Tag Archives: White Christian Nationalism

The Choice Really is Simple

Every day, in every conceivable way, the Trump administration is waging war against equality–rooting out that hated effort to replace tribalism with acceptance of diversity and difference. Media outlets report on “DEI” assaults daily; the mediocre (and worse) White males of the administration are busy scrubbing government websites of evidence of the accomplishments of women, gay people and non-Whites and issuing discriminatory edicts. It is impossible for any fair-minded observer to miss the ferocity of their White “Christian” Nationalist effort to roll back any movement toward civic equality.

MAGA’s hatred of “others” recently manifested itself in an executive order barring transgender people from the military. As a soldier who is a self-described Evangelical described that order in an op-ed for the New York Times,“The order may be legally sound, but it is neither moral nor ethical. I believe that it is my duty as an officer to dissent when faced with such an order.”

I may not be the sort of person you would expect to oppose a ban on transgender troops. I am a conservative evangelical Christian and a Republican. Though I have deep compassion for people who feel they are in the wrong body, I do not think that transitioning — as opposed to learning to love and accept the body God gave you — is the right thing to do in that predicament. But my views are irrelevant to the issue of transgender troops.

This soldier understands–as so many do not–a foundational principle of American democratic governance: individuals have the liberty to believe as we choose, but no right to impose those beliefs on our fellow citizens. 

The executive order barring transgender troops is a legal command that provides cover for bigotry. It delivers hate in the guise of a national security issue, dressed up in medicalized language.

The meek compliance of military leadership with the ban sends a chilling message to all service members — namely, that our ranks are open only to those who fit a specific ideological mold, regardless of their ability to serve. Equally concerning is the message that military compliance sends to policymakers. If officers accept this kind of unethical order, where does it end? I fear that the White House will ask members of the military to perform increasingly loathsome tasks.

And indeed, since publication of this op-ed, the military has been asked to perform other loathsome tasks–and it has obeyed, as citizens of LA and Washington, DC, can attest. This soldier resigned rather than allow his continued participation to serve as implied concurrence with a policy he found morally reprehensible. As he concluded:

I am just one officer in a large military organization. I do not expect my resignation to persuade the president or the secretary of defense to reconsider the policy. I do hope, however, that my actions will prompt some reflection among military leaders about what it would take for them to disobey a lawful but unethical order. Most important, when my children grow up and look back at this moment in history, I want them to see an example of someone who chose the harder right over the easier wrong.

And there we have it. That–in a nutshell–is what each of us must decide, and sooner rather than later: where we draw the line between resistance and accommodation. Between the American Idea and “blood and soil” fascism.

It’s depressing to see how many people are willing to “go along to get along.” History will not be kind to them.

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It’s All About Bigotry

When Trump was elected in 2016, I was regularly reprimanded for insisting that MAGA was all about racism. People kinder than me (and that’s a lot of people) wanted to see MAGA voters as folks voting pocketbook issues, not as a re-emergence of the Confederacy or KKK.

The political science research that just keeps coming, however, supports my much less polite analysis. 

Let’s face it: we are fighting a new version of the Civil War. This time, the people who stand to benefit most from defending  bigotry aren’t the owners of plantations–they are the plutocrats and grifters dismantling the American system for profit–but like those plantation owners, our contemporary would-be overlords are using racism to enlist the support of a population desperate to believe that their religion and/or skin color makes them superior.

The evidence is overwhelming. There are the efforts to erase that hated DEI, the constant war on “woke-ism,” and the very unsubtle movement to substitute nationalist mythology for accurate history.

A recent example: An administration that has hollowed out the ranks of rangers who tend our national parks is now insisting that those who remain scrub park gift shops of “corrosive ideology.”

Remaining staff members have been ordered to report the presence of any retail item that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living” or that includes in its description “matters unrelated to beauty, abundance or grandeur.” (It will be interesting to see how park leaders follow the administration’s directive in parks established to pursue an individual mission–for example, parks created to inform the public about the civil war, Indigenous history, slavery or other topics the Trump administration considers “defamatory” of historical Americans.) 

Hardly less obvious is the scorn and contempt constantly heaped by MAGA on urban America. As Paul Krugman has recently–and accurately–noted, these ugly assaults on the nation’s cities are both vile and dishonest–and all about bigotry. What really bothers MAGA about urban life is the idea that non-white people are exercising political power.

After Mamdani won New York’s Democratic primary, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared that New York is about to turn into “Caracas on the Hudson.” As Krugman observed,

Bessent isn’t really deeply worried about Mamdani’s economic ideas. But he feels free, maybe even obliged, to slander a foreign-born Muslim with language he would never use about a white Christian politician, even if that politician were (like some of his colleagues in the Trump administration) a total crackpot.

Krugman points to the resurgence of raw racism emanating from the Trump administration. That racism is apparent in the cuts at the National Institutes of Health, which are

so tilted against racial minorities that a federal judge — one appointed by Ronald Reagan! — declared he’d never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable. You can see it in the renaming of military bases after Confederate generals — that is, traitors who fought for slavery. You can even see it in a change in the military’s shaving policy that is clearly custom-designed to drive Black men — who account for around a quarter of the Army’s new recruits — out of the service.

One problem with bigotry is that it feeds on itself. The definition of “my tribe” contracts. We saw it in Nazi Germany, where–as Martin Niemoller famously wrote, eventually there is no one left to “speak out for me.” As Krugman writes,

Now, maybe you imagine that you yourself won’t suffer from this new reign of bigotry and imagine that everyone you care about is similarly safe. But if that’s what you think, you’re likely to face a rude awakening.

I personally don’t have any illusions of safety. Yes, I’m a native-born white citizen. But my wife and her family are Black, and some of my friends and relatives are foreign-born U.S. citizens.

Furthermore, I’m Jewish, and anyone who knows their history realizes that whenever right-wing bigotry is on the ascendant, we’re always next in line. Are there really people out there naïve enough to believe MAGA’s claims to be against antisemitism, who can’t see the transparent cynicism and dishonesty?

The fact is that the Trump administration already contains a number of figures with strong ties to antisemitic extremists. The Great Replacement Theory, which has de facto become part of MAGA’s ideology, doesn’t just say that there’s a conspiracy to replace whites with people of color; it says that it’s a Jewish conspiracy.

There really is no “middle ground” between White Christian Nationalism and the American Idea.  Which of those will prevail is what this iteration of the Civil War is all about.

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Where We Are

Donald Trump opposes the “invasion” of immigrants.

Well, not all immigrants–just Brown or Black ones. Perhaps you have somehow missed the administration’s daily efforts to reverse the progress of women and people of color, but there’s no way to miss the racism of his recent exemption of (properly pale) folks from his otherwise unremitting war on immigration–his grant of refugee status to “persecuted” White folks from South Africa. According to our racist and demented Chief Executive,  White South Africans should be welcomed while dark-skinned people escaping actual persecution–and dark-skinned people already living in the U.S.–should be excluded.

Per the linked New York Times report:

Mr. Trump has halted virtually all refugee admissions for people fleeing famine and war from places like Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. But he has created an expedited path into the country for Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority that created and led the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa.

The refugee process often takes years. But only three months have passed from the time Mr. Trump signed an executive order establishing refugee status for Afrikaners to the first cohort making its way to America.

As I have often written, and as any sentient American knows, Trump’s appeal to his MAGA base is rooted in racism. Some wealthy Americans probably voted for further tax breaks and the ability to evade government oversight, but the devotion of his MAGA voters was and is firmly based upon his none-too-veiled promises to put “those people” in their place.

Unfortunately, people who embrace racist tropes are also likely to misinterpret–or entirely miss– numerous other aspects of the world they inhabit. It’s doubtful whether most of the fearful and angry folks who cast their ballots for an ignorant buffoon understood that they would get a demented puppet controlled by the authors of Project 2025, or that his profound ignorance would destroy the robust economy left by his predecessor.

But here we are.

In a recent newsletter, Robert Hubbell described our current civic/governmental landscape. He began by reporting on the most recent violation of the Emoluments Clause–the fancy airplane being gifted to Trump by Qatar (a country that has supported Hamas to the tune of 1.8 billion dollars and for whom Pam Bondi, our current Attorney General, once lobbied, for a hefty $115,000 a month.)

He then turned to the recurring question that arises as evidence of corruption mounts: how does he get away with it?

The short answer is that Trump has neutralized the guardrails of democracy that would prevent behavior violating US criminal laws and constitutional provisions.

First, the US Supreme Court has immunized Trump from the criminal laws of the US (in Trump v. US). In the normal course, the DOJ would investigate and prosecute Trump under the the US criminal code.

Second, Trump has immunized himself from impeachment and conviction by engineering a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. In the normal course, Congress would impeach, convict, and remove Trump from office.

Third, Trump has neutered Congress, which could stop his corruption through legislation, oversight, and investigations.

Finally, Trump has corrupted, compromised, or destroyed the DOJ, FBI, and the system of inspector generals and independent agencies.

All in one hundred days! But as Hubbell notes, Trump didn’t do all those things alone. He had help weakening the guardrails of democracy–the damage he’s done has been “enabled and assisted by a corps of cultural war shock troops who believe in white supremacy, Christian nationalism, and antisemitism.”

Trump remains in control of about one-third of the electorate–the segment of the population that has embraced White supremacy and Christian nationalism. But as Hubbell reminds us, a third is not a majority. It is not enough—or should not be enough–to turn America into a country governed by a White Christian Taliban. 

The outcome of this very fraught time in our national story depends on the rest of us.

I wish there were a better, easier answer than saying that years of protesting in the streets and showing up at town halls and ballot boxes will be needed to get us out of this mess. But here we are. The only question is, “What are we going to do about it?” For me, the answer is, “Exactly what we have been doing, only louder, more frequently, and in greater numbers.”

No new leader will emerge who can miraculously save us. We cannot hope for a “deus ex machina” end to our current national story.

It’s up to us.

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The Great Regression

We are about to see whether changes to the culture–changes that most Americans have welcomed–can withstand a furious and focused effort to take the country back to the 1950s (if not before).

The federal government is in thrall to a racist maniac pandering to his base of White Christian Nationalists. His minions and his “co-President”–the unelected Elon Musk–have scrubbed federal websites of references to inclusion and fairness, to a variety of minorities and any mention of climate change. They have waged war on America’s humanitarian instincts–choosing to begin their war on the “deep state” by terminating programs that offer food and medical care to impoverished populations in other countries. People are already dying as a result.

The war on “DEI” is just new terminology for the persistent war on racial and gender equality–much like the nonsensical, hysterical assertions that primary schools were teaching Critical Race Theory (a complicated legal theory actually being explored in a few law schools). Facts–as usual–are irrelevant.

Here in Red Indiana, our GOP overlords (who owe their dominance to gerrymandering–aka cheating) have “settled” a lawsuit brought by forced birth organizations by agreeing to open abortion records–violating the privacy of women who have terminated pregnancies. The Governor’s budget proposal has axed monies for the Commission on Women and Martin University, the state’s only majority-Black institution of higher education, and proposes tax “reforms” meant to cripple the governments of (Blue) urban areas. The VA is eliminating its gender neutral bathrooms…the list goes on.

It is anyone’s guess what will happen to the United States as Musk’s young techno-nerds attack sensitive computer systems and Republicans in the House and Senate prove spineless. (Here in Indiana, Senator Jim Banks is a known Christian Nationalist/White Supremacist ignoramus, but Senator Todd Young is even worse, because he clearly knows better but lacks the moral fiber to be true to his oath of office.)

Numerous organizations and individuals have filed lawsuits challenging the illegality and unconstitutionality of the Trump-Musk assaults. Whether adverse rulings will deter the felon and the plutocrat is anyone’s guess.

The larger, longer-range question is: what will happen when the forces of bigotry and regression come into conflict with the widespread cultural changes that characterize today’s society?

In today’s United States, during the last two or three generations, women, people of color, gay folks and others have made enormous progress and assumed numerous roles once exclusively held by straight (or closeted gay) White Christian males. Young Americans are used to working and living with diverse companions. Over 70% of Americans tell pollsters they support same-sex marriage.

Americans have elected a Black President. Black and Jewish and gay celebrities have millions of fans.

It is, of course, precisely that cultural shift that has so enraged and terrified the MAGA bigots who elected Trump. Their fear and hatred makes them a cohesive movement, unlike the people who comprise what I am convinced is the majority–rational Americans of good will. The existence of a media ecosystem constantly pumping out White Christian Nationalist propaganda has been enormously consequential in shielding the members of the MAGA movement from information that might challenge their prejudices.

Worse, traditional media sources have been far too willing to “sane wash” and normalize very non-sane and non-normal behavior. As a result, massive numbers of Americans have remained unaware of the threat to our governing institutions and social progress. Americans who didn’t see a threat, didn’t recognize the danger, also didn’t bother to vote.

We are currently facing multiple, existential threats: to efforts to curb climate change, to the civic inclusion of women and minorities, to public health, to government programs that keep millions of Americans out of poverty and assist suffering people around the globe, and to national security. (The changes being made to national computer systems are likely to allow unfriendly foreign governments to hack into critical information.)

Even if a massive uprising by rational citizens brings a halt to the worst of what we are experiencing, America’s role in the world has taken an enormous hit. Trump’s clown car of bizarre and unqualified appointees, his fixation with tariffs, his ridiculous announcements that he wants to take over the Panama Canal, Greenland, and now Gaza, his unconscionable termination of humanitarian aid, his constant threats of war on (nonWhite) immigrants–all have dealt a serious, perhaps fatal blow to America’s global credibility.

There’s nothing sane people can do about that loss of stature–but we can and must rise up to protect the progress we’ve made toward realizing the American values our Founders bequeathed us. We sure can’t count on the Todd Youngs of the country to protect those values.

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WWJD?

Remember those bracelets that were so popular some years ago–the ones that had “WWJD” on them? It stood for “What Would Jesus Do?” Granted, I’m not a Christian (and I certainly don’t play one on TV), but I’m pretty sure the White Supremicists and Nationalists posing as Christians are definitely not doing what Jesus would do.

I’ve previously posted about the book “The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory,” written by Tim Alberta, an authentic and clearly devoted Evangelical who spent two years visiting Evangelical congregations and interviewing pastors. I’ve also posted about the film “Bad Faith,” a documentary which traces the takeover–and transformation– of American Evangelical Christianity by the (very) far Right. Those investigations are being joined by a number of other inquiries into a movement that has been some fifty years in the making, but has only recently become too obvious, too powerful and too frightening to ignore.

Persuasion recently published an essay by Jonathan Rauch focusing on the dilemma faced by the pastors who are clinging to their convictions about the centrality of Jesus message to their religion in the face of congregants who reject Jesus’ “wokeness.” As Rauch explains, in his conversations with these pastors, the words have varied “but the tune is the same. Christian witness is in trouble in white evangelical America. And the biggest challenge is not from the secular world; it is sitting in the pews.”

Many prominent evangelicals (and some ex-evangelicals) believe the same thing. Writes Peter Wehner: “In important respects, much of what is distinctive about American evangelicalism has become antithetical to authentic Christianity. What we’re dealing with—not in all cases, of course, but in far too many—is political identity and cultural anxieties, anti-intellectualism and ethnic nationalism, resentments and grievances, all dressed up as Christianity.”

I have long believed that the rise of the MAGA Christian Nationalist movement is rooted in fear. As American demographics have shifted and the broader culture has become more accepting of women, gays, and people of color, White Christian males have panicked over their perceived loss of dominance and status. As the author notes,

Don’t be afraid is one of the Bible’s most frequently repeated commands. Yet today’s white evangelical world seems consumed by fear. There is fear of the left: “Fear,” as historian Paul Matzko has said, “that if Donald Trump doesn’t win in 2016, isn’t reelected in 2020, that is the end of American Christianity as we know it, that the godless humanists and feminists and civil rights activists are going to swamp America and destroy what makes us great.” There is fear of cultural change. More than three-fourths of white evangelicals say the country is in danger of losing its identity and culture—by which they mean their identity and culture.

Above all, there is fear of loss of status. “They realize they no longer have numbers on their side,” the historian Kristin Du Mez told me. “They see that the democratic process will not secure their aims for them. We’ve lost the culture; they’re coming for us; we’ve got to defend the right to live as obedient, faithful Christians.”

Christians have been told to emulate Jesus, but the pastors interviewed for the article report that the transformation of their religion into a political movement has caused their parishioners to ignore Gospel messages. Exhortations to love the marginalized, love the foreigner, “Those words, said one, fall on deaf ears.”

The essay describes a new wall of separation, but it notes that this wall isn’t between church and state, but between what Rauch terms “personal Christianity and public Christianity.”

This wall rationalizes political conduct whose cruelty Christians would abhor in their church lives; it sets up two incommensurable moralities, an absolute one in the personal realm and an instrumental one in the political realm.

Roush quotes one Southern Baptist pastor for the belief that the next great “mission field” will not be abroad or among nonbelievers, but within the American evangelical church and its members.

Given the transformation of much of the Evangelical church into a MAGA political cult, Rauch asks the obvious question: has White Evangelical Christianity, in its embrace of MAGA values, repudiated itself? It certainly seems that way, and if that is the case, can we expect the secular world not to notice?

MAGA “Christians” no longer ask what Jesus would do, because the answer is obvious. And very inconvenient.

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