A few days ago, The New York Times released a podcast episode reviewing a book written by its most extreme right wing columnist, Ross Douthat (pronounced, “dow that”). Douthat was featured on the episode, but was joined by two other New York Times writers, Michelle Cottle and Carlos Lozada.
The subtitle of the book expresses its central idea: “Everyone Should Be Religious”. Carlos Lozada expanded on that assertion, explaining that the goal of Douthat’s book is “to make this rational, empirical, intellectual case for religious belief.”
The odd thing is that the author, Ross Douthat didn’t make a single rational argument for being religious in the entire podcast episode. He merely stated,
“There probably is a God. The universe is probably made with you and with you, Carlos, and you, Michelle, and maybe even me in mind.”
Not once in the entire episode does Douthat provide any rational argument or source of empirical data to justify the belief that the entire universe, with its quasars, black holes, mostly consisting of a vast cold emptiness, was constructed specially for him. He simply states that it’s true, and expects the podcast audience to agree with him as a matter of faith.
Faith, devoid of facts and reason, was a perspective that Michelle Cottle got right on board with. She declared:
“Look, I’m a big fan of faith, and generally, it might surprise Ross, of organized religion. I do think people have this innate longing for a sense of purpose and order to the universe, and if you’re not believing in a divine power, you tend to gravitate toward less savory options, like political messiahs, whack job conspiracy theories, but look, I grew up Southern Baptist.”
Yes, Michelle Cottle is a Christian, and a big fan of religion. All three of the people participating in the podcast episode are Christians. They didn’t think to invite a non-religious person, or even one person from a non-Christian religion, to participate in the conversation. In New York City, that wouldn’t have been difficult to do, but the editors at the New York Times seem to have decided that non-Christian viewpoints are no longer appropriate for broadcasting and publication.
The decision to exclude non-Christian voices from the New York Times, in order to make Christian faith seem like the obvious, and default choice, is especially disturbing when one considers that Michelle Cottle isn’t just a podcast contributor at the New York Times. Michelle Cottle occupies the US Politics seat on the New York Times editorial board.
Occupying that position, Cottle should know better than to claim that atheists are more likely than religious believers to support demagogues and conspiracy theories. Listen again to what she said.
“If you’re not believing in a divine power, you tend to gravitate toward less savory options, like political messiahs, whack job conspiracy theories.”
A genuinely empirical consideration of the value of religion would acknowledge that social research and other sources of data have consistently shown Michelle Cottle’s claim to be false. The facts:
In 2021, sociologists analyzing Gallup survey data found that “religious belief, religious identity and religious participation are all positively and strongly correlated with believing in popular contemporary falsehoods.”
The results of a 2022 meta-analysis published in the Journal of Research in Personality showed that “people who believe in conspiracy theories are more likely than other people to hold pseudoscientific beliefs, exhibit paranoid ideation, suffer from schizotypy, be narcissistic, be religious/spiritual and have lower cognitive ability.”
A 2022 study in the journal Environmental Research and Public Health concluded that “people with high religious fundamentalism are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories”.
In 2022, a study published in the journal Political Psychology described a “significant positive correlation between religiosity and conspiracy mindset and a slightly stronger correlation between religiosity and the tendency to endorse specific conspiracy beliefs”. The authors explained that, “The positive correlations suggest that similarities in the cognitive and explanatory style—like assuming hidden powers behind events—speak to the same persons and dominate the relation between conspiracy theory endorsement and religiosity”.
In June of last year, an academic analysis published in the journal Politics And Religion found a “relationship between religious attitudes, spirituality, and conspiracism”.
If you’re looking for a “political messiah” in the United States, that’s Donald Trump. Donald Trump has been the only presidential candidate since George W. Bush to claim that he was chosen by God and divinely anointed to become President of the United States. There is no alternative messianic politician on the Democratic side of the aisle. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris never even hinted that they believed they had been chosen by spiritual beings as the rightful occupants of the White House, and Democratic voters did not promote any such nonsensical beliefs.
Exit polls in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections consistently showed both that the majority of Americans voting for Donald Trump were Christian and that the majority of American Christian voters supported Donald Trump.
Exit polls in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections show that non-religious Americans were the most reliable group of supporters for candidates opposing Donald Trump.
There is no empirical source of information that supports Michelle Cottle’s claim that lack of religious faith in gods is associated with belief in conspiracy theories and support for “political messiahs”. All the data points strongly in the opposite direction. Religious people are the most likely to indulge in conspiracy theories and messianic nationalism.
When Michelle Cottle insulted non-religious Americans, she didn’t bother to check the facts. She spoke from her faith, and she got it dead wrong. That’s the kind of mistake we might expect from a YouTube influencer or a member of Moms For Liberty. To see this kind of sloppy failure of all journalistic ethics from the editor of national politics for the New York Times is alarming.
It’s alarming because conspiracy theories and a Christian Nationalist messianic cult of personality are tools that Donald Trump is using to attack the very foundations of democracy in the United States of America. Donald Trump has placed extremist Christian Nationalists in almost every corner of the US federal government, and it’s these Christian Nationalists, using conspiracy theories and weird stories about Donald Trump’s special relationship with God, who are rapidly destroying American society from the inside out.
Yes, Elon Musk is getting a lot of attention for his administrative coup d’etat, and rightfully so. Just as active in the fascist takeover of the USA, though much more quiet in his assault, has been Russ Vought, architect of Project 2025 and White House Director of Management and Budget. Elon Musk is doing dramatic poses with a chainsaw in front of the cameras, but behind the scenes, it’s Russ Vought who is directing the collapse of American democracy through criminally defunding government agencies in defiance of laws passed by the US Congress.
Russ Vought is also one of the most powerful leaders of the Christian Nationalist movement. Vought has explicitly called for an end to freedom of religion in America, in favor of forcing all Americans to obey the harsh religious laws of Christian extremism.
In 2023, Russ Vought appeared on The Sword And The Trowel, a podcast hosted by Tom Ascol, a preacher who has called for homosexuality to be made a crime for which the punishment is death. This is explicitly Nazi ideology, along with the violent Christian Nationalism that the Third Reich used to keep the gullible German public in line. In that podcast episode, Vought said the following:
“We talk about being a nation that's for God. That's a consensus that we want to renew in this country. That we have religious liberty, but it cannot come from this notion that a country isn't understanding the reality that it has to obey God and there is only one true god and that is Jesus Christ our lord.”
The Orwellian doublespeak coming out of Russ Vought’s mouth is astonishing. In one breath he declares that America has religious liberty, but in the next breath goes on to explain that religious liberty should only exist to the extent that the entire nation are forced to obey Christianity, which all Americans will be compelled to accept as the only valid religion.
Russ Vought wants to force all Americans to become Christians. So why is he working as Donald Trump’s Director of Management and Budget?
Christian Nationalists have declared that their goal is to take over every aspect of American society to compel Americans to worship Jesus in every aspect of their lives. The US federal government has been most significant barrier to them achieving that goal. The US federal government has upheld the Constitution, which provides all Americans with equality, regardless of their religion.
When Americans are able to provide for themselves economically, free from all forms of discrimination, they have no need of going to church. Year after year, Americans have been abandoning Christian churches, choosing to live free of abuse by Christian leaders.
Russ Vought wants to herd Americans back into church by destroying civil society. Vought has explicitly said that he wants to “traumatize” Americans so that they won’t want to work with the US government, and won’t be able to expect any help from the government. In the wake of this nationwide destruction, with their economic and social independence smashed to pieces, the plan is for Christian churches to swoop in and regain control.
With public schools destroyed, publicly-funded church-run Christian schools will take their place. With public health infrastructure devastated, publicly-funded Christian hospital networks will take their place. Christian Nationalists plan to do this to every sector of American society, until there is no place left that is not under the control of Christian leaders, who will become wealthy and powerful as the administrators of kind of neo-medieval unelected government under which the will of God and the will of the priestly ruling class will become one and the same.
To achieve the goal of Christian supremacy, Russ Vought is overseeing the destruction of every part of the US federal government that cannot be easily brought under the sway of the Christian Nationalist extremists Donald Trump has appointed in every cabinet department.
As for their Christian values, we can judge them by their works.
They are cutting off medical care for the sick.
They are allowing food to rot in storage rather than giving it out to feed the hungry.
Medical research projects that were saving lives have been shut down.
There is no compassion in Christian Nationalism. There is only the worship of absolute, totalitarian power, with a cruel pyramid of domination that starts with the all-powerful God, then goes down to the all-powerful President, in a structure of religious authoritarianism that ensures obedience through fear.
The Christian Nationalists don’t care how many Americans are being hurt in the process. They are willing to destroy the lives of anyone that gets in the way of their accumulation of power.
So it is that last week, U.S. Representative Mark Alford told fired federal workers at a town hall meeting in Kansas City, Missouri that they shouldn’t worry about losing their jobs because, “God has a plan and purpose for your life.”
This is the Republican plan for America: Take away people’s jobs. Take away their medicine. Take away their food. Take away their democracy. Then, tell Americans not to worry about it, because a magical spirit from the sky has a plan for them.
What is God’s plan for the huge numbers of Americans who are out of work, out of food, losing their homes under the destructive chaos of Christian Nationalism? Well, of course, there is no plan. There’s only, as Donald Trump put it, a concept of a plan.
So we’re all just supposed to pray to Jesus, and hope that some kind of magical power is going to turn it all around, is going to make it all okay, somehow.
Of course, it’s not going to be okay, if all we do is pray about it.
We need to take action.
Take action:
This Friday, February 28, is a nationwide economic blackout. Don’t buy anything on Friday. Don’t go to the store. Don’t fill up your car with gasoline. Keep your money in your pocket.
Take action:
Next Tuesday, March 4, is a day of nationwide protest, with anti-fascist demonstrations in every city across the nation.
Take action! March forth!
