Mike Johnson's Christian nationalist 'snake oil' torn apart by Princeton historian

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) not been shy about espousing claims associated with Christian nationalism, which is the idea that the United States must be subordinated to Christian law — or more specifically, a right-wing interpretation of Christian law.

He has even proposed a religious test for politicians. And he has tried to imprint those beliefs on the law, even proposing up to ten years of "hard labor" for abortion performed for any reason and at any stage of pregnancy.

Princeton historian Kevin Kruse took a sledgehammer to Johnson's beliefs in a Substack post released on Thursday where he dismantled the historical basis for Johnson's arguments.

"First of all ... Johnson is not surprisingly a devotee of the Religious Right’s favorite pretend historian, David Barton, whose books are so divorced from the actual history that his conservative Christian publisher once had to recall one of them for passing along fake quotes from the Founding Fathers," wrote Kruse. And in a new interview with the right-wing Daily Signal, "Johnson does a very familiar routine, cherry-picking a few select quotations from the Founders to imply that they basically wanted a theocratic government, and ignoring the many other quotations from them making clear that these Enlightenment figures absolutely did not want that."