Someone failed their high school civics class! Or at least that’s the impression Politico’s democracy investigator, Heidi Przybyla left during an appearance on MSNBC’s All In Thursday night. According to the reporter who’s supposedly brushed up on American governance, if you understood that your rights as a human came from a higher power, it made up part of a dangerous “extremist element” in American politics. She even rhetorically scoffed that people don’t believe we get our rights from Congress.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” was arguably the most well-known line from the Declaration of Independence, which set down why the colonies were starting a revolution. But that fact seemed to be ignored or unknown to Przybyla as she lashed out at the political right.
She was spurred on by a traitor to the Republican Party, former party chairman Michael Steele (filling in for host Chris Hayes) who despised how openly Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) showed his Christian faith:
On the other side, Heidi, you've got the new speaker, Mike Johnson, who’s not afraid to wear his Christianity on his skleeve [sic] – sleeve, his collar, his lapel, his head, wherever he can wear it. How do members react to that? How are they responding to this real strong infusion of Christian nationalism into the body politic of the House?
Przybyla warned that the only people who believed in the idea of Natural Law and actively pushed the notion was the “extremist element” of “Christian Nationalism.” “[T]hey believe that our rights as Americans and as all human beings do not come from any earthly authority. They don't come from Congress, they don’t come from the Supreme Court, they come from God,” she scoffed, flaunting her ignorance of Christian teachings in general.
She did note that Natural Law was “a pillar of Catholicism” and has “been used for good in social justice campaigns. Martin Luther King evoked it in talking about civil rights.” But seemed to play the gender card while also dismissing Natural Law. “The problem from that is that they are determining, man – men – it is men, are determining what God is telling them,” she decried.
Well, Heidi, allow us at NewsBusters to give you a little lesson about Natural Law. As noted above, Natural Law was a driving force behind the founding of America. Thomas Jefferson also wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “…the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Przybyla was rightfully dragged on social media by people all across the political aisle. “The problem here is that literally *ALL* Christians believe our rights come from God, @HeidiReports; there is literally not a single Christian denomination that believes otherwise,” radio host Erick Erickson posted on X.
The problem here is that literally *ALL* Christians believe our rights come from God, @HeidiReports; there is literally not a single Christian denomination that believes otherwise. https://t.co/oOVF54rOEs
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) February 23, 2024
Even NewsNation host Chris Cuomo took aim at her suggestion that our rights come from mortal sources. “Where does the constitution say your rights come from congress? (Cuz they dont),” he too posted on X.
The flailing continued on Thursday as Przybyla took to X to defend herself, doubling down on the false idea that only Christian nationalists believed our rights come from God. “While there are different wings of Christian Nationalism, they are bound by their belief that our rights come from God,” she proclaimed. She also asserted that the so-called Christian nationalists were trying to apply Natural Law to their “man-made policy agenda” like “banning abortion.”
Clearly, Politico's democracy investigator needs to get a clue.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s All In
February 22, 2024
8:30:34 p.m. Eastern(…)
MICHAEL STEELE: On the other side, Heidi, you've got the new speaker, Mike Johnson, who’s not afraid to wear his Christianity on his skleeve [sic] – sleeve, is collar, his lapel, his head, wherever he can wear it. How do members react to that? How are they responding to this real strong infusion of Christian nationalism into the body politic of the House?
HEIDI PRZYBYLA: I talked with a lot of experts on this and I have seen it with myself with my reporting, Michael, which is that the base of the Republican Party has shifted. Right? Remember when Trump ran in 2016, a lot of the mainline evangelicals wanted nothing to do with the divorced real estate mogul who cheated on his wife with a porn star, and all of that. Right?
So, what happened was that he was surrounded by this more extremist element. You’re going to hear words like “Christian nationalism,” like the “new apostolic re-formation.” These are groups that you should get very – very schooled on because they have a lot of power in Trump's circle.
And the one thing that unites all of them because there's many different groups orbiting Trump. But the thing that unites them as Christian nationalists, not Christians, by the way – because Christian nationalists is very different – is that they believe that our rights as Americans and as all human beings do not come from any earthly authority. They don't come from Congress, they don’t come from the Supreme Court, they come from God.
The problem from that is that they are determining, man – men – it is men, are determining what God is telling them. And in the past, that so-called natural law is a pillar of Catholicism for instance, it’s been used for good in social justice campaigns. Martin Luther king evoked it in talking about civil rights.
But now you have an extremist element of conservative Christians, who say that this applies specifically to issues including abortion, gay marriage, and it is going much further than that as you see, for instance, with the ruling in Alabama, this week that judges connected to the dominionist faction in talking about a lot of other issues including surrogacy, IVF, sex education in schools, there's a lot in addition.
(…)
