How Christian Nationalists, Big Oil and the Big Lie Seized the Speaker's Gavel

[Nevilledog]

https://washingtonspectator.org/how-christian-nationalists-big-oil-and-the-big-lie-seized-the-speakers-gavel/

On Friday, October 4, 2019, a little more than a year before the Council for National Policy (CNP) spearheaded efforts to overturn the 2020 Presidential elections on behalf of Donald Trump, the secretive organization gathered for the evening session of their closed-door meeting at the New Orleans Ritz-Carlton. (Videos of the meeting were obtained and published by the research center Documented.)

The featured speaker was Congressman Mike Johnson, a rising star in the CNP firmament. As a Louisiana native son, devout Southern Baptist and recipient of fossil fuel largesse, he had been born to the fold. On this evening he came to pay homage to the men he credited with making his career—as they anointed him for higher things.

Since its founding in 1981 by a group of right-wing fundamentalists and oil barons, the CNP has worked, largely behind the scenes, to reshape America into a country that protects gun rights, counters federal regulation, favors plutocrats, and rolls back the social progress wrought by the New Deal and the Great Society.

The CNP has labored for decades to purge the Republican Party of moderates and replace them with right-wing extremists (see Shadow Network for a detailed history of its ascendancy). But it wasn’t until 2016 that the CNP accrued the influence to play kingmaker. That was the year when CNP strategists rallied a thousand “Mega-Christian Leaders” to New York City on behalf of Donald Trump’s struggling campaign. They had already defined the terms of the deal: the previous March, CNP Board of Governors member Leonard Leo had met with Trump to present him with a list of ultra-conservative candidates for the federal judiciary.

*snip*

[mahina]

1. More- this article needs to be widely read and understood. Thanks OP

An Oklahoma pastor who attended the New York City gathering reported that Trump told them, “All his judges would be vetted by [Leo’s] Federalist Society.” Trump also emerged from the meeting with a new Evangelical Advisory Board, including CNP members James Dobson, Ralph Reed, Richard Land, and Harry Jackson, with Tony Perkins as an additional advisor.

An additional benefit was revealed a few months later, when the CNP newsletter reported, “CNP President Tony Perkins was instrumental in developing the [Republican Party] platform”—supporting conversion therapy to “cure” homosexuality and the right to denial of service to LGBTQ populations, and seeking to roll back gay marriage and a host of environmental protections. Not coincidentally, Trump shelved his previous ideas for vice president in favor of evangelical Mike Pence, who emerged as a dues-paying member of the CNP in 2021.

In return, the CNP’s key partners—including Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council and the National Rifle Association—rallied fundamentalist and gun-owning voters to the polls on Trump’s behalf, giving him critical margins in key swing states. Trump followed through with Leo’s federal court appointments, who in turn have favored the elements of Perkins’ draconian GOP platform. Over the past year, those handpicked judges have handled a number of cases brought by another key CNP partner, the Alliance Defending Freedom, ruling consistently against abortion and LGBTQ rights and environmental regulations.

But following the 2020 elections, Trump’s liabilities – even for true believers – had become painfully apparent: he’s old, volatile, a convicted fraudster and sex offender, and the defendant in multiple additional lawsuits. It was time to look for a new avatar.

[leftstreet]

4. omg some of the absolute creeps in that organization

But he made no mention of McEwen’s past check-writing problems, nor did he mention McEwen’s role , together with Tony Perkins, in the cover-up of the actions of another protegé, Wesley Goodman, who was accused of molesting the 18-year-old stepson of a CNP member during one of its meetings. Goodman ran successfully for the Ohio State House in 2015 on an anti-gay, pro-family values platform; McEwen, Perkins, and the other CNP leaders remained silent over the course of his campaign. But then Goodman was accused of stalking some 30 men and boys on social media platforms, as well as having consensual sex with a male in his Congressional office. In 2017 Goodman was obliged to resign from public office, and is currently working in retail.

!!

[themaguffin]

2. They are not Christian.

[leftstreet]

3. Worth the full read at the link

DURec

[Hermit-The-Prog]

5. They're buying our government piece by piece.