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“Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy” is the scariest film I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a documentary that explores the rise of Christian Nationalism, and much of what it shows you, about the mutation of the Christian Right into a movement that’s openly abandoned any loyalty to democracy, has been covered in the mass media in recent years. But the film’s directors, Stephen Ujlaki and Chris Jones, go deep into the roots of this movement, and what’s new and disquieting is how the current presidential race changes everything. Viewed against the looming possibility of Donald Trump’s re-election (a scenario that most liberals I know believe is unlikely; I think they may be seriously deluded), the rise of Christian Nationalism takes on a whole new meaning.

In 2017, Trump, once he took the reins of power, was constrained — by the other branches of government,...

It’s not surprising that Dan Partland’s documentary about the increasing influence of Christian Nationalism begins and ends with footage from Jan. 6., 2021. Christian Nationalists were among the principal organizers of the insurrection that occurred that day, which featured a trespasser carrying a Christian flag onto the Senate floor. God & Country, which counts Rob Reiner among its producers, delivers a bracing primer on the rise of this political movement that should thoroughly scare the large majority of American adults who don’t embrace it.

And, as the film points out in exhaustive detail, Christian Nationalism is very much a political, rather than religious, movement. The movement posits that America is a Christian nation and that the founders intended it as such. It seeks to roll back feminism, Lbgtq rights and abortion, and to either introduce Christianity to public schools or substitute them with private Christian schools funded by vouchers.

“Don’t speak ill of the dead” is a dumb idea.

When people have caused massive suffering to others, and changed society for the worse, it’s good to speak ill of them. It helps to reaffirm our values, and to counter the wave of encomiums and eulogies that will inevitably accompany their death.

So that is exactly what I’m going to do. Because Pat Robertson said, and did, unspeakable things, and millions of people listened to him. And while he is gone, the extremist legacy he created is more powerful than ever,...

To anyone with a normal, passing familiarity with the Supreme Court, the news earlier this year that a majority of justices were poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that held that a woman’s right to get an abortion was protected by the constitution, probably came as a shock. By on Friday, when the Supreme Court made good on that threat and overturned a ruling that had protected a woman’s right to control her own body for 49 years, it was no longer a surprise, but it’s still shocking.

In June, President Trump sat in the Oval Office for one of his periodic interviews-turned-airing-of-grievances. When the conversation turned to the 2020 election, Trump singled out what he called the “biggest risk” to his bid for a second term. It was not the mounting death toll from Covid-19, or further economic damage inflicted by the pandemic, or anything else a reality-dwelling president might fret about.

“My biggest risk is that we don’t win lawsuits,” Trump told the Politico reporter he’d invited. He was referring to the series of lawsuits...

Part of President Trump’s new immigration proposal is something called “patriotic assimilation.” It’s a euphemism for an immigrant entry exam that evokes the Jim Crow literacy tests used to disenfranchise black voters. One administration official told the Washington Post that green-card applicants would be required to pass an exam based on such everyday American household dinner topics as Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.

That is a perplexing choice for the administration, given the timing. That letter, dated January 1, 1802, is the foundation of many understandings...