OA568: How Christian Nationalism Fueled the Insurrection

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:01:17 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 568. I'm Thomas. That's Andrew Torrez. How you doing, Andrew?

0:01:26 Andrew: I like that little bit of foreshadowing. I am doing fantastic. I am excited as always for our celebrity guest today. How are you doing?

0:01:28 Thomas: Good. It's always such a weird feeling. I think this happens every time Andrew comes on. We're like, God, we're so excited to talk to Andrew Seidel about the end of the world or something, you know, like about the end of religious freedom in the country. It is always a negative topic, but I love Andrew Seidel so much that I'm happy sad. I'm like, oh, happy dread or whatever, you now.

0:01:43 Andrew: Right, right, right.

0:01:52 Thomas: Happy dread is the feeling. But

0:01:54 Andrew: Happy dread. I think I'm on board with that.

0:01:56 Thomas: This time we're covering, uh, real quickly some awful court nonsense that's ruining the state of law in our country. And then Andrew is coming on to cover this really amazing, well done, in-depth report on Christian nationalism and the one-sixth insurrection. I can't wait to, uh, to hear it from Andrew himself. So more on that in a little while, but little, uh, little news ahead of that.

0:02:22 Andrew: Yeah, lots of things going on. We covered this in some depth on Clean Up on Aisle 45. But breaking news that on Monday, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision. And the hard right lost Roberts, but won anyway.

0:02:39 Thomas: Roberts. Not A Centrist, you know, and that was my feeling as well. What I want to ask you, and of course great segment on Aisle 45 yesterday, uh, I just want to make sure, know, you, because this is such key Opening Arguments news. I mean, this to me, here's what was my thought. I want to run it by you and tell me if this is right. This felt like another version of the shadow docket decision on abortion rights, where the court said, well, the law is, the law's clear on this case, clear as could be. But the howler monkeys on the court said, we're going to, you know, maybe that law isn't permanent. So, even though again, remind everybody, this is the shadow doc, this isn't on the merits, this is a stay, right? You'll tell me the proper terminology. So isn't this the same, where this is the court saying, we're probably going to change the law, so we're, we're, we're helping the other side out ahead of time, even though we haven't yet changed the law, so the lower court decision is correct, right? Well?

0:02:41 Andrew: And Yeah. Nope.

0:03:31 Andrew: That is exactly right, and worse in this case, right, even less justifiable. Uh, and the indicator on that, right, we're talking about the fact that they lost Roberts. Remember that this is a Voting Rights Act case, right, this is about Alabama's gerrymandered districts. I'm going to talk about the merits for, for a few minutes, but remember, John Roberts wrote the Rucho versus Common Cause decision, right, that was the Supreme Supreme Court decision that came out two and a half years ago that says there's no such thing as partisan gerrymandering.

0:04:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:05 Andrew: That that Right. That's literally what it says. That is not a justiciable claim. And if you don't like the fact that your democracy has been stolen from you, your remedy for it is to vote somebody else into office. Again, I am not mischaracterizing that decision in any way whatsoever. So this is John Roberts, somebody who is not a fan of reviewing gerrymandered districts, saying, um, I, get it, but, uh, what you've done here is beyond the pale, again, ready?

0:04:05 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:04:36 Andrew: To join with the conservatives on the merits, but they have, so skipped ahead on the process that John Roberts can't get on board. So let's explain what happened, and, and what's going on. This has to do with redistricting in Alabama. Alabama is 27% African-American. It has seven congressional districts. And so if you're doing in the math, one seventh is 14, two sevenths is 28, right? And so African-American activists, voters, politicians have been saying, um, the current system gerrymanders all of us into one district, right? So we're all packed into one congressional district, and then our vote is diluted across the, the other six, so that, and, and those districts are crazy, right, they range, they range from R plus 32 to R plus 65, right, you might as well, if you're in the rest of the Alabama congressional districts, you might just want to stay home.

And that, that, that is what the Voting Rights Act is meant to protect against, right, sending a signal to members of a particular race that, like, hey, if If you're black in Alabama, there's no point in voting, because even if you all come out, even if you all vote as a block, like, you know, we've arranged this such that you can't possibly win anyway. So Alabama is one of the states affected by redistricting in the 2020 census. So the new map, know, what's the who, like, but, you know, meet the new map, same as the old map, right?

0:06:12 Andrew: Right. And it packs African-Americans into a single district, cracks the rest across the other six. And under the Voting Rights Act, three judge panel determined applying the the the Hornbook law. Right. A case that has been good law for 35 years. Stop me if you've heard this before. That three judge panel says, oh, it is beyond obvious that this is racially discriminatory. And we're going to strike this down and we order the Alabama state legislature to draw a new map. That's totally the way these cases work and have worked since 1964, since the Voting Rights Act was passed. Yeah.

0:06:31 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:06:45 Thomas: Well. And Quick Quick Question. Even the shenanigans that Roberts pulled with the voting, that the court did with the Voting Rights Act in Rucho, that still allowed for racial gerrymandering to not be okay, right? I mean, it still was like, okay, gerrymandering, be on the pale still, but any other kind, fine, right,

0:07:00 Andrew: Yes. Yeah. Political gerrymandering. Fine. So so you are correct to seize on that because think about how easy it is to discriminate against African-Americans in Alabama under the current Rucho approved rules.

0:07:19 Thomas: Yeah, you just have to say, oh, it's not, you know, come up with some fake, yeah.

0:07:22 Andrew: We want to keep out the Democrats. Yeah, that's All you have to say, right, just, just send out a little email that's like, uh, okay fellow racists, anytime you want to use the N-word, how about you say democrat instead? Try practicing at home in front of the mirror, that right literally is all you need to do to pass Supreme Court muster that did not happen.

0:07:26 Thomas: Yeah,

0:07:43 Andrew: In Alabama. They they could. Could not do that. OK. And and again, want I to point out the panel is the court is the trial court. They hear the evidence. They heard from 17 witnesses. They got a thousand pages of briefing. They saw tens of thousands of pages of exhibits. It was a week's worth of testimony. Right. They reviewed the facts and said, yeah, no, it's obvious that the Alabama state legislature is discriminating against African-Americans on the basis of race.

0:07:43 Thomas: They couldn't even do that, wow.

0:08:15 Thomas: Was this a Biden-nominated socialist court that did this review? You right,

0:08:18 Andrew: No, this was this is a this is the three judge panel in D.D.C., District of Columbia? Is that more liberal than the District of Alabama? Yeah, it is. But Right. Again, it has been packed with a whole bunch of Trump nominees. Right. Like and was never, you particularly, you Know, it's not the Ninth Circuit, I guess, is what I would say. So decision then said, OK, so draw a new map, Alabama state legislature. And and I want to point out the primary in Alabama is seven weeks away. Seven weeks is plenty of time to draw a new map. Lots of courts, state and federal decisions have ordered a legislature to redraw maps in that time frame. North Carolina, we're going to talk about that next week, is right, under the same kind of time crunch. This is not a hard ask. This would have been a hard task in 1955. Right.

0:08:40 Thomas: Right, Yeah,

0:09:14 Andrew: But like, again, not a heartache today. Today. So the court issued an injunction against using the existing map for the 2022 election. All seems sensible, Not right? If you are a Republican activist and you are doing the math. And again, there is no, I just want to emphasize, there was no reason to do what the Supreme Court did, except that, you know, politically you were watching, you were staying up to follow the midterms. And you know that every House seat matters. And this is a a two-vote shift? Taking Alabama from six Republicans and one Democrat, that's plus five, to five Republicans and two Democrats, that is plus three, That is the only reason for the Supreme Court to do what they did, which was the, they did two things.

They vacated the lower court's injunction. They said, yeah, why don't you just stick with the racist thing while you're working it out? Because, you know, seven weeks is way too much time to have to redraw a map. And by the way, we are also going to grant certiorari before judgment. We're going to bypass the lower courts adjudicating this case, take it all the way up to the Supreme Court and let you brief and argue the case before the Supreme Court, which, by the way, couldn't possibly happen in seven weeks, right? Like that is going to take all the way into the next term. So it is incredibly pernicious, because if you were going to do that, you would defer to the lower court's fact-finding when

0:09:15 Thomas: Yeah, Wow. Yeah, Unbelievable.

0:10:43 Andrew: You did, right? Like the that's that, that's the burden. It is, it is crazy.

0:10:46 Thomas: I mean, it's just, it's unbelievable. I, I, Briar would be rolling around his grave if he were still around to see that. Oh, wait, he's still on the court. What did he say? Yeah, does he, does he, is he starting to maybe regret his book tour about how legitimate this court is? This is a naked electoral politics grab by the Supreme Court, something that's not supposed to do that at all. Me,

0:10:48 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

0:11:06 Andrew: And and I want to point out, I have called this 5-4. The the three sane justices on the Supreme Court, what is called the court's liberal wing, uh, penned a separate dissent. Right, written by Justice Kagan. Again, I want us to time travel to an alternate universe in which Hillary Clinton won in 2016. Elena

0:11:29 Thomas: Too. Can we can we do that? How

0:11:29 Andrew: Yeah, Yeah, you didn't stay there, right? Like, do that, yeah, yeah.

0:11:33 Thomas: Many tickets do you have? I have a child. Bring me that's it, yeah.

0:11:36 Andrew: Yeah. In that alternate universe, right, we're doing a show about how conservative Justice Kagan is. OK. Again, it's hard to imagine that now. But but seriously, right. By comparison to the rest of the court's liberal wing, Elena Kagan is the most conservative member of that liberal wing. It just doesn't matter anymore. More.

0:11:58 Thomas: Hasn't she gone the wrong way on some of the religious questions that we've talked about? Yeah, she's

0:11:59 Andrew: Yep. Yep. Yep. And so you, as you are evaluating that, this is now, this has pushed the like center-left, uh, justice, uh, such that we can't really even see the distinctions anymore, into, uh, describing nakedly what, what the Supreme Court is doing. John Roberts did not join that dissent. John Roberts penned a separate dissent to say we should not be deciding this on the shadow docket. He says we should still grant certiorari before judgment. We should still take up this case on the merits without letting it's letting it wind its way through the courts, and we should consider broader challenges, he says, this in his dissent to that long-standing rule that I alluded to, the 1986, again, not exactly the heyday of Supreme Court liberalism, right?

0:12:51 Andrew: Ronald Reagan's America, 1986 Rehnquist Court decision called Thornburg versus Jingles. Robert says, yeah, I'm on board with revisiting Jingles, yeah.

0:13:01 Thomas: Way too delightful a name for this topic. I'm just saying, we can't, we don't overturn Jingles.

0:13:06 Andrew: Well, it's spelled, it starts with a G, so I suppose you could call it Gingles if you wanted, but I'm pretty sure it's pronounced Jingles. Jingles case, Robert, right, says, hey, hey, you want to take this case up on bypass certiorari and overrule Jingles? Cool, I'm here for that all day long, but let's not do that and also overturn the injunction. That is literally all his dissent says. So, yeah, I mean, this is just the only reason. Again, I'm not sure I made this as crystal clear as I would have liked on Aisle 45. The only reason procedurally to behave in this fashion is because what you want to do is allow Alabama to use the map that has been determined by an independent three judge panel after a week's worth of testimony to be racist. You want them to be able to use the racist map in the 2022 elections.

0:13:07 Thomas: God.

0:13:59 Andrew: It is it is mind boggling. People should be more outraged than they are about this because it is outrageous.

0:13:59 Thomas: It's Incredible. Incredible. Yeah, I'm doing my best, Andrew. I'm trying

0:14:07 Andrew: I know.

0:14:07 Thomas: To pull everybody along with the outrage. I can only do so much.

0:14:09 Andrew: I I know you are. I

0:14:10 Thomas: I're one man.

0:14:11 Andrew: Know you are, my friend. I

0:14:12 Thomas: That's why I wanted to talk about it on this show, especially. I mean, it's just incredible. It's an illegitimate court. And I wish, you know, it'S going to happen, but I do wish the liberals on the court would just start saying that. Like this is actually, we become, with this decision in our dissent, we say this is not legitimate. Like it's just, this is fake, but sorry, everybody. We don't have a court anymore.

0:14:33 Andrew: Say if you read Kagan's dissent, if you read some of the Sotomayor dissents in some of these shadow docket cases involving quote, religious liberty to sneeze on people, you will see the beginnings of that. And look, that's a tough ask for any Supreme Court justice. It's a tough ask when you want at least three votes for that. Right. And you you you have to say this and also not have, you know, justice. Can't we all just get along? Stephen Breyer sign on. He has signed on to those as well. So, you Know, we're starting to have Supreme Court justices that are calling this out. But, yeah, we need to continue that practice. We need to get away listeners as Supreme Court clerks out there.

0:14:58 Thomas: Right. Oh man.

0:15:18 Andrew: And I know we do. Right. And begin encouraging right in your memos, cite to the New York Rifle and Pistol Association, the Whitehouse brief. That's Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. Start describing in stark terms so that the press has no choice but to pick up and say in a blistering dissent, Justice Sotomayor. Right. Or in a glistering descent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Right? We got to do it.

0:15:48 Thomas: Yep. And a happier note. As you were saying that I was thinking about like eventually maybe we can have an OA listener, like Hall of Fame, you know, like a hall of fame or something or a college where you're like alumni of the show. If you start listening to the show and you become a lawyer during the show or something and you go become a judge somewhere, let us know. Tell us and we'll get a little, get some portraits going or something. You know, that'd be fun.

0:15:55 Andrew: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I would love to do that. That would be amazing.

0:16:11 Thomas: While on happier news, let's talk to Andrew Seidel about Christian nationalism taking over the country.

0:16:17 Andrew: On happier news, let's talk to Andrew Seidel. I can get behind that sentence.

0:16:22 Clip: YOU BETRAYED THE LAW!

0:16:20 Thomas: True. Yeah. And we're joined by Andrew Seidel. Welcome back. You've got the golden jacket of however many times being the guest on this show, probably 10. Great to have you today.

0:16:33 Seidel: Oh, it's always a pleasure, gentlemen. Thank you so much for having me on.

0:16:37 Andrew: So, Andrew, let us cut to the chase. The reason we are having you on is the joint report that was released to the press yesterday. I sat in on the press conference, um, to flag for our listeners, this is a joint report from your organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and I have a bunch of questions about that, um, mean, as you know, right, Thomas and I are atheists, we have a large contingent of religious listeners in the audience, um, not not a lot of Christian nationalists in our uh, listenership.

0:17:10 Thomas: I hope not.

0:17:11 Andrew: Um, but this report is entitled Christian Nationalism and the uh, January 6th, 2021 Insurrection. First, I want to to discuss, and I want to ask you about the partnership uh, with uh, with BJC, how that, how that came about, and how that sort of underscores, right, how broad, how significant, how pervasive, you know, how everybody, everybody really needs to understand it and be mobilized by this report.

0:17:36 Seidel: Yes, well, I mean, it first of all, it was a fruitful partnership. I worked with Amanda Tyler, who runs the Baptist Joint Committee, and a couple of their editing staff over there, Sherilyn Crow Guy, in particular, and they were just amazing. They were fantastic to to work with. We Uh, really spent, the um, better part of a year putting this report together. Uh. And it was one of the more fruitful partnerships and alliances that I've formed in my professional life. It was, it really grew out of a presentation, uh, in which both Amanda Tyler and myself were part of for the Congressional Freethought Caucus, uh. About Christian nationalism. And this was back in March, right after the insurrection happened. And I had been writing the new epilogue for the founding myth, which focused on the insurrection. And I think my publisher gave me like 4,000 words for that epilogue.

0:18:34 Andrew: So a lightning round, that's as far as I'm concerned.

0:18:36 Seidel: Yeah. And you, I mean, I love that you laughed at that because you know exactly what's coming. I mean, I, I wrote 40,000 without trying, uh, there's, and that's not because I am the most long Right. It is at least twice. And it's not cause I'm long winded, though. I could be, it's because there's so much content there. There's just, there was so much Christian nationalism on January 6th. And it was so very clearly the uniting and motivating factor for these attackers, speakers, that I didn't want to leave all of that on the cutting room floor. And after writing the epilogue and doing this event with Amanda, I kind of approached her and said, "Look, I think we can do this and we could do it together in a way that really has an impact. Let's talk about it." And so we started talking and we kind of put together a dream team of experts who could talk about this in a ways that can't be ignored from a scholarly perspective, from a journalistic perspective.

0:18:44 Thomas: Jeez. That's at least twice as many.

0:19:36 Seidel: And also to compile all of that evidence from that day of, and then have the experts put it into that context with their contributions. And that is the report that we ended up with and launched yesterday.

0:19:46 Thomas: Well, we know a lot about the FFRF. Obviously, we're big fans and your contributions over the years. I don't know much about this other organization. Just for the listeners, can you tell us a little bit about it? Right

0:19:55 Seidel: Yeah. Yeah, so it's the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and they also have an offshoot group called Christians Against Christian Nationalism, which is, the title kind of says it all. But historically in this country, and we don't, for our generation, this is not the case, but historically it is many of the minority Christian sects that have been the most vocal and strongest supporters of the separation of state and church. And Baptists in particular have a history that goes back to the founding of really being staunch supporters of that wall of separation. And so the Baptist joint committee grows out of that really long tradition.

0:20:18 Thomas: Yeah

0:20:34 Andrew: I'm really glad you mentioned that because as lawyers, we recognize over the course of history that the strongest advocates in terms of mobilizing individuals for church-state separation have typically been Protestant groups, right? Right. And that was a almost unanimity up until the late 1960s, early 1970s. And sort of the the co-optation of those groups by what we now describe as the Religious Right, you know, having its origins in Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and the like.

But if you look at 1950s and 1960s cases, typically what you will see are groups in states with a large Catholic population concerned that if you do not have vigorous separation of church and state, that essentially, you know, the state government would be, to borrow their phrase, right, taking orders from Rome. It is, people our age, it is almost impossible to remember. And certainly, if you're younger than that, It would not occur to you that, once, you this coalition of Christian nationalists has vanquished us as atheists, they will set their their sights on each other, right? Like it will be the French revolution, right. Far Like there right Southern Baptist will not ally with the papists any longer once we're out of the picture. So I, you don't have to be a believer in freedom from religion as we are to believe in, in church state separation.

0:22:04 Seidel: No, and I mean, historically, we see that all over the place. You know, John Calvin often wrote in favor of toleration when he was powerless. And then when he and his fellow followers, when they got power, you know, they burned severed us at the stake. You also see too, I do want to single out too, because Catholics also back in the day were some of the strong supporters of separation of state and church in pockets." Yeah, exactly.

0:22:13 Andrew: Right yep

0:22:14 Thomas: Yeah like wait a minute yeah yeah

0:22:26 Andrew: In in areas where they were the minority it's it's funny it's funny how that that principle seems to work yeah

0:22:31 Thomas: It's funny how that works yeah

0:22:35 Seidel: There's a really famous case here in Wisconsin, the Weiss case that's from the 1890s, where a group of Catholics challenged Protestant Bible reading in schools and a number of other things. And the Supreme Court here used the no aid provision to strike all of that down in the 1890. So Bible reading wasn't taken out of the schools in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, depending on which Christian nationalist you're listening to was much earlier in many places. And the crazy thing now is that this Supreme Court has declared those types of provisions to be anti-Catholic, but I won't get on that hobby horse right at the moment.

0:22:35 Andrew: Mm-hmm I we we have, we have been litigating that between you and I, you know, uh, you know all

0:23:17 Thomas: One catastrophe at a time over here Andrew Seidel let's let's focus on the catastrophe at hand he

0:23:18 Seidel: Okay. Fair enough, Thomas. Fair Fair enough.

0:23:19 Andrew: Right all Right, apex of the pyramid, right, this is between floors on the elevator pitch. What is the effect of Christian nationalism? What is the role of Christians nationalism, uh, during the one six insurrection? What, what your findings show

0:23:36 Seidel: Was the unifying, motivating ideology among the January 6th insurrectionists. So this is an ideology that's based on the fallacious claim that we are founded as a Christian nation. And that belief created the permission structure that justified the assault in the minds of the attackers. This is why they believed they they could do what they did.

0:23:57 Andrew: So let let me push back on that the q anon shaman right with his little goatskin pants, and his right was motivated by Christian nationalism.

0:24:01 Seidel: Sure. Yes.

0:24:06 Thomas: Dresses up nice on Sunday in church though he you know well

0:24:08 Andrew: Yeah. Yeah,

0:24:10 Seidel: So yes, absolutely. And if you go back and look at the prayer that was given in the Senate that was delivered by the QAnon shaman, we've got photos of him protesting a couple of days after election day with signs talking about God and patriotism, pure Christian nationalism and QAnons. And this is, it's such such an important point, Andrew, because there, of course, were other drivers and motivators of the attack that day. There's no doubt about that. But we have data showing that Christian nationalism is what tied it all together. So in one section of the report, we have two sociologists, two of the leading, really, experts in the country on Christian nationalism, Drs. Andrew Whitehead and Sam Perry, they wrote a book called Taking America Back for God, and they were kind of the first ones to really describe this modern strain of Christian nationalism.

0:25:02 Seidel: And they explore the intimate relationship between Christian nationalism and white supremacy and QAnon sympathizers and xenophobia and the opposition to LGBTQ rights and common sense gun regulation and vaccines and public health measures, all of those other things that you saw there on display. And they also had new data in this study showing that the more white Americans affirm the tenets of Christian nationalism, the more likely they were to deny Trump's culpability in the riots and to affirm debunked conspiracy theories about BLM or Antifa being the ones who were really involved in the the riots.

0:25:43 Andrew: And, and you assemble that data, I, and and it is the, I, correlation is linear, I mean it is, these are 45 degree angle graphs.

0:25:50 Thomas: Actually, Let me take a chance to ask the question I was going to ask about that too, um, whenever you're looking at things like that. There is always the issue of correlation and causation. In ways did these sociologists try to tease that out? You, and, know, on one hand, I could imagine someone arguing, well, this could merely be correlation. It could be just that the types of people who showed up here are also going to be the types of people who have these Christian nationalist views. How do you tease that apart and

0:25:51 Andrew: Yeah.

0:26:15 Seidel: Good question. And I'm not a sociologist, so I'm obviously a little reluctant to wade in, but I do know they are able to control for those various factors. And they do identify Christian nationalism.

0:26:24 Thomas: Hmm do some regression analysis gotcha

0:26:28 Seidel: Yeah. I mean, and they identify it as really one of the motivating factors. And this is obviously what I'm about to say is anecdotal, but I think it's really important is, you I spoke to Luke Mogelson, who is, he is a war correspondent. I mean, this is a guy who's typically reporting from Afghanistan and Iraq and places like that. He is the guy who shot the viral New Yorker video footage that we saw from inside the Capitol That day, right?

0:26:32 Thomas: Uh

0:26:54 Seidel: So he's the one who captured that prayer on the Senate dais, who captured the QAnon shaman writing that threatening note to Mike Pence, you Know, all of that stuff, that 12 minutes of video that they compiled, I was chatting with him because I wanted to see all the stuff that got left on the cutting room floor. And he was kind enough to share a lot of that with me.

But as we got more deeper into this project and we were chatting, he was saying, you know, the more you and I talk, the more I realize you were right. And this is the quote that I include in the report. He said that the Christianity was one of the surprises to me in covering this stuff. And it has been hugely underestimated. That Christian nationalism you you talk about is the driving force and also the unifying force of these disparate players.

It's really the Christianity that ties it all together. And so that, I mean, that's the guy who's literally on the floor, boots on the ground with these people watching them do this, who was shocked to see it and realized how important it was that day.

0:26:52 Andrew: Oh. Yeah Can you sort of drill down a bit more into Christianity, uh, and and specifically white Christian nationalism? We should be 100 percent clear about that, we're trying to bring that out as an organizing principle behind QAnon, because I think, right, if you are like me and you have no tolerance for listening to crazy people try and explain craziness. Right. What I know about QAnon is, you know, this vast conspiracy of, you know, they're they're trying to, you overthrow the pedophiles that operate in the basement of a pizza parlor that doesn't have a basement. There, right, doesn't immediately seem other than they support politically people on the right and and a party and individuals who have embraced Christian nationalist principles, there doesn't seem to be anything inherent in the mainstream view of QAnon that I would describe as Christian nationalist. So what are those sort of underlying links that they're using to communicate amongst each other that, you know, maybe people like me who have sort of digested it from the outside aren't aware of?

0:28:59 Seidel: Yeah. I mean there, there are actually quite a few and there's, there're more and more studies being released showing the links between QAnon and white Christian nationalism and between QAnon and white evangelicalism. And the more we study it, the more those links become clear. And in your question, you do make a distinction that I think is really important that we should make here, which is, and there's actually two that are worth making. One is that we are really talking about white Christian nationalism here. And so we have Dr. Jamar Tisby contributed a section to this report where he really talks about um, kind of the difference between that and, and essentially this is a little bit of an oversimplification, you know, what the idea of a Christian nation might look like to a black American Christian, how different those ideals are. Uh, and the data that Whitehead and Perry bring to the report backs that up too.

It's not, it's not the same thing if you ask a black Christian American versus if you Ask a white Christian American, you Know, uh, do you you think it means to be a Christian nation? You'll get very different answers. And another thing that's really, really interesting and important to note too, and this kind of gets at your question also, Andrew, is that Christianity and Christian nationalism, they're intimately tied together, but they're also not the exact same thing. Is a distinction there. And it's very hard to know where that line is.

0:29:33 Andrew: Hmm. Mm

0:30:21 Seidel: And in part, because this also goes back to what we were were talking about earlier, because we are at this really interesting and dangerous moment in American history where American Christianity is essentially reorganizing itself along political lines. So the between the sects, between Catholicism and Protestantism are tumbling down. And instead, you're seeing barriers in American Christianity that are going up based on politics.

0:30:22 Andrew: Hmm, well we we alluded to that in in the introduction to me that the clinching proof of that came in 2012 right when the Billy Graham organization the day after Mitt Romney clinched the Republican nomination deleted all of its references to Mormonism being a heresy and a cult from its website right and this has been you know one of their I did Billy Graham right like this has has been one of their organizing principles since the very beginning was, you know, these are, these are not real Christians. Well, all of a sudden, you, that doctrinal difference seemed very, very unimportant as opposed to getting their team, uh, elected. It, no.

0:31:11 Thomas: Yeah

0:31:16 Seidel: Politics.

0:31:34 Seidel: Yeah. And I mean, there's some really fascinating work being done on this. And from an intellectual standpoint, it really is interesting because you're getting to this sort of toxic feedback cycle of politics driving religion and religion driving politics. And Michelle Margolis had a book out recently on this, and then Phil Gorski and Sam Perry also have a book coming out. But you can actually see it happening as well. I think one of the best examples of what we've seen lately is with anti-masking and anti-vaxxing, right? There is no theological hook to hang your anti-vaccine or anti- masking opinion on, right. There's nothing good in the, yeah, right, there's no, they didn't, all of these anti-vaxxers that are claiming a religious freedom exemption didn't. There was not some suddenly new Dead Sea Scroll that we discovered that says, hey, you know don't inject yourself with diseases because that's that's a bad idea god doesn't want it you know that that doesn't exist yeah

0:32:13 Andrew: Scripture yeah it

0:32:17 Thomas: Yeah in the in the bible women had to leave town when they were menstruating like I well when

0:32:36 Seidel: Yes cooties were that was the that was the guiding scientific principle, yeah.

0:32:40 Andrew: Well And and and let's take that a step further, right? You would consider these right-wing Christian sects have mocked Jehovah's Witnesses for years for refusal to accept blood transfusions, right? And the same with, uh, you know, Christian Scientists, uh, and have, have said, you know, look, you're reading that whole, like, the life is in the blood kind of, uh, you know, too expansively, like, like, efforts to to draw those kinds of arguments, you know, to ground them in theological, scriptural arguments have been rejected by the crowd that is, is now making them. And when you hear, right, we have a biblical reason, like, that's, that's, there's a period at the end of that sentence, right? Like, it is not followed by and that reason is x um

0:33:02 Seidel: Yeah, but

0:33:26 Thomas: Their religion has become trumpism and just you know like that That's the religious exemption. You know, my religion is Trump and or not even Trump is advocating for vaccination. And they're like, no, it's weird. It's at what point does it become a separate thing from Christianity? You know? It doesn't even seem to be too closely tied to anything Christian that I know of.

0:33:28 Andrew: Yeah right yeah

0:33:44 Seidel: Exactly yeah I that's the really interesting and hard question and I in a way I kind of don't care about it because I'm fighting against it but in away it is it is just really important and it goes to what Andrew's talking about, right? I mean, masks and the vaccine were politicized first, and then they were religionized or however you would want it. Then they were made an issue of religious freedom, right. And that's just one example from now that we've seen. It does go the other way too. But the point being, there is this toxic feedback loop of religion driving politics and politics driving religion. And it's hard to know which started it. But Christian nationalism is really at the heart of that toxic whirlpool.

0:33:54 Thomas: Right, yeah.

0:33:54 Andrew: Yeah yeah

0:34:27 Thomas: I will say, though, there long has been at least some corner of religious people where it's sort of the naturalistic fallacy. In the same way that they oppose climate change mitigation on the grounds that, yeah, well, God would do that to us. That of thing, that denialism. There is a little bit of like, well, you know, God gave me this body, how it is, and it's, I'm sure it's fine, and COVID won't do anything to it there's I think there's a little Bit of that element that predates the the trumpist part of it right

0:34:37 Seidel: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, you can look at that. There's the resurrection Catholic school case, which is out of Michigan. It was in the Sixth Circuit for a while where the school was suing over mask mandates that were not in force. And they claimed that, you Know, they couldn't wear masks because they were made in the image of God. And they're a Catholic school. And the pope is on record saying wear masks so You know, it's

0:35:16 Andrew: What does he know right

0:35:16 Thomas: Oh my gosh. Is the pope Catholic? I don't know anymore, I, I

0:35:22 Andrew: I, when the left tried this in the 1960s, right, these are, are the, uh, protester, uh, cases, right, the conscientious objector cases, uh, from, from Vietnam, and and essentially, uh, left-leading pacifist did in the 1960s, uh, it, to, uh, not get sent to Vietnam to die, uh, was to try and, uh, subsume their philosophical beliefs under religious claims, right? And they claimed to be members of Eastern religions and minority religions, or this is part of where, like, Torcaso versus Watkins comes about, right, they claim that secular humanism was a religion, that sort of thing. And the Supreme Court pretty uniformly said, no, what you have here are philosophical beliefs that are distinct from constitutionally protected religious beliefs. And, and that's what those cases stand for today. Right. The proposition that do not, the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion does not extend to your philosophical beliefs.

0:35:33 Thomas: All

0:36:28 Andrew: It only extends to your religious beliefs and I'm just obviously, you know, cognitive dissonance.

0:36:34 Thomas: That's out the window now.

0:36:35 Andrew: Yeah, it's not a thing that the Supreme Court suffers from, but I'm sort of wondering in the abstract if, you know, there's anything fruitful to be mined from those cases or it's just, you know, we're we're so far gone in terms of where the the judiciary is right now that, you know, let's let's focus on smaller victories, which is what I want to imagine you're going to tell me. But still, I had to ask it

0:36:35 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:36:37 Seidel: Yeah no I mean, I mean, from an intellectual and a principal standpoint, you're of course absolutely right, and that was an avenue we were, uh, exploring with some vigor before the courts courts, before the courts were destroyed. Like, as you said, it could be in the throat clearing of that question. This is not a court that is bothered by, and I'd go further by intellectual dishonesty or, you know, anything.

0:37:07 Andrew: In 2016. Yeah.

0:37:20 Andrew: Yeah.

0:37:21 Thomas: See, see the A segment of our show. This show's brought to you by X chair. I love my work, but sometimes I dread sitting down at my desk, or at least I used to before I got my X chair, you know, that if you've heard me do these ads before now, thanks to my X share, I actually look forward to sitting in my office because my body feels so much more supported and comfortable for real. You peek behind the curtain. We record two episodes at once, all the ads, all The extras, They go way longer than you think because I because edit them down nicely. So I spent a lot of time sitting in this very chair, this exact chair that I'm telling you about right now. And I'm comfortable the whole time. Honestly, I never even have a problem because the X chair is that good. And more comfort means more productivity. Helping the X share pay for itself. Thanks to how much more work you're able to get done every day. And if I'm feeling tired or stressed, I just turn on my LMX massage feature and choose from four different massage options.

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0:41:12 Seidel: We have the contributions by Drs. Andrew Whitehead and Sam Perry, basically defining Christian nationalism. Then we have Dr. Jamar Tisby, who explores essentially a liberating alternative to white Christian nationalism using what he calls the patriotic witness of black Christians. And looking back at people like Frederick Douglass, and arguing that a Christian commitment to God and country doesn't necessarily mean this toxic white Christian nationalism. So pretty fascinating, especially for someone like me who is not a believer. Then we have Dr. Anthea Butler, who's a professor of American history and religion at the University of Pennsylvania, who delivers a short history of Christian nationalism in the U.S. and ties it to slavery and racism and segregation. You kind of see this broader history of it. And then Catherine Stewart, who is this just super talented investigative journalist who's written a couple of books on the Christian right, including The Power Worshippers.

And she explores and really shines a light on the structure and leadership and the forms of operation. And it's basically the shadowy network that has spread out across the country. Uh, and then I have a couple sections on the actual evidence from not just the day of, but also the lead up to the attack, because there were a number of dry runs and, and we really should not have been surprised by the violence we saw there that day, especially, I mean, hindsight's always 2020,

0:41:38 Thomas: Hmm.

0:42:37 Seidel: But looking back, it was, they named their parts of their movement after genocides. We should not have been surprised. And then we have Amanda Tyler, again, the executive director of BJC, who really is kind of looking at some of the other responses that Christians to seeing their God and their savior on display at the Capitol that day. Basically, Jesus was a mascot for the attackers was one of the things she kind of argues. And Amanda and I both agree that one of the clearest ways we can defeat Christian nationalism is by recommitting this country to the separation of state and church. So that's sort of like a broad overview of the report. Uh, and then of course you guys know me, so I got—we cited the heck out of everything so people can go see if we're right or wrong on their own.

0:43:24 Andrew: Yeah,

0:43:25 Thomas: Interesting. When you lay that out, it sounds like maybe some of the audience for this is Christians. It sounds like you made an effort to put in stuff like, for example, you mentioned the patriotic witness of black Christians section. Is that almost an appeal maybe of like, hey, doesn't have to be this way kind of thing, which is not something I necessarily expected in the report. You you could have just as easily just described the events and all that, but it sounds like there's effort to made to kind of reach out. Can you talk about that?

0:43:35 Seidel: Yes Yes. And that was something that both Amanda and I agreed was going to be important. I mean, the bottom line is that I'm an atheist, I'm a non-believer, and I could have written that part of the report on my own. FFRF could have published it and, you know, a few people might have paid attention, but we want everybody to see what Christian nationalism is and recognize the threat that it poses to this country. And we can do our our own little thing in the secular movement and we'll make some headway, but we won't make anywhere near as much as if we build bridges and form alliances with the Christians who are in the pews with some of these people on Sunday mornings and can have face-to-face conversations with them and convince them that what they are doing is wrong and show them why. And really, if we want to stop the steady march of Christian nationalism, if we want to defeat it and relegate it back to the fringe once it came, we are going to need help. And so I went out and got as much as I could for this report.

0:44:50 Andrew: No, I completely agree with that. I want to delve in a little bit, right? Obviously, I know we could go for hours, but your first section, the events, people, and networks leading up to January 6th, can you can you give us the highlights and the lowlights from that? How did—how should this have not been a surprise oh

0:45:08 Seidel: Yes. Yes, I can definitely do that. So I mentioned that Christian nationalists held dry runs, and basically between election day and the attack. And there are a few that really stood out that I explore in the report. Those include the Million Maga March, which was on November 14th. The Jericho March's Let the Church Roar rally, which is on the National Mall on December 12th. The Women for America First Rally, which was also on December 12th, but that was over closer to the White House. And then things like the One Nation Under God Prayer Rally that nobody really heard about, but which was at the Supreme Court on January 5th. And Roger Stone spoke and he had members of the Oath Keeper act as his bodyguard and carry him there. And there were people in the crowd saying hang Mike Pence. It was a very clear preview. And throughout they believed and they openly claimed that they were doing the will of God.

0:46:00 Seidel: And the crowds at all of these events, they wave the same Christian flags and signs that were ubiquitous during the attack. The same speakers, Roger Stone, Alex Jones, Mike Lindell.

0:46:10 Thomas: Dumb question, what's a Christian flag? I didn't know. Did Jesus have a flag did he just for the ignorant

0:46:14 Andrew: So

0:46:14 Seidel: It is an actual Christian flag, Thomas. And they do a pledge to the Christian flag alongside the pledge to the American flag in a lot of Christian schools in in this country, it's

0:46:17 Thomas: Wow I don't feel like jesus would have been a fan of that you know oh

0:46:27 Seidel: Red, white, and blue. It's got a cross in the field instead of stars, a red cross on a blue field, and then it's mostly white. And it was carried onto the floor of the U.S. Senate on January 6th. They were marking their territory. I mean, this is back to like Doctrine of Discovery times. They're planting their flag on the floor. Of the U.S. Senate, very clear Christian nationalist ties and messages. And then there were also flags that said things like, "Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president." And the report goes over in detail all of the various versions of Christian flags that we saw there that day and Christian nationalist flags. Michael Flynn was at these events. And, and the thing that's crucial to me is they're preaching ever more belligerent messages as it went on. And the unifying theme across all of the events, all of the speakers, and all of crowds was Christian nationalism.

0:46:50 Thomas: Do

0:47:20 Andrew: You say ever more belligerent messages, can you put some meat on those? But like, what are we talking about

0:47:24 Seidel: Sure. So let me give you two examples. So the Million Maga March, that was on November 14th. That was one of the earlier ones.

0:47:32 Thomas: They get a million how close to a million

0:47:33 Seidel: I don't think they did. I think there are a few few bodies shy of that uh you know that began with probably That so that began with a prayer, and it was, in I mean, it was infused with Christian nationalism, and it, it was things, the basic Christian nationalist stuff, like claiming quote, "America is founded on Judeo-Christian principles," right. But that, that's the kind of prayer that sets the tone for everything that happens later. The Proud Boys attended that, rally, and they knelt in prayer. We've got a photo of it in the report. You don't hear about that very often, but they did. And that was the day that they rampaged through D.C. burning BLM banners and stabbing. Dry runs continued. Another one that I think is really crucial that people might have heard a little bit about but might not realize how bad it is, is the Jericho March. And so the Jerichomarch was founded by two federal workers. They both claimed to have, have been sent visions from God to quote,

0:47:39 Thomas: Yeah it's like 900 000 though I

0:48:28 Seidel: Let the church roar. Okay. And you guys know your Bible, Thomas, you know, your Bible. You know, what was the battle? What was the Battle of Jericho?

0:48:34 Andrew: OK,

0:48:35 Thomas: I think Andrew Torrez should definitely—I mean I know but I read

0:48:37 Andrew: I mean, that's

0:48:40 Seidel: Well, here, and the

0:48:41 Thomas: Boy

0:48:41 Andrew: That's the one that's the one where they march around the city and they blow the horns and the walls come down, right?

0:48:47 Seidel: Walls come down and then they kill everybody.

0:48:49 Andrew: Well, I OK.

0:48:52 Seidel: They murder every living thing, including animals. Animals

0:48:55 Thomas: They ought to ban this violent book from our schools

0:48:57 Seidel: So you have the Jericho March baptized itself after this event, and you're right, they marched around the city blowing shofars, these ram's horns, carrying the Ark of the Covenant, and then the walls come down and then they kill every

0:49:10 Thomas: Well, they had the

0:49:11 Andrew: Wait, I was going to say they

0:49:12 Seidel: Breathe

0:49:11 Thomas: Art did they let all the ghosts out of it yeah they're like go get mike pence yeah

0:49:14 Seidel: Yep

0:49:15 Andrew: Yeah. Wow. But I think, I mean, you're you're right that we should not pass lightly over that, that they took one of the genocidal passages from the Old Testament, like the kind that, you know, in 90 percent of, you know, modern churches in America it's like, okay well we don't read that one and we don't talk about the Amalekites and all right like It

0:49:37 Thomas: Right I mean there's only like four paragraphs of the bible they ever do reference because those are the ones that don't have genocide in them the rest is pretty much just genocide

0:49:40 Andrew: Right right and and reenacted it all

0:49:45 Thomas: Yeah

0:49:50 Seidel: They did literally I mean so they had they held events they held events in state capitals around the country and in DC, including the Supreme Court building in the, in this capital, and they marched around these buildings blowing shofars and claiming to know God's will.

0:49:51 Andrew: Right that's that's terrifying okay Oh.

0:50:03 Seidel: And they held a big rally on December 12th, and they organized it with Stop the Steal folks. They did an exorcism on stage. There were speeches by bishops and oath keepers and cardinals and former members of Congress and former members of the military. And the language was openly militant. I mean, crazily militant there. There's a guy named the Reverend Kevin Jessup who preached, quote, "this is a Judeo-Christian nation." And that he wanted to, quote, "mobilize God's men made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ." And if you listen to his speech, it is a sermon of Christian conquest framed in militaristic terms. Warrior, battle cry, mobilization, secret weapon, enlistment, strategic, prisoners of war, glory, deployed in hostile territory, under enemy occupation, commissioned as special forces, stationed, final mission to ending this high treason.

0:50:53 Seidel: And he says himself that this is literally a call to arms, quote, the warrior mandate, a battle cry, a call to arms.

0:51:01 Andrew: Okay that sounds bad uh but um devil's advocate here uh what He meant was spiritual warfare, called to, you know, metaphorical arms for us to, you show up and and rally but not not, not actually hurt anybody, what, sure.

0:51:05 Seidel: Go for it.

0:51:18 Seidel: Yes. And he, and he almost certain, you know, he adds that as an afterthought and they are masters of stochastic terrorism. I mean, they, they really are. Um, and you, you have to take away from it too. Again, this isn't just a one-off event. That's one of the things we're really trying to show in the report. This is a continual escalating pattern where they're egging people on to do this. Yeah, I mean, also at the Jericho March, you have one of their lower level coordinators who happens to be a state National Day of Prayer task force director also. She's hammering the podium with a gavel. And you have to go watch this because it has to be seen to be believed. She calls that a hammer and that is somehow tied to like the voting machines.

And it's, while she's doing this, the crowd is chanting, no King, but Jesus. She's thanking her God for giving them quote, weapons of warfare. She's finishing, let this be one nation under God. Ali Alexander goes on stage and, you know, again, he founded Stop the Steal. He's talking about shutting everything down because we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us and we have God's favor and to God be the glory. Story, and then Stuart Rhodes, who is the founder of the Oath Keepers who shot himself in the face and lost an eye, who was recently charged, as you guys covered, with seditious conspiracy, he took the stage and called for a bloody war before Trump was out of office because it was going to be much worse if they didn't do it while Trump was in office, and he was cheered.

0:51:48 Andrew: Right right and And assembled both firearms and a rapid distribution force in uh Northern Virginia to disseminate those firearms to individuals who have breached the Capitol, so yeah, it is, it, I think what, what I'll ask in a loaded question is, is if I delivered, right, if the argument, and I have heard them make this argument, right? The argument from these religious groups is, well, you know, we were not calling for actual literal violence. We were calling for spiritual warfare. If I had done that and then actual violence had broken out, my response would have been horrified retraction, would have ben, oh no. Like when I said, you now, get out there in force, I meant, you kno, show up and pray, not stockpile firearms what has been the response of these church groups to watching everything you've described turn into actual literal violence

0:52:46 Seidel: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:53:41 Seidel: Well, it's been a polarization. I mean, you have, and Amanda Tyler goes over some of this and, you know, you Have some Christians who are just absolutely horrified by this and by this use of their religion, but the folks who are in it and the folks were on stage preaching it are doubling down. Uh, I mean you have it. So America, uh, Eric Metaxas, who is this popular radio host, he's an author.

0:54:00 Andrew: Tell me he's not that popular he's he's insane uh anyway sorry if

0:54:00 Seidel: Uh. He is, he is, and he's gone off the rails, but he is. He has been one of the most outspoken intellectual zambonis for Christian nationalism, you know, working to put this respectable face on what is an exclusionary ideology. And when, when Stuart Rhodes finishes preaching bloody war, Metaxas, who emceed that event said, oh, God bless you. This guy's keeping it real folks, keeping it real. And, and I mean, look, I mean you guys know, and let me actually, let me say it like, let me Say it like this. It was not just the imagery and the rhetoric and the the flags and the signs. It was a devout belief that this is a Christian nation, that God chose Donald Trump and that God was on their side. And that is what provides the permission structure.

0:54:43 Andrew: If god chose donald Trump out like, I mean, you know, is this an Iron Chariots kind of thing? Like you would, you would think if God shows donald trump then

0:54:51 Seidel: Yes.

0:54:51 Thomas: The voting iron voting machines they couldn't get through them wow

0:54:53 Seidel: Yeah.

0:54:52 Andrew: Uh right how does how does that not happen right well

0:54:57 Seidel: Yeah, I mean, but listen, the speaker who kicked in, or excuse me, the attacker who kicked in Speaker Pelosi's door, he was hoping that the crowd would tear her quote quote, into little pieces. And during one of his hearings, this is what he said. He said, God is on Trump's side. God is not on the Democrat side. And if patriots have to kill 60 million of these communists, it is God's will. I mean, the attackers believed that this is their country given to them by their God, that they are acting on his orders and defending his chosen one. And when reality collides with a belief system like that, violence is inevitable. And that is what happened on January 6th.

0:55:36 Andrew: That's, that's depressing. So I, know FFRF is working with the Congressional free thought Caucus, right? I've delivered some, some testimony of them on the Christian Health Chair Ministries. You guys are, are working that angle to, to, to get information to the One six committee. If you're a show listener, what's the call to action here? What, what can we do? We've been horrified for 45 minutes. What can they do?

0:56:03 Seidel: Well, I mean, I think there are two things I would really appreciate everybody doing is going and reading the report. I mean I think we have scratched the surface in this conversation. And I don't even think I touched properly on the evidence from from the actual day of that we saw. So there's so much more out there. So please read the report, but more importantly, share it. Share the pieces of the report that horrify you the most on social media, that surprise you the Most on social media. Call the attention of journalists to this, because this is something that has not been properly covered. And if we do not confront this ideology, we are inviting future attacks. They are going to happen.

0:56:49 Seidel: I spent so many hours watching video footage and listening to these preachers and these sermons and looking at photos. And I know that people at some level realize how close we were to losing our country that day, but I don't really think they've internalized that or really understand. Stand. Attackers were also fighting with one hand tied behind their back the entire time because they were idiotically filming themselves.

0:57:17 Andrew: Yeah.

0:57:18 Seidel: If they had not done that, if Stuart Rhodes and his groupies had tapped that cache of arms that they had stored, I mean, a few seconds here, a few moments there, if Officer Eugene Goodman hadn't lured that splinter group away from lawmakers. By the way, splinter group is a little section in the report because all of the iconic imagery and disturbingly iconic imagery from that day has a Christian nationalist tie, including the Confederate flag, the gallows, the zip tie guy, and that splitter mob. People just, you often don't realize it unless you look a little bit below the surface, which we do in the report.

But the point being, we have got to confront this and you've got to arm yourselves with the information and then we've got start talking about it more publicly. And that just really requires you to know what you are talking about. The way that I ended the report, I do believe that we can beat Christian nationalism. I believe that we can put it back on the fringe where it came from and where it belongs. That means fighting the disinformation and the historical myths bred by this threatening exclusionary ideology.

0:57:33 Thomas: Yeah what

0:58:21 Seidel: And it means above all, a national recommitment to the separation of state and church. It means public officials honoring that separation as one of our founding ideals. It means understanding that there is no freedom of religion without a government that's free from religion. And those are the things that we really need to, those are the values we need to be lifting up if we're going to survive Christian nationalism. Because America is a shared idea. And Christian nationalism refuses to share. It excludes non-Christians. And it excludes the wrong kind of Christians, as this report shows. So one thing that I really firmly believe that we have shown in this report, and that I've shown through my work and my books and everything, is that America will never be a Christian nation, because the moment it becomes a Christian nation, it will cease to be America.

0:59:14 Seidel: Those two things can't peacefully coexist. So I mean that we really face a choice as a nation, Christian nationalism or America, because because we genuinely cannot have both.

0:59:22 Thomas: That's a fantastic way to go out um well said seidel thank you so much uh read the report find it in the show notes everybody it's up on ffrf.org of course uh but thank you you so much for that breakdown andrew

0:59:24 Andrew: Yeah.

0:59:25 Seidel: Thanks.

0:59:34 Seidel: I appreciate it, gentlemen. Thank you.

0:59:36 Clip: And thank you, Let's go!

0:59:38 Thomas: And now it's time to thank our new patrons at patreon.com/law. Oh, by the way, Andrew and listeners only, we're very close to another lot of movies that'll be coming out, uh, within, we'll say within a week or so. Uh, those are so much fun. I can't wait. So a great reason to be on patrion.com slash law as always. And the ad free episodes, the early episodes, almost, almost two days early sometimes on the, uh. The Monday episodes, uh the uncensored occasionally accidentally uncensored Morgan episodes that I fixed for non-patrons. Yeah, there you go. Great pitch. So let's thank our new patrons. Andrew, start us off.

0:59:44 Andrew: Oh the the occasionally morgan swearing comes through on the episode yeah and thank you to Jonathan Edman, Donna Kollen, Andrew Sindelar, Matt Harris, Christopher Swanson. Thank you to Stephanie Lynch, to Taylor Putnam, and thank you to Eliza and Noor. N-O-U-R, Noor,

1:00:32 Thomas: You And thank you to Shayla Jones, legend of Gary. Wow. I want to hear the the legend of Gary, uh, John Kimbrough, Eugene Flynn, Janina Barbor, Liz Geyer, Alex King, have five four pod on your show, please and thank you. Oh, that sounds great. I think there's a Twitter thing about that, yeah, let's do it. Marta Palley and Sparkle Donkey snuck into the fifth quartile, or is this the sixth quintile? We, we just want to make jokes more than once a month. Wow. Oh, some Some Machiavellian patron activity.

1:00:37 Andrew: Ooh, yeah, we love them, yeah.

1:01:03 Andrew: Ooh, a little gaming the system

1:01:06 Thomas: Yeah, I love it. That works for us. Thank you so much, new patrons. We hope you enjoy the bonus stuff. We can't thank you enough.

1:01:06 Andrew: There, yeah? Yeah, that's all right. Yeah

1:01:13 Clip: Oh, no associate of this firm has ever failed the bar exam. No kidding.

1:01:20 Andrew: Yep

1:01:20 Thomas: Now it's time for T3B, Thomas Takes the Tries to Be Ethical, I think is what we called it, uh, and we've got a guest ethicist, uh, Andrew Seidel's gonna join us for, after, you know, we just need to cheer ourselves up a little bit after that, uh, uh, segment, uh, but so let's do it by being ethical, the opposite of the uh, the previous segment, okay.

1:01:39 Andrew: All Right, gentlemen, an attorney represented a mother in a child custody dispute. The father of the child was not represented by a lawyer. The mother told the attorney that she wanted to resolve the custody dispute amicably and asked the attorney to meet with the father to see if an agreement could be reached before the upcoming court date. The attorney met with the father, presented the mother's proposed custody agreement, and asked the father to agree to it. The father then asked the attorney whether the custody arrangement was fair. The attorney advised the father to hire his own lawyer if he wanted advice regarding the fairness of the arrangement. The attorney did not offer any other advice. Thefather hired a lawyer and the matter turned turned Into an antagonistic negotiation that had to be resolved in court. Is the attorney subject to discipline?

1:02:30 Andrew: A. Yes, because the attorney asked the father to agree to the proposed custody arrangement. B. Yes, because the attorney advised the father to hire his own lawyer. C. No, because the attorney offered the father no advice other than to hire his his own lawyer, or D, no, because a lawyer may give legal advice to an unrepresented opposing party.

1:02:19 Thomas: Huh. Uh, Oh, I love this because I think this is that constant question, or that constant like witty comment we always get on this show, well, you always tell us not to take legal advice from a podcast, isn't that legal advice, and uh, everybody thinks they're so clever for coming up with that. We've heard it 80,000 times. No offense. Sorry to everybody who said that. But that kind of feels like what this is. So Seidel, let me tackle this first.

1:03:16 Andrew: At least you got to hear your seinfeld impersonation on that

1:03:19 Seidel: I think

1:03:19 Thomas: Yeah. What's the deal with offering? Yeah. Seidel don't help me at all. Come up with the answer first. You can tell me how I did. Okay. We got an unrepresented person. The father, the mother's represented. The lawyer goes and And that all sounds fine. The lawyer goes in like, hey, father of the child here, do you agree to this? Met with the father, present the mother's proposed custody arrangement, ask the father to agree to it. Ask the father too agree. That doesn't, I mean, that seems fine. Unless that, is that too far? You got to be like, here is the agreement is all you can say. No, I don't think so. Father asked the attorney. So the father solicits advice and the attorney smartly is like, can't do that. I represent the other side. That all makes sense. So I thought this was going to be a question of like, did the lawyer, you know, advocate for their client enough?

1:04:06 Thomas: Like, is it, should the lawyer have like, oh yeah, it's great. It's fantastic arrangement. I thought that's where it was going, but no. So advised to hire their own lawyer if he wanted advice. That, that all seems fine to me. So is the attorney subject to discipline? I'm leaning heavily toward a no answer going through it. So yes, because the attorney asked the father to agree. Is that too far? I don't think so. I mean, maybe, but I doubt it. B, yes, because the attorney advised the father to hire his own lawyer. That's not legal advice. So that much I'm certain of. So, that's fine. So, eliminating B. C, no, because The Attorney offered the father no advice other than to hire his own employer. That that's screaming out at me. Or D, no because a lawyer may give legal advice to an unrepresented opposing party.

1:04:55 Thomas: I do like that. That would be fun. I don't think I'm going gonna go with that. I think I'm between C and A, and this feels fine to me. Uh You're meeting with somebody who doesn't have a lawyer. I get the the the opportunity for that to be unethical in some ways, but it seems like what this attorney did was fine. You asked them to agree to it. I mean, I hypothetically, the requirement could be like, no, you can't even say that. Now, that doesn't sound right. I'm going with C. It's between c&a but I'm gonna see. All right, Sidle, how did I do?

1:05:23 Seidel: You nailed it. I agree. Uh, yeah. I mean, I think a lawyer acted ethically here. Well done, uh, attorney. Uh they didn't offer any other advice other than if you want advice, get your own lawyer, which is correct. So yeah, I C, no, because the lawyer offered the father no advice other than to get your own lawyer.

1:05:24 Thomas: Yes Yes.

1:05:42 Thomas: What's the deal with legal? Oh, fantastic. Well, we're agreed, but we don't know. We could both be non-ethical. So continue to, you know, you never know.

1:05:46 Seidel: Yeah. I feel pretty good about this one. I mean,

1:05:46 Andrew: Oh

1:05:54 Thomas: I'm trying to keep the suspense up for next episode.

1:05:55 Seidel: Well, listen, I mean... And, you know, when it's suspenseful in real life, I call the ethical hotline and I'm like, hey, how do I deal with this in a way that I don't get in trouble?

1:06:05 Thomas: Wait, is that a real thing?

1:06:07 Seidel: That's real thing.

1:06:07 Andrew: That at what a hundred percent I'm glad andrew's on on.

1:06:08 Seidel: Yeah. Yeah

1:06:09 Thomas: Oh. Can I phone a friend? Can I phone the ethical hotline sometime?

1:06:12 Seidel: You in real life you definitely can on the bar exam no but yeah

1:06:15 Andrew: In every state, every state's bar maintains an ethics hotline. And so, yeah, if you think this is a corner case and you want to get either, you know.

1:06:20 Thomas: Oh I love this. Yeah. Skit idea. Eli accidentally gets a job as the ethics hotline, uh, let's, let's write that skit. But all right, that's our final answer. See, we're united, united front, all

1:06:34 Andrew: Yep. And if you want to play along with Thomas, Andrew Seidel, and apparently Jerry Seinfeld, you know how to do that. Just, uh, share out this episode on social media, include the hashtag T3BE, include your guests, your reasons therefore, we will pick a winner and shower that winner with never-ending fame and fortune. Fame and fortunate not guaranteed.

1:06:53 Thomas: And that's our show. Wow, Andrew, I'm glad we had a nice, fun ethics question to kind of take the edge off that. But yeah, but that was dire stuff. But importantly so. So, you know, time I I consume any sort of content about the Jan 6 insurrection, it's just a reminder of just how catastrophically close we were to total disaster. I mean, it was a disaster, but like, you know, it was close to a hundred times the disaster that it could have been. And what a great report that Andrew Seidel helped draw up there.

1:07:00 Andrew: The Palate Palate Cleanser there, yeah.

1:07:17 Andrew: It Being way worse. Yeah. It The The Hardest working man in The church State separation business. It, what I loved about Andrew's call to action, I just want to re-emphasize it here because, um, you and I, I think it motivated you and I, that we're going, going to talk about how we can do it. What Andrew said was, look, this is an example of where this is a long-term, effort to change the conversation. So go through the report, screenshot sections, send it out on Twitter, do the Things you're Already Doing right. The Andrew didn't have a big ask, right? Not money, not this particular candidacy, be active on, on social media, be active with your family members, even the ones that, you, you may have a disagreement on your religious beliefs or lack thereof. But keep this discussion going so that, if you have folks who oppose the 1-6 insurrection, but maybe don't understand its Christian nationalist roots, that's all the ask is. I know it's something we're going to do, it's rare when that's what can do as listeners as well. So I

1:07:31 Thomas: Oh, for sure. Oh, good idea.

1:08:32 Thomas: Absolutely.

1:08:32 Andrew: Love that.

1:08:32 Thomas: Absolutely. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. We'll see you next time.

1:08:35 Clip: I move for a bad court thingy. You mean a mistrial? Yeah, that's why you're the judge and I'm the law talking guy.

1:09:09 Clip: www.openargs.com. Be sure to join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash Yodel Mountain and follow us on Twitter at OpenArgs. This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media LLC, all rights reserved. It is produced with the assistance of transcriptionist Heather Leverage, production assistant Ashley Smith, and additional contributions from Morgan Stringer and Debra Smith. Special thanks to Teresa Gomez, who runs our live shows and heads up the OA Wiki, follow at OA Wiki on Twitter. Additional thanks to the moderators of the Opening Arguments Facebook community, Emily Waters, Alicia Cook, Eric Brewer, Natalie Newell, Brian Ziegenhagen, and Teresa. And finally, thanks to Thomas Smith, who edits the show and created the fabulous theme music, which was used with permission.