Straight White American Jesus

Matthew Taylor is joined by historian and former CIA Africa analyst Holly Berkley Fletcher (author of The Missionary Kids) to unpack why the religious left — unlike the ideologically cohesive religious right — has long struggled to translate its diverse coalition into electoral power, and why faith-forward Democratic candidates like Adam Hamilton and James Talarico may be changing that calculus in this year’s midterms. Later, they’re joined by Julia Curlee, a 20-year CIA veteran and former presidential daily briefer who was forced out of the Trump administration after being publicly outed as a “trans Biden holdover,” for a candid and unsparing assessment of the state of the world — from the failing Iran negotiations and a fraying alliance system to Russian influence operations and the dismantling of the national security apparatus meant to guard against them.

If you enjoy our work, please subscribe.

Paid subscribers get bonus content, ad-free listening, access to the entire 1k episode archive, an invite to our Discord community, and access to the Axis Daily Brief.

If you enjoy our work, please subscribe. 

Paid subscribers get bonus content, ad-free listening, access to the entire 1k episode archive, an invite to our Discord community, and access to the Axis Daily Brief. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/axis-daily-brief/id1896931494

🔔Subscribe - Substack: www.axismundi.substack.com

Books mentioned:

📕 American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy by Brad Onishi — out September 15: https://static.macmillan.com/static/essentials/american-caesar-9781250427922/

📗 Defying Tyrants: Following Jesus in a World of Christian Antichrists by Matthew D. Taylor — out October 6: https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9798341900370/Defying-Tyrants

Live events:

🎤 Brad in Portland at Annie Bloom's Books — September 16, 7 PM: https://annieblooms.com/event/2026-09-16/reading-bradley-b-onishi

Full tour dates: https://axismundinetwork.substack.com/p/the-american-caesar-book-tour

🔗 axismundi.us

www.quo.com/SWAJ -  Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months 

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In this Sunday interview, Annika Brockschmidt talks with journalist and podcaster Michael Edison Hayden about his new book, Strange People on the Hill, which follows what happened when Peter and Lydia Brimelow, the couple behind the white nationalist site VDARE, bought a castle overlooking the tiny tourist town of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Hayden explains who the Brimelows are and how VDARE helped push the "great replacement" narrative into mainstream American politics. He also explains why he made the town, not the Brimelows, the center of the book, and how the arrival of VDARE and the national tensions of 2020 fractured neighbors, businesses, and friendships. The two discuss the toll of covering the far right on journalists' health and relationships, the physical and psychological strain of the beat, and Hayden's argument that MAGA is now the dominant ideology in American culture even though it is unpopular. Subscribers get a bonus segment on what comes next for the Brimelows and VDARE, including the New York Attorney General litigation, the mystery of the donors behind the castle purchase, and whether the castle can be sold. You can find Hayden on the Posting Through It podcast with Jared Holt and on Bluesky, and Strange People on the Hill is out now.

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/michael-edison-hayden/strange-people-on-the-hill/9781645030607/

If you enjoy our work, please subscribe. 

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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/axis-daily-brief/id1896931494

🔔Subscribe - Substack: www.axismundi.substack.com

Books mentioned:

📕 American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy by Brad Onishi — out September 15: https://static.macmillan.com/static/essentials/american-caesar-9781250427922/

📗 Defying Tyrants: Following Jesus in a World of Christian Antichrists by Matthew D. Taylor — out October 6: https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9798341900370/Defying-Tyrants

Live events:

🎤 Brad in Portland at Annie Bloom's Books — September 16, 7 PM: https://annieblooms.com/event/2026-09-16/reading-bradley-b-onishi

Full tour dates: https://axismundinetwork.substack.com/p/the-american-caesar-book-tour

🔗 axismundi.us

www.quo.com/SWAJ -  Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months 

www.groundnews.com/SWAJ 40% off the Vantage Subscription!

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SCOTUS just blocked Donald Trump's attempt to use the U.S. Postal Service to interfere with mail-in voting ahead of the 2026 midterms — but is the fight over election integrity really over? Brad Onishi and Dan Miller break down the ruling, the dissents from Alito and Thomas, and why Mike Johnson could try to pull a "January 3rd" power grab reminiscent of January 6th.

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Can God be perfectly good and perfectly just and still send people to hell? What’s at stake with questions like these? How do adherents of high-control religion respond to questions like these? Check out this week’s episode to hear Dan’s discussion of why the doctrine of hell fundamentally calls God’s goodness and justice into question.

If you enjoy our work, please subscribe. 

Paid subscribers get bonus content, ad-free listening, access to the entire 1k episode archive, an invite to our Discord community, and access to the Axis Daily Brief. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/axis-daily-brief/id1896931494

🔔Subscribe - Substack: www.axismundi.substack.com

Books mentioned:

📕 American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy by Brad Onishi — out September 15: https://static.macmillan.com/static/essentials/american-caesar-9781250427922/

📗 Defying Tyrants: Following Jesus in a World of Christian Antichrists by Matthew D. Taylor — out October 6: https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9798341900370/Defying-Tyrants

Live events:

🎤 Brad in Portland at Annie Bloom's Books — September 16, 7 PM: https://annieblooms.com/event/2026-09-16/reading-bradley-b-onishi

Full tour dates: https://axismundinetwork.substack.com/p/the-american-caesar-book-tour

🔗 axismundi.us

www.quo.com/SWAJ -  Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months 

www.groundnews.com/SWAJ 40% off the Vantage Subscription!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad Onishi on "American Caesar": Inside the Movement to End American Democracy
Today is release day for Brad Onishi's new book American Caesar, and Matt Taylor sits down with him for a deep dive into the ideas inside it. Together they trace how three seemingly separate strands of the American right — Protestant Reconstructionism, radical traditionalist Catholicism, and Silicon Valley technocracy — are converging around a shared vision: an end to liberal democracy and the rise of an American strongman, an "American Caesar."
If you enjoy our work, please subscribe.
Paid subscribers get bonus content, ad-free listening, access to the entire 1k episode archive, an invite to our Discord community, and access to the Axis Daily Brief.
🔔Subscribe - Substack: www.axismundi.substack.com
Books mentioned:
📕 American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy by Brad Onishi — out September 15: https://static.macmillan.com/static/essentials/american-caesar-9781250427922/
Live events:
🎤 Brad in Portland at Annie Bloom's Books — September 16, 7 PM: https://annieblooms.com/event/2026-09-16/reading-bradley-b-onishi
Full tour dates: https://axismundinetwork.substack.com/p/the-american-caesar-book-tour
🔗 axismundi.us
www.quo.com/SWAJ - Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months
www.groundnews.com/SWAJ 40% off the Vantage Subscription!
American Caesar is out today — grab a copy and leave a review if you can.
Upcoming events with Brad:
📍 Sept 16 — Annie Bloom's, Portland, 7 PM
📍 Sept 22 — Amherst College
📍 Sept 23 — Northeastern University (with Sarah Ricardy Swartz)
📍 Oct 1 — NYU Religion and Media Center (with Emma Goldberg, NYT)
📍 Oct 11 — Knoxville, TN
📍 Oct 12 — Nashville, TN
📍 Oct 14 — Memphis, TN

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad Onishi previews his new book American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy, out this week, and shares its audiobook introduction. He explains the book's central argument: an unlikely alliance has formed between Protestant reconstructionists, radical traditional Catholics, and Silicon Valley technocrats, united by five shared beliefs — hostility to liberalism, a post-libertarian embrace of strong government, rejection of democracy in favor of a strongman "American Caesar," and a shared rhetoric of "saving Western civilization." He thanks listeners for their support in making the book possible and runs down his upcoming tour stops, including Portland, Amherst, Boston, New York, and several stops in Tennessee.

If you enjoy our work, please subscribe. 

Paid subscribers get bonus content, ad-free listening, access to the entire 1k episode archive, an invite to our Discord community, and access to the Axis Daily Brief. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/axis-daily-brief/id1896931494

🔔Subscribe - Substack: www.axismundi.substack.com

Books mentioned:

📕 American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy by Brad Onishi — out September 15: https://static.macmillan.com/static/essentials/american-caesar-9781250427922/

📗 Defying Tyrants: Following Jesus in a World of Christian Antichrists by Matthew D. Taylor — out October 6: https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9798341900370/Defying-Tyrants

Live events:

🎤 Brad in Portland at Annie Bloom's Books — September 16, 7 PM: https://annieblooms.com/event/2026-09-16/reading-bradley-b-onishi

Full tour dates: https://axismundinetwork.substack.com/p/the-american-caesar-book-tour

🔗 axismundi.us

www.quo.com/SWAJ -  Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months 

www.groundnews.com/SWAJ 40% off the Vantage Subscription!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Brad breaks down Donald Trump's false claims about his experience that day, Rudy Giuliani's attacks on Mayor Zohran Mamdani for attending the memorial as a Muslim, and newly released documents showing NYC officials knew Ground Zero air was toxic but told the public otherwise.
Then Brad welcomes former CIA officer Holly Berkley Fletcher to unpack how the "national malaise" of the 1990s — after the Cold War ended and the country turned inward — set the stage for 9/11 to be reframed not as a fight against a terrorist group, but as a civilizational battle against Islam itself. They trace how that shift accelerated Christian nationalism, fractured America's foreign policy consensus, and set the country on a path that runs through the Iraq War, January 6th, and the rise of MAGA Christianity today.
📕 American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy by Brad Onishi — out September 15: https://static.macmillan.com/static/e...

Live events:
🎤 Brad in Portland at Annie Bloom's Books — September 16, 7 PM: https://annieblooms.com/event/2026-09...
Full tour dates:

https://axismundinetwork.substack.com...

🔗 axismundi.us
www.quo.com/SWAJ - Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months
www.groundnews.com/SWAJ 40% off the Vantage Subscription!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The idea of “hell” is a central focus within conservative, high-control Christianity (with analogues in some other traditions as well). But what, exactly, is the teaching concerning hell? And where does it come from? Does the Bible actually teach what religious conservatives say it does about hell? If not, why do they teach it? Why is hell so central to their understanding of Christianity? And what happens if we ask uncomfortable questions about hell? Join Dan for this week’s episode to find out!

If you enjoy our work, please subscribe.

Paid subscribers get bonus content, ad-free listening, access to the entire 1k episode archive, an invite to our Discord community, and access to the Axis Daily Brief.

🔔Subscribe - Substack: www.axismundi.substack.com

Books mentioned:

📕 American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy by Brad Onishi — out September 15: https://static.macmillan.com/static/essentials/american-caesar-9781250427922/

📗 Defying Tyrants: Following Jesus in a World of Christian Antichrists by Matthew D. Taylor — out October 6: https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9798341900370/Defying-Tyrants

Live events:

🎤 Brad in Portland at Annie Bloom’s Books — September 16, 7 PM: https://annieblooms.com/event/2026-09-16/reading-bradley-b-onishi

Full tour dates: https://axismundinetwork.substack.com/p/the-american-caesar-book-tour

🔗 axismundi.us

www.quo.com/SWAJ - Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months

www.groundnews.com/SWAJ 40% off the Vantage Subscription!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the first time since 1945, a far-right party bordering on Nazism has won real power in Germany. Brad Onishi and Matthew D. Taylor break down the AfD's stunning election result, Elon Musk and JD Vance's public support for the party, and what this signals about the global retreat from liberal democracy. Then, religious historian Warren Throckmorton joins to unpack Southern Baptist leader Al Mohler's growing alignment with Doug Wilson and Christian Reconstructionism — and why it marks a striking departure from historic Baptist commitments to church-state separation and religious liberty.

Mixed: https: https://redcircle.com/shows/b09749cc-fdf8-4230-8234-b90e3f11a1c9

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In PART II A conversation between Robert P. Jones and Brad Onishi, whose books—Backslide and American Caesar—arrive one week apart from the same publisher. Jones traces how "backsliding" carries both theological and political-science meanings, citing survey data showing measurable democratic erosion (from a rating of 67 down to 54, with a projected drop to 47) and arguing white Christianity, not just American democracy, is in "apostasy," pointing to majority white evangelical support for immigrant detention camps as a bright line. Onishi then walks through American Caesar's core argument: that Reconstructionist Protestants, radical traditional Catholics, and tech-world figures have formed a loose coalition around "saving Western civilization," a discourse he argues is really about excluding Muslims, African and Latin American migrants, and anyone outside a narrow white Christian identity, while reaching back not to the 1950s but toward a fantasy of medieval Christendom. The two discuss Hannah Arendt's writing on inner resistance versus external compliance, the media's reluctance to scrutinize Christian nationalism the way it would Islam, and the resurgence of arguments for restricting women to domestic roles. They close on a note of qualified hope: polling suggests a majority of Americans favor religious pluralism and multiculturalism even though a minority currently holds power, and both authors call for renewing—rather than simply restoring—a democratic and theological imagination for a generation to whom "democracy" no longer means much on its own.

If you enjoy our work, please subscribe. 

Paid subscribers get bonus content, ad-free listening, access to the entire 1k episode archive, an invite to our Discord community, and access to the Axis Daily Brief. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/axis-daily-brief/id1896931494

🔔Subscribe - Substack: www.axismundi.substack.com

Books mentioned:

📕 American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy by Brad Onishi — out September 15: https://static.macmillan.com/static/essentials/american-caesar-9781250427922/

📗 Defying Tyrants: Following Jesus in a World of Christian Antichrists by Matthew D. Taylor — out October 6: https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9798341900370/Defying-Tyrants

Live events:

🎤 Brad in Portland at Annie Bloom's Books — September 16, 7 PM: https://annieblooms.com/event/2026-09-16/reading-bradley-b-onishi

Full tour dates: https://axismundinetwork.substack.com/p/the-american-caesar-book-tour

🔗 axismundi.us

www.quo.com/SWAJ -  Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months 

www.groundnews.com/SWAJ 40% off the Vantage Subscription!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices