This week’s newsletters have covered how White Christian Nationalists make human rights conditional. Links below for those who missed them:
I can’t prove anything I’m about to type. This is a thought experiment based on my time in White Christian Nationalism, deep study of Project 2025 and related Heritage Foundation materials, and regime actions since 20 January 2025.
What is “Constitutional Originalism?”
Constitutional Originalism attempts to assign the founders’ “original public meaning” to interpreting today’s rule of law. (Source: Brennan Center HERE) This contrasts with a Living Constitution, where the document is interpreted according to the evolution of modern life. (Source: Brennan Center HERE)
The original Constitutional document was ratified and became the basis of government for all thirteen states when New Hampshire ratified it on 21 June 1788. (Source: Ben’s Guide to the US Government HERE)
The Bill of Rights were not part of the original Constitution
The Bill of Rights were originally twelve amendments to the original Constitution drafted on 25 September 1789. Ten amendments were ratified as the Bill of Rights on 15 December 1791.
The Bill of Rights were drafted and ratified to ensure that the federal government never amassed too much power.
Here’s a brief list of the Bill of Rights, as many readers may not have looked at them together in a while:
First Amendment: freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition
Second Amendment: right to bear arms
Third Amendment: protection against housing soldiers in private homes
Fourth Amendment: protection against unreasonable search and seizure
Fifth Amendment: rights in criminal cases (grand jury, self-incrimination, due process, double jeopardy)
Sixth Amendment: rights to trial by jury and legal counsel
Seventh Amendment: right to trial by jury in civil cases
Eighth Amendment: protections against excessive bail, fines, and cruel and unusual punishment
Ninth Amendment: rights not explicitly listed are retained by the people
Tenth Amendment: powers not delegated to the federal government belong to the states and the people
Source for the above section: National Archives Foundation HERE
To date, this federal government has violated most of the Bill of Rights
The First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments have been jettisoned, in whole or in pieces, because these Constitutional Originalists contend that they were not part of the original Constitution. Instead, they were a group of amendments added to entice states to ratify the original. In their view, only the original Constitutional document should govern, and then only as Originalists interpret it.
We can see what the Originalist interpretation looks like in Project 2025’s Four Promises.
Promise 1: Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.
Promise 2: Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.
Promise 3: Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
Promise 4: Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”
Project 2025, page 3
I translated and dissected each promise’s White Christian Nationalist language as part of my 2024 Project 2025 coverage. Readers can find those newsletters below:
This government removed the Constitution from the White House website on 20 January 2025
One source for that action is Newsweek HERE.
The United States was founded as a Christian nation.
Since most of the people coming to the US of their own volition were white, the US was founded as a white nation.
The Founders were primarily Christian and imbued the Constitution with Christianity.
The Founders meant for the US to be a Christian nation.
Liberty is the freedom to do not what we want but what we ought, according to White Christian Nationalist Biblical interpretation.
One could even argue that this government has already shredded the Constitution. I warned Americans about this during 2024. What good is writing strongly-worded letters about the rule of law when they already trashed those rules? What’s the point of a judge’s ruling when the Roberts Court stands ready to ignore the Constitution? How can the Constitution matter when the entire federal government is currently refusing to follow it in favor of making the executive branch an autocratic dictator?
Right now, the US feels like a dual state. Some people still think the Constitution and Bill of Rights fully exist because they haven’t been impacted by this government and its actions. Others have experienced the shock of basically being told the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply for them. wrote about how Germany’s Weimar Republic operated this way in the lead up to the Nazi regime:
