As Right Wing Watch has noted multiple times in the past, one of the defining characteristics of Christian nationalist activists is a willingness to misrepresent history, as time after time they spread blatant falsehoods in defense of their right-wing ideology and political agendas.
One of the most egregious offenders is Christian nationalist and Trump cultist pastor Rob McCoy, who has a history of making demonstrably false statements about the Founding era.
Recently, McCoy appeared on the "Real Talk with Marissa Streit" program, where, in the span of one minute, he managed to make at least five demonstrably false claims.
"[The Founding Fathers] created 3 branches of government in a constitutional republic: legislative, executive, judicial, out of Isaiah 33:22," McCoy said. "They were divided at the Constitutional Convention and they took three days of fasting and prayer—ordained and called for by Benjamin Franklin—and they came back with the idea of a bicameral legislature."
"You would have a House of Representatives and the number of representatives was based on your population," he continued. "And then those representatives—not the people—those representatives would elect two senators for the upper house. And those legislators would then elect the president and then the president would appoint the judiciary. So this lower house was unbelievably powerful, so much so that they gave the Congress the purse strings. They were in charge of the money."
https://vimeo.com/1238101797
While the Constitution did indeed create three branches of government, the claim that this system was inspired by Isaiah is entirely false.
As for McCoy's claim that the Constitutional Convention broke for three days of fasting and prayer on the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin, neither of those claims is true. Nor is McCoy's claim that the delegates returned from that recess with the idea to establish a bicameral legislature, as that concept was a key component of the plan drawn up by the delegation from Virginia and submitted at the very beginning of the convention.
Finally, nowhere in the Constitution was the House of Representatives given the power to elect senators; that power was reserved for the state legislatures (voters were eventually given the power to elect their own senators with the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913). Nor was Congress given the power to "elect the president." Article II of the Constitution established the Electoral College for the purpose of choosing the president, giving the House of Representatives the power to select the president only in cases where no candidate received the necessary number of electoral votes.
It is shameful that McCoy and other Christian nationalists continually lie about the founding of this nation, misrepresent history, and promote baseless myths because they know that doing so creates the false impression that their modern right-wing political agenda is deeply rooted in our national history.
