Indiana's Christian Nationalist Lt. Gov. says Zohran Mamdani wants to “force his values” on NYC
Micah Beckwith railed against Muslim politicians while pushing his own unconstitutional brand of religious rule
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Christian Nationalist Micah Beckwith, the Lieutenant Governor of Indiana, has a long history of saying things that go over great on podcasts hosted by fellow Christian Nationalists but have no business being uttered when you’re one of the top government officials in your state.
He’s said the LGBTQ movement is operating out of a “demonic playbook,” that the infamous three-fifths compromise was “a good thing,” and that his own election was a choice between “godly boldness” and “the Jezebel spirit.” He has also argued that people who advocate for church/state separation are “the LGBTQ community trying to support Hamas.”
More recently, he said would allow exceptions to his state’s anti-abortion laws in the case of child rape victims… but only on one condition: The rapist had to be murdered.
His latest utterance of Christian bigotry involves New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. It’s hard to know anymore what his critics are more afraid of: The fact that he’s a Muslim, that he’s openly and proudly a Democratic Socialist, or just his brown skin. But all of it scares Beckwith.
Last week, he appeared on an anti-immigration podcast called “Save Heritage Indiana” where he was asked how to prevent people like Mamdani and Rep. Ilhan Omar (who’s also Muslim) from getting elected because they “don’t represent American values.” (The host notably avoided mentioning white, Christian progressive Democrats whose beliefs overlap quite a bit with Mamdani and Omar.)
A mature, responsible elected official would have dismissed the very premise of that question because it’s obviously an attack on their faith. It wouldn’t be hard to do. Hell, the late Senator John McCain did it.
But Beckwith went right along with it, falsely claiming that “we are a Christian Nation” so anyone who opposes that is inherently a problem:
“While someone like an Ilhan Omar is welcome to be here legally, that does not mean she has a right to change the foundations of this nation,” Beckwith said. “The Supreme Court just ruled in the Kennedy case that long-standing historical tradition is the constitutional precedent. So what’s the long-standing historical tradition in America? It’s Christian values. It was not rooted in Islam, it was not rooted in socialism, Marxism, it was rooted in Judeo-Christian ethics and capitalism. So when a socialist/Marxist like Mandami [sic] tries to force his values onto New York, I would say, ‘No, you’re not welcome to do that because the long-standing historical tradition is constitutional. What you’re bringing is something new. You’re trying to remove the foundations.’”
Not that his bigotry deserves to be rebutted, but the casualness with which he slanders Omar and Mamdani is both disturbing and commonplace among Republicans, so why not.
Our “historical tradition” is not rooted in Christianity. As the Treaty of Tripoli stated, “the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” Even if some of the Founders were Christian, many were not, and the ones who were practiced a very different kind of faith than the one pushed by white evangelicals today.
And what “values” is Mamdani forcing onto New York City? Faster buses. More affordable housing. Free childcare. Basic human decency. (Somehow, there’s nothing about destroying Christianity.) The truth is he literally can’t force those things on the city because he won’t have the unilateral power to do so. But by working to achieve those goals, even if he can’t get all the way there, his fundamental belief seems to be that the government can do things that help nearly everybody. The city doesn’t have to suck. People who live in NYC can and should be proud of what they can do together. Those are values worth championing.
And he would be “welcome” to do all of that because that’s how elections work in a democracy.
Guys like Beckwith are scared of men like Mamdani because he’s young, handsome, and charismatic. He’s a liberal Muslim who’s unafraid of challenging conservatives—and Democrats who deserve it. And he’s just really damn good at the art of politics. While Mamdani is filling arenas for his campaign rallies and exciting a base of voters who feel like politics is a joke right now, Beckwith is a goober who has to appear on right-wing podcasts because people aren’t lining up to listen to anything he has to say. He has power but he doesn’t have respect.
Beckwith could always criticize the feasibility of Mamdani’s policy proposals, but since that doesn’t make his base froth at the mouth, he’s going with Scary Marxist Muslim. It’s the only language his voters understand.
Notice that Beckwith never actually explains what Mamdani’s “values” are. He never says which of Mamdani’s beliefs go against our Constitution. He knows the listening audience will fill in that gap with whatever ignorant beliefs they already hold, so just reminding them that Mamdani is Muslim gives them all the prompting they’ll need.
Meanwhile, Temu Seth MacFarlane is quite literally pushing his conservative Christian beliefs—a form of faith that not all Christians share—on the people of his state in ways that are blatantly unconstitutional.
It’s white Christian Nationalism in action coming from someone who’s a heartbeat away from becoming governor of his state. It’s shameful. And it’s embarrassing because virtually no one in New York City is clamoring to become the next Indiana.
When an elected official uses his platform to smear Muslims, immigrants, and people who champion equality as if they’re not truly American, he betrays not just his oath but the very idea of the nation itself. Beckwith’s brand of Christian Nationalism relies on the cynical exploitation of religion to divide, control, and dehumanize. He knows that his own power requires keeping more thoughtful, decent human beings out of elected office.
That’s why the rest of us need to push back against this kind of rhetoric. When Beckwith says people like Mamdani “don’t represent American values,” he’s saying that millions of Americans don’t count. That their citizenship, their contributions, and their very presence are somehow conditional. That’s not patriotism. That’s right-wing poison.
Someone with Beckwith’s brand of Christian hate shouldn’t be able to define American “values” for the rest of us.
(via Right Wing Watch. Portions of this article were published earlier.)
Authoritarian government and conservative religion are natural allies. It is a symbiotic relationship that has dealt humanity nothing but misery. No one elected this fool to impose his religious values on his state, not that the Constitution likely means much to him. It isn't limited to Christianity. Religions makes all manner of claims, not a one of which is supported by objective evidence. It renders religion inherently divisive and always has. The idea a particular brand of religion is going to solve the world's problems is dangerously stupid, and history makes this abundantly clear.
If their argument is that we must keep the nation in the 1700s, maybe they should remove access to trains, cars, electricity, internet… 🤦♀️