The new documentary Bad Faith by Stephen Ujlaki & Christopher Jacob Jones begins with footage that is familiar to many Americans. An army of insurrectionists dressed in stars, stripes and military gear storms the Capitol to prevent the certification of 2020 election results. It was a momentous event that left many Americans wondering what we could have done differently.
[[{“value”:”An army of insurrectionists strutting through the Capitol dressed in stars, stripes, and defense gear storms the Capitol, which is the setting for the new documentary Bad Faith, which was directed by Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher Jacob Jones. It was a turning point for many Americans who were unsure of how we got below. By examining the rising of Christian nationalism as a major factor in why United democracy sank to a cliff, Bad Faith attempts to address that question.
Christian nationalism, broadly speaking, is a movement that believes America is a Holy nation, and that our social institutions should be governed by Christian values. But as the film points out, the movement often privileges a very narrow definition of” Christian values”:” The great idea of Christian nationalism is that God made America for Christians, and not all Christians, but a certain kind of light Christian with a particular theology and a certain worldview”, Eboo Patel, founder of the nonprofit group Interfaith America, says in the documentary.
According to Bad Faith, the origin of January 6 dates back to the 1980s when conservative operative Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell co-founded the Moral Majority. The organization created a powerful voting bloc by registering and briefing conservative voters on political issues. Weyrich would later co-found organizations like the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the Council for National Policy, laying the groundwork for a sophisticated conservative network that has brought radical, anti-democratic ideas into the mainstream. Weyrich is also credited with spreading the pro-life stance among evangelicals, encouraging teachings on abortion in churches, and thereby piqueing evangelicals ‘ interest in the subject.
The documentary shows how Weyrich used anxieties about desegregation, especially in Christian colleges, to launch a network of think tanks and conferences dedicated to shaping America along ultra- conservative, Christian ideals. Even though Weyrich passed away in 2008, his legacy can still be seen in contemporary society. The film cites a 2001 manifesto written by Weyrich’s mentee Eric Heubeck at the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative think tank Weyrich founded. Heubeck writes that to revive the “defeatist” conservative movement,” we will not try to reform institutions. We only have the ability to” sweal” them before destroying them.
Christian nationalism is more prevalent in American politics now than ever as the election of 2024 approaches. The Heritage Foundation is now in charge of Project 2025, a strategy that aims to reorganize American bureaucracy and a second Trump administration to give the president unprecedented power. The film’s filmmakers claim that it shares Heubeck’s manifesto’s anti-democratic overtones. To better understand the threat of Christian nationalism and its origins, I spoke with Ujlaki and Anne Nelson, whose book on the collapse of local journalism and the rise of the right wing’s information war, Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Alt- Right, helped inspire the film. Our interview has been condensed and edited to make it more concise.
What motivated you to create this movie?
Ujlaki: I was inspired by the election of Trump in 2016. In 2018, I started researching. And I was interested in learning more about evangelicals because they were a significant component of what brought [ Trump ] to power. And I went back in time to find its origins. Eventually, I ran across Anne’s book, which provided a whole new dimension to the story of Christian nationalism. She delved into how they were funded, how they were organized. And she brought attention to Paul Weyrich’s exploits, who had largely escaped public scrutiny for some time.
Because the country kept changing at the same rate, it took years to get this thing right. So it was hard, the goalposts were changing. But Anne was great as a creative collaborator, not just her book, which was essential, but her own continuing knowledge of the situation was very helpful.
Nelson: I am from Oklahoma, and I go back several times a year to visit my family. That served as a movement’s early warning system. Oklahoma serves as this laboratory state where they’re experimenting with laws. They are defending public health initiatives, attacking public schools, and looking at what they can accomplish with the use of the judiciary, the legislature, and the governor, across state lines.
Initially I thought it was just a local phenomenon. And then when I looked especially at the radio network, and the media system ,]the influence ] went across the middle of the United States, but not so much on the coasts. So then, when Trump’s victory occurred in 2016, I could see that there was this underlying architecture, and I jumped in to try to really map that architecture.
What did you discover while making the movie about Christian nationalism?
Ujlaki: I only learned about the Weyrich manifesto, which he commissioned as he realized that he would never be able to achieve democracy by creating a Christian nation after reading Anne’s book. He would always be in a minority, and the solution was to bypass democracy, to dismantle it. The conclusion was that democracy stands in the way if we are going to carry out the will of God as we see it.
We could show that from that manifesto to what they’ve been doing in the last 20 years, they’ve been following that plan. And that’s where Anne’s book and Anne’s contribution to actually charting everything come in. In other words, everything that’s happening today is the result of a plan. It’s not happenstance.
The film identifies Bob Jones v. The United States, the Supreme Court case desegregating Christian colleges, as an important case for galvanizing the right politically. In the 1980s, abortion ended up being the main focus of the right. Why is abortion such a popular issue?
Ujlaki: It was all about protecting their investment, protecting their segregated Christian academies. That’s why]evangelical Christians ] were so angered, and that’s why they decided they wanted to get involved with politics. However, Weyrich, evil genius that he was, realized that that was n’t actually going to work very well. And so they developed the notion of unborn rights and abortion. It took off like crazy. And because it seems like they are n’t fighting for the rights of the unborn, the Democrats are kind of left behind. The situation is entirely false. It was essentially about white supremacy, but they made it about abortion. And with this, they were able to take control of a whole nation.
What do you think Paul Weyrich thought the majority of Americans did n’t understand about democracy?
Nelson: The Democratic Party and the national press are more focused on marquee elections and general polls. However, that does not accurately reflect how our political system operates. The Electoral College, an odd system, allows for arbitrary electorate distribution. That is not made known in the media or the manner in which the Democratic party speaks. They discuss obtaining a certain number of votes in an election. And that’s just not how it works. As we all know, you can get the most votes and still lose. This was understood by Paul Weyrich and his associates. They understood that if you drilled down and found unengaged, evangelical voters, especially in swing states, you could tilt the elections even more in an anti-majoritarian way. They also comprehended the right-wing talk radio’s power, which the Democrats had rejected. So they actually conducted a lot of in-depth analysis of how the nation operates, and they advanced in terms of activating crucial splinter votes where necessary.
A warning about Project 2025 comes to the end of the movie. How seriously should we respond to that threat?
Ujlaki: I feel that we’re witnessing a slow- moving revolution. People are unaware that the tide is gaining ground over them. And they ca n’t quite believe it’s happening…Trump does n’t have to win for them to say he’s going to win. That was the plan. And I never understood how that was possible, until I realized that they do n’t believe in democracy.
I’m extremely worried. We’re hoping that people will recognize that they are a minority and accept their place. They must retaliate against this. ]The right ] are announcing their plans ahead of time. They’re so confident of what’s going to happen. That’s scary.
Nelson: We have to change the perception of American politics. We have used norms that are supposed. And by breaking the rules, they have sunk all the barriers to democracy. So we must now anticipate that.
On Apple TV and Amazon Prime, you can now rent Bad Faith.”}]] An army of insurrectionists adorned in stars, stripes, and defense gear storming the Capitol to stop the certification of the 2020 election results is the first scene of the new documentary Bad Faith, which was directed by Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher Jacob Jones. It was a turning point for many Americans who were left wondering how we were going.
The new documentary Bad Faith by Stephen Ujlaki & Christopher Jacob Jones begins with footage that is familiar to many Americans. An army of insurrectionists dressed in stars, stripes and military gear storms the Capitol to prevent the certification of 2020 election results. It was a momentous event that left many Americans wondering what we could have done differently.
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