Could Whitmer’s Anti-Catholic Blunder Be Democrats’ Final Nail in the Coffin?

Following a wave of political and media spotlights on the Democrats’ startling record of anti-Catholic bigotry—including a flurry of social media posts by Donald Trump, a shoutout from J.D. Vance at the vice presidential debate, a viral interview with Newt Gingrich, a scathing Politico piece, and a series of swing state ads targeting Senate Democrat candidates—national attention surrounding the issue has perhaps never been stronger. But even as the Democrat Party machine desperately attempts to curry favor with Catholics, a crucial electoral bloc, and dispel the narrative that they are hostile to the faith, one high-profile Democrat governor brought the left’s deep-rooted disdain for the Catholic Church into clear and striking view less than a month before Election Day.

A now-viral social media post shows Democrat Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer pretending to distribute the Holy Eucharist to a left-wing podcaster in kneeling position—using a Dorito chip as a stand-in for the Eucharist while wearing a Harris-Walz hat.

Unsurprisingly, the post elicited immediate outrage from Catholics. Michigan’s Catholic bishops wrote to express their “profound disappointment and offense taken.” They continued: “It is not just distasteful or ‘strange;’ it is an all-too-familiar experience of an elected official mocking religious persons and their practices.”

The bishops were far from alone in their discontent. “How else can this be interpreted other than mockery of Catholics and the sacrament of Holy Communion, not to mention the distasteful pornographic innuendo?” CatholicVote, a conservative Catholic organization, posted on X. “Gretchen Whitmer is only the latest example of the gross anti-Catholic bigotry festering inside the Democratic Party.”

Fox News host Laura Ingraham agreed: “Whitmer’s mocking of the foundational sacrament of the Catholic Church should cost her any political future,” she wrote. “Plus, given Michigan’s significant Catholic population, it is also politically stupid.”

Whitmer issued a statement insisting that the video was meant to be “about the importance of the CHIPS Act” (a law signed by Joe Biden in 2022 to boost funding for the research and manufacturing of semiconductors) and has since been “construed as something it was never intended to be.” But at face value, this is an outrageous lie. Upon viewing the video, no American would reasonably come to the conclusion that it was referencing the CHIPS Act—a relatively obscure piece of legislation signed into law more than two years ago. Consequently, Whitmer’s statement has been blasted as “the worst fake apology ever.”

“While dialogue on this issue with the governor’s office is appreciated,” the Catholic bishops wrote, “whether or not insulting Catholics and the Eucharist was the intent, it has had an offensive impact.”

The Holy Eucharist, as understood by the Church, is “the source and summit of the Christian life” and is believed by Catholics to consist of the physical Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. For all of the Church’s history, reception of the Eucharist has signaled both communion with the Catholic Church and an intimate expression of faith in Christ.

As such, Whitmer’s willingness to openly mock the sacrament is a slap in the face to millions of Catholics—and a jarring reminder of the left’s searing contempt for the Catholic faith, which will only become more pernicious if Kamala Harris manages to win the presidency this November.

As Election Day draws near, voters are being increasingly reminded that Kamala Harris’s shocking record of anti-Catholicism is far too glaring to overlook.

As a senator, Kamala introduced the so-called “Do No Harm Act,” which would compel Catholic doctors to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs and perform abortions and transgender surgeries on patients. She has also been an avid supporter of the so-called “Equality Act,” which would allow men to compete in women’s sports, force Catholic churches to host same-sex wedding receptions, force the closure of Catholic adoption and foster care programs, and imperil religious liberty all across the nation.

During her time in the Senate, Kamala also faced significant criticism for launching personal attacks on members of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal and charity organization which has an esteemed presence within virtually every Catholic parish. Harris did this with her strong insinuations that American Catholics—and ostensibly every American of faith—are not fit to serve as federal judges. In 2018, when questioning Brian Buescher—a nominee to be a judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska—Harris, in her capacity as a senator, pointed to Buescher’s membership in the Knights as problematic, condemning the organization’s (and the Church’s) long-held views as “extremist.”

These lines of questioning from Harris and other senators were so startling that they compelled even prominent secular figures—including the president of Princeton University—to speak out. In September 2017, Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber issued an unprecedented letter to Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, urging them to “refrain from interrogating nominees about the religious or spiritual foundations of their jurisprudential views.” The president of the University of Notre Dame, the Harvard Law Review, and the Anti-Defamation League echoed Eisgruber’s sentiment, also releasing statements slamming the rhetoric.

To showcase Democrats’ stark anti-Catholic record, this fall, a conservative super PAC is running TV ads in five crucial Senate races that takes two minutes of airtime to catalogue a series of moves by Senate Democrat candidates against Catholics. (Breitbart recently highlighted the issue when reporting on an ad blitz in Arizona targeting Democrat Senate candidate Ruben Gallego.)

This fall, Donald Trump has also posted a spree of Catholic-friendly social media posts—including the prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel (the premiere Catholic prayer for divine protection against spiritual forces of evil) on his X, Truth Social, and Instagram pages. Trump also posted an image of the Virgin Mary on September 8, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, where he said “Happy Birthday Mary!” And he previously took aim at Kamala Harris’s controversial decision to not attend the Al Smith charity dinner (a decision that was also highlighted in a previous AMAC Newsline piece) as “sad, but not surprising” given that “Catholics are literally being persecuted by [the Harris-Biden] Administration,” before cataloguing the list of ways in which Harris has slighted the Catholic faithful.

Similarly, at the vice presidential debate earlier this month, J.D. Vance cited one of the left’s most flagrant acts of religious persecution against Catholics—namely, Democrat Party attempts to force the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of nuns beloved by the Catholic community, to violate the precepts of their faith and perform or pay for abortion procedures.

“Do you want to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their will?” Vance asked pointedly of Democrat vice presidential nominee Tim Walz. “Because Kamala Harris has supported suing Catholic nuns to violate their freedom of conscience.”

Also this fall, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich alleged that Kamala Harris is the most anti-Catholic presidential candidate in 150 years. “The truth is that I think she is afraid to go to the Al Smith dinner because she’s the most anti-Catholic presidential candidate since James G. Blaine in 1880,” he said in a viral interview with Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow.

And in a Wall Street Journal op-ed friendly to both Kamala Harris and Barack Obama, Peggy Noonan implored Kamala to “reverse [her] decision and come to the Archdiocese of New York’s Al Smith dinner.”

Even left-wing Politico took note of Kamala’s Catholic problem, observing that Democrats’ odds of winning in the Catholic-heavy must-win swing state of Pennsylvania “are looking considerably dicier” than in 2020, thanks in large part to “the cultural dissonance with Harris” that “makes her an awkward fit in a closely watched, economically hard-pressed working-class region that’s historically been a locus of [pro-life] activity.”

With just weeks to go before Election Day, Gretchen Whitmer’s appalling display of anti-Catholic bigotry is only likely to draw further attention to the issue. And given that Catholics make up a significant fraction of voters in the must-win Rust Belt swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, actions like Whitmer’s could very well be enough to put Donald Trump over the edge and propel him to a second term in the White House this fall.

To Whitmer’s—and Kamala Harris’s—chagrin, they may soon find that their anti-Catholic bigotry will serve as the final nail in their party’s political coffin.

Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.