White Christian Nationalism and Other Political Perversions

NOTE: I will update this post from time to time, with new information usually added at the end of the post.

The right-wing crazy tree has many branches: apostles, prophets, warriors, bullies, criminals, and more. Some claim they are following directives from God, while others profess overtly racist ideas, sport Nazi symbols, or promote a second civil war. Some make public statements and claims, while others operate undercover and hide their (often criminal) activities.  

(White) Christian Nationalism

Christian nationalists make up many branches of the right-wing crazy tree. They generally reject separation of church and state. They insist that the United States was founded as a Christian nation (it was not), and that Christianity should determine U.S. laws and direct the U.S. government. That’s only the beginning: one popular variant insists that their version of Christianity must also dominate all of the “Seven Mountains” of religion, family, government, education, business, media, and arts & entertainment. 

They make common cause with book banning groups such as Moms for Liberty, as well as with politicians who brandish Bibles and insist on controlling what kind of history and science are taught in public schools.

In contrast to this ideology, the founders of the United States insisted on a secular government, not a government based on religious principles. In the words of President John Adams, “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” President James Madison (“the Father of the Constitution”) said that “religion is essentially distinct from civil Government, and exempt from its cognizance; that a connexion between them is injurious to both …”

The First Amendment separates church and state, ordering that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” Back then “establishment of religion” was well-known. Many of the citizens of the new United States had fled from countries that had established religion, designating one religion as preferred in the state or requiring that the laws of a religion be the laws of the state. That’s exactly what the Christian nationalists now want to do in the United States.

But today’s U.S. Christian nationalism is even more pernicious. Most of its adherents combine their religious prejudices with racial prejudices, making this a White Christian Nationalism. 

The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement is among the most extreme and fast-growing parts of this movement. The NAR “isn’t your parents’ Pentecostalism,” reports the Texas Observer. Its leaders call themselves “apostles” and “prophets,” and “depict political opponents as tools of demonic forces working to stop the spread of God’s Kingdom.” Some claim to receive “downloads” directly from God. And, of course, they support Trump with a literally religious fervor, and Trump and his coterie return the favor. 

Promoting Civil War and Race War

The Boogaloo Bois do not profess any divine inspiration, but they form another branch of the right-wing crazy tree. 

The Boogaloo Bois descended on Minneapolis after George Floyd was killed. They instigate and promote violence, with the goal of inciting civil war.  Boogaloo Boi Ivan Hunter bragged about setting fire to the Third Precinct police station, and was later convicted of riot in federal court. The U.S. Attorney’s office said in a 2021 press release: 

“According to court documents, Ivan Hunter, 24, admitted to traveling from San Antonio, Texas to Minneapolis with the intent to participate in a riot. Hunter is a self-described member of the Boogaloo Bois, a loosely connected group of individuals who espouse violent anti-government sentiments. The term ‘Boogaloo’ itself references an impending second civil war in the United States and is associated with violent uprisings against the government.

“On the night of May 28, 2020, Hunter was captured on video discharging 13 rounds from an AK-47 style semiautomatic rifle into the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct building.“

Boogaloo Bois were among the plotters arrested in connection with the 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The Guardian reported in July 2020 that “anti-government ‘boogaloo’ rhetoric has already been publicly linked to at least 15 arrests and five deaths, including the murder of a federal security guard and a sheriff’s deputy in California, according to media reports and analysts who track extremists.” They also were among the violent participants in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. 

Beyond a desire for a second civil war, their ideology is not clear. While generally right-wing and usually racist, some have spoken against racism. Two Boogaloo Bois tried to sell weapons to Hamas, apparently on the theory that anyone who hates the U.S. government is a potential ally. 

Besides the Boogaloo Bois, independent crazies act on much of the same ideology. A white Arizona man arrested in May 2024 was planning mass murder at an Atlanta rap concert. His goal: targeting Blacks, Jews, and Muslims and inciting a race war. 

Right-wing Terrorism

While Trump’s fulminations focus on “burning cities” and “antifa violence,” facts show a very different landscape. A few years ago, I listened to a notorious right-wing propagandist broadcasting nonsense about his courage in standing with a microphone and camera on a dangerous corner in a dangerous city. He was a few blocks from the peaceful street where I live, standing on a boringly peaceful corner across the street from one of the most expensive private golf courses in the city. No violence there, no gangs, no burning, no looting, no sharia law—but he preached on, with as little connection to reality as his idol. 

In May 2020, during international protests over Minneapolis police killing George Floyd, a member of the Boogaloo Bois shot two law enforcement officers in a drive-by shooting in Oakland, killing one. As police located and closed in on the driver days later, he shot two Santa Cruz sheriff’s deputies, killing one. These are right-wing, anti-government terrorists—not “antifa” and not the demonstrators that Trump and his minions denounce. 

Individual shooters motivated by right-wing racist and anti-immigrant ideologies committed mass murder in recent years in Buffalo, New York; El Paso, Texas; Jacksonville, Florida; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Charleston, North Carolina—the list goes on and on. 

The El Paso and Pittsburgh mass murderers posted public statements explaining their action as a reaction to the “great replacement”—a warped political doctrine that says black people and immigrants are replacing white Americans and taking over the country. Trump adopted that false doctrine, and his minions in Congress and elsewhere proudly proclaim it. 

Ideology and Idiocy

The Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three-Percenters, and other right-wing militia groups  conduct weapons and combat training, and stand ready to support Trump, as they did at the Capitol on January 6. They were and are dangerous to the life and liberty of all Americans.

“Constitutional sheriffs” and “sovereign citizens” date back to the 1960s or earlier. “Sovereign citizens” reject all government authority, and have historic ties to Posse Comitatus and Christian Identity movements. “Constitutional sheriffs” maintain that sheriffs have the authority to decide which laws are legitimate and can refuse to enforce any laws they believe are unconstitutional. They maintain that sheriffs must protect citizens from an “out of control” government. 

Mainstreaming the Crazy

The right-wing radicals have been around for more than half a century. What makes them particularly dangerous right now is the adoption of their rhetoric by Trump and the far-right fringe of the Republican party. Trump’s inner circle is solidly on their side: 

“Former President Donald Trump, his family, and close advisers including Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Alina Habba have embraced influential right-wing prophetic Christian media, participating in interviews on programs that have asserted that Trump has ‘the anointing’ from God and with a figure who has prophesied the deaths of his critics.”

In some strange combination of cowardice and conviction, the Republican Party has made an unholy alliance with formerly fringe fanatics, allowing them to control its platform and acquiescing in purges of Republicans who refuse to give in. 

“Former President Donald J. Trump over the weekend escalated his vows to prosecute his political opponents, circulating posts on his social media website invoking “televised military tribunals” and calling for the jailing of President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and former Vice President Mike Pence, among other high-profile politicians.”

Any politician who supports or endorses Trump is complicit in his backing of violent extremism. The only patriotic response to this attack on America and Americans is to vote them all out of office.

Additional information:

Pro Publica, 7/13/2024—Inside Ziklag, the Secret Organization of Wealthy Christians Trying to Sway the Election and Change the Country By specifically targeting swing state voters in an overt attempt to elect Donald Trump in 2024, Ziklag violates the rules governing its 501(c)(3) charitable status.

“A network of ultrawealthy Christian donors is spending nearly $12 million to mobilize Republican-leaning voters and purge more than a million people from the rolls in key swing states, aiming to tilt the 2024 election in favor of former President Donald Trump.

“These previously unreported plans are the work of a group named Ziklag, a little-known charity whose donors have included some of the wealthiest conservative Christian families in the nation …

“Confidential donor networks regularly invest hundreds of millions of dollars into political and charitable groups, from the liberal Democracy Alliance to the Koch-affiliated Stand Together organization on the right. But unlike Ziklag, neither of those organizations is legally set up as a true charity.

“Ziklag appears to be the first coordinated effort to get wealthy donors to fund an overtly Christian nationalist agenda, according to historians, legal experts and other people familiar with the group.”