There’s a new film coming out, from the documentary maker who brought us the classic It’s a lumbar puncture. Like that film, this new Rob Reiner film is a ridiculous parody of the subject it covers. Contrary to Lumbar tap, God and country is intended to be serious, an “important” film which warns us against the rise of violent theocrats who wish to seize our freedoms. (No, they don’t mean Sharia Muslims. They mean conservative Christians.)
The film is still in its hype phase and is not yet available for review. But the trailer tells us everything we need to know.
Oops, sorry, that was an excerpt from Lumbar tap, which is one of my favorite films. (Doesn’t this website have editors who check these columns?) This is the trailer for God and Country:
Hell, that wasn’t entirely true either. It was a clip from an eerily similar film, The birth of a nation (1915). Before diving into the hissy fit that is God and countryLet’s explore the parallels of these two films, shall we?
The first film to warn of the dangers of letting people vote
The silent epic of DW Griffith The birth of a nation was based on a charming little novel called The Klansman, which showed how courageous and heroic the white-hooded horsemen of the Ku Klux Klan were, for saving the South from the barbarity and chaos caused by… letting black ex-slaves vote. You see, the former slave owners who had championed secession and still dominated the South after the Civil War found it outrageous that the Union insisted on granting the vote to large, newly freed black populations.
The birth of a nation depicts the brief window during Reconstruction, enforced by local Union troops, when black Americans gained citizenship rights, even electing some black men to Congress and as state governors. This scandalized the sensibilities of the elites who previously owned them as slaves. Newspapers, clergy, and university professors united to warn that black empowerment would lead to barbarism, massacres such as those seen during the Haitian slave revolt, and, worst of all…miscegenation. In other words, race mixing, as sexually insatiable black men violated “the honor of Southern womanhood.”
These elites organized the Klan to terrorize black voters, steal and stuff ballot boxes, and even stage violent coups (e.g. in New Orleans) to impeach duly elected officials that black people supported. In response to this resurgence of anarchy, a Congress dominated by the Republican Party adopted the 14th Amendment and made it a condition for representatives of conquered states to be readmitted to Congress. But this amendment remained in effect only as long as Union troops patrolled Southern cities as conquered territory – a situation unlikely to last, especially at the expense of Northern taxpayers who also did not want to of black neighbors and voters.
As soon as the Union troops left, white elites entered the scene. They passed Jim Crow laws that separated everything, especially the ballot box. Black people won’t get their rights for another 100 years. The birth of a nation shows the “horrors” of Reconstruction, including black emancipation, social chaos and even… racial mixing – and the courage of the “noble” Klansmen who stood up to put blacks “in their place” . His release in 1915 was directly responsible for the revival of the Klan throughout the United States and its rise to massive political power as the Democratic Party’s street militia (see ANTIFA Today). The film was screened at the White House by Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. To wait for God and country to receive a similar showing from Joe Biden.
Return to the plantation. No vote for you!
God and country is the same kind of film as The birth of a nation. It is a warning from a political elite that a certain type of citizen is too dangerous to be able to vote according to their conscience and interests. Chaos, tyranny, and the violation of basic human decency will result unless “those people” are kept in “their place.” But for Reiner, the threat comes not from former black slaves, but from Christians who escaped plantations run by the Democratic Party and Republican establishment – designed to keep them silent, obedient and powerless as their country turns against them .
What are the outrages that this new tribe of primitives threatens against good and honest people? The advertising materials for this film make it clear: if they are believers, faithful Christians are authorized to vote their beliefs, they will threaten the sacred right to abortion. Indeed, the reversal of Roe v. Wade was one of the catalysts for this film. Additionally, these mud slatherers oppose the chemical and surgical castration of children recruited by school counselors or social contagion within the ranks of the “trans” community. No more than the elites would have tolerated the mixing of races in 1873, they will authorize such attacks on basic decency in 2023.
Okay, here’s finally the good trailer:
One difference between these two elitist films: there were no black leaders involved in or supportive of The birth of a nation. Key black roles were played by white people in blackface. But prominent squish Christians, eager to cling to some influence and prestige among the elites who wish to persecute us, have helped ensure that God and country, as the truth-telling Megan Basham points out:
Not only is this false (this was Reiner’s plan all along), but in May 2022, Reiner declared that the proof that Christian nationalism is a danger to the United States was the overturning of Roe. Thus French, Moore, Tisby, Du Mez, Whitehead all help him to disseminate his opinion that… https://t.co/VCbD9vtNHO
– Megan Basham (@megbasham) December 9, 2023
I’m not sure what the black equivalent of Russell Moore Christianity today was when The birth of a nation came out of. (Maybe Chicago defender?) But if his editor had played a role in the making of this film (as Moore and David French, among others, did), he wouldn’t have kept his job for very long. Perhaps our elites today are more effective at recruiting Quislings than the racist elites of 1880 or 1915.
Or maybe faithful Christians succumb to learned helplessness: We expect our leaders to betray us, and like beagles in a laboratory that Dr. Fauci has tortured for too long, we turn and stare through the bars of our cage.
John Zmirak is editor-in-chief at The flow and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration And The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns and Government.”
