Leroy N. Soetoro
2025-01-14 22:29:30 UTC
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Theres an image that captures the threat posed by the White Christian
nationalist movement and how it could become even more dangerous over
the next four years.
Taken during the Jan. 6 insurrection, the photo shows a solitary White
man, his head pressed in prayer against a massive wooden cross, facing the
domed US Capitol building. An American flag stands like a sentinel on a
flagpole beside the Capitol under an ominously gray sky.
The photograph depicts a foot soldier in an insurgent religious movement
trying to storm the halls of American power. Whats unsettling about the
photo four years later is that much of the religious zeal that fed the
insurrection is no longer outside the gates of power. Many of that
movements followers are now on the inside, because their Chosen One,
Donald Trump, returns this month to the Oval Office.
This is the scenario Americans could face in Trumps second term. Under
Trump, Christian nationalists will have unprecedented access to the power
of the federal government. Trumps GOP has unified control of Congress.
And a conservative supermajority, which has already blurred the line
between separation of church and state in a series of decisions favoring
Christian interests, controls the US Supreme Court.
Trump has not been shy about what comes next. He ran a presidential
campaign that was infused with White Christian Nationalist imagery and
rhetoric. He vowed in an October campaign speech to set up a task force to
root out anti-Christian bias and restore preachers power in America
while giving access to a group he calls my beautiful Christians.
If I get in, youre going to be using that power at a level that youve
never used before, Trump told an annual gathering of National Religious
Broadcasters in Tennessee during a campaign stop earlier this year.
Trump won the support of about 8 in 10 White evangelical voters in
Novembers presidential election. Nearly two-thirds of White evangelical
Protestants in the US described themselves as sympathizers or adherents to
Christian nationalism in a February 2023 survey.
Scholars have called White Christian nationalism an Imposter
Christianity whose adherents use religious language to cloak sexism and
hostility to Black people and non-White immigrants in a quest to create a
White Christian America.
So what might life look like over the next four years for Americans who
dont subscribe to this movement?
CNN asked that question of Kristin Kobes Du Mez, one of the nations
foremost authorities on Christian nationalism. Du Mez is a historian and
the author of the New York Times bestseller, Jesus and John Wayne: How
White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. Her book has
become a go-to source for understanding Christian nationalism. It explains
how the movements tentacles reach deep into American history and pop
culture.
To many people, declaring America a Christian nation may seem harmless.
And its important to distinguish Christian nationalists from patriotic
Christians who have a more inclusive view of what America should be. But
Du Mez says Christian nationalism is ultimately incompatible with American
democracy.
This is not a pluralist vision for all of American coming together or a
vision for compromise, says Du Mez, a history professor at Calvin
University in Michigan and a fellow at the University of Notre Dames
Center for Philosophy of Religion. It is a vision for seizing power and
using that power to usher in a Christian America.
CNN recently spoke to Du Mez about this movement and what Americans might
expect during Trumps second term. Her comments were edited for brevity
and clarity.
What will Trumps victory do for the White Christian nationalist movement?
It will embolden and empower the White Christian nationalist movement. In
all likelihood, it will institutionalize White Christian nationalism. It
will transform our government, with the goal of transforming our society.
It will likely place White Christian nationalists in positions of enormous
political power. It could be transformative.
How would that institutionalization of White Christian nationalism look in
ordinary peoples lives?
We can expect this Christian nationalist agenda to transform the public
school system. One of the proposals with Christian nationalists is to
eliminate the Department of Education, to look to the privatization of
schooling, but also to transform the curriculum throughout public schools.
The anti-CRT (critical race theory) and anti-woke agenda that we have seen
played out on a smaller scale in certain states that is what we should
expect to see on a national scale.
Project 2025 (a conservative blueprint for the next Republican president,
although Trump tried to distance himself from it during the 2024 campaign)
is explicit about cracking down on woke ideology, eliminating certain
terms from laws and federal regulations, terms like gender equality and
reproductive rights. This anti-woke agenda is a key point of unity
between White Christian nationalists and the broader MAGA movement.
Is there any potential for book bans?
Any book that could be perceived as pro-LGBTQ, for example, or to contain
a harmful political agenda those are the books likely to be targeted,
and certainly removed from school curriculums and school libraries. But in
terms of everyday lives, part of the agenda of Christian nationalists is a
redefinition of human rights and of civil rights according to their
understanding of Gods laws or natural law.
And in this respect, there is no right to same-sex marriage, there is no
right to abortion, or broader LGBTQ rights. Those dont exist within their
understanding of the rights guaranteed by our Constitution. They read the
Constitution through this Christian nationalist framework: God founded the
nation, our founding documents reflect that and therefore they must be
interpreted in light of Gods law, which in a sense, erases how we would
normally understand constitutional rights and replaces them with
essentially a Christian nationalist agenda.
Why are some Christian nationalists hostile to the Department of
Education?
Theres a long history of opposition to the Department of Education within
the Christian right, going back several decades. Schools are seen as a
primary site of formation of children, and within this conservative
Christian ideology theres a very strong emphasis on the rights of the
parent to shape the values and ideals of ones children. When government
steps in and takes on that role, they believe that it infringes on a
parents God-given rights. They are extremely upset when these, quote
unquote, government schools educate their children and teach them things
that they do not believe in or that they would find harmful.
You could also trace this hostility back historically, and not
coincidentally, to the kind of resistance to government schools that
really welled up in the context of the civil rights movement and
desegregation efforts. This was seen as the government intrusion into
families and into communities.
With his victory, is Trump even more revered in White Christian
nationalist movement circles?
Absolutely. In every way, there is celebration in Christian nationalist
spaces. The idea is widespread that Trumps victory demonstrates a divine
mandate that resonates with the framework that they have been using to
explain and promote Trump dating back to 2016. He is somehow Gods
anointed one. He is Gods chosen leader for this particularly fraught,
historical political moment.
You saw that early on in 2016 with these prophecies that were coming from
charismatic circles that no, he was not necessarily a Christian, but he
was still Gods chosen one to save Christian America. The sense of his
divine role certainly wasnt dampened by the assassination attempt and his
survival, which seemed miraculous to some. Trump leaned into that and said
God had saved him because God had a divine purpose for him.
You once said that Christian nationalism and militant patriarchy go hand
in hand. What does that mean?
Christian nationalism is the idea that America is a distinctly Christian
nation. But theres a whole set of descriptors that go along with this
that we see over and over again. Theres this idea that we need to restore
Christian America. What does that look like? It looks like privileging the
quote unquote, traditional family, the patriarchal family structure. They
believe that the way that God has designed human flourishing is to have a
male patriarch, and then to have a submissive wife, one who submits to her
husbands authority, and one whose primary role is a mother and a
homemaker. Any family structure that does not look like that is seen as
undermining society.
Youll hear the rhetoric that we need strong Godly men to step up to
defend faith, family and nation. And so when you get inside Christian
nationalist spaces, there is all kinds of militant rhetoric about manly
strength, about Christian men who need to step up and take power, and
assert their leadership because that is their God-ordained role.
Given that description, was there even a remote chance that White
Christian nationalists would support Kamala Harris?
No. No White Christian nationalist would vote for Kamala Harris.
No matter what she did?
No. Just an absolute nonstarter. I mean, how many strikes does she have
against her? Shes a woman, and a woman of color. Her gender would
probably be disqualifying for most. But no because shes a woman of
color, and frankly a Democrat.
Christian nationalism thrives on this us-versus-them mentality. This
militancy is linked to always needing an enemy. And in Christian
nationalism today, the enemies are internal. Historically the enemies of
Christian America were secular humanists, feminists and then more recently
Democrats and the woke. This language of an enemy within that caught some
attention in the last week of the campaign, when Trump said those words
that resonate deeply with Christian nationalists. That fuels the sense
that we need warriors to fight to save your family and Christianity. And
to save America, youre going have to fight fellow Americans who are
threatening those values.
In some ways, is Trump just as much of a transformational figure for White
evangelicals as Billy Graham?
I think we can say yes. The reason I pause is because I dont think people
fully understand the significance and legacy of Billy Graham. But yes,
Trump is transformational but only because of the kind of deep roots of
Christian nationalism. If you go back to the 1960s and 1970s and listen to
the rhetoric of evangelical and fundamentalist pastors, and listened to
how they talked about race, and their mission to save Christian America
that goes back a half of a century.
Given that resonance, yes, he has been transformational with that promise
to give Christians power. And there he means, of course, power to
conservative, White evangelical types of Christians. That (promise) has
excited his base and emboldened that faction. A few years ago, it might
have been frowned upon in many Christian spaces to support somebody like
Trump. Now, the tables have really turned. Now theres no shame in
embracing Trump. There has been a transformative effect. I see much
unapologetically crude and belligerent language inside these spaces. This
kind of militancy is no longer beneath the surface, and it is aimed at
fellow Americans and at fellow Christians who do not toe the line.
What happens though to those White Christian evangelicals who dont
subscribe to Christian nationalism. Where do they go?
There are a lot of pressures to get on board with this Christian
nationalist agenda. It doesnt need to be overtly supported, but theres
enormous pressure not to object. A person who works in an evangelical
media organization explained it to me this way. The memo is: You dont
have to support Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda you just cant speak
against it, so you can keep your job. When I heard those words, I thought
that exactly describes what Im hearing from people and what Im
observing. So you can quietly hold onto your beliefs, but if you try to
object to something that is part of this agenda, if you try to say, fellow
Christians, should we be supporting a man like Trump? that will get you
into trouble.
If this movement gets everything it wants, what will this country look
like?
There will be no meaningful religious liberty. There will be essentially a
two-tier society between the quote unquote, real Americansthose who buy
into this, or pretend to and then the rest of Americans. If youre a
person of no faith or a Muslim or anybody deemed not a true Christian, you
will have a place, but you will not have a voice. The laws will be
rewritten across the board. Rights as we understand them will cease to
exist and instead, well have the framework of biblical law.
The idea will be that true freedom comes from following Gods laws. So
freedom will be redefined. You are free to follow the laws that we set out
for you as a woman, or someone who is same-sex attracted. True freedom
comes from submitting to Gods law, and we will help you do that, and it
will ultimately be good for you. In our education system, our American
history will be made up. It will be ideological.
They want to erase the teaching of actual history to prop up a mythical
understanding of what this country was founded to be to justify their
radical transformation of the country. There will be no abortion rights,
and there will be limited, if any, access to contraception. There will be
harsh anti-immigration laws with exceptions for people who subscribe to
this Christian nationalist vision or who are seen to fit within it,
religiously, politically and perhaps ethnically.
There are potential mitigating factors: infighting or incompetence within
Christian nationalist and MAGA circles, the role of the courts, resistance
within government agencies and at the local and state levels. And of
course, the extent to which various aspects of the Christian nationalist
agenda align with Trumps own priorities and with those of members of his
inner circle, like Elon Musk.
What do you say to people who say youre being alarmist and playing into
doomsday scenarios? I mean, this isnt The Handmaids Tale.
I would love to be wrong about this. The reason Im saying these things is
because I have been listening to what they (in this movement) have been
saying and I have been reading what they have been writing for years. They
have been writing these things and saying these things for decades. For a
long time, they were a powerful strand in the broader evangelical world
and within the Republican Party. But they were offset by a more secular
and pro-business conservatism.
What weve seen now is that theyve moved into a dominant position within
the Republican Party. The MAGA brand is the Republican Party. These ideas
are not new. What is new is that for the first time, they are really in a
position to carry out these plans.
Do you think White Christian nationalists will someday regret this
alliance with Trump?
No. Its hard for me to envision why they would regret it, because what
they most want is power the power to achieve their ends. And he appears
to be granting them that power. I suppose then there could be some regret,
but that just seems so far-fetched at this point. They have seen their
movement go mainstream, and now they have incredible access to power.
-BIAS
John Blake is a CNN senior writer and author of the award-winning memoir,
More Than I Imagined: What a Black Man Discovered About the White Mother
He Never Knew.
--
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump. We look
forward to America being great again.
The disease known as Kamala Harris has been effectively treated and
eradicated.
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.
Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.
Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.