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Sarah Posner on White Evangelicals and the January 6 Insurrection, Plus Joan Walsh on Sex Ed

On this week’s episode of Start Making Sense, discussions on religion’s role in the riots and the “parental rights” movement.

Jon Wiener and Start Making Sense

June 23, 2022

Joel Perez prays during the “Evangelicals for Trump” campaign event held at the King Jesus International Ministry as they await the arrival of President Donald Trump on January 3, 2020, in Miami, Fla.(Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

In seeking to understand the January 6 insurrection, much of the focus has been on white nationalist militias like the Proud Boys. But white evangelicals also played a big part on January 6. Sarah Posner, author of Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind, joins the podcast to discuss religion’s role in the riots.

Also: Republicans have opened another front in the culture war with the slogan “parental rights.” Joan Walsh joins the podcast to explain how it’s not just about banning the teaching of critical race theory but also about a ban on comprehensive sex education.

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Jon WienerTwitterJon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.


Start Making SenseTwitterStart Making Sense is The Nation’s podcast, hosted by Jon Wiener and coproduced by the Los Angeles Review of Books. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes each Thursday.  


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