Most traditional conservatives agree that Donald Trump is not a conservative. A conservative, by definition, wants to conserve traditions and norms that lead to a well-ordered society. But that is not what the MAGA movement wants, and it’s been interesting watching Harris seize territory that has traditionally been occupied by the Republicans.
I recently spoke with former Representative , a lifelong Republican who recently spoke in the time slot at the DNC shortly before Kamala Harris took the stage, about this realignment of the political parties, and what history tells us about the weaponization of religion in government.
Here’s the video of my conversation with Adam Kinzinger (and the transcript is below for those who prefer reading!) You can also read Adam’s Substack here.
Here’s the transcript:
Sharon McMahon: Well, I'm really happy to be joined today by Adam Kinzinger. Thanks so much for coming back. It's great to chat with you again. I know you're very busy, as we all are with an election that’s 48 days away.
Adam Kinzinger: It’s funny because time goes by so fast, but the days seem to go by slowly when it comes to politics.
Sharon McMahon: There aren't that many Americans who are like, I'm pumped. Let's go. You know what I mean? Most Americans are like, when is this over? I am very tired.
Adam Kinzinger: They are, you know, the crazy thing. And this is something I've been thinking about lately. So tell me if I'm crazy, but politics used to be fun. Like it used to be like a competition.
That's kind of why I got into it, right? It's a version of sports. It has some pretty serious implications. It's not as serious as, you know, who wins the Bears game, that doesn't really matter to your life, it does to mine, but to most people, it doesn't. But the whole competition of ideas and the academic side, and then, you know, bumper stickers, yard signs, that all used to be fun. Now it just feels like a grind. And, I miss the days when it was just bumper stickers and yard signs, you know, and a couple of commercials.
Sharon McMahon: What do you think has changed? You know, like if you think back to, it used to be a fun competition that people who enjoyed a little friendly spar now and then, you know, you look back at the old debate videos that seem like another time and place, where even Reagan, in debating some of his opponents made little jokes like “I refuse to make age a factor in this election”, you know, because I'm too old, poking fun at himself, or where, John Kerry and George W. Bush, when the moderator asks them, what do you dislike about your opponent? They actually refuse to get into personal attacks and say, you know what? This is a good man. I'm not here to get into personal attacks. His wife is wonderful. His girls have been so nice to my daughter. At the end of the day, we're still going to be friends.
We just have some different ideas about, you know, a few different things. What has changed? Because I think a lot of Americans would really like to go back to those times.
Adam Kinzinger: Look, it's a number of things really, let's take the most recent and we can kind of work our way back. The most recent and it's just clear is Donald Trump.
Donald Trump crossed so many red lines that even as politics was becoming atrocious or personal, people still never said things like, “I hate Taylor Swift,” for God's sake. I don't, I can't honestly think of a time I've heard a president say he hated. Anything except George HW when he talked about broccoli.
So I think, you know, he crossed so many red lines. When somebody crosses any kind of a norm or standard, and the reaction to that is kind of muted as it has been with Trump (because he's built himself a loyal following that will never say anything bad about him), then that just becomes the standard.
And you can see this in very small aspects of the Democratic Party they'll say, like, how come we don't fight like the Republicans do? And my reaction to that is trust me, don't go down that rabbit hole. It's not good for the party.
It's not good for the country. Like we need some party that's going to hold the standards. So I think that's the most obvious recent thing. The other thing is, let's go back 15 years, or maybe 20 or 30 years. It was the marrying of the Christian coalition, basically with the Republican party, where all of a sudden it went from being a competition of ideas, a competition of like, tax rates and the economy, into really kind of religious type reasoning.
If you believe that the Democratic party is evil, all of a sudden politics goes from being fun and a competition to being really life or death. The other thing is just simply the media environment.
You know, what we learned as politicians and then what the media has learned is that things like fear and division raises money for political campaigns. And so we've abused people that way. And the media has abused people to keep them hooked. Starting with, you know, most namely Rush Limbaugh and then Fox News and then now these, Right Side Broadcasting, Newsmax all these that are competing to get people angrier and angrier.
And I think that's a significant amount of what's happened and there has been some reaction on the left to the right. And so the left, I think to an extent, if we're being honest, they have their own challenges with taking things too seriously, but I honestly, I can't fault them because the threat I see on the right is so great that it's hard to look at that and be like, well, let's just be friends with that and have a difference of opinion.
Because when somebody is an insurrectionist or against democracy, that is not the kind of thing you can coexist with in a kind of a gentlemanly or gentlewomanly, back and forth on politics. So I think the 50,000 foot overview of what's happened.
Sharon McMahon: It's an interesting point about the religious right or the rise of the moral majority because when your leaders, both your faith leaders and your political leaders, tell you that this is a matter of moral conscience and that this is what God would have you think and believe and how God would have you vote, that is really difficult to be like, "you know, I don't know. I don't know. I disagree with that."
To your point, when you tell a group that your opponent is evil, and this is a fight for the kingdom of God, that is truly what many political and faith leaders taught, and some still teach, that this is a fight for the kingdom of God. And when that is how you frame the argument, and to this day, this is how many people understand politics, the argument is framed around Christian nationalism, and that this is a fight for God's will on earth, so to speak.
It's a very challenging thing to leave behind. And I think that is perhaps one of the reasons there's such a significant loyalty to Trump. is the very successful couching of the argument as a fight between good and evil. No longer a fight about tax rates or social security. It's a fight between good and evil, and people view it as incumbent upon them to choose the right side, no matter what.
Adam Kinzinger: Yeah, that's right. And Donald Trump, of course, himself has no faith. So let's just be clear. No matter what he says, the dude is not a man of faith, which is his right to be. The problem is he knows that he is perceived as a man of faith. He knows the language of the religious right now.
That's the one thing he has, whether he's smart or not. I really don't know. I would tend to think he's not that smart. But he does have very good emotional IQ, not in terms of how to get along with people, but in terms of being able to perceive crowds, he knows when he's losing them.
And that's when you'll see him in a rally, all of a sudden pivot to immigration or pivot to something angry, or he goes off script because he can sense that. And so he learned the language of the religious right very early on and without himself saying, "I am God,” he implies it, you know, he's called himself “The Chosen One” before.
The interesting thing when this all kind of broke, my wife worked at the RNC. You know, before Trump was the nominee, kind of in that 2015, 2016 time period. And she said that, the interesting thing is once it was Donald Trump, there was not a rush to support him. The religious right for the most part was not Donald Trump fans.
They kind of coalesced behind Ted Cruz. Until it became clear when there was the opening in the Supreme Court and Mitch McConnell said, I am not going to put Merrick Garland, who was Obama's nominee, in place. He said, I'm going to wait till after the election. Then all of a sudden it was like "I got to vote for Donald Trump because that's going to decide abortion and all these other things in the Supreme court,” which it did.
And that's when the religious right got fervently behind Donald Trump. And he saw that; he felt that. So he knows how to manipulate that. He knows the language. If you listen to Christian nationalists in their discussion, they say the separation of church and state is a threat and not a beautiful thing to them.
A government that is kind of agnostic is a threat and they want to implement straight up biblical Christian rule in government.
Sharon McMahon: There has never been a theocracy that has led to equality and freedom for all. This is absolutely one of those situations where it's like, "be very careful what you wish for."
Adam Kinzinger: Yeah, that's right.
Sharon McMahon: The sword that you believe is used in your favor today can also be used to harm you, and historically that has always been the case. And, I also think back to a time of Christian nationalist movements in the United States during the 1920s and 30s, during the second coming of the KKK.
The KKK was a white Christian nationalist organization. And man, some people do not like to hear that. They do not like to hear that the KKK on paper has many of the same values of some people today who openly say they are Christian nationalists. They are very anti-immigrant, they're antisemitic they are anti-Black, they are anti-Catholic in some cases, like the KKK was.
If you look at the language that was used to try to keep children from accessing integrated schools in the South in the 1950s the language for maintaining segregation was entirely biblical. If you look at the protesters outside of the courthouses, they are holding up placards with Bible verses on them and they have weaponized scripture.
You know, if you are a person of faith, many people would say that's an abomination to weaponize scripture against God's children in that way. But they weaponize scripture for a political purpose. And they today are on the wrong side of history.
Adam Kinzinger: If I was somebody that was using the Bible, and I'm saying this as a Christian, if I was somebody that was using the Bible to weaponize a political viewpoint, I'd be pretty nervous because I do feel like there is an awakening in the church that is very slow.
But it's particularly with the younger generation of Christians. And as a Protestant, I can speak to Protestant Christians. I don't know if the same thing is happening in Catholicism, although I don't think they've been as infected by Christian nationalism as Protestants have been. But there's an awakening, especially among young people of what is it that Jesus really teaches?
And it's not what the current Christian nationalists are teaching. Jesus actually had no interest in government. He was very clear about that. And this is antithetical to his entire message. And so if I'm somebody that's weaponizing that, I'd be cautious because I do think eventually, and I hope it's sooner than later, the pendulum is going to swing back.
Sharon McMahon: Yeah, in the same way that you would hope the church would today look around and be like, we should not have been the purveyors of segregation in the South, that we were on the wrong side of history with that in the same way that people can now look back and be like, what were we thinking? I do think that many people are going to have to come to grips with what they have done.
And there is going to be a price to pay for that. And you're already seeing it with significantly decreasing church attendance, church attendance nationwide is down so significantly. And I really think it's incumbent on faith leaders to really look in the mirror and understand why that might be.
What is the future of the conservative movement? A lot of people, and I'm curious about your take on this, they don't think Donald Trump is a conservative. I was just talking to Bill Kristol recently, and he was like, "Trump is not a conservative."
Adam Kinzinger: Yeah.
Sharon McMahon: In his perspective, what does Trump want to conserve?
Trump wants radical change, which is kind of antithetical to the conservative movement. So some people have come to equate conservatism with abortion, and hot button social issues like the LGBTQ community. That's the hallmark of how we know you're conservative if you agree with the following issues.
You don't need to be conservative or want to conserve anything in any other way. So I'm curious, your take on, is Donald Trump a conservative? And what is the future of the conservative movement?
Adam Kinzinger: Yeah, it's a good question. So, no, I don't think Donald Trump is conservative. It's interesting because you know, I get called a RINO.
And for those that don't know that stands for Republican In Name Only. And so it's supposed to be pejorative. Right now it's a badge of honor for me, but I've moderated over 12 years. I'm more moderate than when I went into Congress. That's just virtue of age. That's the virtue of going into things with an open mind.
When I'm 32, just out of the war, you're a little more hard edged than when you're 46 with a child and married. But my viewpoints generally are the same, but I'm excommunicated from the party. Now, why is that? Is it because I radically changed? Well, I would challenge people to find things besides some adjustments on guns and abortion that I've radically changed on, because you can't. What's changed is the party and what they accept. So, clearly the Republican Party has made this decision. Now, I would argue that I'm generally pretty conservative, especially when it comes to certain economic policies.
There is nothing conservative about Donald Trump. Now he can steal the label and he has, and he probably will continue to do so successfully. But if you look at the original thought leaders of the conservative movement, people like William F. Buckley and others, there is nothing conservative about Donald Trump.
The guy is scared to death of American military power, which violates what I believe conservatism to be anyway.
Quick aside, one of the weakest, scaredest American military leaders that we've ever had. He talks tough, that covers his deep fears and insecurities. And I know this first hand because I've talked to him about it.
There always will be a conservative movement because every self governing society needs a progressive movement and a conservative movement. And it's that dance that actually leads to how we progress at the right rate.
Progressives would launch us forward probably faster than society's ready to go. Conservatives would continue to hold us back beyond where society's ready to stay. And so the two compromising actually leads, look, gay marriage came into play probably at the right time. I'm sure there's a lot of people that wish it'd be legal in the fifties.
I probably do too, but it took moving a society along at a certain pace. To where now it's basically widely accepted that gay marriage is okay, except for the, you know, the people we've been talking about in the last 10 minutes. So I think there's always going to be a conservative movement, but right now it's very small.
It's people like, I would argue me, like Liz Cheney, like Russell Moore, like David French, the people that are kind of holding that fire together that are anti-Trump. And the question is, does that end up overtaking the GOP again? Maybe? I don't know. And I think November is going to be kind of telling and probably more to the point, a few months after November to see what the party's thinking.
But, if the Republican party does not become conservative again, I think you will see either a coalition between conservatives and Democrats, because I think that actually can be a natural alliance, particularly in certain geographic areas, or you'll see a new party pop up. And that new party may be small, that new party may not be able to elect anybody for a while.
So going back to my old religious roots, the Bible says, if nobody worships God, the rocks will cry out, right? I think it's the same way in self governance. If you don't feel represented for long enough, you're going to do something about it. And so that's what I think the future of the conservative movement is, although it is a homeless movement right now and is in no way really part of the Republican party.
Sharon McMahon: You know, I was just talking to somebody about this earlier today that, you know, you can trace the evolution of political parties. The Democrats used to be the party of Southern segregationists, of Andrew Jackson, and, you know, over a period of, a hundred years, they progressed and moved towards being more aligned with progressive politics.
Republicans started as an incredibly progressive party. Abraham Lincoln was very progressive for his time. And it is curious to me that in many ways, Harris is the more conservative candidate in comparison to Trump. Especially when it comes to the military and the world order, the sort of using American resources to defend democracy around the world, that has always been since the Reagan era, at a minimum, has always been the orientation of the Republican Party, the more conservative party.
And you see the Democrats picking up that sort of more conservative mantle of "we must preserve the world order, our international allies and the United States military." is an important component, one component in this world order. That's a far more conservative viewpoint. And you've seen Harris really pick up this mantle of “freedom,” right?
Now, you might disagree with what she wants freedom to do. You know, she's viewing freedom as bodily autonomy, the freedom to make choices for yourself or, you know, allowing women to make bodily autonomy choices when it comes to reproduction, who you want to love, you know, all of that.
But the idea that it's the Democrats that are the party of freedom, that unique shift in American politics is something that I think historians of the future are going to study: how the Republican Party stopped being the party of conservatism, at least temporarily, TBD, what will happen.
And you see the Democrats swinging to the right in some areas.
Adam Kinzinger: It's very true. And, you know, political scientists talk about the political realignments that happen and I actually think we're approaching the end of a political realignment right now. My district, which I represented when I was elected, was a swing district. By the time I left, it was pretty staunchly Trump because it was a rural district. And you think rural voters used to vote Democratic. Now they're voting Republican. The suburbs used to vote solidly Republican, now they're voting Democratic.
There hasn't been a mass movement of people, but there's been a realignment of, what are people's priorities, and how they're voting. And so, yes, I actually think if you look back, if we could quantum leap forward 50 years, you could say, yeah, actually that's when the Democrats became the more conservative party.
And again, not conservative and saying, all of a sudden they're going to be anti-abortion or anti whatever, but conservative in some of America's role in the world. Abraham Lincoln fought a civil war to preserve the union, which the Republican Party now is trying to disintegrate.
And then you think about Eisenhower who built the interstate system. My party used to be pro infrastructure. Now it's not the federal infrastructure party, the Democrats are. The other weird thing that's happened is there used to be really four parties.
There were moderate Republicans, conservative Republicans, conservative Democrats in the South, and then liberal Democrats. And really you had four parties that in essence, although they'd share the same names, were creating coalitions within Congress. So you'd have conservative Democrats and Republicans vote a certain way.
And that was a way that worked. And both parties have self-selected. Democrats have basically shed any pro-life Democrats, for instance, or any conservative Democrats. Republicans have gone way further and basically shed anybody that's not Donald Trump. And now you have this great middle of America that feels politically homeless that has to pick a radical party because you can only vote for one of two.
And I think that's creating a lot of churn in the system, which is leading to this massive realignment. And I'll say, the thing that I really was impressed about with Kamala's speech in the DNC, for instance, which the Republicans have vacated, as you were talking about this large area that they used to occupy national defense, USA chance, American pride, right?
And in the eighties, look, the Democrats were not the “Proud of America” party. Let's be honest about that. They were blaming America first. It was kind of the Soviet Union sympathy party. That's all gone. It shifted. That's in the GOP now. The GOP is the one that blames America for everything first.
They pretend like they love America, but they hate America as it exists now. They love an idea of America that probably never actually existed. They hate the America that exists today. And so Kamala, by basically taking that real estate and saying, "fine, then we will occupy this real estate," did herself a real favor.
And I think even if it's not super reflected in this election, you'll see some of it reflected. I think this forbodes well for Democrats in the long run, if they can keep this up.
Sharon McMahon: Build a bigger tent. That's how either party will become successful, build a bigger tent that welcomes more people.
I'm curious. I know probably not everybody watched every moment of the DNC and live Instagramed it the way I did, but I certainly saw your speech there. I'm curious, first of all, what made you want to speak on stage at the DNC?
Adam Kinzinger: I didn't have a choice. I just think this election is so important that, look, if I can be any part of, going from 4 percent of Republicans voting for Kamala to 6 percent and that makes a difference. That to me is almost as important as having served on the January 6th committee.
And honestly, I feel more at home in the Democrats now than I do in the Republicans, obviously. And so, it wasn't a tough decision. What surprised me was the spot they gave me, basically right before Kamala. I think that was important because a lot of parties in the past have had somebody from the other party come in and speak at their convention, but they usually stick them on the Monday night when nobody's watching and they put them all together.
The Harris campaign put a Republican or two each night, which was important. And then to put me right before her speaking, I think sent a powerful message. So it was a heck of an experience. Speaking in front of 10,000 people is something I've never done. I've spoken to large audiences, but that's the biggest.
But my purpose, if you noticed in the speech, I spent most of my time looking at the camera, and that was because I had to remember, my speech was not to the diehards in the crowd. It was to those who are typically going to vote for Trump, but they're ashamed to do it. It's to give them a permission structure to come over.
So it was definitely an amazing experience.
Sharon McMahon: There was so much energy in the room. Obviously, the Democrats were on fire that week. People were riding high. I'm curious, have you heard from any of your former Republican colleagues either positively or negatively after you sort of publicly endorsed Harris.
You spoke in favor of her at the DNC. What has been the reaction from people that you know?
Adam Kinzinger: I've had a few friends that have been disappointed. But I've learned to disappoint them many times already. But from former colleagues, nothing really. Early on, like in the January 6th stuff, I'd have a lot of colleagues come up to me and kind of quietly tell me they appreciate what I'm doing, but they can't do it because they'll lose their election in their district.
And I'm like, "well, you haven't seen my district then." But then that kind of peters off because ultimately in order to stay in the posture that they have, that posture of like, "I'm going to have to defend Donald Trump." You eventually have to convince yourself that what you're doing is right.
Because your conscience makes you do that. So that's kind of the reaction I've gotten, but yeah it's certainly a constant journey. And every week, at least now I get a new text message from somebody I didn't expect that's just beyond the pale, but that happens.
Sharon McMahon: What would you say to somebody who is perhaps a lifelong conservative, somebody to whom being pro-life is an important identity factor when it comes to politics. Maybe they grew up in a religious environment that taught them to vote with certain principles. And they are really struggling in this moment with what to do.
They maybe don't love Trump. Maybe they don't love Harris either. And they don't know, should I just write in a third party? I've gotten a bunch of mail from people who are like, "I'm just going to write you in." I'm like, please no, I'm not doing that. But I'm sure people have said things like this to you in the past.
What would you say to somebody who is really struggling with who to vote for because they don't feel well represented by the Republicans or the Democrats in this moment. What advice would you offer?
Adam Kinzinger: Yeah, look, if it's somebody that's particularly religious, I would say, let's look at the church's reputation before Donald Trump and after.
Do you think Donald Trump has helped the reputation of the church? Is it more likely that young people will now turn to Christianity because of Donald Trump? I would argue that probably not. And I think anybody with a straight face would know that he has discredited the church. So from a church perspective, another four years of Donald Trump is not going to do good things for somebody that's concerned about that perspective of things.
The other thing is, we are going to be debating abortion for another hundred years. We've debated it for a hundred years, probably 200 years. All these issues that today seem so important, so paramount. Yeah, I get it, but they're always going to be there. What's not always going to be there is self governance if we get this wrong.
If we re-elect Donald Trump, I personally think there's no way we ever elect a serious politician as president again. We'll be electing entertainers and Hollywood people. Because that's what works. When you convince half of the country that the election was stolen, democracy cannot survive that.
And so the things that today we think are so outrageous and so important and that we have to vote on will pale in comparison to a failed democracy when we can't even go to Walgreens and get the insulin or the food we need at the grocery store because we've found ourselves in societal collapse. And I think it's that serious.
The other thing I'd say is if somebody just simply cannot vote for Harris, and I understand it because of the moral issues or whatever, then I would encourage them to write somebody in. Don't default to voting for Donald Trump. I would encourage you to pick Harris any day. I think you can do that, feel peace about it, but do not vote for Donald Trump just because of the issue of abortion, because trust me, in his heart he's obviously not pro-life. As everybody always says, he's probably paid for a few himself.
If you have to, writing-in is the second option, I think, compared to voting for Kamala Harris.