The Resurgence of White Supremacy and the Rise of Christian Nationalism: (aka: sometimes white privilege is an embarrassment!)
As the Son of a Slaveholder, May I Raise the Subject of White Supremacy?
If you’ve had chance to read much of what’s on this website or some of my journal entries you’ve probably surmised that if there’s anything this former Confederate officer can’t abide it’s white supremacy. Why these people want to go back 100 years to the glory days of the Klan is beyond me. What an embarrassment! And the way they drape themselves in the Confederate flag just to piss people off with their white-trash ignorance—how obnoxious is that! If only they weren’t so dangerous and didn’t do so much damage to our society, they’d be laughable. But they are and they do.
Still, misguided as these people are, I can’t help but see them as victims of a sort. Maybe it goes back to my empathy for Confederate soldiers who got stuck fighting for the Slave Power because they were led to believe that its terrible greedy cause was their own. I got to know a lot of those boys—many of whom gave their lives for me, the supposedly “gallant Pelham.” Don’t ask me why, but they were convinced their own place in society, their very value as men, was dependent on the Negroes being kept in bondage, safely beneath them. The power-hungry slaveholders who sent them off to war may be long gone, but their descendants—literally, figuratively and spiritually—are still exploiting working-class whites by channeling their anger and resentment for their own economic advantage.
Don’t Worry, This Ain’t Your Grandfather’s Confederate Bullshit!
As we know, linking Marxism and communism to civil rights can be traced back to the early days of Reconstruction, when the South’s old guard manipulated poor whites by claiming that any improvement in Black people’s lives came at their expense. But that was then and this is now, or at least it should be if we weren’t living through what is euphemistically called a “backlash” against all our country’s racial progress since the civil rights era and the end of Jim Crow. All this MAGA hysteria about ridding the country of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI)—what an obvious bunch of hooey, one more bill of goods. All they really want is to make sure anyone who isn’t white (as well as male and straight) is confined to a second-class, subservient place in American society. After all this time, Trump and his MAGA universe haven’t even bothered to put lipstick on that sorry old pig.
(White) Christian Nationalism is the Sorry Pig’s Close Cousin.
We all know that “Make America Great Again” means make America white again and return it to a romanticized past that never was, but it’s increasingly apparent that MAGA also demands that Christianity be the fundamental principle of American life. Christian nationalists, who constitute a significant portion of the mostly white MAGA faithful (pardon the pun), believe the Bible gives them a mandate to control every aspect of our lives. But make no mistake, while Christian nationalism may use the Bible to justify its conservative agenda, it doesn’t care about theology. No, Christian nationalism is a reactionary, authoritarian ideology that centers its grievances on its mythical lost greatness and believes only Christianity can recover that greatness for its mostly white brethren.
Like the “great replacement theory,” Christian nationalism believes an imagined cabal of nefarious elites—often Jews, communist/socialists or “globalists”—are intentionally promoting racial and religious diversity in order to diminish white Christian power. And not surprisingly, the movement gets much of its financial support from a group of super-wealthy donors who are as committed to free-market fundamentalism—their economic agenda of low taxation for the wealthy, along with minimal regulation—as they are to right-wing Christianity and enforcing a white hierarchy.
Destroying American democracy isn’t an Unintended Consequence of Christian Nationalism; it’s the Primary Objective.
Christian nationalists don’t care if Trump is a devout Christian; they just want a powerful champion to restore them to what they believe is their rightful place in America. As Andrew L. Seidel says in The Founding Myth, “Religious fundamentalism and a tendency to submit to authoritarianism are highly correlated. Like the biblical god evangelicals worship, Trump is a thin-skinned authoritarian with totalitarian tendencies.” Trump’s anti-democratic attributes are a vital part of the attraction. What they really want is a king: “It is God that raises up a king.” They believe Trump is a miracle sent from heaven to bring the nation back to the Lord, and for them, resistance to Trump is tantamount to resistance to God.
Above all, Christian nationalists believe “the legitimacy of the United States government rests on its commitment to their version of Christianity, not democracy. According to Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers, “The Christian nationalist movement is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal. They aren’t fighting a culture war. They’re making a direct attack on democracy itself.”
