Michele Bachmann’s America
By William Prendergast
and Christopher Truscott
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011
Cole Dixon Publishing, LLC
Stillwater, Minnesota
Why Michele Bachmann?
The first time I heard Michele Bachmann’s voice was on a local Christian radio station here in Stillwater, Minn., back in 1999.
I’m not an evangelical Christian. I was listening to evangelical Christian radio because I like politics. I’d found that in this part of the country, electoral politics and campaigning were—and are—conducted in part on evangelical radio.
That was a new experience for me: hearing political campaigning and conservative talk radio-style broadcasting on a station devoted to spreading the Good News about Jesus Christ. That wasn’t around where I grew up, back East. My wife and I had just moved to Minnesota that year. Stillwater (where Michele Bachmann began her real political career) is one of the oldest towns in Minnesota and it was being co-opted into the suburban sprawl that spreads east from St. Paul, the state capital.
Bachmann was running for a seat on the local school board as a Republican, with a slate of four other GOP-backed candidates. And an admiring radio host was interviewing her about the threat to freedom posed by certain educational reforms. As I recall, the host and Bachmann also made it very clear that Bachmann stood for conservative evangelical values, for Christ.
I began writing about the career of Michele Bachmann in 2003, when I was employed as a weekly columnist for the local newspaper, the Stillwater Gazette.
One afternoon I was sitting on the porch, listening to the Christian radio again. The host of the program was interviewing Bachmann (now a Minnesota state senator) about her views on evolution and the teaching of creationism in the public schools. Bachmann made several rather bizarre claims about evolution during the broadcast—telling listeners it’s “a theory that has never been proved, one way or the other,” and that “evolution is a belief; evolution is not a fact.” She made a lot of statements like that; I wrote them down and published them in the paper.
As Bachmann continued to rise in fame and influence in the state Republican Party, I began to write about her regularly on a local blog. I also started collecting audio and video recordings of Sen. Bachmann speaking to conservative audiences. These create a very different picture of Bachmann than the one presented in local news coverage. These Bachmann statements (and her subsequent actions) led to me to conclude that she was a political extremist who terrified sympathetic audiences with wild conspiracy theories and smears—all in the name of Christ and truly Christian values.
So I’ve been writing about the Bachmann story for about eight years, now. And while doing that, I’ve concluded something else. I’ve concluded that there are now three (rather than two) major political parties in the United States. A new political party—a national party in everything but name—has emerged out of what political observers continue to refer to as the “Religious Right” or “Christian Right.” The study of Bachmann’s career has led me to believe that America’s political media and academic community “missed” the birth of a new political institution: a de facto political party. It has a national leadership hierarchy, coordinated state and regional affiliates, and its own protégé candidates.
How could America’s professional political observers have failed to identify a new major political party as such? The answer has to do with the fact that this is a “stealth” political party. It operates within the Republican Party (as does Michele Bachmann) rather than running under its own political brand. And the founders of this new third party embrace the conspiracist worldview of extreme right-wing organizations like the John Birch Society (as does Michele Bachmann).
America’s professional political observers continue to treat the Religious Right as if it is a “social movement” (comparable to “feminism” or “the Civil Rights Movement” of the 1950s and 1960s). Or they treat it as if it is a powerful political “lobby” (comparable to “big labor”). This is a serious mistake. After the early 1980s, a comparatively small elite of conservative evangelicals, conspiracy theorists, secular conservatives and Republican activists transformed the Religious Right into a de facto political party that now rivals the Democrats and Republicans in national influence. This happened without the knowledge of the tens of millions of evangelicals who leaders of the new party purport to represent.
This book is the story of the career of Michele Bachmann. But it is also the story of the new major American political party that creates many, many Michele Bachmanns.
*****
“The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal.
“Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word ‘Jesus Christ,’ so that it should read, ‘a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;’ the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.”i
—Thomas Jefferson
Commenting on the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which he authored. It was enacted as law by the Virginia General Assembly in 1786. He noted this work on his headstone, along with his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and his founding of the University of Virginia.ii
*****
—William Prendergast
June 23, 2011
Stillwater, Minnesota
‘Is Michele Bachmann Going to Lose?’
On the mountain near Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia estate, I was greeted by many well-wishers. It was the day of my Dad’s memorial service—he had died six weeks earlier—and I had come home to bury him.
People ask a lot of questions at events like these. I suppose they don’t really know what else to say. At 30, I was a bit young to have lost a father. I wouldn’t have known what to say had it happened to someone else. I still don’t, for that matter.
Once Dad’s Washington-area friends were satisfied that I was really going to be fine and that my flight back to Minneapolis was leaving Reagan National Airport the next evening (but I would be home for Christmas in a couple months), I was often asked another question that I bet few people have ever fielded at a post-memorial service reception.
“Is Michele Bachmann going to lose?”
It was eight days after the famous Oct. 17, 2008, Chris Matthews interview in which the previously little-known Minnesota congresswoman posed a question of her own—challenging the patriotism of then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and, really, pretty much everyone else who wasn’t a congressional Republican. They asked because I had covered Bachmann as a newspaper reporter and worked against her once in a campaign. I was supposed to have some kind of special insight into the woman who was becoming the most famous member of Congress other than Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
“It’s Elwyn Tinklenberg’s race to lose now,” I always answered, more an exercise in wishful thinking than serious analysis. Nobody would believe the serious analysis, so I figured I’d save my breath. I was too tired and hung-over to explain it anyway.
Of course Bachmann was going to win. She had raised a ton of cash, while Tinklenberg’s campaign was limping along until the congresswoman pumped new life into it with her comments—inspiring more than $1 million in contributions to his once-moribund effort. He couldn’t absorb the money and spend it fast enough on the kind of television advertising needed to effectively create a brand of his own while also defining Bachmann as a kook.
There was also the matter of the 6th Congressional District—created by the Minnesota Supreme Court after the Legislature and Gov. Jesse Ventura couldn’t agree on boundaries following the completion of the 2000 Census. It’s the most conservative district in the state—by a lot. Stretching from the suburbs east of St. Paul, north to Anoka and then west to the exurbs and rural areas en route to the St. Cloud, the district has a Partisan Voting Index of R+7, meaning Republicans generally start each election campaign with a seven-point head start. (John McCain won it by 9 points in 2008 while Barack Obama carried Minnesota by a comfortable margin. George W. Bush won the district by 14 points in 2004, even though John Kerry tallied a narrow victory statewide.iii) To this day, there are active members of local Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party units who won’t even “like” the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party on Facebook because they don’t want conservative friends or family members to know they’re liberal. (Yes, that really is a true story.)
While Bachmann’s rhetoric certainly hurt her in Washington County, the affluent suburban county she calls home, there are plenty of people in the ultra-conservative western reaches of the district who agree with her on everything. Compact-fluorescent light bulbs are really bad.iv Of course, mass transit isn’t a solution to any transportation problem.v No, the rich shouldn’t be subjected to higher taxes because they’re “job creators.”vi Yes, as she told Chris Matthews, the media should do a “penetrating exposé” to determine who’s “pro-America” and who’s “anti-America.”vii
Bachmann’s Matthews interview made the race far more interesting than her 2006 triumph over liberal Patty Wetterling, but it wasn’t enough to carry Tinklenberg, a moderate former mayor and state transportation commissioner, to victory. The disaster happened too late in the campaign—and even if it had come weeks earlier, it still might not have mattered. In central Minnesota, the congresswoman has a big base of support—even though progressives love arguing that these people are voting against their own economic interests each time they color in the bubble next to Bachmann’s name.
“Yep, it’s Elwyn Tinklenberg’s race to lose now.”
*****
I first met Michele Bachmann in the spring of 2004, during the height of the debate in the Minnesota Legislature about whether to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage. This issue made Bachmann one of the biggest names in state politics, since she carried the legislation in the Democratic-controlled Senate and was easily the most outspoken proponent of the effort.
I had interviewed lots of people about Bachmann over the previous few weeks, after starting a new job at the Stillwater Gazette, a small daily paper serving her hometown. It wasn’t my first foray into political reporting, but I was still surprised by the intense reaction she generated among supporters and opponents alike. Only presidents—and sometimes governors and U.S. senators—are supposed to elicit that kind of emotional response.
By the time I first sat down across from Bachmann, on the evening of March 26, 2004, the Republican-controlled Minnesota House of Representatives had already approved putting the constitutional amendment on the ballot for voters’ consideration. Hours earlier, the Senate Judiciary Committee had rejected it on a party-line vote.viii I finally caught up with Bachmann after an education committee meeting that ran well into the evening. Most of the press was gone for the day, as were the countless demonstrators on both sides of the contentious marriage debate. Sitting in a quiet meeting room, it was just me, Bachmann and a Capitol police officer who had been ordered to shadow her after she reported receiving threats from her opponents.
It had been a long day, but we probably spent 20 minutes or so chatting about random stuff completely unrelated to the issue at hand. We have a non-Minnesota metro area in common—Hampton Roads, in southeastern Virginia. I had gone to college there and she and her husband lived there when he was getting his counseling degree at Regent University and she was getting an advanced degree in tax law from the College of William & Mary. In a one-on-one setting, Bachmann’s charming, engaging and fun—far from the cartoon-like character that had been described to me many times before.
Finally, it was time to get down to the interview. For months now, Bachmann had made various claims along the lines of gay marriage being the “biggest threat” to the American family. I figured that was a good place to start, so I asked her point-blank: “Senator, isn’t divorce the biggest threat to the American family?”
She didn’t miss a beat.
“Chris, that question represents 25 years of diversity education in public schools.”
For one of the few times in my career, I didn’t have a clue as to what to say next. The interview probably continued for another 30 minutes or so, but I don’t remember much else about it. I must’ve spent the rest of our time together trying to figure out where I was taught—in my uber-conservative Virginia school district—that gay marriage was a great thing.
Interviewing Bachmann was always like this. Most politicians I covered—before and since—carefully measured each word. In baseball pitching parlance, they would “nibble at the edge” of the plate, fearing that if they let a pitch go down the middle it’d get hit out of the park. Not Bachmann, though. On marriage, taxes, education, foreign policy—she’d just throw it “over the plate” as hard as she could, damn the consequences. (Her message discipline has improved in recent years, but her general principle of firing away with whatever she wants to say hasn’t.)
I asked her about that a few months after our first meeting.
“People don’t like the mushy middle,” she said. “They want to know where you stand.”
It’s a philosophy shared by one of the most successful communicators in modern American politics, who said after the 2002 elections:
“When people are insecure, they’d rather have someone who is strong and wrong than someone who’s weak and right.”ix
It’s probably the only thing Bachmann and former President Bill Clinton agree on. It’s a method, after all, that has helped both escape from a lot of tight spots that would have doomed lesser politicians.
That’s why I’m not among the liberals who get excited about gaffe-prone Bachmann running for president. She snatches victory from the jaws of defeat on a regular basis. Her luck’s bound to run out eventually, sure, but it hasn’t yet.
—Christopher Truscott
June 23, 2011
Stillwater, Minnesota
‘Very Early Days of a History-Making Turn in America’
Moments after Michele Bachmann finished delivering her “Tea Party” response to President Barack Obama’s January 2011 State of the Union address, CNN analyst Paul Begala declared “there’s no there, there.”x
Sure, Bachmann, a 55-year-old third-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives, has no substantive legislative accomplishments in her career and is one of the most fact-challenged politicians in America.xi But Begala, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, missed the much larger and more important story by dismissing Bachmann as “corny.”
Paul Ryan, a low-key representative highly regarded in mainstream conservative circles for his hard-line deficit reduction policies, had delivered the official Republican response to the president’s address. Bachmann’s decision to deliver a nationally televised response of her own was unprecedented in American political history.
Throughout her career, Bachmann had regularly relied on the support of the state and national GOP. (Establishment Republican leaders like Karl Rove, Dennis Hastert and George W. Bush, for instance, delivered significant personal support for her candidacies.) But in delivering an independent response on national policy, Republican Bachmann was setting herself apart from the GOP, its leadership, and the party line embodied in Ryan’s address. She was identifying herself to the public as a representative of “something more than/something other than” the Republican Party—something that was not subject to the control of the party’s elected leadership.
Prior to the address (aired live on CNN and the Tea Party Express website), Bachmann’s speech was identified to the public as the Tea Party’s response. But even this claim of authority and legitimacy was questionable. Bachmann is undoubtedly one of the Tea Party’s heroes—but many Tea Party activists have proudly claimed the movement has no official leader. Certainly there are no elected representatives in Congress who ran as official “Tea Party” candidates on the ballot; all of the members of Bachmann’s Tea Party Caucus in Congress are self-identified Republicans. (Bachmann herself has even been careful to point out that her Tea Party Caucus does not purport to be the elected leadership of the national Tea Party movement.)
Bachmann’s decision to run her own televised response to both the White House and her own political party wasn’t surprising to those who had followed her career closely. In the Minnesota Senate, she readily did “her own thing,” as former Minnesota legislator Paul Koering noted.xii Then, as now, Bachmann was courting a constituency much bigger than the Republican Party leadership or the single legislative district she officially represented. In Minnesota she had used her tenure as a local elected official to build a statewide profile; in the same way she had used her tenure as a U.S. representative to establish a national profile.
By using her in 2010 to generate grassroots support for the party and enthusiasm for its lesser-known candidates, Republican leaders helped create a powerful Michele Bachmann. Despite their off-the-record complaints about her grandstanding, they brought her on themselves.
“It’s the establishment (GOP) who has allowed the Tea Party movement to come about,” a Minnesota Democratic strategist said in October 2010, just days before Republicans regained a majority in the House of Representatives and narrowed the Democrats’ advantage in the Senate.xiii “But I think they’re going to be very upset (when they see how that turns out).”
Few Republicans were willing to attach their names to criticisms of Bachmann’s speech for fear of alienating one of the biggest names in the party—and her right-wing media supporters like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. She had officially become “Queen of the Right,” a title bestowed upon her by the Guardian of London in the summer of 2010.xiv
So a few minutes after Ryan’s short speech, Bachmann stood before the nation and opined on “job-destroying” environmental policies, “Obamacare” and support for a federal balanced-budget amendment.xv America had “beat back a totalitarian aggressor” during World War II, so there’s no reason we can’t “push forward” and “declare liberty throughout the land” in the 21st century. These are, Bachmann noted, “the very early days of a history-making turn in America.”
“Just the creation of this nation itself was a miracle,” she said. “Who can say we won’t see a miracle again?”
As pundit Begala noted, Bachmann’s televised message had comparatively little substance. She offered no new solutions to the problems she cited in her speech. But the speech was important in and of itself. It proved the party discipline adhered to by other GOP politicians doesn’t apply to Michele Bachmann.
*****
Few politicians have risen as quickly and with as much fanfare as Bachmann. As she responded to the president’s speech during the waning moments of primetime on the East Coast, the mother of five was just a decade removed from the beginning of her first term in the Minnesota Legislature. Her national broadcast came just four years after she entered the U.S. House chamber as an anonymous freshman and quickly became an Internet sensation for grabbing hold of President George W. Bush to snag a kiss after his 2007 State of the Union address. And she was just barely two years removed from challenging the patriotism of then-candidate Obama during an appearance on Chris Matthews’ MSNBC program.
The story of Michele Bachmann’s political career is as complex as it spectacular, controversial and attention-grabbing. On the surface, its origins are in a suburban St. Paul charter school movement in the 1990s. On a deeper level, however, Bachmann’s rise has depended on a shadow conservative movement that has been systematically expanding its immense influence in national and local Republican Party politics for the last 30 years.
Worldview: America According to a
Conservative Evangelical Voter
(Part 1)
It’s about salvation; the salvation of humanity. We cannot allow salvation to be jeopardized, for the sake of some false concept of “tolerance.”
Most people outside my circle of belief don’t understand the concept of salvation properly. For example, most people don’t understand the following truth about salvation: the Bible tells us there will be a resurrection of the body at the end of this Earth. This means that God will gather the living and the dead and replace our flawed human bodies with “glorified bodies” free from disease and aging. Believers and unbelievers alike will be raised physically—and God will judge them, sentence them. I believe that this will happen, in the same way that I believe the sun will rise tomorrow morning.
And I believe in the centrality of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Christ is God; there is no other God, no alternative to the Christian God and his judgment. Prior to the coming of Christ, the Lord required believers to sacrifice animals to atone for sins. (It is impossible for atonement for sin to take place without a blood sacrifice.) I believe that Christ came to Earth in human form, lived a sinless life, allowed himself to be killed on the cross—and this was “the final sacrifice,” a sacrifice so sufficient to cover our sinful nature that no more animal sacrifices would be necessary.
I believe there is nothing a human being can do to save his own soul from damnation for all eternity—nothing, except to accept the free gift of the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross to atone for the sins of humanity. I am not saved by “doing good” or by “trying to be a good person.” I am saved by repentance and by acceptance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on my behalf. I am a still a sinner (we all are; all humans are sinners, even babies). But Christ’s holiness, forgiveness—and most importantly, his sacrifice—will cover my sins as new fallen snow covers a dunghill, and if I accept the gift of his sacrifice I will be saved.
It is essential that human beings accept Christ and the message of the Bible; there is no other path to avoid damnation. Teaching that there are other ways to salvation— that there is no damnation for unbelievers, or that my Christianity is just my “personal religious belief”—is false and dangerous.
The law that is paramount for humanity—the law that supersedes law made by elected officials and other human beings—is God’s law. Via study and proper interpretation of the Christian Bible, my spiritual leaders and I can come to an adequate understanding of God’s requirements for humanity—all humanity, not just evangelical believers.
I know Scripture also tells us that we are bound by man’s law and ought to obey it. But the ultimate authority that binds us is God’s law: as it is expressed in the words of the Bible and understood by the most respected teachers, leaders and spokespeople in the conservative evangelical community.
*****
“When R. J. Rushdoony wrote The Institutes of Biblical Law his purpose was a reversal of the present trend. It is called ‘Institutes’ in the older meaning of that word, i.e., fundamental principles, here of law, because it is intended as a beginning, as an instituting consideration of that law which must govern society, and which shall govern society under God.”xvi
—“Biblical Law,” Chalcedon Foundation
*****
I believe that God’s law is best understood by people who profess a conservative evangelical understanding of the Bible. People who do not accept and conform their behavior and beliefs to a conservative evangelical understanding of what the Bible requires are deluding themselves and others. They will be damned for all eternity unless they repent and conform to this proper and particular understanding. (The preceding applies even to many people who currently consider themselves to be believing Christians. If they will not accept conservative evangelical teachings about what Scripture requires in the way of behavior and belief, they will be damned for all eternity. This is not what I “wish” on them; this is what the Bible says.)
There is always the hope that people who do not share the conservative evangelical faith will mend their ways and come around to recognize and accept the truth that I have accepted. But until this happens, the people who do not accept my worldview represent a potential and sometimes real threat to conservative evangelicals and their families. Via their influence in media, government and education—these unbelievers may lead conservative evangelical believers away from the true faith. Indeed, they are already doing so.
I believe that people who do not accept my way of thinking are damned, because that is what the Bible says: and I know that the Bible is inerrant. The books of the Bible were divinely inspired, essentially co-authored by God/Jesus Christ. In practice, this means that the Bible cannot be wrong about any matter that it speaks to in non-metaphorical language. The Bible’s account of human history is historical fact. The Bible’s non-metaphorical statements on nature and science (and the origins of the universe, the earth and human life) are factually correct. All archeological studies, properly understood and put into the correct context, confirm (or will confirm) the Bible’s account of history. Any archeological or scientific evidence (or absence of evidence) that fails to confirm (or tends to discredit) the Bible’s account of human history is either wrong or misunderstood.
My worldview is actually confirmed by the proper and objective study of history, archaeology, natural science, etc. There are no “secular” findings, arguments, or evidence that seriously undermine the conservative evangelical view on inerrancy of scripture. There could not be since the Bible is inerrant.
It is important for people to understand that my claim that the Bible is inerrant is not “just my religious belief” or just “an article of my faith.” I know that intellectually honest empirical study—by objective, intelligent people of any faith persuasion—will actually confirm that biblical inerrancy is demonstrable, objective fact. It is very important that people understand this distinction. The fact of inerrancy indicates the divine provenance of the book—thus justifying my claim that the religious doctrine I adhere to is the “only” true religious doctrine, that it represents faith and behavior requirements for all humanity and not just believers.
The inerrancy of the Bible is demonstrated (in part) by the fulfillment of prophetic claims made in the Bible. For example, in the Twenty Second Psalm the Bible accurately prophesies statements and specific circumstances associated with an historic event that would not occur until 1,000 years later: the crucifixion of Christ.
The Psalmist writes:
“My God, My God, why hast Thou Forsaken Me?” (the words attributed to Christ before his death on the cross)
“All that see Me laugh Me to scorn…saying He trusted in God, let God deliver Him” (predicting that those present at the crucifixion would mock Christ)
“They pierced My Hands and Feet” (predicting the manner of Christ’s death 1,000 thousand years before the crucifixion)
“They part my Garments among them and cast lots upon my Vesture” (a detail from a Gospel account of the crucifixion, again reporting an event that occurred centuries after these prophecies were written)xvii
Conservative evangelicals see the fulfillment of these particular prophecies and others as incontrovertible evidence that the Bible is a book with a supernatural origin. The prediction of so many other historical events also proves the divine authorship of the books. This claim of inerrant Bible prophecy is not speculation or an assertion based on faith; it is a demonstrated fact. (Another example: the return of the Jews to the Holy Land and the founding of a Jewish state there in 1948 represent fulfillment of Biblical prophecies made more than 2,000 years ago.) There are no credible “natural or logical” explanations for how accurate prophecies like these could have been made so far in advance of the events.
Historical validation of its prophecies and its accurate statements about the natural world and history prove that the Bible, produced in ancient times, was authored by God. As for prophecies made in the Bible that have not yet come true (like those regarding the next return of Christ and the way in which the world will end): the fulfillment of previous Bible prophecies indicate that its as-yet-unfulfilled prophecies regarding “the end times” will certainly come true.
Because (unlike the other worldviews) it is the only worldview actually articulated by God, it is not even theoretically possible to undermine the factual and moral claims of the Bible. The miraculous inerrancy and fulfilled prophecies of the Bible prove its singular divine provenance for a reasonable person unspoiled by bigotry, prejudice or indoctrination. It follows that proof of God’s authorship indicates that the authority of the book’s laws, decrees, and mandates extend to all mankind—an authority that binds billions of non-believers as well as believing evangelical Christians. (Any changes in the specific interpretation or application of the laws mandated by the Bible must come from leaders of the community of Bible believers; from conservative evangelical leaders skilled in interpreting the requirements of the Bible.)
A refusal to accept conservative evangelical doctrine is not just a refusal to accept a sectarian belief system. It represents a refusal to accept the proven fact of the authority of the Christian God over all humanity. Differing belief systems are wrong, heretical—or at best reflections or distortions of the belief system that I have adopted. The other views of the world and reality and history are only correct to the extent that they dovetail with the truth and law and mandates of the Bible—as interpreted by the present generation of conservative evangelical leaders and spokesmen.
There is a reason that more people don’t know that the conservative evangelical worldview is actually confirmed by objective study of history, archaeology and the natural sciences. The reason that more people do not know this is that “secular humanists” and a host of others effectively combine to suppress this proven truth—as well as other truths relating to Scripture and witness for Jesus Christ. These unbelievers would lead people away from the chance for salvation and toward damnation.
An example: a relatively new scientific discovery, “intelligent design theory,” proposes that the origins of the universe and life itself are best explained by an intelligent cause; that life and speciation are not the result of an undirected process such as natural selection. If intelligent design theory is correct, it is scientific proof of the existence of a “creator of life.” Nearly all of the world’s scientists dismiss intelligent design theory as non-science or bad science. I believe that, in fact, these scientists know that intelligent design theory is valid science. Their rejection of intelligent design is rooted in their “secular humanist” prejudices, which cause them to reject a proven truth. It seems that leaders in the scientific community are conspiring to prevent publication of articles proving intelligent design in the peer-reviewed scientific journals that are used to validate new scientific discoveries.
Another example of cooperation to suppress the truth of the biblical account: scientists around the world have grouped together and adopted an “anti-supernatural bias” when forming explanations for natural phenomenon. This anti-supernatural bias limits scientific inquiry to attempts to explain natural phenomena solely in terms of natural phenomena. This anti-supernatural bias in the scientific community constitutes a policy of suppressing or discrediting incontrovertible evidence of God’s role in the creation of life and other natural phenomena. (It also represents the secular scientific community’s attempt to suppress the truth about the actual age of the earth, the universe, etc.)
The Bible is a divine communication of God’s will and the truth to mankind. But divine communication is not restricted to the words of the Bible. As was true in days of the Bible, it is true now that God will actually contact certain people directly to give them specific advice or instruction.
*****
MICHELE BACHMANN: …And then the Lord showed me that I needed to go to college, and so I went to college. And when I was in college He showed me that I needed to start pursuing Him in an even deeper way. And so I started to speak to others at our college and university about who He is, and started to lead others on my dorm floor to Jesus Christ.
And in the midst of that, I went to a Bible study. And in that Bible study I met a girlfriend. And that girlfriend led me to a man that’s sitting in the front row right now. And the Lord then led me to this man—stand up, darling—this is Marcus Bachmann, my husband. (Applause.)
Led me to him, and showed me that this was also part of my calling. That my calling was to marry this man.
And I tell you that, because—I hate to disappoint you, darling—but it wasn’t a big romantic surge that led us to each other. It was His Word.
We were praying one night, a girlfriend and I, not Marcus—and the Lord gave each one of us the same, exact vision. And it was this:
It was a picture of me marrying this man in the valley where his parents have a farm in western Wisconsin.
And we got that word, we were praying in the Spirit, I’d been baptized in the Spirit—we were praying in the Spirit and the Lord showed us that, and I just said, “Well, Lord, that’s really strange, I’ll just put in on the shelf.”
And I put it on the shelf, put it in His hands, and said: “You make the calling sure.”
I had no idea at the same time, the Lord was speaking to my husband, and He showed my husband—he was repairing a fence on the farm where he worked—and the Lord showed him in a vision that he was supposed to marry me.
And my husband said, “I don’t want to get married. I want to wait until I’m 27. I want to see the world. I want to have a great time in life. I don’t want to marry this girl.”
But he put it on the shelf. And by faith, he followed the Lord. And over the next two years, the Lord began romantically to knit these two hearts together—because we said “yes,” to pursue His Word, in His perfect plan, in His calling.xviii
*****
I also believe that God gives specific and clear political instructions to some and not others.
*****
MICHELE BACHMANN: …And in the midst of that faithfulness that God called us to—to raise five children, and raise 23 foster children—and as God called my husband to open the Christian counseling clinic, to reach out to others, He has blessed that calling in my husband as well.
And in the midst of all this, as if we didn’t have enough to do, He called me to run for the Minnesota state Senate. I had no idea, and no desire to be in politics. Absolutely none.xix
*****
I also know that a believing Christian can regularly receive these authentic and specific communications and instructions from God Himself—throughout that believer’s lifetime.
*****
MICHELE BACHMANN: And in the midst of that calling, God then called me to run for the United States Congress.
And I thought, what in the world would that be for? And my husband said, “You need to do this.” And I wasn’t so sure. And we took three days, and we fasted and we prayed. And we said, “Lord, is this what you want, are You sure? Is this Your will?” And after—along about the afternoon of day two—He made that calling sure.”xx
*****
I also believe that (despite the fact the United States is not mentioned by name in the Bible) the Christian God and the Bible were central to the founding of the United States and its cultural and historical mission. I am certain that Christian nation builders founded the United States and intended this country to have an essentially Christian character. I believe that the Founding Fathers of this country acknowledged the primacy of Christian faith and values in America and intended that Christianity be recognized as the fundamental basis of the nation and society they established. If those Founding Fathers were alive today, they would agree with me about the role that biblical Christianity should play in law, government, and public policy. Other religions are and should be tolerated, but this country is essentially a Christian nation and was founded as such. I believe the country has “lost its way” by deviating from its essentially Christian foundations and replacing these with false, secular humanist criteria for knowledge and policymaking.
Policies that tend to diminish the essentially Christian character of this nation are perversions of the founders’ intention and are dangerous to both Christian believers and to the unsaved. Evidence (including policy decisions by courts and other government bodies over the past 200 years) presenting the United States as a non-sectarian, pluralistic nation should be rejected as a deviation from the divine requirements for our society. The Christian God is at the heart of the historical mission of this nation; and the only true God is the God worshipped by conservative evangelicals.
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“To the orthodox Christian, the shabby incarnations of the reigning historiographies are both absurd and offensive. They are idols, and he is forbidden to bow down to them and must indeed wage war against them. A Christian historiography and a Christian revisionism are thus for him moral imperatives.”xxi
—American History (Adapted from R.J. Rushdoony’s The Nature of the American System.)
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Methodologies for the evaluation of the quality of knowledge that tend to discredit my supernatural beliefs and the inerrancy of the Bible are deeply flawed. Sometimes they are intentionally deceptive. Patterns of thought, policy, action and belief that tend to lead people away from my conservative evangelical worldview are bad and dangerous. These dangerous trends are promoted and encouraged by a very real spirit being named Satan—and the people who promote such trends are Satan’s (mostly unwitting) allies.
Patterns of thought, policy, action and belief that tend lead people toward adopting my worldview are good. We must use public policy to counter schools of thought that undermine the view that the Bible is inerrant and authoritative with regard to human belief and norms. Use of public policy to counter these anti-biblical forces is part of our duty as believing Christians.
The doctrine of separation of church and state is a myth, foisted upon the public in the 20th century by errant courts, and is in fact a perversion of the Constitution.
*****
MICHELE BACHMANN…they’re teaching children that there is separation of church and state, and I am here to tell you that’s a myth. That’s not true.xxii
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I am not necessarily a fan of representative democracy. Democracy—the rule of the majority as expressed in the policies of the elected representatives of the people—is only good insofar as the policies tend to shore up conservative evangelical beliefs and political goals. At heart, I am essentially a monarchist: Christ is in fact king of all and U.S. public policy should reflect this. Representative democracy can be a threat to my family and me when it falls into the wrong hands; where democracy results in public policy and culture that leads people away from the Christian foundations of this nation and the divine monarchy that the Bible requires humanity to recognize.
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“In colonial New England the covenantal concept of church and state was applied. Everyone went to church, but only a limited number had voting rights in the church and therefore the state, because there was a coincidence of church membership and citizenship. The others were no less believers, but the belief was that only the responsible must be given responsibility. One faith, one law, and one standard of justice did not mean democracy. The heresy of democracy has since then worked havoc in church and state, and it has worked towards reducing society to anarchy.”xxiii
—The Institutes of Biblical Law, by R.J. Rushdoony
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True Christianity and America are under siege; my worldview (i.e., the truth) is under siege. There are powerful movements in the world that seek to undermine the very idea of absolute truth. These movements go by different names (like post-modernism and liberalism) but all would lead people away from the truth as proclaimed in the Bible. Thus, these movements effectively serve the agenda of Satan.
Liberal government policies, Hollywood, pop culture, etc., are pernicious forces in American life. These forces undermine traditional Christian moral values and encourage irresponsibility, license, and promiscuity. Thus, America finds itself in moral collapse and without effective spiritual leadership. We are once again in the time spoken of in the Book of Judges, “where each man does what is right in his own eyes.”
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MICHELE BACHMANN: We’re in a state of crisis where our nation is literally ripping apart at the seams right now, and lawlessness is occurring from one ocean to the other. And we’re seeing the fulfillment of the Book of Judges here in our own time, where every man doing that which is right in his own eyes—in other words, anarchy.xxiv
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God will remove his protection from all of us if Americans whose beliefs differ from my own continue to “do what is right in their own eyes”—paying no heed to God’s law as laid down in the Bible and understood by our spokespeople.
There are many examples of ways in which Americans are disregarding God’s law, turning away from the only true religion, and thus removing God’s protection from this nation. Examples of non-evangelicals turning away from God and thus endangering the nation include the following:
1.) Acceptance of what we refer to when we use the term post-modernism.
2.) Ongoing acceptance of the worldview we refer to as “moral relativism.” This constitutes a rejection of the morality laid down for human beings by God in the Bible. Moral relativism (as we understand it) teaches that valid moral choices depend on circumstances and that they are essentially personal choices. This is a false and dangerous teaching.
3.) Growth in acceptance of non-Christian and non-traditional religious beliefs is a threat to America.
4.) Liberal tolerance for intolerant and murderous religious beliefs, such as those of “radical Islam,” threaten America.
5.) Liberal and feminist insistence on a legal right to obtain an abortion offends God. Abortion is the slaughter of innocent human beings; American acceptance of this ongoing policy of murder will lead God to judge and punish this country.
6.) The liberal watering-down of America’s historic commitment to protect Israel threatens America. Ultimately, God will intervene supernaturally to protect the restored nation of Israel from foreign invasion and domination (this is prophesied). But conservative evangelicals perceive a duty to defend Israel from its internal and external enemies, and God will judge our nation if we fail to protect the land He covenanted to the Jewish people.
7.) The trend toward acceptance of homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle is a threat to this nation and an attack on the core institutions of marriage and family.
As a conservative evangelical, I am often accused of intolerance with regard to other views. But my understanding of the Bible and adherence to God’s law sometimes requires me to be “intolerant.” Proper understanding of scripture requires me to accept the truths stated in the Bible and accept them as the premises of my thinking, morality, and political behavior.
For example: the Bible declares that homosexuality is a sin, like theft or adultery. We believe that scripture requires us to love the sinner, but hate the sin. (We do not hate homosexuals, but we hate the sin of homosexuality.) I believe a very powerful and influential group of homosexual activists in this country is pursuing an agenda that is not limited to seeking civil rights for adult homosexuals. I believe that these radical homosexual activists are using their significant political influence to further “a gay agenda” that ultimately seeks to recruit our children into the homosexual lifestyle. Part of their plan involves “tolerance” teaching programs implemented in public schools. Why should I be “tolerant” of such a sinister, dangerous, and counter-biblical agenda?
Why should I be “tolerant” of teachings and cultural trends that jeopardize the gift of salvation? Why should I submissively “tolerate” the dissemination of counter-Christian beliefs that would endanger my country, encouraging a popular rejection of God’s truth that would result in Him removing his protective hand from the United States of America?
The acceptance, prevalence, and influence of non-biblical views and contra-biblical views in our culture (and in the world) indicate that Christians and true Christianity are the objects of organized persecution by worldly authorities, experts and media. Christians are being persecuted every day in the United States of America—not just in China, not just in other nations. We are in a state of siege and Bible prophecy written thousands of years ago correctly predicted that we would become the objects of persecution.
I have only listed some examples of how our faith, families and nation are threatened by “non-conservative evangelical” communities. There are many other threats that I could name. Many of my fellow conservative evangelical believers fear the threat of one-world government envisioned and promoted by liberals, threats to national security invited by liberal foreign policy, attempts to suppress Christian political activism via liberal law and the tax code, etc. These threats and others are identified daily in conservative evangelical broadcasts and publications.
A proper response to this spiritual siege is for real Christians to protect ourselves via organized political resistance to these secular and worldly threats. As Christians, God calls many of us to participate directly in electoral politics. We are called to elect godly people (or at least individuals acceptable to conservative evangelical leaders) as our representatives in government. We must work to elect such people in order to stop the trends toward anti-Christian policies and return America to a more godly and conservative Christian government. We are encouraged to engage in this kind of partisan political activity by the Bible verses telling Christians to be “salt and light.”xxv
(Formerly these verses were not interpreted to mean that Christians ought to engage in sectarian party political activism to further the influence of the faith. But the current understanding is correct: sectarian intervention in party politics to make America more Christian is both desirable and in accordance with God’s commission to believers.)
I believe that America, individual political freedom, the Bible and Jesus Christ are all deeply interrelated. I believe that the Bible gives justification for many key conservative political positions. Specific Bible verses and passages justify the right of individuals to bear arms, justify the stand against gay marriage and indicate that a capitalist and free market economic system is in accordance with God’s will. I believe that people who reject these interpretations are rejecting the authority of the Bible and Jesus Christ. Those who claim to be Christians—but reject my interpretation of what the Bible requires in the way of public policy—are pursuing an erroneous, self-serving, or false interpretation of the Bible.
And I believe that we are currently entering the final phase of history; the end of the existing world. Signs and trends dating from at least the founding of the current state of Israel (in 1948) indicate that the biblical prophecies regarding the end of the world will come true—and biblical prophecies, properly understood, must come true because these are God’s words. (Remember that no biblical prophecy has ever been proven false.)
It is highly probable that many of us alive today will live to witness the apocalyptic disasters prophesied in the Book of Revelation. The Anti-Christ may be alive at this writing and preparing to launch a career that will result in an unholy, one-world government. International and domestic policies favored by America’s liberal elite are currently paving the way for that takeover. Many key liberal beliefs, policies, and initiatives (however compassionately framed and well-intentioned) are anti-biblical, anti-freedom, and anti-Christian. These policies pave the way for an oppressive and Satanic one-world government prophesied in the Bible.
‘I Must Be a Republican’
Michele Marie Amble was born in Waterloo, Iowa, on April 6, 1956. Her parents moved the family to Minnesota when she was 12—shortly before their divorce—and she graduated from Anoka High School in 1974.xxvi She then went to Winona State College (now Winona State University) and was awarded undergraduate degrees in English and political science in 1978.xxvii
Bachmann grew up in a Democratic household and voted for Jimmy Carter in the presidential election of 1976. Her conservative drift came shortly thereafter, when she was reading a work of historical fiction by novelist Gore Vidal.
“He was kind of mocking the Founding Fathers and I just thought, ‘What a snot,’” she told the Star Tribune in an interview for a July 2007 profile piece.xxviii “I just remember reading the book, putting it in my lap, looking out the window and thinking, ‘You know what? I don’t think I am a Democrat. I must be a Republican.’”
Which novel she was reading remains unclear. In the aforementioned article, she said the book was Burr. Two years earlier, in an interview with a different Star Tribune reporter, she said it was 1876.xxix
Nevertheless, Bachmann does remember what she was wearing that day while travelling by train to Winona, a small Mississippi River city in southeast Minnesota.
“A tan trench coat, blue pin-striped shirt, like a tailored shirt, and dress slacks,” she told the Minneapolis paper in 2007. “It was a vivid memory for me because it was a turning point philosophically.”
When Bachmann re-told this story in December 2010 (citing Burr), a reporter asked Vidal for a comment and got a response through his assistant.xxx
“She is too stupid to deserve an answer,” said the author who in 2009 referred to George W. Bush as the “stupidest man in the country.”xxxi
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While Bachmann has told the Vidal story often over the years, there’s another epiphany that has never appeared in mainstream media profiles on the congresswoman. On Nov. 1, 1972 (when she was 16 years old), she received Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. (Bachmann identified the specific date decades later, while speaking at a Minneapolis fundraiser for a controversial youth ministry called “You Can Run But You Cannot Hide.”)
“I knew that I knew that I knew that I had received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior,” she said, “and that my life would never be the same after I made that commitment.”xxxii
In retrospect, it may be the most important event in Bachmann’s life since it subsequently affected her decision to marry, her worldview, her spirituality and her political career.
“Receiving Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Savior” has profound consequences for an evangelical Christian. The decision to accept Christ bears on the claim of being “born again,” a doctrinal concept that is confusing for those who do not understand or accept conservative evangelical Christianity. The “born again” experience is viewed as transformative, but it does not mean the born-again believer will no longer sin. Rather, acceptance of Christ as Lord and Savior means an individual has decided to accept the free gift of salvation offered by Christ. His sacrifice on the cross “covers” the sins and sin nature of that individual and saves him or her from damnation.
Non-believers become confused when the supposedly “saved” person engages in questionable and possibly un-Christian behavior after that person “accepts Christ.” For example, a few years after teenage Michele Amble accepted Christ, she led an effort at Winona State aimed at legalizing drinking on campus.
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“ST. PAUL—State university students who want legalization of liquor use on their campuses were taken by (Minnesota) Gov. Rudy Perpich on a private tour of a home for alcoholics Tuesday…”
“…After the tour, the students argued with the governor that liquor already is in dorm rooms and might as well be legalized.
“Michele Amble, a Winona State University junior and leader of the student group, told Perpich, ‘The University of Minnesota and six private colleges allow liquor on campus. And there have been no problems because of it…’”xxxiii
—Associated Press, April 13, 1977
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The fact young Michele Amble devoted herself to the cause of facilitating on-campus drinking—more than four years after she had the transformative experience of accepting Jesus Christ—indicates something about the specific nature of her transformation. The decision of a young and devout Christian to devote her energies to this (in preference to focusing on some other “more Christian” cause) may seem hypocritical; it may confuse people who do not share her understanding of evangelical Christianity and its requirements.
Throughout her political career, Bachmann has engaged in behaviors that ordinarily draw condemnation from the conservative evangelical pulpit—lying, deception, bigotry and hypocrisy. But—as will be seen in this account—Michele Bachmann regularly relies on these as a matter of political strategy. Conservative evangelical leaders and activists who support Bachmann are almost certainly aware of this; the lies and hypocrisy are documented, recorded and appear in the news media.
Even so, conservative evangelical leaders and voters continue to laud Bachmann as a champion of their values. It is as if these Christians believe that a particular action by Bachmann becomes right or morally acceptable because Bachmann is the one doing it.
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It was at Winona State where Michele Amble met her future husband, Marcus Bachmann—a born-again Christian and “a social work major who shared her growing interest in politics.” The couple began dating while they were both working on Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign and they later attended Carter’s inaugural.
According to a 2005 profile in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the couple married in 1978 and moved to Tulsa, (Okla.), where Michele Bachmann enrolled at Bible-based O.W. Coburn School of Law, an affiliate of Oral Roberts University.xxxiv She was a member of the school’s first entering class in 1979, according to the Tulsa World, and then dropped out before returning to graduate with the last class in 1986.xxxv
Bachmann’s first son, Lucas, was born in 1983. After Bachmann finished her law degree, the growing family relocated to Virginia, where Marcus would study for an advanced degree in clinical psychology at Regent University.
“The Lord says ‘be submissive, wives,’” Michele Bachmann noted years later when telling a church audience about her husband’s suggestion that she seek an advanced degree in tax law.xxxvi Bachmann threw herself into the work and in 1988 graduated with an LLM degree from the elite Marshall-Wythe Law School at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
The Bachmanns then relocated to Minnesota and Michele secured a position as an attorney for the U.S. Treasury Department. In that capacity, she litigated civil and criminal cases in the federal tax court in St. Paul. According to GOP.gov, Bachmann spent five years working for the government and handled hundreds of cases.xxxvii
(During a 2006 public question-and-answer session at Boutwell’s Landing residential community in Oak Park Heights, Minn., Bachmann told an audience that she was prohibited by law from naming any of the cases she litigated during her years with the Treasury Department.xxxviii)
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It was an unlikely alliance in 2007, when folk singer Jewel joined Michele Bachmann in support of legislation regarding the educational needs of American foster children.
“Hearing the congresswoman, I wanted to camp out on her lawn and live with her,” Jewel said. “I liked her so much.”xxxix
Serving as a foster mother for 23 children is an element of Bachmann’s biography that has been universally praised—and rightfully so. In fact, the authors of this book contend it’s a solid (and rare) example of the congresswoman living her pro-life values.
Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, had “broken hearts for at-risk children” and took in their first foster daughter in 1992, she told the National Review in 2011. They opened their home to 22 more teenage girls over the next six years.
“We just continued to say yes,” Bachman said, as she recounted the challenges of raising up to nine children at a time (including her two biological sons and three daughters). “It was wonderful, probably the most intellectually rewarding time of my life.”xl
But it’s also something Bachmann has exploited for political gain over the years. Her foster mother experience is noted in every account she provides about her personal life. She’s often vague, however, about how many kids she had at once and when her time as a foster parent ended. A 2008 interview with Politico is an example of this.
POLITICO: What’s on your agenda in the next few weeks?
MICHELE BACHMANN: Energy will be the big focus right now. Every weekend now when I go home, I will go to the grocery store, I’ll buy food for the family. We have five kids and 23 foster kids that we raise. So I go to the grocery store and buy a lot of food.xli
Of course, by time of this interview, Bachmann’s sons were in college and it had been a decade since her last foster child left the home in 1998.
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Authors’ Note: One of the best newspaper accounts of Michele Bachmann’s early life is “The Chosen One,” by G.R. Anderson. It appeared in the Minneapolis City Pages in 2006. The extensive article, published just prior to her first election to Congress, analyzed Bachmann’s personal and political roots. It also discussed the circumstances of her childhood, education and marriage.xlii
‘What the Law is …
and What it Ought to Be’
Ownership of Michele Bachmann’s law school was effectively transferred from one televangelist to another in 1985, when Pat Robertson, of the Virginia Beach, Va.-based Christian Broadcasting Network, purchased the library of Oral Roberts’ O.W. Coburn School of Law.xliii
After the change was completed in 1986, when Coburn closed and Regent University School of Law opened, the mission remained the same and still does to this day.