Analyst and political commenter Joy-Ann Reid caused a small explosion on X after she dared to compare the hard right-wing fundamentalism of Iran to the hard right-wing fundamentalism of MAGA and President Donald Trump.
Reid’s claim, which currently had 970 reposts by late Tuesday — many from furious Christian nationalists and evangelicals — states: “I’m not saying that [Iran] regime is not bad, but … our regime is not good.”
“Our regime has secret police, they have secret police. Our regime is oppressing women, taking away abortion rights, taking away women’s rights, they also oppress women,” said Reid. “They have the highest rate of women who are in STEM careers, we’re kicking women out of the military, out of university, we’re saying DEI means women can’t be hired for high positions in the sciences. We’re marginally better and we’re doing it for Christianity, they’re doing it for Islam.”
MAGA slammed the claim, with one critic saying “Joy Reid claims the US is little better than Iran on women's rights. If unhappy, leave.”
“This is the unbelievable view of woke feminists on the left. No, it is not the same, Joy, who was even too extreme even for MSNOWNews,” posted another.
“Then move there,” raged still another. “I'm surprised she didn't say it was better for woman in Iran than here in the US.”
“You know, I mean, the truth hurts, apparently,” Reid responded on Wajahat Ali’s “Left Hook” podcast. “Especially on ex-Twitter, where the truth apparently is like, it's like throwing garlic at a vampire.”
“The people who are screaming the loudest are the people who are most eager to set up a Christian theocracy in the United States,” Reid added. “And by the way, they admit it. They say they are Christian nationalists. … So what you have are white Christian nationalists who admit that they are Christian nationalists, who say they want a country that is based on their reading of a Bible that doesn't exist because they have read into it a cruelty toward immigrants, a cruelty toward the poor, a hatred of women. And they want to consign women to one role. That's right. They've said it.”
Reid went on to cite examples, including J.D. Vance who lectured women for being childless and not spending their lives cooking for men.
“Or, you know, ‘you just want to whore around and you don't want to do what is your duty.’ The things they say sound just like what a theocrat would say. And they say they want the country to be based on their reading of Christianity. How is that different from Iran?” Reid demanded.
Ali pointed out that Project 2025, “the supervillain blueprint to destroy American democracy,” is co-authored by Russell Vought, “a self-described Christian nationalist who openly believes America should become a ‘Christian nation.’”
“He’s no longer an outlier. Before being killed by a young white man, Charlie Kirk said he didn’t believe in the separation of church and state, … which is clearly articulated in the Constitution by the founding fathers, who supported religious freedoms but didn’t want a theocracy.
Furthermore, Ali said Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, “cosplays every day as a wannabe Crusader with Christian nationalist tattoos all over his body.”
“To avoid any subtlety, he even wrote a book called American Crusade. He belongs to Christ Church, co-founded by Doug Wilson, who described himself as a ‘paleo-Confederate.’ Wilson doesn’t believe in the 19th Amendment, says women should be subordinate to men, and has provided a Biblical justification for slavery. He was invited last month by Hegseth to lead a prayer service in the Pentagon.”
“Imagine if any of these people were Muslim, what would America do?” Alis said. “Oh, yeah, probably bomb them in an illegal war that has now escalated across the region, led to thousands of casualties, and choked off the Strait of Hormuz, leading to spiking oil prices.”