My rant about those IRS layoffs
Plus, one thing you can do to help defend democracy
The Right-Wing Long Con Behind Those IRS Layoffs
And yes, there’s always a Christian nationalism angle
In recent years, Republicans have embraced the far-right talking point that the IRS is a threat to citizens’ freedom and safety. This week, a remarkable op-ed penned by seven former IRS commissioners reveals just how ridiculous this talking point is. The op-ed is about as nonpartisan as it gets: its authors were appointed by Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. And yet, even in this time of intense partisanship, they agree on several key points:
“Shrinking the I.R.S. will not lower your tax obligation. That’s up to Congress.”
Now, if only we had a Congress…
“Like any bureaucratic institution, the I.R.S. could certainly improve its efficiency and effectiveness.”
Of course it can! I have an amazing idea—let’s invest some money in upgrading its computer systems and hiring more people who can help with customer service and difficult cases? Oh wait, what? Republicans freaked out when President Biden tried to do that…? Oh, so that’s what Congress has been up to…
“Aggressive reductions in the I.R.S.’s resources will only render our government less effective and less efficient in collecting the taxes Congress has imposed.”
But I thought DOGE was all about effective and efficient government…
“More than 97 percent of I.R.S. employees don’t carry a gun. … the most dangerous thing on their person is probably a calculator.”
But what’s all this I keep hearing about heavily-armed and jack-booted IRS thugs seizing my hard-earned property… ?
The authors of the op-ed are clear that much of the rhetoric surrounding attacks on the IRS is nonsense. They are also clear about the real effects of Trump’s attack on the IRS: “It will shift the burden of funding the government from people who shirk their taxes to the honest people who pay them, and it will impede efforts by the I.R.S. to modernize customer service and simplify the tax filing process for everyone.” (Note to my fellow sociology nerds, to be read in the voice of Chandler Bing: could this explanation be more relational?)
The authors are less clear, however, on the causes of Trump/DOGE’s attack on the IRS. Meaning, how did we get here? Luckily, I have spent nearly a decade studying the right-wing ideas that have steadily migrated from the fringes of American politics to its nougat center. As I wrote in The Guardian more than two years ago, the GOP’s hysteria about the IRS is relatively new. Mainstream Republicans claim to be the party of “law and order,” and thus have long supported investments in the IRS that help the agency more effectively enforce tax law. They have also managed to maintain “a commitment to cutting taxes without promoting hysterical fears about the enforcers of tax laws.”
Fast-forward 30 years and the institutional Republican party has embraced anti-government rhetoric about the dangers of the “deep state”, with the IRS emerging as a prime target. If this feels like a surprising shift, it is. But it didn’t come out of nowhere. It is the product of decades of misinformation spread by anti-government extremists about the supposed violence of IRS. One of those extremists was a guy named Gordon Kahl:
Kahl was a self-proclaimed “Christian patriot” and member of the far-right Posse Comitatus. After embracing the white supremacist and antisemitic ideology of Christian Identity, he came to believe “taxation was a scheme by ‘international Jews’ to enslave America”, and stopped paying his taxes. In 1983, Kahl killed two federal marshals when they attempted to arrest him on a tax-related charge. After escaping and going into hiding, he defended himself in a 16-page letter: “We are a conquered and occupied nation; conquered and occupied by the Jews, and their hundreds or maybe thousands of front organizations doing their un-Godly work.” Front organizations like the IRS.
Today, as sitting US senators sow fears of a “shadow army” of IRS agents, it is important to recall this shadow history. Those who attack the IRS today do not necessarily share Kahl’s antisemitism or propensity to violence. But when our political leaders repeat barely sanitized versions of far-right conspiracy theories, they are knowingly or not continuing the violent anti-government project that Kahl and others set into motion, and they are introducing and legitimizing those sentiments for new generations of conservatives. This is how the extreme becomes mainstream.
It may seem like a stretch to see recent attacks on the IRS as part of a broader Christian nationalist playbook to dismantle democratic institutions. But its not. Not only are there clear links between today’s anti-IRS attacks and the extremist ideas of Christian Patriots like Kahl. The effects of anti-IRS attacks today are also consistent with the broader Christian nationalist approach to governing.
As I wrote in the New York Daily News, this approach:
is rooted in a division of the world into “us” and “them” … where “us” loosely represents white conservative Christians, and “them” is a catch-all for racial-religious minorities and so-called enemies of white Christian power. Republicans’ recent attacks on the IRS make perfect sense when viewed through this lens. That’s because this perspective encourages a double-standard where law enforcement is concerned: “freedom for “us” and authoritarian social order for “them,”” as recent research on the rise of white Christian nationalism puts it.
We see this double-standard play out in differential levels of concern about who gets audited by the IRS (audits are bad for the White-coded categories of the “middle class and small businesses” but necessary for Black-coded EITC recipients). And we see this play out in GOP leaders’ contradictory rhetoric on law enforcement. Many Republicans balk at calls to hold accountable police officers who have killed Black citizens, instead promising even more police funding to “keep our communities safe.” And yet unfounded concerns that some white middle-class Americans may be asked for extra paperwork has led Republicans to paint the IRS as a violent and existential threat to American freedom.
But whose freedom? “Freedom for “us”; order for “them.”” The IRS may make a convenient punching bag or laugh line, but the authoritarian logic that undergirds anti-IRS fearmongering is anything but funny.
Democracy in action
Stories of resistance you may not see in your news feed
Over at God’s Politics, Jim Wallis describes “a new chapter in the historic legacy of faith communities standing up for their scriptural obligations in defense of religious liberty and justice for the most marginalized and vulnerable..”
An Associated Press story describes the concerns that drove this action:
More than two-dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans — ranging from the Episcopal Church and the Union for Reform Judaism to the Mennonites and Unitarian Universalists — filed a federal court lawsuit Tuesday challenging a Trump administration move giving immigration agents more leeway to make arrests at houses of worship.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, contends that the new policy is spreading fear of raids, thus lowering attendance at worship services and other valuable church programs. The result, says the suit, infringes on the groups’ religious freedom — namely their ability to minister to migrants, including those in the United States illegally.
More background, including how to sign the petition to support their efforts, here.
One Thing™️ of the week
We can’t all do everything — but we can do one thing each week
Think local.
National pro-democracy organizations are crucial, but one of the most significant ways they bring about change is indirect — by resourcing regular people in communities across the country to better understand the changes they are seeing right in their own backyard (or their own congregation, or school district, or local library…. you get the picture). So think about something you can do in your community. Some ideas to get your started:
If you like to write, consider writing an op-ed of your local newspaper, like this North Carolina man did last week.
Even a short letter to the editor can have an impact, like this recent one from an Indiana resident.
Finally, if you are involved in a faith community, consider working together to take some shared actions, like this local church in Arkansas.
What I’m consuming
Here are the smart people I’m reading/watching/listening to
The journalist Katherine Stewart’s 🔥 new book, Money, Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy.
But you don’t need to take my word for it. A review in the New York Times calls it “an eerily prescient guide to the phantasmagoria of our political moment.”
So yeah…
Latest News
Is it self-promotional if it’s also self-deprecating?
I don’t have a single (yet), but the trailer for my new documentary podcast, WHEN THE WOLVES CAME: EVANGELICALS RESISTING EXTREMISM is out.
And Episode 1 is dropping March 4. Mark your calendars!
Something Light
A little palette cleanser before you go
A funny thing happens when you go to school for a really long time and become a professional knower of things — it becomes disorienting to find yourself in a world where you don’t know things.
But I learned something a few years ago when I returned to tennis after decades of avoiding the sport: allowing yourself to be a beginner, especially when the stakes are relatively low, is a joy.
And then I got the crazy idea in my head that I should make a documentary podcast. I know how to do research and tell stories, I thought. This should be easy!
Let me tell you: I have rarely been so humbled by a process.
I will share more over the coming months, but let’s just say that in the early days of getting to know the production team they set up a meeting… to discuss my views on “sound.”
Just “sound.”
WHAT?!
To say I provided no useful feedback is an overstatement. This is unfortunately not one of those movie montages where I end up as an experienced audiophile. But the important thing is the friends you make along the way!
And of course, the new lingo that I can now drop into natural conversation. Ok, gotta run now, the team just sent me a dry mix of the latest episode. 😉
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