It [Christian nationalism] asserts that legitimate government rests not on the consent of the governed but adherence to the doctrines of a specific religious, ethnic, and cultural heritage.
In other words, it rejects democracy. And as I read her new book, Money, Lies, and God as the current regime started tromping through government, it occurred to me that it's not just the legitimacy of government that depends on alignment with a particular set of values--
It's the legitimacy, value, rights, and humanity of individual persons that depends on adherence to the right doctrines. When President Musk says that empathy can destroy civilization, when MAGA trot out dehumanizing language like the R word, it's one more sign that some people don't matter.
Ideas like universal civil rights, the kind of thing we're in the habit of assuming as given, are not accepted by these folks. Bizarre ideas like the Trumpian inversion of civil rights and discrimination make sense if you assume that only some people have rights and only some people can be discriminated against because only some people are aligned with proper values and only those people are entitled to civil rights. Of course, only those people deserve to be in charge, to rule over those others who, because of their spiritual and ideological failings aren't fully real humans.
Remember this, and everything else makes sense.
In the new book, Stewart lays out four elements of the Christian [sic] nationalist mindset. (She also spends a couple of chapters on education-- I'll get there). Stewart argues that it's not so much an ideological checklist, but this set of views that characterizes the movement.
First, the belief that America is going straight to hell. We are surrounded by evil powers that threaten everything we care about. Every election is apocalyptic, every opponent an existential threat. I recognize this from the many loud complaints about Joe Biden. I would characterize the Biden presidency as a return to the tradition of mediocre white guys in charge, but for folks in the movement he was such a huge agent of satan, and he is still invoke to fuel that fearful reaction.
See it to in the narrative that education has been "captured" by Godless socialist lefties who have installed pedophiles and groomers in every classroom, waiting for the chance to de-penisify your sons.
Second is the persecution complex. White Christian (particularly men) are under attack, besieged and put upon. Stewart cites a survey in which the vast majority of Christian nationalists say that white folks experience just as much or more discrimination as minority groups. She also argues that it's not so much economic anxiety as status or culture anxiety that drives the movement (though I can see how money serves as a stand-in for status).
Third is the notion that Christian [sic] nationalists have a "unique and privileged connection to this land." The insistence that this is a Christian nation, and therefor tied to Christian roots, means that it makes sense to them to insist that the Bible be in classrooms and prayer in schools. People who are aligned to the correct set of values and beliefs are entitled to rights and privileges that other people are not.
The fourth piece of the mindset that "Jesus may have great plans for us, but the reality is that this is a cruel place in which only the cruel survive." So what others may seem as punitive policies of unnecessary and deliberate cruelty ("the cruelty is the point") are not so much an expression of anger and hatred as a desire to force people to see the world as it really is. What some see as a deliberate attempt to make life shitty for others can be, from the Christian [sic] nationalist mindset, an almost-kind attempt to tear peoples' blinders off so they can see and deal with the world as it really is-- shitty.
Put those four together and you get the look at how these folks tick, and once again, it's not because they are stupid and/or evil. It's not a new set of views-- the Puritans would nod along with most of this and, as I would tell my 11th grade students, if you wanted a mindset that would equip a group of people to survive and persevere the nightmarish conditions that those first pilgrims faced, you couldn't do much better. Southern colonists might have been sustained by the promise of wealth and independence, but the Massachusetts crowd could rest secure in knowing that live is always a cruel struggle, but as people with a special connection to God, they would take their place at the top of this particular mountain. Now their descendants are pissed off that a bunch of people who don't even have that special connection to the Correct God are being carried up to the top of the mountain via an easy trip that they haven't even earned by being Right People.
Stewart looks at education. She gives a section to a pretty thorough look at how Moms for Liberty leverage the idea that Moms have "special moral authority" (even if the Moms are seasoned political activists). She also takes a look at the crowd that argues that since school prayer was abolished, schools have become "temples of secular humanism" that teach, as Oklahoma's education dudebro-in-chief Ryan Walters, atheism as a secular religion. Stewart attended a M4L gathering, and those pictures are stunning. Stewart has a sharp eye, an ability to spot the moments that really capture and illuminate the larger picture.
Stewart says there are two basic types of groups undermining public education-- the Proselytizers and the Privatizers. Both have powerful backers, and Stewart has done an exhaustive job of locating and naming names. They share a desire to dismantle public education as it is and repurpose the funding for religious organizations and private schools, all intended to bring up students who believe their preferred brand of religion and/or their preferred brand of conservative politics (because part of the persecution they suffer under is a society that indoctrinates children into Wrong Thinking, so if they can just capture institutions, they can properly indoctrinate children in Right Thinking. to which millions of teachers say, "Good luck with that").
Again, not new. Stewart quotes Jerry Falwell from 1979, dreaming of "a day when there are no more public schools; churches will have taken them over and Christians will be running them." She also nods back To Milton Friedman's 1955 paper that laid the groundwork for the idea of education not as a public good, but as a consumer item that gets bought and sold on the open market where consumers get what they can afford. If they can't afford much, well, life is cruel and human beings aren't equal and if you got the short end of the stick, that's your problem.
As one member of the Ziklag group explains, the goal is not to "just throw stones," but to "take down the education system as we know it today."
In Mr. Lancaster's System, Adam Laats talks about how early 19th century reformers wanted a school system to help deal with all those naughty children out on the streets. I wonder if the future imagined by some of these folks would take us back around to that concern, or if the wealthy this time would just build higher walls for their gated communities.
Stewart's book is well-sourced and pulls apart the many layers and differences within the many parts of the movement. She has done a ton of leg work and interviews, resulting in a book that is illuminating and instructive, if not particularly encouraging. But these days there's a lot of noise and smoke and not-particularly-useful theories about what is happening and why; this book brings some much-needed clarity to our difficult moment in US history. For folks whose focus has been mostly on education, this helps put the education debates in a wider context. I strongly recommend this one.
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