Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) takes issue with so-called “sinister ideologies” — and it seems to align with the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on teaching the legacy of American history.
The House speaker, who led a prayer at “Rededicate 250,” a President Donald Trump-backed Christian prayer gathering held at the National Mall over the weekend, used language that one civil rights leader called an attack on teaching America’s legacy of slavery and violence. Other experts in Black studies, religion and civil rights movements agreed.
Johnson was one of several speakers to address the crowd at Sunday’s event, which was tied to the celebration of 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Many have slammed the Christian-centered event — billed as a “rededication of our country as One Nation to God” — as a promotion for Christian nationalism.
“Our Heavenly Father, we thank you. Thank you so much for this great day that you’ve given us here, as we remember that your mighty hand has been upon our nation since the very beginning,” Johnson said at the start of his prayer.
He then celebrated the signing of the Declaration of Independence, saying: “You gave our fathers the wisdom and faith to establish this new nation premised on the biblical and foundational principle that all men are created equal and free before you.”
After Johnson referenced historic events like the American Civil War and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he asserted that in today’s world, we “face a new set of challenges.”
He then went on to criticize “sinister ideologies” in a one-minute stretch that experts say was telling.
“In recent years, we’ve seen sinister ideologies sow confusion and discord among our people. We’ve witnessed attacks on our history, on our heroes, and on the cherished moral and spiritual identity of this great nation,” Johnson said. “These voices insist to the young and impressionable that our story — the American story — is one of oppression and hypocrisy and failure, and that this story can only be understood through the lens of our sins.”
“But Father, we reject that. We rebuke it in your name,” he continued, before adding: “Our rights do not derive from the government; they come from you, our Creator and Heavenly Father.”
Nadine Smith, president and CEO of racial justice organization Color of Change and a longtime civil rights activist, said that Johnson’s message on “sinister ideologies” promoted the idea of “whitewashing” history.
″[It’s] the familiar right-wing costume change: call honest history dangerous, call truth divisive, call censorship patriotism, and hope nobody notices the hypocrisy,” she told HuffPost.
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Johnson’s prayer was an attempt to “vilify” those who seek to teach or learn the truth about America’s history, experts say.
The Trump administration has led a crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion practices in the U.S. since Trump took office last year. Days after he was sworn in, the president ordered U.S. schools to stop teaching what he views as “critical race theory,” which includes content that deals with issues related to race, discrimination and white privilege.
In some ways, Johnson’s speech was “formulaic, mirroring a long history of revisionist attempts to reinterpret the complex history of the United States as simply the result of divine destiny and not human interactions, human agency, and myriad conflicts,” said Sylvester Johnson, professor and chair of Black studies at Northwestern University.
“Within the context of the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict and curtail the right to learn more truthful, complete history of the United States, however, it appears to be more carefully orchestrated to attack and vilify the right of Americans to study and learn about history from a more fact-based, encompassing account,” he told HuffPost.
Sylvester Johnson, whose research includes religion, said he believes the House speaker was trying to equate “learning about so-called divisive issues as an attack on the United States.”
“But Mike Johnson is attacking Americans who have worked diligently to provide a more truthful account of our nation’s history, one that does not shy away from painful topics such as slavery, genocide, racism, etc.,” he said.
The speaker’s remarks earlier in his prayer, when he called America “the freest” nation in the history of the world, was “simply illogical and counterfactual,” Sylvester Johnson said.
He stressed that slavery was “deeply integral to the workings of the entire nation” and that Mike Johnson’s narrative “renders invisible the mass killings and genocide against Indigenous Americans.”
Mike Johnson’s messaging “hides the truth that the United States — as we know it — could not exist without the massive wealth produced by slave labor and without the violent seizure of lands occupied by the indigenous nations occupying North America,” said Henry Louis Taylor Jr., an urban historian and professor in the department of urban and regional planning at the University at Buffalo.
“Johnson’s speech suggests that the authoritarian right is constructing a linear relationship between God and the authoritarian movement — the U.S.A. government is an extension of God’s rule on earth,” he told HuffPost.
If we don’t teach the truth about America’s past, we risk repeating history, experts warn.
Taylor said a great nation grounded in “racial, social, economic and political justice” requires “truth, accountability and a willingness to confront history honestly.”
“If the nation turns away from historical truth, the United States will remain trapped in recurring cycles of social conflict and political instability, because people forced to live under oppressive and exploitative conditions will never stop fighting for freedom and liberation,” he said.
“The nation now stands at a crossroads: either build a multiracial democracy rooted in justice and historical truth, or continue down a path toward authoritarianism, white supremacy and political violence,” he continued.
Smith said people who try to erase America’s legacy of slavery, violence and discrimination do so to repeat “the exploitation and discrimination of the past.”
“Young people need to learn about slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, voter suppression and discrimination, because those histories explain the country they are living in now,” she said. “Erasing that history does not make children stronger. It makes them easier to manipulate.”
“It is building obedience,” she continued. “And obedience is exactly what people like Mike Johnson need if they want to keep abusing power while calling it virtue.”
Johnson’s call to “rebuke” so-called “sinister ideologies” in the name of God revealed a lot, experts say.
Sylvester Johnson said Mike Johnson’s “sinister ideologies” line was a “classic move for promoting culture wars.”
“He is using his political clout to threaten Americans — including American Christians — by painting them as enemies of the United States if they attempt to exercise their freedom to learn, study, teach, question, etc.,” he said. “It is a familiar authoritarian move, one that is a dangerous threat to the freedom of all Americans.”
“This is a dangerous effort by government officials to define what should be taught and studied about history and to use religion as a weapon to divide Americans,” he added.
Smith said, “A man helping protect the powerful from accountability does not get to stand before the country and declare honest history a sin.”
Elsewhere, Smith criticized Johnson’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. “Mike Johnson wants to talk about anything that will distract from the real threat to children,” she said, before adding: “The public deserves the full truth about Epstein.”
As it relates to Johnson’s rejection of so-called “sinister ideologies,” Smith said, his prayer follows a long history of “powerful people baptizing exclusion in the language of faith.”
“Segregationists quoted Scripture. Opponents of interracial marriage quoted Scripture. People defending slavery quoted Scripture,” she said. “So when a political leader suggests that confronting racism, oppression or historical harm should be ‘rebuked’ in God’s name, we should understand the weight and moral stench of that tradition.”
Mike “Johnson is not inventing anything new. He is reaching for the same old altar cloth to cover the same old rot,” she said.
