Knights of Columbus by Don Gunn, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0/Original

The superannuated senator from Hawaii, Mazie Hirono, received a lot of highly appropriate ridicule and was made a bit of a laughingstock after she challenged a nominee for a district judge seat in Nebraska on his membership in the radical group Knights of Columbus. After the laughing ceased, Ben Sasse trolled her by pushing a “sense of the Senate” resolution stating that any consideration of membership in Knights of Columbus would violate the Constitution’s prohibition on religious tests.

Incredibly, this is how Hirono responded:

NEW: @maziehirono doubles down against Knights of Columbus, saying @BenSasse’s S. Res. 19, which Senate adopted by unanimous consent, is embrace of “alt-right.” The Senate’s resolution states it’s unconstitutional to reject a nominee because of membership in @KofC. pic.twitter.com/NagcP8OiCe — Jason Calvi (@JasonCalvi) January 18, 2019

That’s right. Religious freedom and the US Constitution are “alt-right” positions.

There are some points made in her response that need to be remembered.

These people are hostile to people living their faith. They see religious affiliation as something that is useful in terms of ethnic and identity politics but virtually none of them believe it. Over the weekend, Ted Lieu, hilariously, referred to himself as a “follower of Christ Jesus.” Lieu is a virulent pro-abort and he’d be first in line to make you bake that cake for a homosexual wedding. Neither of those positions are Christian positions and one of the very few things that Christ defines for us is marriage as the union of one man and one woman forever (see Matthew 19:4-6). Lieu claims to be a Christian but his actions say that he is a secular man acting out of political expediency. This goes back to Obama’s constant harping on “freedom of worship.” What Hirono and Lieu and Feinstein and Harris and Booker and Durbin and virtually all Democrats want is for you to be free to indulge in whatever quaint ritual you wish for an hour or so on Sunday and put that sh** away.

Anti-Catholicism, like the growing anti-Semitic movement, is mainstream progressive Democrat thought. It is so mainstream that exactly one, count them, one Democrat challenged Hirono on her view of the Knights of Columbus — that tells the whole story. Everyone else seemingly agreed. In fact, Hirono’s reaction to both Sasse’s resolution and Gabbard’s statement carry the feeling that she is hurt and surprised by the reaction to something she considers to be intuitively obvious.

Alt-right simply means “I don’t like it.” To the extent an actual alt-right movement exists, Ben Sasse is just about as far from it as you can get and not go into geostationary orbit. For all the posturing and fulminating you’d think these people are a huge political force, but they aren’t. Instead, both left and some elements on the right have started using alt-right to describe anything they don’t like but can’t martial a cogent argument against. Restricting illegal immigration is alt-right. Ending affirmative action is alt-right. Welfare work requirements? Yep. Alt-right. Did you just use the terms “anchor baby” or “chain migration?” You are alt-right. By doing this they can discredit positions and people without ever having to confront the argument.

None of this makes any difference. Hirono hails from the political elite of a Democrat plantation state. She’ll be re-elected as long as her taxidermist can make her look lifelike. But there is a lesson here for the rest of us, both persons of strong religious beliefs and those who don’t hold strong or any beliefs but who are aware of the nature of the founding of this nation. Religion is under siege (unless you are in favor of terrorism and then you can always get elected from Minnesota or Michigan). The ability of believers to be a part of public life is being limited both officially and unofficially. We are beyond the point of laughing about this and making stupid jokes about the absence of a “war on Christmas.” If we don’t wake up we will be strangers in our own land…oops that was my alt-right showing.