I would like to know readers’ opinions about the latest push of religious organizations doubling down on their efforts to further their attempts to solidify the drive to create a “Christian Nation” for this country. This is highly disturbing to me and I personally feel that we non-believers have to double down on our efforts to stop them! Opinions please!!
We have the same nutbags (often financed by the US) trying the same nonsense over here…they have had a bad trot with the leaders having sexual, financial and integrity scandals exposed.
To me, they[1] come across as hypocritical, irrational, uninformed, egotistical, antidemocratical and power-hungry opportunists (I could have fit in more adjectives, but I think this is enough for illustrational purposes). This is my personal opinion, and I know that I am by far not alone in thinking these exact thoughts.
more specifically, Agent Orange and his MAGA crowd bootlickers ↩︎
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So far in the UK we seem to be spared the most evangelical forms of superstition, though I did have a glossy flyer through my door last week inviting me to attend the local community hall, to discuss Jesus and eternity. If anyone is wondering, I won’t be attending.
Is this how it starts? 
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Ontological Insecurity: The deep seated belief that the world is changing under your feet, making your place within it unsafe, unstable or unpredictable.
In America, for whites and Hispanics they have been empowered by one Donald J, Trump and Republicans. Oddly, there is a significant number of blacks within this movement who lean Democratic.
| Racial/Religious Group | Support Level (Adherents + Sympathizers) |
|---|---|
| White Evangelical Protestants | 66–67% |
| Hispanic Protestants | 55–57% (Rising rapidly) |
| Black Protestants | 39–43% |
| Hispanic Catholics | 25% |
Whites are largely motivated by what they see as an erosion of their “christian” values. You wouldn’t be mistaken thinking this is more motivated by their diminishing white privilege. Much of this is pure xenophobia directed at other races, religions, abortion\marriage rights or LGTBQ+ populations that challenge their core beliefs.
Hispanic populations see this as a defense against abortion right, as well as a fast track assimilation into American society. That God and Country bullshit…
Black population adherence is not centered on preserving a mythologized past, more towards a progressive future where America atones for its past sins.
Summary of the “Diametric” Split
| Feature | White/Hispanic Justification | Black Justification |
|---|---|---|
| View of the Past | America was once “Great/Holy.” | America has always been “Broken/Hypocritical.” |
| View of Power | Power should be used to enforce morality. | Power should be used to protect the vulnerable. |
| Primary Fear | Cultural Decay (being replaced/secularism). | State Violence (racism/loss of civil rights). |
| Political Goal | Restoration of a Traditional Hierarchy. | Fulfillment of Democratic Promises. |
This nonsense has been here before…the Puritans of the 1600’s and the Afrikaner Nationalism of apartheid are two quick examples. In America, modern Christian Nationalism is really just the mutation of the Moral Majority of the 1980’s.
These movements typically always fade. They have a short shelf life. The undercurrents of xenophobia always find a way to percolate to the surface before trickling back under the soil.
For some given value of “short”. As you point out, this got underway in earnest in the 1970s and 80s and only fully took off the mask during Trump’s 2nd term. I hope we’re not looking at some decades-long dark ages in our future. I think there’s some basis for that hope, although, I think they’ve dealt us enough mortal blows that the future as a country won’t look like the past. In both good and bad ways …
Christian Nationalists and MAGAt’s are the same group. Their primary motivation is fear - things that they don’t understand, things that are different - in other words, change.
In the old days, change happened slowly, and there was plenty of time to get comfortable with those changes - even if those changes weren’t to their benefit.
But nowadays, the pace of change is quite rapid and it’s difficult if you can only SLOWLY adapt to those changes. Christian Nationalism is a way to change things back to when things were unchanging (at least in their mind!)
Remember, these folks are also tribal. They see everyone as either in their tribe or to be feared and opposed.
Plus, these people are everywhere - not just the US. Brexit, Nazi Germany.
The way to deal with them is 2 fold: Vote them out of office, and slowly get them used to change. Major entertainment - TV, movies - is a good way to put these changes in front of them so they get used to it. The problem is that this takes a long time and that the medium is changing. TV and movies are not competing well against social media.
One of the things I find fascinating is people who are MAGA supporters who shouldn’t be - women, blacks, hispanics, lower class. These people are supporting people who would do them harm, and I just don’t understand it.
As much as Christian Nationalism is flogged to hype screen time, it is more distraction than distress. The question never asked is who benefits from all of this hand wringing?
If America adopts Christian Nationalism, then it is no longer America. If Christian Nationalism fails, it is still not America.
America is a mythology propagated by elites to keep the people’s eye off of the ball. Trump cripples the EPA, but no one notices because he tweeted some batshit crazy shit and the masses lack the depth to see beyond it, because they have been programmed to see threat everywhere.
As long as they cling to hyper vigilance, identity and grievance, no one picks up on the premise that America is, and has always been, a profit center. It exists for an elite few to extract and protect wealth.
America exists as long as it is economically viable, or it reaches the last productive vein in the mine.
True enough, but it is also propagated by dangling before the people an ideal that they actually subscribe to, at least in principle if not in practice (things like non-profit healthcare as a human right are actually very popular). The trick is to give them a good taste of the actual ideal rather than empty promises. If that is done, I think there’s potential for the elitist agenda to collapse, at least for a time. Much of why we are here is because the rest of the world moved on to more egalitarian (if still imperfect) societies while we stayed mired in the past. It isn’t just that “America” was illusory, but that it wasn’t progressing away from rather than toward the illusory..
Now, though, so many bad trends are converging that it’s plausible that even if the GOP totally imploded and was rendered politically irrelevant for a generation or three, the earth could, due to climate collapse, become much less habitable (if not uninhabitable) and render it a moot point. And/or war, up to & including global nuclear exchanges, could render it moot. And/or, that “last productive vein” whereof you speak plays out sooner than even pessimists expect it to, and there’s just no resources to work with to sustain anything remotely resembling the lifestyle we grew accustomed to, particularly post-WW2. Maybe some combination of these things reduces us all to a 16th century standard of living, IDK.
Here at Chez Mordant we have I suspect done more than most people to buffer ourselves against shocks that I now consider inevitable – things like a deep pantry, some spare parts and tools, water purification systems, a few day’s worth of power backup and limited emergency solar panels, a garden (pathetic as it is), cash on hand in case of bank closures – though all that stops short of actual “prepping”. And even that is not going to keep us thriving or even alive for a significant amount of time in a generalized collapse. It will just give us time to gracefully kiss our own asses goodbye.
I wish I didn’t have [grand]children or I would just sit back, brew some extra popcorn and let it be what it wants to be. As it is, I’m trying to leave some sort of at least partial buffer for them to benefit from.
I think the push among Whites for Christian Nationalism is an effort to organize. Whites, justifiably, see the existence of their race being threatened - and they want to do something about it. Organized religion offers them the space to congregate and form alliances or allegiances. Under the guise of Christianity, they will organize and execute actions and start movements which benefit the totality of their identity - which is some kind of synthesis of “originally coming from Europe”. I understand why white Christian Nationalists do this. I don’t understand why people outside the collective see it as out of the ordinary. In fact, I see people who object to White Nationalism as basically hypocritical. Every race group attempts to preserve its self. It’s hard written into our DNA.
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White is not a race, it is a genetically inherited trait, melanin in the skin protects against the damaging effects of UV light. Race is a cultural and subjective construct. The idea white skin is being threatened, is about as alarming to me as the idea that blue eyes are being threatened, or ginger hair, it is an absurdity born of irrational fear. If you’re well below average height, is that a threat to tall people, or the reverse, absurdity.
It’s called bigotry, usually born of fear, and ignorance. Though the ability to quickly identify people who look and sound different would likely have had a survival advantage in our evolved past, when we lived in small groups of hunter gatherers, it is useless, even harmful in post industrialised 21st century societies.
They likely see it as what it is, bigotry and racism.
Oh really, so it’s not a choice then, please demonstrate with a citation the discovery of this “racist” gene, or I am calling BS on that one. Racism is pointless, unnecessary and pernicious, that’s enough for me to know.
Melanin is genetically determined, would we fear other genetic outcomes in this absurd way, I doubt it. The existence of ginger hair is being threatened by blond, blue eyes are being threatened by brown, short people are being threatened by tall, it’s risible.
The fact that evolution has predisposed us to fear certain things, doesn’t mean we need to indulge that fear or act on it, especially in ways that are obviously harmful to others.
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With White skin comes white culture. To a degree I acknowledge your objection later in the post by referencing “white American culture” to a shared European ancestry. I believe it is this shared collective ancestry which Americans and Europeans see as coming under threat from not only mass migration but also unsustainable birth rates. There is a notion of panic amongst certain people with white skin who recognize their singularity as a culture in today’s world coming under threat of mass immigration and unsustainable birth rates.
It’s quite common for liberal leftists to instill this kind of white guilt into people of European decent under the guise of “not having a unique heritage”. Under that false pretence that “we’re all the same underneath our skin”. This peculiar feature of white leftist thinking is not shared by the Chinese, the Hindu, or the Muslim world. If you think racism is peculiar to the West you’ve been conditioned to think that by your various feminist and pos modernists outlets and think tanks.
It is precisely in the backlash against that leftist sentiment where you find white Christian nationalists organizing and defending their shared heritage. It isn’t unlike the Nazi uprising in many ways. But that’s what you get for trying to indoctrinate a generation of people into believing they don’t matter and don’t have a voice - and in particular shouldn’t be proud of the way they look, who they associate with, or how they were raised. Race matters - everywhere.
Is it racism? To feel pride at the accomplishments of one’s ancestors? To care about one’s distinct genetic hertitage - ranging not only to the genetic arrival of the “white” gene, but every other historical accomplishment that accompanied it? Is it racist to feel a shared recognition of how one’s culture and civilization have shaped one’s entire nation into beacons of prosperity and hope? Western civilization? Which by all accounts is very steeply on the decline? Is it racist To want to preserve that?
You can watch helplessly as your own homestead is overrun by zealots of Islam and other cultures who do not share your values or beliefs and who despise both the colour of your skin and the history of your culture. It doesn’t mean that everyone else has to as well.
Not necessarily, and many different cultures around the globe are exhibited by people with white skin.
Then they’re delusional as cultures are always changing and always evolving. These types of fears are nothing new, and as I said likely stem from our evolved past, but they are useless and harmful in the post industrialised world.
Imagine, not recognise, and this is the fear and bigotry I described above. Nazi Germany demonised Jewish people in much the same way. I have no time for it.
I don’t see how changing the core group changes my response, and if you think reeling off sweeping claims about what large demographics think without even the pretence of evidence will go unnoticed, you do me a disservice.
I made no such claim, so that’s a rather bizarre straw man?
In that both played on ignorance and fear among the general population to demonise certain groups. Such intolerance can only end one way, that’s why I have no time for it.
Who is doing this, and why? cultures change and evolve, if these people you describe think this shouldn’t happen then should immediately leave the US and give it back to the indigenous culture their ancestors committed genocide on to steal the land. You can’t have it both ways. I imagine most people think Immigration needs controls, but it is not controlled by racism and bigotry, fearmongering and demonising immigrants in a generics or even specific way, rather the opposite.
You mean culture, and so what? Skin colour doesn’t matter, anymore than hair or eye colour, why would kit? If culture matters then the extreme version of conservative Christians the thread OP is predicated on, need to understand that applies to all cultures.
Yes.
Straw man, that’s not what you earlier wrote and not what I described as racism.
Why would I care about this anymore then blue eyes ginger hair, or tall genes or short genes?
Is it, culture change overtime, I don’t see the same people ringing their hands about the decline of the indigenous cultures of America? Roman culture Greek culture Byzantine culture could all be said to be in decline at one point, so what?
You can’t preserve any culture unchanged, it’s absurd to imagine we can, and you are shifting the goal posts a little from your original comment.
False dichotomy fallacy.
Those are fairly bigoted stereotypes.
I prefer news about a Raelian America.
In the United States white is most certainly a race:
The Official U.S. Office of Management and Budget Definition (2024)
“White – Individuals with origins in any of the original peoples of Europe (e.g., English, French, German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Scottish).”
In so far as “whites” possessing a legitimate “justification” for their race being threatened…I guess that speaks more to identity and entitlement, rather than biology or demographics.
I’ve always looked at white supremacists the same way I would view a spoiled child’s outburst. They are so used to having the largest piece of cake, that when they don’t get it they throw a tantrum, as their entitlement is challenged or denied.
Honestly, I welcome the coming demographic shift in America. If Trump is the savior of “Whiteness”, then they will clearly cling to anything that promises to protect their privilege and entitlement. IMHO, the entire fear based movement deserves a fair trial and a quick hanging.
I won’t live to see the coming demographic shift in America. Neither will most of the Baby Boomers out there flying their Confederate flags while watching Fox News. Thank you to some vague manifested omniscient power for that one.
It strikes me that many whites view America as a strongbox for their collection of their rights, privilege and entitlement. Immigrants, at least the scores I’ve encountered over my 68 years, view America as a promise of a better future.
Who would you rather have lead your country?
Oh I have no doubt some perceive it this way, but race here is a cultural not a biological construct. This type of fearmongering among certain sections of the white population I find nonsensical, unjustified and potentially quite damaging.
Well of course it is a little different in the UK, the head of state is the monarch, born into the role, myself I have long been a republican (small r). Though I don’t invest too much faith in the cult of leaders, rather I try to focus on what they are planning to do, and of course what they actually do, I view political divides in much the same way. Though my politics are slightly left leaning.
It is also scapegoating. The present authoritarian trends across the world result from the empty promises of liberals who sold out to the oligarchy. People are losing hope, and fixing upon easy “answers”.
We all live in social constructs. No amount of biological reduction will change that.
At least you address it over there:
The Anti-racist Wales Action Plan (ArWAP), published in June 2022, highlighted the deeply rooted racial inequalities experienced by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people in Wales. It focuses on the realities of institutional and structural racism, emphasising that ethnic minority people are disproportionally disadvantaged at nearly every level of every system. By acknowledging this uncomfortable truth, ArWAP urges Wales’s Public, Private and Third Sectors to confront the extensive nature of racial inequalities and recognise the often-unintentional advantages experienced by certain groups. It calls for the courage, as a nation, to confront systemic injustices and work collectively towards meaningful change.