This episode traces the relationship between white womanhood, Christian nationalism, imperial power, and public sacrifice. Danielle, Jenny, and Rebecca ask what it means when unqualified white women are elevated into public roles, not as true agents of power, but as the acceptable face of it. From the Epstein files to apocalyptic theology, from empire to biblical interpretation, this conversation names the danger of spectacle, loyalty, and monolithic belief — and asks what kind of faith, politics, and community might still make room for truth.
Jenny (00:02):
I think is actually thought provoking. I've seen some conversation around the idea that there was this intentional move to make white women the face of this administration and to do it in a way that is you're woefully unprepared. You maybe even are intentionally ill prepared to take the fall and that that is not a new dynamic for white men.
Rebecca (01:03):
She really can't talk.
Jenny (01:06):
Okay. I'm sorry. We had just talked, so I was not prepared for your voice to sound like that. It sounds great. It sounds great. Yeah.
(01:28):
I know. I know, but I still wasn't ready. I'm sorry, friend. That sucks.
You sound really sorry.
(01:53):
Yeah. No, I like this, Rebecca. I feel like this is so much about what I've been researching and writing for my book is what I'm calling the anatomy of a missionary and looking at how white women were set up as soft power for imperialism and the gender social role that white women serve abroad. I think we're experiencing now what Emma says calls the boomerang of imperialism. And so the roles that white women have taken on in the global south for 50 years plus, we're now seeing those higher levels of power, but it's not actually ... It is levels of power, but it's mostly levels in proximity to male power that are still above those women. So they're always going to be on the sacrificial block whenever they need to be more than the white males in those positions would be, is what I think.
(03:05):
I would call it a position of power so long as the performance is enacted to suit power. And I just read this really great article from Carrie Twigg about how Christine Nome essentially got fired because she couldn't perform on TV well. And Trump is looking to continue to build his media empire and use propaganda to get people to continue to stand behind him, and she didn't perform well. And so it is power so long as you don't mess up, but the second that you don't align yourself with the way that power wants you to. So it's a really precarious power, I would say.
Rebecca (03:56):
See, I would even say, I don't think that's why she got fired. I would say that- And there was no move to find someone that's actually qualified, who had a snowball's chance of performing well on the world stage. So that's why I'm like, I don't think it is as simple as she didn't perform well. She was never going to perform well. And you knew that when you picked her. And so to me, I'm like, what's that choice actually about? It's the same thing now. I heard on the news recently that
(05:09):
Erica Kirk just got appointed to be the chair of the Air Force. I don't know. Some committee, some task force that has something to do with the running of something to do with the Air Force. And all of my apologies for not getting this particular thing specifically right. But my thing is, what do you know about armed forces? Nothing. It's not like you're a former retired Air Force, whatever. You're not. You know nothing about any of this. So again, you're picking someone from jump, blonde-haired, blue-eyed female who is ill-prepared from the very beginning for this very public face of a very armed forces in the middle of a war and your pick is Erica Kirk. Really? What's that set up about?
(06:25):
I'm just saying when it goes left and it will, just like what happened with ICE, it's going to take this turn for the worst that you won't actually recover from. Now you have a sacrificial lamb. You can say that somebody lost their job over this and it makes it look like you are doing something to address a grave wrong and you're not.
(07:12):
And the sad part is that I saw something recently where Stephen Smith, that sports news guy has made this comment about Kamala Harris, like if I hear her say one more time, she told you so. And the thing that I think is interesting is like, you do have these women, in this case, a black woman, who actually has the credentials to weigh in on something in proximity or juxtaposition to these white women who don't have the credentials. And what is that about?
Jenny (07:56):
Well, again, I think it's part of that world and the role that white women have taken on, where it's this double bind where I would say it is privileged and power, or maybe privileged without the power, but it is still sacrificial and it always will be. And I think of like the qualifications, the men, many of them aren't qualified for the roles that they're taking on, but they're likely not going to be sacrificed in the same way that the women will. And I think part of that structure is the cult of domesticity, that white women represent this demure, trad wife aesthetic. So if you get these purity culture-esque white women up there, it's going to make sense in the psyche of people that have been conditioned in Christian nationalism to see this as innocent and pure and good and not question the impacts that those women are actually having in the decisions and the actions that they're doing.
Rebecca (09:14):
That makes a lot of sense in the case of Pam Bonding particularly and Danielle's going Epstein, Epstein, Epstein in chat. It's about the third time. Now it's in all caps, right?
(09:38):
Yeah. I think it makes a lot of sense in the case of Pam Bondi in the role she took on in the Epstein hearing and her just like, "No, I won't turn around and look at these women. No, I will not acknowledge." And if in the American psyche, that face, that voice, that body saying there's nothing to see here is acceptable, then we don't have to have this conversation anymore.
Rebecca (10:16):
Yeah. And I'm not sure anymore quite what to do with the Epstein files. There's a lot of energy around all of this is a distraction from that. And I have a hard time in my mind trying to figure out what is in it that is so bad that you would start a war so the story doesn't come out. What I can imagine is like, "Yeah, well, that isn't new and it won't surprise anybody." So what is there that I can't imagine if that's even a fair sort of frame for this?
(11:08):
I think people are getting lost in the binary of it's the Epstein Files or it's something else. I think it's absolutely that in part. And what is happening right now has been a fever dream of the Christian right since at least the 1970s and apocalyptic readings of the Book of Revelation and certain interpretations that have said, "If Israel takes over all of this land, then Jesus is going to come back," was the rhetoric I grew up with. After nine eleven, it was like most exciting that war was breaking out in the Middle East because this meant that we were ushering in the kingdom of God. And so that is not, not part of it, right? When the military gets sent these letters saying that God has ordained Trump and that