There are 485 members of Congress right now who are some shade of Christian. There are 0 members of Congress who are openly atheist. We’re not even talking about the White House and everyone in Donald Trump‘s Cabinet.

Yet somehow, if you’re conservative activist Matt Barber, that means atheists have taken over the government.

Filling in for radio host Janet Mefferd last week, Barber called on every person hired by the Obama administration to be fired and replaced by a conservative Christian.

“The atheists, the secularists, the church-state separatists, the anti-Christian segregationists, they have infiltrated Washington, D.C., at the deepest levels,” Barber said, urging Trump to drain the swamp of “these Obama secularist, atheist and LGBT activists.” “[Trump] needs to go in and he should be firing every single Obama hire, every Obama appointee. He should go through, and those individuals who do not support the administration’s agenda — he’s the boss, they’re under him — he should be terminating them and replacing them with, yes, Christians, yes, conservatives, with people who are going to embrace the agenda and the draining of the swamp.”

Notice he didn’t say he wants them replaced with qualified people. Just Jesus-loving automatons.

I guess he doesn’t understand that Christians were also hired by the previous President… or that if anyone else said the same thing about any other group, Barber would be up in arms whining about religious discrimination.

And if atheists have really infiltrated D.C., wouldn’t we know about it…? Because I never got that memo.

Barber doesn’t seem to get the difference between apolitical appointments who remain in place despite whoever’s in charge and political ones who are replaced by new presidents. Trump hasn’t nominated people for several high-level jobs, and the idea that “conservative Christian” should be the most important line on someone’s résumé tells you everything you need to know about how right-wingers think and why our government is so incapable of doing anything useful right now.

While this isn’t a “religious test” banned by the Constitution, it’s irrational thinking run amok. There’s no reason to believe only conservative Christians are capable of doing these jobs, and Barber seems more interested in hiring mindless bodies who will rubber stamp whatever Trump wants instead of people who are genuinely good at what they do (regardless of religious background) and unafraid to challenge their bosses.

Maybe that explains the ongoing decline of Barbwire.com.

(via Right Wing Watch. Screenshot via YouTube)

