Samuel Perry: Christian Nationalist Violence Post January 6

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Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown.

Episode 93

Sun, 1/9 5:06PM • 55:03

Dr. Samuel Perry 00:00

Americans need to remember that January 6 was very much a religious event. That’s exactly what Christian nationalism wants to see is somebody responding with authoritarian violence. I think the leading myth is that this is somehow some kind of fringe thing, like people look at the Capitol insurrection, and they think, wow, that mob of people were just radicalized crazy. Who are these people? This is not a fringe thing. This is very much a mainstream thing. We’re talking about millions and millions and millions of people who can be activated.

Sam Goldman 00:48

Welcome to Episode 93 of the Refuse Fascism podcast. This podcast is brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show, Refuse Fascism exposes analyzes, and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in this country.

Thanks to all clip in sharing the show and sending us their thoughts. “JJM Inquiring” wrote on Apple podcasts: “Great interview to start off the year. Is it fascism or not? And to stop the rise of white Christian male authoritarianism, do we have to call it fascism? Is there a difference between fascism and white Christian nationalism? Taking historians approach, Professor Zimmer lays out his views.” If you want to check out the episode she’s referencing, that’s Episode 92.

Paige Price on Twitter, in reference to Episode 91 wrote: “This is an excellent episode from Refuse Fascism, starting from January 7 through the year 2021. The Refuse Fascism Year in Review.” Nicholas M Brown on Instagram in reference to my interview with Chelsea Ebin in Episode 90 wrote: “As someone who came out of this worldview, thankfully, I can say your assessment is wholly accurate” and Rob Sub on Apple podcasts wrote: “Significant podcast. This is an important podcast given the people and events that are occurring in the US today and have been for a couple of decades now.” Thank you all for sharing your thoughts. I look forward to hearing and sharing more from all of you.

Sam Goldman 02:26

In today’s episode, we’re sharing an interview with Dr. Samuel Perry. He is the co-author of Taking America back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States which won the 2021 distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. And he’s the co-author of the forthcoming book, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy.

But first, we need to address the first anniversary of the January 6th fascist coup attempt. Here’s the statement from Refuse Fascism: One year ago, we saw Donald Trump call forth and unleash fascist mobs to storm the U.S. Capitol. This was a violent coup attempt the culmination of a rolling coup Trump had been announcing and carrying out for months. While veiled in the immediate sense, January 6th became a dress rehearsal and rallying cry to further harden a now battle tested fascist movement and Republi-fascist party. This vicious coup attempt morphed into a comprehensive strategy of election subversion and voter suppression, while Trump’s loyal mobs, to this day, continue to storm the public square with threats of violence and terror wherever Republicans are in power. They have both rewritten laws and shredded the rule of law to hammer in their white supremacist, misogynist, and xenophobic fascist program. They have successfully undermined the very concept of truth, leaving 10s of millions to be susceptible to the calls of demagogues and the vilest conspiracy theories.

Biden and the Democratic Party have not stopped or slowed the advance of these fascists. Trump roams free to cement his hold over the GOP and run for president in 2024. All across the country we are losing the right to abortion, voting, protest history, education and free speech. Death threats against public officials have become routine, and Christian fascists on the Supreme Court openly dehumanize women with Roe v Wade in their crosshairs.

This past year has been marked not by healing and hope after the Trump years, but by the continued aggression and achievements of an embittered fascist movement without any accountability for the damage they’ve done. The January 6th coup attempt demonstrated that fascism is not just the worst of a pendulum swing. It is an all-out assault on the rule of law, aiming to strip democratic rights from whole groups of people they see as subhuman. Trump and his fascist movement have torn up the norms and thrown out the rulebook, yet the outrage and hopes that people on the side of justice keep getting diverted into the very channels that are being eviscerated, and away from the kind of deep mass society-wide struggle that is needed.

The Democratic Party has largely led people into inaction, passivity and conciliation with fascism. This is a reality that must be confronted. Fascism can and is happening here. It cannot simply be voted away. The question remains, what will the decent people do? Will the future be fascist? Or will we act? Refuse Fascism.org unites with people from diverse perspectives to sound the alarm and prevent the consolidation of this American fascism. Now is the time for deep engagement on the roots nature and trajectory of the real and present danger of fascism, and what is required to knock it off its course. Since the founding of RefuseFascism.org, our stand and resolve have not wavered. We pledge to the people of the world: In the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America! Join us. You can find and share this statement at RefuseFascism.org

Sam Goldman 06:16

The fascist commemorations of January 6th in 2022 broadcast both the divisions and stress points amongst themselves, but also the growing threat that they pose. The most glaring display of fascist power and audacity was their almost total absence from the Capitol on that day, firmly united in their rejection of the peaceful transfer of power, and substantially, delegitimizing Biden, and even the office of the presidency. Gaetz and Greene took pride in the attempted coup, calling for repeat, while DeSantis, Lindsey Graham and others minimized it, claiming Biden was “politicizing chaos.” Tucker Carlson did both while slapping down Ted Cruz to enforce the boundaries of the party line.

Trump, for his part, used the occasion to once more escalate the Big Lie, calling the 2020 election a crime, stoking resentments, and undermining any future election that they lose. So as we collectively wrangle with what has transpired, what it represents, and the looming threat of American fascism, there were a few pieces that stood out to me from the past week, for their insight on the dire situation — maybe even more dire than we realized one year ago, during the final days of Trump’s attempted self– coup.

Sidney Blumenthal described the details of the planned coup in The Insurrection is Only the Tip of the Iceberg for The Guardian: “The insurrection was not the coup itself. It was staged as the coup was failing. The insurrection and the coup were distinct, but the insurrection emerged from the coup. It has been a common conceptual error to consider the insurrection alone to be the coup. The coup, however, was an elaborate plot, developed over months, to claim that the votes in the swing states were fraudulent. For Mike Pence as the presiding officer of the joint session of the Congress to declare on that basis that the certification of the presidential election, on the constitutionally mandated date could not be done. To force that day to pass into a twilight zone of air resolution for House Republicans to hold the floor brandishing the endless claims of fraud. To move the decision to the safe harbor of the House of Representatives voting by states with the majority of 26 controlled by the Republican Party. To deny both the popular vote and the electoral college vote to retain Trump in office. For protests to break out at federal buildings and for the President to invoke the insurrection act to impose law and order.”

Jeff Sharlet wrote that, “Joe Biden, unbound won’t be enough to save us” for Vanity Fair: “‘On this day of remembrance’, declared Biden, ‘we must make sure that such an attack never happens again’, there’s an echo of Never again in the sentiment, the two words with which we have long pretended that we held a line against genocide, even as it occurred again, and again and again. We can be sure that there are more fascist attacks coming; if not from fascists breaking the law, then from their elected representatives, making it. ‘Never forget the crime of the 2020 presidential election’, echoed Trump in a second statement, hours after Biden’s speech. The next coup attempt may well be ‘legal’ as state legislatures bend the rule of law, if not the arc of justice towards Trumpism.”

Steven March is pulling no punches with his new book The Next Civil War, Dispatches from the American Future, writing for The Guardian: “The United States today is once again headed for civil war, and once again, it cannot bear to face it. The political problems are both structural and immediate. The crisis both long standing and accelerating. The American political system has become so overwhelmed by anger, that even the most basic tasks of government are increasingly impossible.” He goes on to say, “There is one hope, however, that must be rejected outright, the hope that everything will work out by itself, that America will Bumble along into better times, it won’t. Americans have believed that our country is an exception, a necessary nation. If history has shown us anything, it’s that the world doesn’t have any necessary nations.”

The thought of something being too horrible to contemplate is not reason to not think about it, hard as it may be. Thank you for joining me on this journey to understand what we’re up against and what to do about it. And one more thing: For folks wondering why we focus so much on the assault on abortion rights, I’ve just got to give a shout out to Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi for her tweet on January 6th, which was: “A year ago, I pulled into a clinic where I provide abortion care, and thought where are all the protesters today? A few hours later, I found out. When I say the anti-abortion movement is a pillar of white supremacy in the US. I mean, every word.”

So do we. So do we. It’s important, I think, to recognize what Joe Biden said in his remarks, and so I don’t want to go to the interview without touching on them. It’s essential to point to the disconnect between any aggressive talking points on behalf of the Biden administration, and their galling lack of meaningful action to confront fascism. At the same time, ideas do matter, Biden accurately and aggressively framed the events of January 6 2021, as an attack, an assault on the rule of law, and an armed insurrection led by the former president. He made clear the strong, clear line connecting the coup attempt back in history to the Confederate rebellion to defend slavery. In some ways, he attempted to make clear that the threat is still alive and even growing, while at the same time, he claimed that “that is not who we are.” He framed the struggle as one between America and democracy, and goodness on the one hand, and a violent, authoritarian movement under the sway of a demagogue on the other. Ultimately, Biden aims to seize onto the righteous anger and fear people feel to compel people into preserving order, not justice.

This podcast exists because we recognize that to a great extent, what people do is determined by how they understand the world. As we unite with people from diverse perspectives to sound the alarm and prevent the consolidation of this American fascism, it’s vital for people to understand that this battle isn’t “America versus evil”, but humanity, vs. fascism. To those who say, “This is not who we are,” I’ve got to call bullshit in a country founded on slavery and genocide. But even for those who still cling to the idea of America, in order to defeat fascism, we need to confront that as revolutionary leader Bob Avakian says: “Your shining city on a hill is full of fascists”.

Sam Goldman 13:29

Today’s guest, Dr. Perry, published an article in Time Magazine with Andrew Whitehead on January 4th, titled, January Sixth May Have Been Only the First Wave of Christian Nationalist Violence. They write, “We are forgetting that January sixth was very much a religious event, with white Christian nationalism on display. We must remember that fact, because evidence is mounting that white Christian nationalism could provide the theological cover for more events like it.” With that, here’s my interview with Dr. Perry.

To help us understand the role of Christian nationalism in the fascist movement to eliminate the rule of law and democratic and civil rights in this country, I’m grateful to be speaking with Dr. Samuel Perry, sociologist and author who focuses on the intersection of religion and power. Dr. Perry is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Oklahoma and the co-author of two books on Christian nationalism: Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, which he co– authored with Andrew Whitehead, and his forthcoming book, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to Democracy, that being co-authored by Philip Gorski. So welcome, Dr. Perry. Thanks for joining us.

Dr. Samuel Perry 14:39

Hey, thanks so much for having me.

Sam Goldman 14:40

So let’s start off with a really light one. One that I’m sure you can just answer in just a few sentences is what is Christian nationalism and how does it can match to what we see in Refuse Fascism is a larger fascist threat and when we talk about fascism we’re really talking about once consolidated and movement that would eliminate civil and democratic rights.

Dr. Samuel Perry 15:03

I love this conversation. I think saying the ‘F’ word is important. A lot of people are, I think reticent to mention fascism or neo-fascism or proto-fascism. It’s difficult thing to compare somebody to Nazis, or to compare a movement to that in order to say that’s headed in that direction. That seems to be kind of the third rail that people don’t want to go there, but I think it’s important to at least draw those parallels before they’re right in front of us. It’s better to see those things coming. I think that’s important. Christian nationalism, I’m so glad you asked, because I love sharing about this area of research. It’s something with a long history. Christian nationalism is not just something that has appeared recently. White Christian nationalism in particular has been around even before founding of the United States.

The idea being that the nation is for people like us, white Anglo Protestant Americans, and that it should always be thus. That ideology has been around before we were the United States of America, this idea that Anglo Protestants in particular, are the chosen people that God has granted them special place in the world, and that they can control the world through violence, through coercion, if necessary, through war; that God will bless those efforts. So it is something that is evolved, and so I don’t mean to say like the white Christian nationalism, we see now as the kind that we saw in Cotton Mather’s day, or something like that, but you do see a continuity. Back then, it was Anglo Protestant, it was British, it was Protestant; these are God’s chosen people, and the outgroup are Blacks who were enslaved and Native Americans who were being conquered needed to be exterminated or pushed out so that white Anglo Protestants could control the territory of the nation.

That has evolved in several different ways. As we became a nation, the founding fathers were not white, Christian national. So I don’t mean to imply that they would have consented. In fact, a lot of what the Founding Fathers expressed went wholly against what we would see as white Christian nationalism; we can say that they subscribe to a broader form of civil religion, and there’s a difference there and all that distinction in a little bit. We see white Christian nationalism emerge basically, in times of heightened racial and cultural conflict, when the question gets asked: Who is this nation for, and who deserves to have power in this nation?

Usually, some form of white Christian nationalism starts to appear. In the early 1800s, it starts to appear again, around the time of the Civil War, and after World War II. Obviously there’s this continuity, there’s this thread that white Christian nationalism is always around, but again, it’s it starts to get activated and to reemerge as a dominant force. Again, after World War II, Eisenhower and Billy Graham, with his anti-communists push: Who is this nation for, and what are we as Americans? Well, we are defining ourselves as Christian, middle class capitalist Christian, up against those godless communists — this is where Kevin Kruse’s brilliant work starts to pick up the thread. Then we see it emerge again, after the civil rights movement, and after Roe vs. Wade, and really during the Moral Majority, right, like: Who is this nation for? Well, it’s for good, moral white Christian citizens like us. That just keeps on reemerging.

So white Christian nationalism is an ideology. It is also a political strategy. This is where we can start talking about how people who don’t necessarily believe in white Christian nationalism can use white Christian nationalism. So for example, Donald Trump. I don’t think Donald Trump believes anything. I wouldn’t define Donald Trump as a Christian nationalist, in the sense that he deep down believes this country belongs to evangelical Christians who subscribe to certain theological… Donald Trump doesn’t believe any of that. That’s for suckers. That’s the stuff that Donald Trump used, but he is able to leverage Christian nationalist language in order to build a base, to activate a base of really angry and scared people who feel like this country is being taken from them and want to get it back. So white Christian nationalism, and accent is both an ideology that mobilizes an audience, but it’s also a political strategy that can be used to activate people, and it can be leveraged by actors who really just don’t care either way, they just know they need to make a base very scared and angry.

Sam Goldman 15:25

I really appreciate that, especially the ability to like pull back the lens a bit and look at, not negating how its transformed or the urgency in the present moment, but where its roots in history lie. I think it’s helpful. One of the things that I think is important for our listeners to really understand is something that you communicated just now, but it’s been echoed in other folks that we’ve had on the show like Dr. Anthea Butler, and Sarah Posner, is that this is a political movement. That it’s not a religious phenomenon. I think that a lot of people struggle with understanding that. Especially people who believe in like a pluralist society, I think, sometimes can negate the danger of Christian nationalists because they’re viewing it through: This is some sort of religious phenomenon… you know, that whole train of thought. I think that it’s important to ground ourselves in: It isn’t that it’s not a religious movement, but it’s most fundamentally a political movement. Am I right in that?

Dr. Samuel Perry 19:52

Yeah, absolutely. Something we always we try to emphasize is something we find again and again in our study. My research — though I love the research of Anthea Butler and Sarah Posner and Jason Stanley, I see his book up on the wall here, and his work has been so transformative in our own understanding of where this is all headed — in fact, I was just listening to How Fascism Works on Audible last week, it’s something I’ve read and reread countless times — but our work is different in that what we’ve been trying to do is we have been trying to measure Christian nationalism statistically, and to look at how pervasive it is and to try to understand its association with various other attitudes and political behaviors. That’s something that we as sociologists can contribute uniquely to the conversation and talk about the breadth and influence of this ideology.

One of the things that we often find is that Christian nationalism works differently than religious commitment, as we often measure that kind of thing. For example, in our studies, we often include measures of Christian nationalism that we’ve used again and again for the last six or seven years, and we also include measures of religious commitment, like how often somebody goes to church or praise or reads their sacred text or how important religion is in their life and that kind of thing.

What we often find is that once we account for Christian nationalist ideology in predicting some outcome, like attitudes towards gun control, or xenophobia, or racism or Islamophobia or something like that, what we find is that Christian nationalism and religious commitment go in the opposite direction. Christian nationalism seems to incline white Americans in particular, to be more racist, more Islamophobic less willing to have the government regulate guns at all; very much pro-Second Amendment to the extreme, and very xenophobic. Once we account for Christian nationalism, religious commitment seems to go in the opposite direction. It makes them less racist. It’s associated with lower levels of racism, lower levels of xenophobia, lower levels of even Islamophobia. So in other words, Christian nationalism seems to incline Americans to be the kind of neighbors that you really wouldn’t want around or really wouldn’t want to talk to, but once we account for Christian nationalism, religious commitment, as we traditionally define that and measure it seems to make people pretty good neighbors. It seems to be associated with really, I think, pro-social outcomes.

So we try to stress whenever we talk about Christian nationalism, we’re not targeting deeply religious Americans here. I’m not trying to say to religious Americans: You guys are the problem, you people who vote your values, you people who, who really love your faith and want to integrate it in every area of your life, that’s great. I really think that’s important and really kind of inevitable, right? The majority of Americans still are Christians. But, where we we get into Christian nationalism, is when you say: This country rightfully belongs to Christians, meaning people like me, and you mean like white middle class, culturally conservative traditionalist people like me, and I am willing to adjust all institutions and formally institutionalize our dominance in American society, and marginalize everybody else who thinks differently. That’s Christian nationalism, and that’s something that I think veers us into something that is proto-fascist in a scary kind of way.

Sam Goldman 22:46

I was going ask this later, but I think it just ties nicely into what you were just talking about. People, in my opinion, you may totally disagree, but they frequently dismiss what you call Christian nationalism, and what I call Christian fascism, constantly saying that their influence is waning, that they’re a fringe that their days are over. And I just feel in my gut that what we’ve seen over the Trump years, but even in the past year alone, doesn’t match that they were not only were they instrumental in bringing Trump to power, but they were instrumental in trying to keep him in power illegitimately. So I was just wondering, not that the point is, I have a feeling prove, because that’s not how we should approach questions in the world. But more wondering, how do you see their influence within the GOP? Yes, but also more broadly in society?

Dr. Samuel Perry 23:43

That’s a great question. Numbers does not necessarily amount to influence. If that diminishing number of people happens to be very unified and isolated and radicalized, they can actually be really quite dangerous, and that belies their diminishing numbers. If you looked at surveys over the years, you would see that Christian nationalism, however we can measure it — it’s difficult to measure that over time, but various ways we have to measure Christian nationalism — we see in Pew Research, we see in PRI data (Public Religion Research Institute) and the General Social Survey. By those three indicators, and the Baylor Religion Survey, so various surveys that we have to measure these kinds of things over time in different ways, all of them seem to express that, just like America is becoming more secular, gradually — people go to church a little bit less, people believe in God a little bit less, there are more real Americans who identify with no religious affiliation more now than ever, we also see that — people subscribe to explicit Christian nationalist views less and less, gradually.

But, just because you see a shrinking number of people who hold certain views, doesn’t mean that people who still hold those views are not being radicalized, unified, isolated and activated. That’s why we have to think of Christian nationalism not just as an ideology, but also as a political strategy because Christian nationalist sentiment has always been around. It can be reactivated in times where people feel like: Oh, what’s going on? There’s a lot of tension. There’s a lot of conflict. I’m scared because there’s a virus, and I don’t know what to believe, and there’s all this misinformation out there…So white Christian nationalist ideology can be activated to unify a group of people to say: Hey, we’re the people who have your best interests in mind, don’t you wish the country belonged to you like it always has? Don’t you wish we could take back our country and the values that we’ve always held so dear from those people who are threatening everything that is decent, and good and wonderful?

That is a Christian nationalist and a fascist tactic to ostensibly unify us around this kind of common identity and heritage and history. And it’s a myth, it’s not necessarily true, but we rally around these myths and they unite us and they motivate us and mobilize us. So it is correct, technically, to say that, in terms of numbers, Christian nationalism, and white Christian nationalism is declining statistically. Yet, I would argue that it is just as influential now as ever, because those people who still hold to those views are self-aware, and they’re unified and becoming more anxious and fearful and angry. We have an article coming out in Time Magazine on January 4, just before the anniversary, where we argue that Americans need to remember that January 6th was very much a religious event. That’s getting drowned out. All of the polls, all of the op-eds, they’re talking about this as a very partisan kind of thing, like Democrats and Republicans. We’re forgetting, you know, there were “Jesus Saves” signs and flags and crosses and prayer in Jesus’s name on the Senate chamber, that you can go and read the words to.

Sam Goldman 26:32

Their rally started with Paula White.

Dr. Samuel Perry 26:34

Yeah. We need to realize that this was an event where Christian nationalism was on display. If we forget that, then we’re forgetting one of the really dominant ideological coverings for this kind of violence that we see. That is this kind of narrative of: Whites and Christians are victims in this country, and we need to band together, by violence, if necessary, to make sure that we communicate, as the shaman said, that we need to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists and the globalists that this is our nation, not theirs. That’s almost word for word, what he said. That’s a scary statement, right? That message was said after violently storming the Capitol. I think that kind of reality or unreality, as Jason Stanley would say, is right at the center of what we see going on.

Sam Goldman 27:20

What you’re talking about in terms of the influence growing, even if the numbers themselves are diminishing, bout them being so highly organized, with their own media apparatus, their own communication channels, their own schools. They have so much infrastructure in which to mobilize. That’s just an important thing for us to remind ourselves of when people are talking about them being fringe, well, they’re still in many ways in power in places across the country. Even though they’re not in the White House, they’re in the state houses, they’re in on the Supreme Court. Even though I know that people get confused because it’s now a Catholic. That doesn’t matter when it comes to this movement. It’s not your flavor of Christianity, it’s because it’s not a religious movement. I think you’re able to put that to the side for the larger picture.

Dr. Samuel Perry 28:12

That’s why we try to stress that this movement is not united by theology, per se. Oftentimes, the majority of people like this tend to be evangelical Protestants, but not the huge majority. You have white Catholics, you have white mainline Protestants, and you have even some secular Americans. That’s where it starts to get really interesting, is you have unaffiliated Americans who don’t subscribe to much of anything theologically, but in their minds, Christian just means good, moral, decent, traditional people. So they’re happy to say: Yes, Christian nation, absolutely Christian value, and they just mean traditionalism. They just mean people like us.

That’s really what it’s all about, is a common Christian as a very, like broad identity to just refer to good decent, moral, traditional white people like us. That’s why I think when this is something that I also tried to stress elsewhere, and what we get to in our next book, really is, I think what we’re seeing in the United States, and I think Trump was an indicator of this, is we’re seeing a European idealization of Christian nationalism in the United States. Let me clarify what I mean by that. Historically, Christian nationalism, because we had this very strong evangelical tradition and language in the United States of morals and values, and we could always talk about the character of leaders, Bill Clinton, and boo Bill, Clinton, you know, and his behavior in the White House, and like James Dobson, and all these people could come and say: Hey, we need to, we need to value our Christian heritage, and we need to vote for presidents with values, and blah, blah, blah.

So Trump comes on the scene, and obviously the reality of that hits, and everybody has to acknowledge like, this guy doesn’t give a rip about morals or sexual ethics or Christian values, doesn’t know anything about Christianity at all. It’s just absurd whenever he tries to talk about Christianity because the obviously doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. So it becomes obvious that all these folks who are talking about Christian values or Christian leadership or Christian character, or those kinds of things, really just meant white conservatives. They just meant traditional values. They just met people like us.

What we’ve seen in Europe already, we’ve seen this for years, Europe is secularized, and they still have like a Christian Identitarian Movement, but for them, it’s obviously ethnic. It just means not Muslim. It means like native born French, or Belgium, or whatever. When they say in the UK our nation is for Christians, they just mean not Muslims. They mean not open to outsiders. They mean people like us. In America, that’s what it’s starting to mean. It doesn’t mean theology. It doesn’t mean Evangelical, it doesn’t mean people who like want to be disciples of Jesus and model his kind of behavior in their lives. You can be secular and be a Christian nationalist now, because really, you just want to take back the country from the leftist and the socialists and the identity politic, Black Lives Matter/Antifa people who are so very scary. That’s what it’s come to mean. I think the more it becomes that, the more we get to think just a more openly fascist movement. You don’t even have to couch it in Christian language any more. You don’t have to talk about values or character Jesus.

Let me give you an example: While I’ve got Dinesh D’Souza on the shelf here, what does it mean to be a Christian in this kind of context? What does Christian nationalism mean? I think this is a good example: Dinesh D’Souza, in his book, The United States of Socialism — and Dinesh D’Souza is a horrible provocateur, he’s a troll, his whole persona is troll, that’s his whole thing, but — when he’s talking about Trump is on the way out, and he’s publishing this book, and he’s trying to give a charge to his largely white Christian readership, he says, I’m going to close this book by spelling out what we must do. This is Dinesh D’Souza is, as he’s concluding his book, he says, We’re not going back. I’m not saying that the GOP needs Trump clones. I’m saying that we need a new generation of leaders who can assimilate the things that Trump does so effectively, fearlessly and gleefully. Trump has made it fun to beat the hell out of leftists and socialists, and even when Trump is gone, we must continue to enjoy the Trumpian experience of being a butt kicking Republican, Christian, right wing American capitalist. Think about all those things that he just said in there. Butt-kicking, Republican, Christian, right-wing American capitalist.

So, in D’Souza’s mind, and that of his readership, and the people like this, who I think really want to institutionalize Christianity in American civic life and belonging and identity, what they mean is all of those things. Political scientist Liliana Mason calls this identity stacking, where you’re developing these mega identities. All of these things apply to me. If I’m a Christian, that means I’m a capitalist, I’m a Republican, I’m right wing, I’m butt kicking, I don’t take crap from anybody. The Christianity that I think these people have in mind is that kind of Christianity. That’s the kind of Christianity that we saw at the capital; the one that doesn’t take any shit, but one that says: This is my country and all, I will physically tear down these gates to make sure it stays that way. You don’t have to love your neighbor. You don’t have to say what would Jesus do?

Donald Jr., the other day, in this article that made the rounds on social media, Donald Jr. talks about how like this whole ethic of Jesus of turning the other cheek and self-sacrifice has gotten us nowhere. I think he meant that, like I think Christian nationalists mean that. Tony Perkins, who is this big advocate of Trump and is on Christian radio, which is horrible — and I’ll talk about that in a second. Tony Perkins was asked back in 2018, I think, what about the affairs? You know, how can Christians, how can evangelicals support Trump? He says, we gave him a mulligan. And the interviewer asked him what happened to turn the other cheek? And he said: Well, Christians, we only have two cheeks. Christianity isn’t this doormat that people can just walk all over, and we were glad that there was somebody on the playground willing to punch the bully. That’s exactly what Christian nationalism wants to see, is somebody responding with authoritarian violence. It’s why Christian nationalists are the most likely Americans to say: You know what stops bad guys with guns, good guys with guns. More guns, right? Never less guns. It’s always more guns.

You were talking about the media a second ago, and I think that this whole Christian media apparatus and I would just add a strong Amen to that description. Because in my neck of the woods, in Oklahoma — I live in central Oklahoma — where the only Christian talk radio around, if somebody wants to listen to Christian talk radio, you listen to American Family Radio; it is nonstop. Other than like random sermons that they have from evangelical pastors, the talk part of that, the shows that they air, are constant culture war misinformation about COVID, about vaccines. Everything is trashing Biden. Before that everything was just loving Trump; everything having to do with that. People call in and give testimonials on this Christian talk radio thing, and they don’t talk about how like, you know, I listen to your radio program, and I didn’t know Jesus, but I listened to your radio program and I met Jesus and and now I love Jesus, and I just want to be like Jesus. It’s like: Hey, I came from New York, and I was a Democrat, and now I’ve been listening to your radio program, and now I’m a Republican. That’s the conversion story. You convert people to white, evangelical, traditional kind of worldview, or whatever you want to call culture, or culture war. You’re activating these kinds of people.

That’s what we’re seeing, is not only this, this narrative of victimization, but as these groups become more isolated within like information silos and social media bubbles, and everybody else is left to CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, it’s all radical leftists in control of Bezos and George Soros and all those kinds of conspiracy theories. They only listen to American Family Radio. They only read Breitbart and Fox News. They only watch Fox, or if we’re lucky, other than that, it’s like OAN, One American News or Newsmax, or something like that. That’s a super challenging issue that we face, is misinformation, information silos, and the kinds of polarization that leads people to say, I can’t even listen to you, I hate you, and you hate me, and so we really have nothing to say to one another.

Sam Goldman 35:43

I think it is true to a certain extent, that our attention, at least on this show, and in our work, can’t be having these reasonable conversations with people who have, in my opinion — this is not everyone on the refuse fascism editorial board or producer of the show — but have effectively been brainwashed. I think that there is a need to really struggle with the people who — I don’t think anyone’s lost in a full sense, I think people’s minds can be changed, but I think that our attention is best served not by those who are — so entrenched in this, but those who are passively sitting and watching and being like: Oh crap, and mobilizing them to see and understand it and confront the danger.

One thing that I wanted to talk to you about — you kind of got to this in some of what you were saying earlier, but I wanted to dig a little deeper — you recently wrote, not in your latest Time Magazine piece, but your December Time piece, was titled How Trump Stole Christmas and Why Evangelicals Rally to Their Savior. It was about Trump’s “Christmas greeting” at First Baptist Church, that turned into a straight up MAGA rally. In it, you noted that being there live helps you appreciate the centrality of Trump to what is modern white evangelicalism.

One of the things that I found really helpful about it — because like you I find a deep appreciation for quantitative data — you share some really, what should be to anyone troubling survey data, looking at August 2021, that you and your colleagues are currently analyzing, where you share that over two thirds of white Evangelicals felt that the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump 63% believe the “liberal media” is wildly exaggerating the threat of COVID-19 to damage Trump’s chances of reelection, that — as of, August 2021, these numbers like may have changed — a full 70% disagree that Trump had any responsibility for January 6th. I’m hoping you can explore a little bit more, how and why it is why does he continue to be their Savior? Is it more than, or is it as simple as, he’s delivered them the goods?

Dr. Samuel Perry 37:58

In some ways? It’s a difficult question to answer because you get told one thing, and often you assume that: Gosh, is it really bad? It seems like it’s probably some other things as well — I’ll explain that. If you talk to some evangelicals, they really see it as a transactional thing. Some of them don’t necessarily think Trump is a Christian — don’t think he’s a good Christian — but they think he’s for Christians. They think he’s for people like them, and so he’s their advocate. In Tony Perkins’ words, we got tired of being pushed around by Obama and his leftists. So Trump was the guy who was willing to punch the bully. That’s exactly how they see that, is Trump is their Savior in the sense that he is the big, strong, tough guy who says: I don’t take any crap from anybody, and I’m going to fight for you. Before the 2016 election, he said this verbatim.

I study religious rhetoric and politics and how politicians use rhetoric, and before Trump, you really have to understand how most politicians and presidential candidates in particular we use religious rhetoric. They wouldn’t use it in these blatantly culture war kind of ways. They we use it in a very civil religion kind of way. In a way to unify us, to talk about the values that we as Americans hold and cherish and unite us together. Trump just straight up said: Hey, we can’t say Merry Christmas. You know, if I get in office, Christianity will have power. You won’t need anybody else, because Christians will have somebody who is who is their advocate. Trump promised Christians that he would fight for — sometimes he would say, generically, people of faith, and other times he would say, just Christian — we need to rally around Christianity the way other countries are rallying around their religion, and making those I think very explicit overtures to Christian nationalism.

Partly, evangelicals really just see this as Trump is our guy because he fights for us, and everybody else hates us; we’re victims, whatever it may be, issues like that. Robert, Jeffress called Trump the most pro religious liberty, pro-life, pro-Israel president that we’ve ever had in our country’s history. There’s a lot to unpack: You know, how exactly was he pro-life? Well, he appointed Supreme Court justices that may actually overturn Roe. So, in that way he delivered. You know, elections matter because Trump was able to leverage the opportunities that he had to do that. I think they’re very right to be able to say that.

But you’ve also got another group of people, and these are not necessarily the faithful evangelicals, but more the white ethno-nationalists. More like people that we saw storm the Capitol. They love everything about Trump. They think he actually has a pretty good Christian, because in their mind, what a Christian is, is just a white nationalist. These people would probably be horrified, and deny being explicit racists. They would probably say, like, I’ve got no problem with Black people. I’ve got no problem with people of other races. I’m just saying Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA, they’re horrible. These people would probably deny being explicit racists, because everybody denies being an overt racist, and yet, they would probably think Trump is awesome, and Trump is a great Christian because he is for people like us. These people are in Evangelical churches. These people are sitting next to you in the pews.

A lot of these studies that track these people from the Capitol tracked them to North Dallas, you know, like North Texas, and all of these Pentecostal, Evangelical churches. These people are sitting next to you in the pews. These people love Trump. This myth needs to just die for once and for all that white Evangelicals somehow held their noses and voted for Trump twice — that they didn’t want to, and they wish it was somebody else. Not really. Because they chose Trump when they could have had Rubio and Cruz and Jeb Bush and Ben Carson, really people with legitimate Evangelical bona fides, and they chose Trump.

Sam Goldman 41:19

I just wanted to cut in here to give like another even more recent example, for people that say that: Who did they stand by? Did they stand by their man, who came from their world, who was them, Mike Pence? Or did they back up Trump? They went along with calls to hang their boy! Him for that matter, then pretends that the day didn’t even happen. He is a true believer. Not only did he come from that world, it is not just a political tactic or a political strategy.

Dr. Samuel Perry 41:52

No, I think Mike Pence is really in that world, and he knows how to talk it, and he knows how to communicate that in a in a sophisticated way. But there’s a reason why when Trump was being impeached, and these folks really would have had Mike Pence is their president, they didn’t want that to happen. Because Mike Pence is a wimp in their minds, and he is not the guy who’s going to punch the bully. He’s not the fighter. He’s not the warrior. That is what Trump sold to white evangelicals; I will be your advocate, your warrior. And that’s what he’s still promising; I’ll be your guy who’ll fight for you.

If you ever watch the video of Trump’s speech at First Baptist Dallas, it actually was really hilarious, because it was 10 minutes of Trump speaking, and half of it was just him doing what he does, which is just kind of rambling about kind of like, everything’s disaster, everything’s horrible, all of these failures of the current administration and that kind of thing, and then he literally said it this time — he looked down at his notes, and he talked about how somebody had written that for him — if you read the speech: they’ve given me… he’s like reading it out loud. And it’s so obvious, every time Trump’s eyes go down to read that somebody else has given that to him, because he has no idea what he’s talking about and he has scripted language about Christmas, and about Christianity is America’s Christian heritage and why this is so important. It’s obviously been given to him, and then whenever he has to kind of engage with that language in any sophisticated way, he leans hard on his speech writers. It’s like a Ron Burgundy kind of thing, from Anchorman, you know, anything in front of the teleprompter he will read; whatever his handlers provide him.

He’s doing that, but it’s fascinating to me, as an academic, I look at him and I think Trump is such a goof, is such a clown, and I think: How can anybody think this guy has one ounce of sincerity in anything he says, and is anything but a huckster and a charlatan? And yet, I think white evangelicals, and people who subscribe to Christian nationalist ideology are so desperate for that warrior to fight for them, because they see the writing on the wall, they see the numbers, they see, demography is working, its magic, and older cohorts of these folks are dying off, and the United States is becoming more diverse, and secularism is growing in the United States. So these people see themselves losing cultural and political power, and they are clawing and straining and desperate for somebody to say: I’ll make it so that never happens. I’ll erase that fear and anxiety for you.

Sam Goldman 43:56

I think that resonates a lot, and we just have to combat the myth that somehow, just by virtue of them being a minority that they can’t have power, and just by virtue of there being more of us, that doesn’t erase the danger. There’s so much of that around the world, and you can see that does not match reality. You can have permanent minority role.

Dr. Samuel Perry 44:24

Yes, exactly. Let me use that as an opportunity to get into the study that dropped today, that I listed on on Twitter. So, we had this research that we looked at how Christian nationalist ideology is associated with Americans attitudes about voter access and participation, because I think this is where the rubber meets the road these days. We’ve got all of these laws being put in place. We’ve got all this discussion about voter fraud and the 2020 election, and making sure that whatever happened in 2020 can’t happen again, for Republicans. They are desperate to make sure, because they understand that a lot of these battleground states, as more and more people of color, as more and more young people, who tend to vote Democrat, are activated and brought to the polls, that they are going to have a difficult time winning these popular elections.

Republicans, they’ve won one popular election since Bush, since ’88. So George W. Bush in 2004, was the last popular vote they actually won. Other than that, it’s the Electoral College, and they realize this is something that they are going to have a really difficult time winning unless they actively institutionalize their own advantage. So that’s why you see, Christian nationalism strongly associated with support for gerrymandering. It’s strongly associated with support for the Electoral College, because that’s where your influence and power will be sustained is in gerrymandering and the Electoral College. In this particular study, we find that Christian nationalism is one of the most powerful predictors that Americans think it’s too easy to vote these days, that voter fraud is rampant.

We asked these questions before the 2020 election, so before Trump had ever talked about a stolen election, Christian nationalism was already strongly predictive of Americans thinking voter fraud, voter suppression is a lie, they thought was voter suppression is nonsense, it doesn’t happen, especially if you’re a white Christian nationalist, you just completely deny voter suppression. Even things that sound, that are that are reminiscent of Jim Crow, Christian nationalism is associated with Americans believing that people should have to pass basic civics tests in order to vote in the United States. Or we should disenfranchise certain felons for life, so they can never vote. And what does that point to?

Remember, I talked about how Christian nationalism has a long history and it’s in many ways very cyclical and ebbs and flows. Paul Weyrich is this co founder with Jerry Falwell Sr. of the Moral Majority. In 1980 — Anthea Butler, I think, paints this picture beautifully in her book, ‘White Evangelical Racism’, she talks about how — all of these movers and shakers are at this Christian rally, and it’s all of these moral majority leaders, you’ve got Tim Lahaye and Phyllis Schlafly and Ronald Reagan and Paul Weyrich. Paul Weyrich goes on stage, and he says I think a lot of our Christians in our churches have the googoo syndrome, the good government syndrome. They want everybody to vote. And he says: I don’t want everybody to vote, as a matter of fact, our leverage in the election goes up as the voting populace goes down. It’s a very famous quote. It gets repeated over and over again. And that was Christian nationalism to a Christian nationalist audience saying: We Christians need to make sure that it’s not easier to vote, and, in fact, it would be better for us if we made it harder.
We still see that kind of thing, that participation in American democracy should be limited to those who prove themselves worthy. And who are the worthy? It’s people who are like us and good, upstanding citizens who know our constitution and who don’t break laws and like good Christian people who are going to win elections, or win elections for us. This is the minority as you were just talking about. How minorities stay in power is — this is one of the most important books written in the last five years, How Democracies Die by David Levitsky and [Daniel] Ziblatt, it’s a fantastic book that I would recommend to anybody. They describe all of these situations in which you’ve got constitutional democratic nations who get hijacked by authoritarian regimes and leaders. What happens is these people come into power, often through democratic means they legitimately win an election, and once they win that election, they start to pack courts, they start to adjust rules, what they call sidelining the referees. They make sure that anybody who would oppose them, any institutions that could oppose their power and their rule are taken out or sidelined. They handicap the opposition to make sure that they can never lose again.

What’s going on here is you’ve got a potential situation in which Republicans understand, and Trump is in this as well, that you’ve got people who understand that the possibilities of them winning legitimate elections anymore are dwindling, because demography because their views are genuinely unpopular, their candidates are genuinely unpopular, and they can’t win a popular vote. So what do you have to do? You have to make sure you make voting harder for those people that you don’t want to vote. Christian nationalism is one of the leading ideological drivers and coverings of this kind of anti-democratic move or maneuver.

Sam Goldman 48:46

I’m looking at the time and I want to close out by having you talk to us a bit about your forthcoming book, and what do you think are the biggest myths regarding Christian nationalism or the danger that we face that you are seeking to dispel?

Dr. Samuel Perry 49:03

I think the leading myth is that this is somehow some kind of fringe thing. People look at the Capitol insurrection, and they think, wow, that mob of people were just radicalized crazy. Who are these people? Unfortunately, you look at the QAnon Shaman wearing horns and screaming, and the image is just seared into everybody’s brain. It looks so comical and ridiculous, and over the top in a way that people can dismiss and be like: Wow, those people were crazy, look at that guy. They don’t see the crowd that just looked like the guy sitting next to you in the church. Because, guess what? That was the guy sitting next to a church who just happened to be radical. I go to church here in Norman with my family, and we have people in our church who believe in a stolen election, and they believe that COVID is a conspiracy and that vaccine mandates are for tyrants, and that they’d rather die than get vaccinated because they are so thoroughly bought into this, I think narrative.

So, this is not a fringe thing. This is very much a mainstream thing. Even if it’s not a majority, we’re talking about millions and millions and millions of people who can be activated by demagogues who want to like continue to spout misinformation along with their surrogates and their representatives and their advocates, their allies in the evangelical subculture on Christian radio or in Christian talk, or writers who want to pose those kind of things. So, you’re going to hear that these kinds of things are fringe and marginal, and statistically, they may not be the majority, but this is a powerful and influential group of people who really have everything to gain from us dismissing this as something that is just: Oh, crazies, you know, these people.

Meanwhile, they are pulling levers and working behind the scenes to make sure that they have stacked the odds in their favor electorally judicially, legally legislatively to make sure that they don’t lose. You will have minority rule in this country. If we don’t pay attention. The democratic process is being undermined by a minority of people. And of course, why wouldn’t they? Why would a majority undermine the democratic process? Only influential minorities want to do that, because that’s how you have to win an election if you’re going to. That’s just where it gets really concerning. Where I think this needs to be addressed and tackled is at the level of misinformation and purveyors of misinformation.

I posted this on Twitter, I think yesterday, Marjorie Taylor Greene was kicked off Twitter and was de–platformed. I get the concerns about freedom of speech, but free speech doesn’t apply to people inciting riots or people inciting violence or that kind of thing. People just blatantly broadcasting easily demonstrable lies and those lies that will cost people lives. Research shows — there are actually like numerous studies now that show – de–platforming people is effective. They lose influence, and there lies lose influence. So, I think that’s where this needs to be hit, is in this kind of Vladimir Putin style misinformation campaign, and the what about-ism and the nihilism that comes from this, and people just giving up and saying, nobody’s got the truth, it’s all lies, so I’m just going to vote with my tribe. Everybody lies, I’ll just vote for Trump. Rather than kind of saying: No, we need to fight for truth, we need to hold on to reality and defend that idea, and to make sure that we really do de-platformed and marginalize, I think the charlatans, and the huxters who are really intentionally sowing lies, anger and fear and confusion.

Sam Goldman 52:14

Thank you so much, Dr. Perry, for joining us and sharing your time, your expertise and perspective. You can follow him on Twitter @socofthesacred, and a link to his forthcoming book is in the shownotes. The book is: The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to Democracy. It’s co– authored by Philip Gorski.

Sam Goldman 52:38

Before we close out, I want to give a special shout out to Refuse Fascism, Chicago, and others who protested this past weekend, the so called March for Life, but what really is a march for female enslavement. Be sure to visit RefuseFascism.org this week, where we’ll be sharing a special announcement on mounting a serious society wide struggle for abortion rights. Thanks for listening to Refuse Fascism.

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