Beware the Christian Nationalist label

When used by MSM, its purpose is to terrify centrists into believing Donald Trump is the Ayatollah Khomeini of American Christians

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Have you guys heard about the hot new scare tactic, now available in all mainstream media outlets? It’s called Christian Nationalism, and it’s kinda like the Handmaid’s Tale meets Bladerunner — with Donald Trump as the main replicant. A good example of the hysteria is the first five minutes of this video.

It’s become such a fashionable topic of discussion among the big New York studio guests that I have felt compelled to give it a long hard look in recent months. Here is what I have found.

First, a disclaimer. The following thoughts are a beginning point, not an end point in my grappling with whatever Christian Nationalism is. I write this as a commoner. I am not a historian nor a theologian. I’m a generalist — an ordinary lady, scrolling Twitter, trying to figure out what the hell is going on by picking through the detritus of our information war, and our spiritual war.

The internet is merely a tool. It can be used for good or evil. One of the bad things the internet does is it induces a tendency in many users to posture. It also induces a huge amount of in-group, out-group fighting — which on Twitter in particular seems to me like a massive waste of time, though millions and millions disagree with me on that.

The internet is also used for far worse purposes. Its endless stream of unceasing emotion and mesmerising images is a truly toxic combination that casts actual spells. This is how the internet is clearly used by malignant and powerful entities who aim to control our bodies, our wallets, and most of all our minds. 

It is difficult, confusing and time-consuming to tell the difference between what is malevolent, what is posturing, and what is true. This is by design. It’s the hallmark of fifth generation warfare, which, “is a cultural and moral war…[that] exploits cultural icons and religious sentiments.” 

So grounded in all of these general points, I have watched with great interest as the label “Christian Nationalist” started to get bandied about. 

The first thing to understand is the term is so slippery that it is almost meaningless — except when used by mainstream media, who use it to terrify centrists into believing Donald Trump is the Ayatollah Khomeini of American Christians. 

Trump is the American

But what the liberals are darkly predicting is a theocracy, in which the word of god fuses with the power of the state. However, in my years-long observation of the braintrust of MAGA as it is presented in the daily podcast Bannon’s War Room, what they are actually advocating for is a taking power away from the state — quite the opposite of turbo-charging it with the word of God.

I have spent the last four years listening to MAGA leader Steve Bannon’s daily news show, and I can tell you — these people believe in the American constitution. They say so often. So while they will proudly say “Hell yeah I’m a Christian nationalist,” they are not in the business of creating a theocracy. The MAGA media stars seem to want to turn back the clock, yes, but not to the Salem witch trials and slavery — more like to Eisenhower or Reagan. In interview after interview, these people make clear they want sturdy blue collar communities of all ethnicities, one income families with multiple kids, hunting and fishing — basically, the American Dream. Hardly the stuff of dystopian nightmares. The media applies the term “Christian Nationalist” to them in order to prevent any solidarity between them and the progressive left who — ostensibly, anyway — love justice and fairness and standing up for the little guy. It’s a fomenting of class hatred which calls to mind the Stalin targeting the Kulaks.  

There are other factions who also claim the mantle Christian Nationalist however. From what I can tell, these are not the Christian Nationalists MSNBC is hyperventilating over —because they are more obscure and they are not Trumpian populists and therefore do not have the same usefulness within the narrative that media needs to push. But they worth worrying about. It remains unclear to me if the mainstream media knows of this more troubling group’s existence and is applying the term Christian Nationalist to MAGA to deliberately muddy the water. If so, it’s a fiendishly clever plan: get MAGA leaders to embrace the term Christian Nationalist, even though they remain committed to the constitution, the Judeo-Christian west, and populism; meanwhile there is another group that do actually have plans to rebuild America under non-democratic and religious rule, and they just so happen to go by the same name.

Credit here to James Lindsay, longtime anti-woke intellectual and activist. It was from him that I first heard Christian Nationalism analysed in an informative way — and the Christian Nationalism he was talking about had nothing to do with MAGA. In this exhaustive look at the 12 point manifesto of one Charles Haywood, Lindsay draws our attention to a whacky plot to reshape the US into a place where public school teachers must be practicing Christians and men are punished for not having families. But as far as I can discern — and if anyone knows otherwise, please let me know — Haywood and his band of followers have nothing to do with the MAGA movement. I have never heard his name mentioned on War Room. The MAGA base is far more blue-collar and Average Joe than the world Haywood seems to envision, in which he is “Maximum Leader” and we conquer space for Jesus. 

As Lindsay discusses in his examination into Christian Nationalism, Haywood is the “originator” of a group called The Society for American Civic Renewal. There are no specifics on their website, just some nebulous language about values, and repeated use of the word renaissance. They devote more words to describing their logo than letting us know what their plan is. Membership is by invitation only. This all strikes me as very odd, especially because their name sounds similar to the Center for Renewing America, a registered non-profit run by former Trump administration official Russell Vought, a regular guest on Bannon’s War Room. Even the two groups’ logos are similar. However, the website for Center for Renewing America is full of information on the group’s activities — for example, writing amicus briefs in favour of issues they support — like keeping wifi out of school buses. Anyone can donate and sign up. A paranoid person might wonder if The Society for American Civic Renewal wasn’t set up for the express purpose of leading normal concerned Americans away from Center for Renewing America and into the shadows.

By contrast to Haywood’s relative obscurity, shadowy think-tanks, and creepy ideas, Vought is often brought up in mainstream media for his terrifying plans. What are they? According to Politico: “Invoking the Insurrection Act on Day One to curb protests and refusing to spend authorised congressional funds on unwanted projects.”

OMG NO. Invoking insurrection?? Surely no sane political party would do such a thing!? And refusing to…spend money???? Worse than the gulags, no doubt. 

When I was growing up, nationalism was something of a dirty word. In my parents’ liberal worldview, it was still closely correlated with jingoism. But when I read Vought in Newsweek saying: 

“Nationalists care greatly about maintaining control over our borders, strengthening our ability to protect ourselves from adversaries, avoiding foreign entanglements that both sap our strength and encroach on the prerogatives of other nations, and preserving a shared consensus as a people.”

That sounds like basic common sense to me.

So next time you hear bleating about the threat of “Christian Nationalism” from liberal media, check which version they are actually talking about.