White Christian nationalism and the next wave of political violence

Guno צְבִי

We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
There was a brief period when Republicans appeared to reject Trumpism. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) condemned the insurrectionists as "terrorists, not patriots," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the seditionists were "fed lies" by President Trump. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) - one of only 10 Republican congress people to vote for impeachment - said Trump fomented the attack.

This short period of condemnation is now very clearly over. A recent poll found that two-thirds of Republicans do not think Joe Biden was legitimately elected president and nearly 40 percent believe that political violence is acceptable. And with all but six GOP senators saying that a non-sitting president cannot be impeached, the GOP is telling America - and the world - that violent Trumpism is who they are.

To understand how this happened we must look back to how it all began, namely as a long-term Republican strategy to harness the most violent expressions of Christian nationalism for the sake of political gain.

Images such as a flag that said "Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president" seem new, but this mix of white, right-wing identity politics and nationalist Christianity has been stirring for many years. It's hard to say exactly when this version of white supremacist Christianity - embedded within and supported by the Republican Party - began, but one important turning point was President Nixon's commitment to the GOP's Southern strategy to attract Dixiecrats disaffected by the Democratic Party's commitment to the civil rights movement.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...political-violence/ar-BB1dRgrA?ocid=Peregrine
 
The marriage of GOP conservatism and fundamentalist Christianity did not begin with mutual opposition to abortion. Rather, the relationship began decades earlier as a way to encourage resentment of African American political gains that was festering within racist factions of white American evangelicalism. This merging of racial and religious interests created political alliances that were more than just a marriage of convenience: white entitlement and grievance, packaged with a moral veneer of racialized religious belief, used the language of spiritual warfare to justify the pursuit of political power by any means.

A core element of this strategy was to construct a hermetically sealed media universe that reinforced the messages of white Christian moral outrage. Trump elevated the status of these and the newcomer TV station One American News (OAN) Network to a level of prestige and truth-making in service of his counter narrative.
 
Trump succeeded not in building a wall on the Mexican border but in tearing down the wall between the politics of white resentment in the Republican Party and the armed violence of militia groups. The linking of white Christian values with radical violent efforts is not a new one, "Anti-government conspiracy theories and apocalyptic 'end times' Biblical prophecies are known to motivate militia members and groups to stockpile food, ammunition and weapons." However, under Trump the armed radical fringe of white Christianity enjoyed a much cozier relationship with the federal government, their former enemy, after the standard-bearer of the Republican Party fully embraced their cause.
 
I read the link in your original post. I also bothered to look up the CV's of the two academics (I use the term loosely) who wrote it. It is nothing more than an unsubstantiated op ed piece by two liberal arts nobodies. As for your own commentary, it's no better as it is all vague rhetorical blather.

I do have a question for you though...

You use this in your tag lines in each post:

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. Albert Einstein

What would nationalism be replaced with if it were eradicated?
 
I read the link in your original post. I also bothered to look up the CV's of the two academics (I use the term loosely) who wrote it. It is nothing more than an unsubstantiated op ed piece by two liberal arts nobodies. As for your own commentary, it's no better as it is all vague rhetorical blather.

I do have a question for you though...

You use this in your tag lines in each post:



What would nationalism be replaced with if it were eradicated?

BLM-riots_800.jpg


A picture is worth a thousand words.
 
Christian Nationalism Is Worse Than You Think

crowds lined up in front of the Capitol last week, Christian imagery was on display amidst the Trump/Pence 2020 and Confederate flags, QAnon memorabilia, and viking helmets. People held crosses, “Jesus Saves” signs and “Jesus 2020” banners. As protesters crowded onto the Capitol steps, across the street, someone blew a shofar while a woman sang “Peace in the name of Jesus. The blood of Jesus covering this place.”

In the aftermath of the Capitol attack, many saw a clear connection between the violence and Christian nationalism. As Tish Harrison Warren wrote for CT:

The responsibility of yesterday’s violence must be in part laid at the feet of those evangelical leaders who ushered in and applauded Trump’s presidency. It can also sadly be laid at the feet of the white American church more broadly.


https://www.christianitytoday.com/c...-nationalism-capitol-riots-trump-podcast.html
 
"Shofar
A shofar is an ancient musical horn typically made of a ram's horn, used for Jewish religious purposes. Like the modern bugle, the shofar lacks pitch-altering devices, with all pitch control done by varying the player's embouchure.Wikipedia"

This sounds like Jews were involved. Are you sure this wasn't some kind of Jewish insurrectionists storming the Capitol???
 
I read the link in your original post. I also bothered to look up the CV's of the two academics (I use the term loosely) who wrote it. It is nothing more than an unsubstantiated op ed piece by two liberal arts nobodies. As for your own commentary, it's no better as it is all vague rhetorical blather.

I do have a question for you though...

You use this in your tag lines in each post:



What would nationalism be replaced with if it were eradicated?

You know the answer lol.

I’m interested in why it’s necessary to add ‘Christian’ to it. Anyone can be a nationalist. I’d go as far as to wager that the 95% of the ‘insurrectionists’ were marginal Christians. The shaman was—a shaman, and shamanism is about as pagan as it gets.

What’s going on here is this: Christianity, particularly evangelical Christianity, is an impediment to globalism. I understand Xi basically said it out loud at Davos. So, Christianity must be marginalized; hence, Christian nationalism, Christian white supremacism and etc.

They’re becoming so easy to figure it’s not fun anymore.
 
While it's possible to single out various ethnic groups for disproportionately large percentages of flawed character on a purely numeric basis,
it's still a mistake to view any as a monolith.

America's problem is not ethnic differences.
America doesn't have a fixed ethnicity.
You don't bring large volumes of people from a distant continent to this one on slave ships if your goal was ethnic homogeneity.
Nor you do diversify your culture in that matter id you expect the ethnic groups to get along any time in the immediately following millennium.

We have racial and ethnic animosity to be sure, but this nation's real problem is character deficiency.
We have huge swarths of people, or more likely devolved mutants, who are simply bad, ethnicity not being the issue.
Every who voted for Donald Orangutan in 2016 or 2020, without a single exception, is simply a worthless and malignant entity on this planet.
If we arrive at no solution for that, we'll have solutions for nothing.
It's simply fact.
 
<snip>

You use this in your tag lines in each post:



What would nationalism be replaced with if it were eradicated?

The thread title refers to White Christian nationalism, not some generic, garden variety nationalism which rightwingers would like to see equated with the word patriotism.

Nationalism is the root cause of most of the wars of the 20th century.

Nationalism is bound up in an expression of ethnic/cultural superiority and solidarity.

America is too young of a nation to have a historical culture.

America is multi ethnic and multi cultural.

A Jewish or Black American knows that nationalism is code word for white Christian supremacy, in the same way that Chechens, Tatars and indigenous Siberians know that the term "Russian Nationalist" is a direct challenge and risk to them.

Americans should be expected to be loyal to the constitution first and foremost.

Beyond that, patriotism and humanism are vastly preferable to nationalism
 
The thread title refers to White Christian nationalism, not some generic, garden variety nationalism which rightwingers would like to see equated with the word patriotism.

Nationalism is the root cause of most of the wars of the 20th century.

Nationalism is bound up in an expression of ethnic/cultural superiority and solidarity.

America is too young of a nation to have a historical culture.

America is multi ethnic and multi cultural.

A Jewish or Black American knows that nationalism is code word for white Christian supremacy, in the same way that Chechens, Tatars and indigenous Siberians know that the term "Russian Nationalist" is a direct challenge and risk to them.

Americans should be expected to be loyal to the constitution first and foremost.

Beyond that, patriotism and humanism are vastly preferable to nationalism

None of that explains what Nationalism would be replaced with. Patriotism is generally taken as being loyal to your nation, while humanism is simply a variant of religion that puts man up as a deity.
 
globalism
which is inherently against US interests as we use it to outsource jobs and strengthen China which does
not respect fair trade

Yes, that's the likely answer. With globalism comes one world government, and that government will be a brutal dictatorship of some sort.
 
Disinformation Fuels A White Evangelical Movement

"If Christians in America are serious about helping people see Jesus and what he's about and what he claims, then the label 'evangelical' is a distraction because it bears, unfortunately, the weight of a violence," he told NPR. "I would not use that term because of its association with Jan. 6."

That's the day the U.S. Capitol was attacked and invaded by a violent mob driven by what's commonly known as "the big lie": that President Biden wasn't legitimately elected. The rioters moved toward the Capitol following a rally held by then-President Donald Trump, during which he repeated that big lie. Rioters say they were compelled to stop Congress' certification of Biden's election, which was happening at that time at the Capitol.

The lie is so powerful that a recent survey by the conservative American Enterprise Institute shows that 3 in 5 white evangelicals say Biden was not legitimately elected.

Andrew Whitehead, who has spent several years researching Christian nationalism at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, defines it as the belief that America is a Christian nation, one that should privilege white, native-born politically conservative Christians.

"We do find evidence that Americans who embrace Christian nationalism are much more likely to embrace conspiratorial thinking," Whitehead told NPR. "The leaders of those movements have continually cast doubt on who you can really trust or even the federal government."

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/21/9695...lical-movement-it-led-1-virginia-pastor-to-qu
 
You choose nationalism, I choose patriotism

None of that explains what Nationalism would be replaced with. Patriotism is generally taken as being loyal to your nation, while humanism is simply a variant of religion that puts man up as a deity.
just because you do not understand it, does not mean I did not offer you a credible alternative to Christian nationalism.

The reason patriotism and nationalism are two different words is because they mean two different things.

Nation and country mean slightly different things, and there is an important distinction between them.

You are a nationalist - you are loyal to an ethnic group and/or to Anglo-Saxon Christian cultural tradition.

I am a patriot - I am loyal to country and constitution.
 
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