#2907: Tim Goeglein

If you haven’t paid attention, this might sound like a blast from the past, but Focus on the Family is one of several Taliban-adjacent groups of sadistic, pseudo-fascist trolls that feel weaponized by current developments in American politics. Timothy Goeglein has, from 2009, been the group’s Vice President of External and Government Relations, after having been Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison from 2001 to 2008 (eventually being booted for systematic plagiarism – and note that it reflects a character trait, not a lapse in judgment, on Goeglein’s part). As such, Goeglein is a representative of that group’s ideas and values, which is more than sufficient to earn him an entry here. He makes his own take on those ideas and values clear in his 2019 book American Restoration: How Faith, Family, and Personal Sacrifice Can Heal Our Nation, which focuses on cultural areas that Goeglein thinks would restore United States to its “Judeo-Christian foundation” and constitutional principles. To put his book in perspective, Goeglein also thinks that George W. Bush “is a great thinker”.

 

So for instance, Goeglein is predictably very paranoid about the perceived threat to religious liberty posed by “the political agenda of organized homosexuals”, claiming that gay rights are bringing about “a new era of intolerance against those of us who are men and women of faith” and that former President Obama “savaged and attacked” marriage, life and religious liberty.

 

Diagnosis: We could of course go on, but really: there is nothing new and surprising here. Goeglein is mostly trite. But he is still not only a loon but a powerful one.