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‘The Embodiment of White Christian Nationalism in a Tailored Suit’ [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-11-01
The caption at the top of this post is the headline from Thomas B. Edsall’s latest column in The NY Times. (The link should allow passage through the pay wall.)
I don’t normally have a lot of regard for Edsall’s columns. What I usually find when he addresses a topic in the news is that he rounds up opinions from a number of different sources to give a range of views. The net effect is that they cancel each other out, or so it seems to me.
Not this time.
Mike Johnson is the first person to become speaker of the House who can be fairly described as a Christian nationalist, a major development in American history in and of itself. Equally important, however, his ascension reflects the strength of white evangelical voters’ influence on the House Republican caucus, voters who are determined to use the power of government to roll back the civil rights, women’s rights and sexual revolutions.
emphasis added
The rest of the column details just how out of step Johnson and the GOP are with the rest of America. It’s an alarming read. It gets into what they believe and what they want:
A different P.R.R.I. survey, released on Feb. 8, “A Christian Nation? Understanding the Threat of Christian nationalism to American Democracy and Culture,” measured support for Christian nationalism based on responses to five statements: The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation.
U.S. laws should be based on Christian values.
If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore.
Being Christian is an important part of being truly American.
God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.
An alternative label for White Christian Nationalism is Christofascism. David Rothkopf described it this way at the Daily Beast:
The term Christofascism may seem inflammatory. It is not. It is intended to provide the most accurate possible definition of what Johnson and those in his movement wish to achieve. Like other fascists they seek to impose by whatever means necessary their views on the whole of society even if that means undoing established laws and eliminating accepted freedoms. Christofascists do so in the name of advancing their Christian ideology, asserting that all in society must be guided by their views and values whether they adhere to them or not. Although Johnson was little known outside Republican congressional circles (and not that well known within them), he made it clear from his first moments as speaker who he was and what kind of speaker he would be. In his opening remarks, he even suggested it was divine intervention that made him the second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency. He said, “I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this. I believe that scripture, the Bible, is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority.”
Read the whole thing Edsall has put together. It documents just how strong the movement’s grip on the Republican Party is, how far out of step that leaves them with the rest of the country, and documents just how extreme Johnson’s views are. It closes with this question:
Johnson’s ascent to the top job in the House also raises a larger, more encompassing question: Will voters care in 2024 (and beyond) that one of America’s two major political parties has been taken over by an alliance of MAGA forces and their white evangelical allies, who have clearly indicated their willingness to abandon democratic norms — that is, democracy itself — in the pursuit of power? Polling suggests that this is a far from settled question.
emphasis added
I would offer an observation. The Republican Party did not get where it is today overnight — the rise of Christian Nationalism in the GOP has been going on for a long time. Certainly the rise of Trump and his continued domination of the party is reason enough to reject it and all it stands for — but even after January 6 I don’t seem to recall as much urgency in the NY Times about the Republican Party in general as the elevation of Johnson seems to have caused. I expect the open addition of religious extremism to the conservative extremism the party has embraced is freaking out the Very Serious People and has finally gotten their attention.
It rather puts a new twist on “putting the fear of God into them.”
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