Why a 'Paleo-Confederate' Pastor Is on the Rise

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/opinion/douglas-wilson-evangelical-hegseth.html
https://archive.ph/UR7kg

Why a ‘Paleo-Confederate’ Pastor Is on the Rise
Aug. 14, 2025, 5:04 a.m. ET
By David French

...

You’re not going to scare me away from the word Confederate like you just said “Boo!” I would define a neo-Confederate as someone who thinks we are still fighting that war. Instead, I would say we’re fighting in a long war, and that was one battle that we lost.

These words were written by Douglas Wilson, whose home church is based in Moscow, Idaho. He has described himself as a “paleo-Confederate” — he believes that Southern slavery was wrong, but that the Confederacy was otherwise “right on all the essential constitutional and cultural issues surrounding the war.”

He’s the founder of a church, a denomination and a publishing house. He’s influential in both the Christian home-schooling and the Christian classical school movements.

Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, belongs to his denomination, and Wilson’s words above are no aberration. They are but small drops in an ocean of ignorant, malicious and unchristian commentary.

He has referred to women he doesn’t like as “small-breasted biddies” and “lumberjack dykes.” He has said: “The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”

...

[sop]

1. The "essential constitutional and cultural issue surrounding the war" was slavery.

The primary issues surrounding the Civil War were slavery and the debate over its expansion into new territories, the Southern states' right to maintain the institution of slavery, and the economic differences between North and South due to the South's reliance on enslaved labor for its agricultural economy.

[JustAnotherGen]

2. He's garbage

And so is Hegseth.

Total trash.

[Maggiemayhem]

8. Woman hating nut job who thinks women shouldn't vote.

[valleyrogue]

3. The sexism more than the racism

is to account for his increasing profile. Red pill attitudes are a cancer to any civilization. He appears to be ignorant of how constitutional amendments can be “ repealed.” It has happened only once in US history and that is with Prohibition.

[T_i_B]

36. This is very true

You'll find a whole laundry list of bigotries with "Christian" Nationalism, but misogyny is the numero uno bigotry of that movement. It's actually quite alarming how much those people dislike women.

[highplainsdem]

4. When a man is insecure around women and minorities, and absolutely terrible in bed, but wants to

believe it doesn't matter.

Disgusting idiot...

[Hey Joe]

5. Paleo, describes these magabillies perfectly

As in primitive, archaic , backward and dumb.
Prideful stupidity is the defining characteristic of these retrograde people. Along with their
misanthropy.

[mwmisses4289]

19. Except archeology and various other

disciplines that study the past have discovered that our paleo ancestors were not as dumb or primitive as myth would have us believe. OK, they didn't have electricity or running water or other things of modern civilization, but they did create the forerunners of tools we use and laid down the foundations of what would lead to the formation of various civilizations.
In other words, our paleo ancestors were a lot smarter than most of us think they were.

[misanthrope]

25. I would venture to say they were more mentally agile

They couldn't depend on accumulated knowledge and specialization to the degree we do, but the average person had to be much more resourceful and inventive as a matter of day-to-day life.

[Delmette2.0]

34. Women were important to their society.

Women were fighting warriors, leaders and trusted healers. Everyone including the gay and transgender.
And we call our current society civilized.

[orangecrush]

6. Not surprised

[CrispyQ]

7. Omg, that last snippet is vomit inducing & should have a pre-breakfast warning.

Still, I'm glad you posted.

[NEOBuckeye]

9. I bet he's in the Epstein files nt

[Martin Eden]

10. Wilson's beliefs are abhorrent. His statement on slavery is contradictory.

It is impossible to believe Southern slavery was wrong, but everything else in their culture was right.

The culture of the Confederacy and slavery are inextricable. It was the basis of their cultural hierarchy. Southern states seceded over the institution of slavery. This was confirmed by its leaders, and prominently codified in the constitution of the Confederacy.

Wilson decided it was necessary to say slavery was wrong for the same reason Trump says he's "the least prejudiced person I know" and invited Kanye West to the Oval Office.

Openly supporting slavery and/or admitting to be a racist would be unhelpful, to put it mildly.

They are both liars.

And their most ardent supporters know it.

[paleotn]

15. This!!

[slightlv]

11. My first thought...

Bull fracking crap.

My second thought... say that to yout Christ, whom you blaspheme with every word from your mouth. I like watching bolts of lightening.

[Sneederbunk]

12. When I think Confederate, I think loser.

Sore loser.

[Timeflyer]

13. He's in Idaho-istan. Talibangelists spew hate, misogyny, and then mention god, which is their free pass to hold

prehistoric illiterate goat-herder viewpoints and take suckers money--because god.

[kimbutgar]

27. My husband mother was born there and he still has an aunt and her family that still live there

And they are appalled how awful their state has become with these christofascists. He wants to take a car trip to visit them but I don’t want to drive into that state with my California license plates in a hybrid vehicle!

[Timeflyer]

29. I feel the same about Florida. Idaho has beautiful nature, but like FL it's draws crazies like flies to...

[kimbutgar]

30. Glad i went to Florida to Disneyworld in the 90 's and early 2000's

before the state got even more insane. And don't get me started on ever going to Texas again. I met Ann Richards who was a great governor and things went downhill with Bush in that state.

[paleotn]

14. Fine. Go off and be merry. I'm done with the lot of them

Putin’s long term goal but at this point I don’t care

[Seinan Sensei]

16. Seriously, this guy has got to be in the Epstein files

[Ol Janx Spirit]

17. It's a conceptual oxymoron to say that the Confederacy was wrong about slavery but right...

...about everything else. There really was no everything else without slavery. The only real differences between the U.S. Constitution and the constitution of the Confederate States of America centered around slavery--seeking to enshrine the rights of slave owners into law. Article One, Section Nine, declared that “No . . . law impairing or denying the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.” A 2A for slavery as it were.

The "paleo" moniker is equally dumb. Coming from the Greek palaios, meaning "old", the addition of paleo before Confederacy is akin to an 18-year-old saying, "back in my day...." To people with the intellectual heft of a Pete Hegseth it may convey some sense of a pre-slavery concept of the Confederacy, but that simply did not exist. Without the issue of slavery there was no need for the Confederacy, so paleo-Confederacy is just a feeble attempt to make it sound like something different--something more basic and fundamental than just supporting the right of people to own, beat, and work to death other human beings.

The frightening, but unsurprising part--given the rise of one of the dumbest men and political movements of all time--is that Wilson is "on the rise." But as the article makes clear, his rise is tied to that of Orange Jesus. The last few decades would suggest that evangelicals follow the political leader of the party that opposes abortion much more than the other way around. The Orange Abomination can be a demonstrably horrible human being, but his support for the one cause they really care about--and some secondary ones like "school choice"--wipes away all of his sins.

As the article says in closing, let's hope the next Republican leader is a far better person--because the sheep will follow them wherever they lead....

[RobertDevereaux]

18. His pop, Jim Wilson, originated this dangerous nonsense in this book...

https://www.amazon.com/Principles-War-Handbook-Strategic-Evangelism-ebook/dp/B09FFV2CB9/

And here’s Sonnyboy Douglas’s wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Wilson_(theologian)

[dalton99a]

20. "Slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed

in any nation before the War or since."

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

21. Southern Confederates lost the war because they talked out of both sides of their mouths.

One side of the mouth: States have Rights to enslave Black People.
The other side of the mouth: States don't have Rights to enslave White People.

[TheRickles]

22. A man "conquers" and a woman "surrenders"?!

If he switched from combat mode to collaboration, he'd find out that he's been missing some wonderful shared experiences with the "enemy". That quote is one of the most effed-up things I've read in a long time.

[Hey Joe]

28. I know, right?

How does one have a loving marital relationship with another person with the belief that one is the conqueror and the other the submissive who surrenders to him ?
Warped for sure 😖

[Maru Kitteh]

23. So he's incapable of pleasuring a woman. Sorry about your

Lame floppy junk and your total lack of knowledge or talent Doug.

[BWdem4life]

24. He seems nice. nt

[dlk]

26. Sounds like a first class jerk

With mommy issues.

[progressoid]

31. Disgusting but there are a lot like him in the GOP.

He just says it outloud.

[Kid Berwyn]

32. Christian Dominionism

Makes it easy for big capital to rip off the rubes. They get to shred democracy in the process, plus access all the underage girls they can find.

DU from 2005:

Know your BFEE: Rev. Sun Myung Moon OWNS Poppy Bush.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3355939

[ornotna]

33. He certainly has ancient ideas

He’s an imbecile.

[Ping Tung]

35. If he's a Confederate why is he in this country? Why hasn't ICE picked him up and deported back to his own country?

[maxrandb]

37. Thanks for telling me what should be the FIRST state the new Dem president sends the National Guard into

Oh, and they are going to be majority minority, female and armed to the fucking teeth.

FAFO asshat! Idaho will be a shit-ton easier to conquer than DC or NYC...Idahoans, that haven't had an orgasm in decades, will be part of the resistance.

[GenThePerservering]

38. Bet Hegseth's wife spanks him nt

[T_i_B]

39. People don't realise how important Doug Wilson is to "Christian" Nationalism

He's one of the main leaders of that movement.

Wilson is a hardline Calvinist and his version of so called "Christian" Nationalism is essentially trying to recreate what John Calvin did in 16th century Geneva.