.800 for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies and the author of 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.080 the violent Take It by Force. The Christian movement that 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:05.360 is threatening our democracy. 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:10.160 These are ongoing battles and ongoing debates. What we see 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:14.680 in the late nineteen seventies is a very concerted effort 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:20.800 to form a coalition of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:26.480 Fundamentalist Christians are absolutists like Dan Gamon who insist on 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:28.960 a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible. 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:33.240 It was still positive identity for many American Christians. But 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.360 this coalition of evangelicals and fundamentalists and then they start 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:41.400 looping in conservative Catholics and Latter day Saints ideas. We're 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.240 all fighting against the same things. We all are trying 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.120 to arrest this progress, these shifts that are going on 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.160 in our culture. We all feel threatened by these things. 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:51.160 Let's band together. 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:57.480 Then came nineteen seventy three, Roe v. Wade ruled that 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.960 the decision whether to continue or into pregnancy belongs to 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:06.160 the individual, not the government. At the time, evangelical Christians 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.760 were largely not opposed to that decision. They were instead 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.040 focus on other issues. But that would change. 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.839 Turns out, the catalyst for evangelical political activism in the 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.680 nineteen seventies was a court decision, but it wasn't Roe v. 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:23.280 Wade Randall Balmer is a prominent historian on this topic. 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:28.360 He's the author of dozens of books, including Evangelicalism in America. 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.160 It was a court decision that was handed down on 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.880 June thirtieth, nineteen seventy one, in a case called Green vy. Connolly, 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:41.120 and the issue presented before the court is whether or 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:48.320 not racially segregated educational institutions known as segregation academies, should 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:55.439 be allowed tax exempt status. And the court ruled decisively 0:10:56.080 --> 0:11:00.480 on June thirtieth, nineteen seventy one, that any or organization 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.120 that engaged in racial segregation or racial discrimination was not, 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:09.360 by definition a charitable institution and therefore had no claims 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.920 on tax exempt status. And as the Internal Revenue Service 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:17.240 began enforcing that ruling over the course of the nineteen seventies, 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:20.560 that got to the attention of Bob Jones University, which 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.440 of course was founded back in nineteen twenty seven explicitly 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:28.400 to be a racially segregated institution, as well as people 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:32.559 like Jerry Folwell, who had his own segregation academy in Lynchburg, Virginia, 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:34.559 which he began in nineteen sixty seven. 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:40.720 This segregation academy would lead to today's Liberty University, which 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.560 has a one point six billion dollar endowment. 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:49.360 So a defense of racial segregation was the actual catalyst 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:53.400 for the emergence of the religious right in the nineteen seventies. 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.040 The big question is how it was that a movement 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:04.680 that emerged in defense of racial segregation transformed itself into 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.559 a movement that was opposed to abortion. The key figure 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:13.200 here is a conservative strategist named Paul Weyrick. And I 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:15.800 actually met and had a conversation with Paul Weyrick in 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:20.320 November of nineteen ninety at a conference, a small closed 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:24.040 door gathering, where he made the emphatic point that the 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:29.320 religious right did not organize in opposition to abortion. And 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:31.760 I pulled him aside after he made that statement, and 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:33.880 I said, I want to make sure I hurried you 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.680 correctly on this, and he said absolutely. He said, I'd 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:40.960 been trying since the Goldwater campaign to get these people, 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.680 meaning evangelicals, involved in politics. He said, I tried everything. 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.679 I tried the abortion issue. I tried the women's rights issue. 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:50.760 I tried the school prayer issue. I tried the pornography issue. 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:55.840 Nothing got their attention until the Internal Revenue Service started 0:12:55.880 --> 0:13:00.440 coming after these segregation academies in the nineteen seventies. And 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.280 so then I pushed a little further on this, how 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:08.640 did abortion become part of the conversation? And according to Wirek, 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.960 there was a conference call among these leaders of this 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:17.200 nascent movement, the religious right, and these various pastors, together 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:19.840 with WIREX, said you know, we have the makings here 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.439 of a larger political movement. What other issues can we 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.760 talk about? And according to Wirek, there were several suggestions, 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:28.320 and finding the voice on the end of one of 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:41.800 the lines said how about abortion. I think Wyreck's great brilliance, 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:46.439 and he was a brilliant political activist, was to recognize 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:52.960 that even though he had mobilized these evangelical leaders in 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:57.200 defense of racial segregation at their institutions, Wyreck still realized 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.920 he needed an issue other than a defense of segregation 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:05.200 in order to mobilize grassroots evangelical voters. 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.120 That conference call between Wyrek and the various leaders and 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:15.800 pastors was the birth of the moral majority, a movement 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.720 from the Christian right to galvanize everyday evangelical voters by 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:23.640 using moral issues functioning on an emotional level to motivate 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:27.000 action at the polls. You can make the argument that 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:29.320 this was the beginning of the culture wars on a 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:30.080 mass scale. 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.600 It's a very famous scene. Just a couple months before 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.600 the nineteen eighty election. In that summer, there was a 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:39.480 gathering in Texas is called the National Affairs Briefing, and 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.800 it's all these kind of Christian evangelical leaders gathered in 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.880 Texas and they invite the presidential candidates to come, and 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.560 Ronald Reagan agrees to come. Ronald Reagan who gets picked 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.720 up at the airport by a Baptist preacher named James Robison. 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:58.880 And as they're driving to this convention, James Robinson says 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:02.240 to Reagan, you know, if you really want to get 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.000 this crowd on your side, here's the thing to say. 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:10.000 Tell them. I know you can't endorse me because they're 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.280 all leaders of nonprofits. Right, I know you can't endorse me, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.400 but I endorse you. And this becomes the line that 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:22.280 Ronald Reagan delivers in this speech at the National Affairs Briefing, 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.320 and it becomes this iconic moment of this congealing of 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:29.600 the religious right around Reagan. And I mean, the great 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:34.200 irony is that Jimmy Carter was a very good evangelical, 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:36.600 He was a very good Baptist. He was steeped in 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:43.760 this stuff. And Reagan is this divorced, mainline Protestant actor, right, 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:48.560 who in any ways is the antithesis of the values 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:54.080 or the ideals that these Christian nationalist evangelicals of the 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:56.920 late nineteen seventies. But he fits the bill in terms 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:58.800 of his agenda and his willingness to work with them. 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.960 And so what they're doing in this rise of the 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:06.000 moral majority, the rise of the religious right, the Christian Coalition, 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:11.240 is they are trying to channel the energy and demographic 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:17.760 power of American Christianity into political causes. There really is 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.040 this sense of we can just get the Christians all voting, 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:21.760 we can change this country. 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.680 As Neil Young aptly observes, this began to take root 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:32.640 fundamentally changing the way evangelicals understood their role in American politics. 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:35.680 One of the really fascinating things that I've watched over 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:39.560 the last couple of election cycles is to see prominent 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:45.000 evangelical figures who have argued that one of the things 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.880 Christians will have to account for when they stand before 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.400 the judgment, throne of God, and the afterlife is how 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.400 they voted in an American election. Now, that is an 0:16:54.440 --> 0:17:00.880 amazing historical and theological development. Politics was dirty, it was secular, 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.520 it was worldly, and so yes, you know, you should 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.000 be a voter, you should be up on the issues 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:10.120 and cast your vote. But to be caught up in politics, 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.199 to be devoted to it, to make too much of it, 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.440 was to too much engage in secular or worldly pursuits. 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.760 Historian Randall Ballmer also takes a note of this change. 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.160 I think what happens after the Reagan era is that 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:30.760 number one, the religious right becomes even more effective tactically 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:35.000 in trying to advance its agenda. I mean to all 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.840 the wrong ends in my judgment, but nonetheless very effective 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:43.320 talk in terms of war and consistently use military metaphors 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.160 to talk about what is going on, and that sort 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.080 of rhetoric is picked up by leaders of the religious right. 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:55.080 Let's remember, these folks had huge, huge media empires who 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:59.080 are out broadcasting their message quite literally to the masses. 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:05.679 And as this militant rhetoric starts to take hold, people 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.680 begin to believe that they're in some sort of apocalyptic 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:14.800 struggle against the forces of evil. The other thing, they're 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:16.879 very good at them. Speaking of the leaders of the 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:22.520 religious right, they're very, very fluent in the language of victimization. 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:29.440 We are the victims here. And I believe, by the way, 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.760 that one of the reasons that the anti abortion movement 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:39.439 is so successful among evangelicals is that they identify with 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:44.080 the victimhood or the victimization of the fetus. I remember 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:47.920 very clearly, on the eve of the Iowa precinct caucuses 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.119 in nineteen eighty eight, I was in Iowa talking to 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:56.159 these religious right activists and the woman her name was 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.080 Maxine Sealman. She was head of the Iowa chapter of 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.679 Concerned Women for America. Maxine looked at me and pointed 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.639 her finger and said, let's remember, the most dangerous place 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:11.240 to be these days is inside a mother's womb. And 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.119 I think there's a sense in which evangelical has identified 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.240 with the sort of helplessness of the fetus. There was 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:23.159 some sort of visceral connection that I think helped to 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:27.040 fuel the passion that they brought to the anti motion movement, 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:34.280 and that they subsequently transferred to other social issues, the 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:36.679 anti gay movement and so forth, and now the anti 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:41.160 trans movement. The rhetoric of victimization I think is very 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:45.040 very powerful, and the leaders of the movement used it 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:49.840 quite successfully to mobilize these evangelical activists. 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:56.280 In this rhetoric, this mindset was also very much in 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.800 sync with the militant organizing that was taking place further 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:00.480 time to the right. 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:07.120 When I think about the organizing of modern far right extremism, 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:09.480 I look to the nineteen seventies. 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:14.080 Nicole Himmer is an associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University, 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.399 where she specializes in the history of conservative media in 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.080 the US in the role of right wing media in 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:21.959 American electoral politics. 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:24.760 So you start to see in the nineteen seventies that 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:31.000 there is this energy around anti government, anti Semitic, anti 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:35.080 black organizing that will then lead in the nineteen eighties 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.000 to an organization known as the Order, and then There's 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.000 another phase that emerges in the nineteen nineties. The first 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:43.640 of these is the siege on Ruby Ridge. 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:44.800 In Maples, Idaho. 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.600 Federal marshals are surrounding a cabin where a fugitive white 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.720 supremacist named Randy Weaver is hold up with his family. 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:56.680 Federal marshals stand off against white identitarians who are out 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:58.760 in this cabin in the middle of the woods, living 0:20:58.760 --> 0:20:59.480 off of the grid. 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.600 Most of us don't pay taxes, most of us don't 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:03.360 have jobs. 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:04.720 We live off the land. 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:06.080 We don't need the system. 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:07.400 We can live without it. 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:11.480 And the wife is killed and the son is killed, 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.439 and there is this sense that they are martyrs for 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.480 the cause of the far right and the militia movement. 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.399 They consider it a threat when anyone lives outside the norm. 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:24.240 And I think the systems. 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:25.919 Got to where it serves the power of structure instead 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:26.439 of the people. 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.280 Just a year later, in Waco, Texas, there is another 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:35.600 federal siege, this time on a religious compound. 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:38.520 The fierce gun battle has led to a standoff between 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:41.760 law officers and occult members of a religious compound outside 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.159 of Waco. This evening, the cult is something called the 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:45.320 Branch Davidians. 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:46.520 They're an offshoot of the. 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:49.679 This compound, led by David Koresh, was a religious sect 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:52.800 that had gathered more than one hundred people who were 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:57.399 shockingly well armed and who were sort of holed up 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:01.000 in this compound. There were allegations of child abuse, but 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:03.719 what the federal government was really paying attention was this 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:08.760 armstock piling. And the federal government forces a confrontation in Waco, 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:12.680 and it ultimately leads not only to a lengthy siege, 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.840 but the death of nearly one hundred people, most of 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:16.760 whom were children. 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:20.119 The cult compound there about one hour ago went up 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:22.480 in flames and burned to the ground, one hundred twelve 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:23.280 people inside. 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:31.440 Remember when Eric Rudolph sent letters to various media outlets 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:34.560 following the bombing at the Other Side Lounge, he signed 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:39.640 it off with four nineteen ninety three, the final day 0:22:39.680 --> 0:22:43.720 of the siege at Waco. Two years later, four nineteen 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:46.399 was also the date that Timothy McVeigh would bomb a 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:50.040 federal government building in Oklahoma City, killing one hundred and 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:52.960 sixty eight people and injuring six hundred eighty. 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:57.000 And So Ruby Ridge and Waco are core parts of 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:00.480 Patriot lore that develop in nineteen ninety two, in nineteen 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:03.640 eighty three. They would remain touchstones for all of these 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:06.879 movements through today. And all of this came together to 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:10.080 help fuel a movement that was based around guns and 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:14.320 anti government violence. It stood for, the government is coming 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:16.480 to where you are, and it has the power to 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:19.000 take you out. They're going to come for you. They're 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:21.720 going to kill you on any possible pretense. 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:26.040 Eric Rudolph even wrote about some of this from prison. 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:31.199 Here's an excerpt. The mainstream media tried to bury the story, 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:35.720 but words spread in spite of the blackout on shortwave radio, 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:39.919 in small newsletters, in sermons at church, people learned of 0:23:39.920 --> 0:23:44.520 the Ruby Ridge massacre. Like the Weavers, my family had 0:23:44.600 --> 0:23:47.399 left the big city to live in the mountains. For 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:49.439 those of us who had grown up in that lifestyle, 0:23:49.880 --> 0:23:52.880 the Ruby Ridge massacre came as a clarion call. 0:23:54.119 --> 0:23:57.960 Even someone like Barry Goldwater, you know, this staunch conservative, 0:23:58.600 --> 0:24:01.560 he could see where all of that was headed. In 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:05.280 nineteen ninety four, he said, and I'm quoting here, mark 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:08.439 my word. If and when these preachers get control of 0:24:08.440 --> 0:24:11.440 the Republican Party, and they're sure trying to do so, 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:15.880 it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:20.880 people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise, but these 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:24.360 Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, 0:24:24.880 --> 0:24:28.880 so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried 0:24:28.880 --> 0:24:31.120 to deal with them. 0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:34.480 If you're not for us, you're against us is a 0:24:34.520 --> 0:24:39.040 crafty rhetorical device. If you're an anti communist, then anyone 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:41.840 who disagrees with you or does something you don't approve 0:24:41.840 --> 0:24:45.639 of is a communist. And if Satan is your enemy, 0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:51.560 then anyone who disagrees with you is therefore satanic. This 0:24:51.720 --> 0:24:55.720 logic allows any evangelical Christian to say that anything non 0:24:55.800 --> 0:24:58.800 Christian is satanic or of the devil. 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:03.080 Another thing that Goldwater said this was back in nineteen 0:25:03.160 --> 0:25:07.159 eighty one, was, and I'm quoting again, there is no 0:25:07.320 --> 0:25:11.440 position on which people are so immovable as the religious beliefs. 0:25:11.960 --> 0:25:14.639 There is no more powerful ally one can claim in 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:18.840 a debate than Jesus Christ, or God or Allah or 0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:23.439 whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, 0:25:24.040 --> 0:25:27.240 the use of God's name on one's behalf should be 0:25:27.359 --> 0:25:31.480 used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our 0:25:31.560 --> 0:25:35.800 land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They 0:25:35.800 --> 0:25:39.440 are trying to force government leaders into following their position 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:43.679 one hundred percent. If you disagree with these religious groups 0:25:43.720 --> 0:25:47.199 on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you 0:25:47.240 --> 0:25:49.720 with a loss of money or votes or both. 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:54.199 This makes the world a very black and white place. 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:59.639 It's this world versus the spiritual world. It's this life 0:26:00.240 --> 0:26:04.600 versus the afterlife. It's a zero of some game. If 0:26:04.600 --> 0:26:10.199 you're not for us, you're against us. Every conflict becomes 0:26:10.240 --> 0:26:15.199 an existential threat that to some justifies a violent end. 0:26:15.480 --> 0:26:19.080 No one, whether they're a terrorist or you know, a preacher, 0:26:19.440 --> 0:26:22.320