Christian liar David Barton: Democrats aren't "God-fearing," so they cheat in elections
I can't believe he said this with a straight face
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For a man whose career is dedicated to spreading lies, Christian pseudo-historian David Barton’s latest one may be a stretch too far, even for him.
A quick refresher: Barton has made a career out of twisting and distorting the words of the Founding Fathers and the Bible in defense of Christian Nationalism, homophobia, and bigotry. He’s such an egregious Christian liar that he claimed to have an earned Ph.D. that was later revealed to be a hoax. And he once wrote a book about Thomas Jefferson that was so full of misinformation that his Christian publishers pulled the book from the shelves, saying, “There were historical details — matters of fact, not matters of opinion, that were not supported at all.” (The book was ironically titled The Jefferson Lies.)
And yet conservative Christians and Republican politicians still cite him as an authoritative source of information. They all know the sort of people who take them seriously aren’t really interested in honesty. They just want someone to say, with total confidence, whatever they all wish was true.
That’s why Barton’s latest remarks are so remarkable. They’re not just lies. They’re obvious lies. Or at least they would be obvious to anyone who cares about facts.
In a clip picked up by Right Wing Watch, Barton appeared on the Truth & Liberty Coalition’s show on Monday and called out politicians who cheat and break the rules in order to win elections.
He was not calling out Donald Trump or his Christian allies who were recently indicted in Georgia specifically for conspiring to overturn election results. Nope. He was talking about Democrats.
“Generally, the Democrat Party is a very secular party,” Barton said. “They tend to be very secular, and the more secular you are, the less God-fearing you are, which means the less restraints you have on your behavior. So, if there is no God, then everything is right now and the end does justify the means—the Machiavellian thing that the end justifies the means.”
Republicans believe in God, Barton claimed, which is why they are “not going to break the rules just to win”
“Democrats don’t have that moral restraint of [being] God-fearing; one day, I’m going to account to God and he’s gonna say, ‘Why did you cheat in that election?'” Barton continued. “If you don’t believe that, then why not cheat in an election? So, you have less moral restraints which means the end does justify the means, which means you’re willing to do more things to make sure your side wins. You win at all costs.”
It’s all absolutely ridiculous to state when one of the biggest political crises we currently face as a nation involves punishing Republicans who literally tried to steal an election they lost. They stormed the Capitol. They pressured people to lie and “find” votes that were never cast. They literally get convicted of voting multiple times.
And, like the professional liars they are, the Party’s top leaders continue acting like none of this was a big deal while projecting their own crimes onto Democrats.
Barton speaks as if the past several years never happened.
He’s also lying about secular people acting immorally. As sociologist Phil Zuckerman has written about so eloquently, the people without religious faith also score higher on just about every metric of morality imaginable:
In terms of who supports helping refugees, affordable health care for all, accurate sex education, death with dignity, gay rights, transgender rights, animal rights; and as to who opposes militarism, the governmental use of torture, the death penalty, corporal punishment, and so on — the correlation remains: The most secular Americans exhibit the most care for the suffering of others, while the most religious exhibit the highest levels of indifference.
The Democratic Party is not a secular party by any means. Of the Democrats currently in Congress, 76% are Christian, 12% are Jewish, 4% belong to other faiths, 7% aren’t public about their religious label, and a mere one dude (0.4%) is openly Humanist. (The remaining fraction of a percentage belongs to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who is no longer a Democrat.) Most Democratic voters are also deeply religious.
So Democrats aren’t godless in any meaningful way. And Democrats aren’t cheating in elections. But David Barton, who lies in the name of Jesus in order to dupe gullible conservative Christians who always buy his latest flavor of bullshit, just claims otherwise.
Kyle Mantyla of Right Wing Watch points out that Barton himself should know better given his own political history (emphasis his):
Barton, of course, has a history of projecting his own side’s illegality onto Democrats, such as when he proclaimed in 2019 that Christian candidates would never illegally harvest ballots shortly after North Carolina had to schedule a new election because the Republican candidate—who Barton had endorsed—had engaged in illegal ballot harvesting.
The facts never matter to Barton or the people interviewing him. Furthermore, there’s no shortage of megachurch preachers and political leaders who invite Barton to give talks but never have the courage to point out his lies.
If you’re looking for the truth, you have to go to watchdog groups or secular activists.
“They tend to be very secular, and the more secular you are, the less God-fearing you are, which means the less restraints you have on your behavior."
'Tis just the opposite. The more God-fearing you are, the fewer restraints on your behavior. All you need do is make the Public Apology to the Ceiling instead of actual accountability.
Barton doesn't seem very fearful of his imaginary tyrant. He lies endlessly.
Scripture says that his god detests lying lips. Barton should be grateful his deity is nowhere to be found. He'd have to be fitted with a gypsum jumpsuit.