Christian Dominionism and Fascist Momentum

Refuse Fascism Christian Dominionism and Fascist Momentum

Episode 136 Sunday December 4 47:08

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 00:00

White Christian nationalism is insidious, because it’s embedded into the social fabric of our society. They’re really focused on infiltrating systems of government. These are communities that will work their way into secular institutions and transform them from the inside out. Local elections are a whole other thing. And that’s where you have that grassroots movement. That’s where you get those weird hybrid formations of fascism emerging. If we’re not taking seriously the threat of the sort of hybrid forms of fascism that are rising in the United States, then before we know it, we may see another January 6th.

Sam Goldman 02:36

Welcome to Episode 136 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, 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 the United States. In today’s episode, we’re sharing an interview with Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz, assistant professor of religion and anthropology at Northeastern University.

But first, thanks to everyone who goes the extra step and rates and reviews our show on Apple podcasts, shares and comments on social media or Youtube. It helps us reach more listeners and we read every one. Here are a couple messages from the last week. Over Youtube in response to Episode 134 which was an interview with Bradley Onishi, @WackyMackyBoy commented, “Excellent episode. This content creates hope to fight the despair caused by the complacency of privileged liberals and progressives to this gathering threat of fascism.” Thank you, @WackyMackyBoy.

If you don’t already, folks, subscribe to our Youtube channel so that you’ll get the latest episodes there if that’s where you like to listen. We got this message from Scott, “I’ve had the pleasure of listening to the Refuse Fascism podcast for over 2 years. Sometimes I miss an episode. I always regret it and don’t feel up to date. So I go to past episodes and catch up. Sam, you are constantly a breath of fresh air, truth and hope in this fucking morass of denial, lies and conciliation. I just listened to Episode 135, the Aftermath of the Midterms, and really enjoyed the comments by you, Coco and Paul, especially when you said ‘People need to confront what is real.’ I learned from and enjoyed listening to this episode and realized when Coco said ‘these Christian fascists are making life hell for women and girls right’ she is so right. People need to get out of their personal and political lanes, act in the name of humanity and refuse to accept a fascist America.” Thank you Scott.

We agree. Out of these lanes, into the streets, refuse it! After listening to today’s espisode, go help us find more people who want to refuse fascism by rating and reviewing on Apple podcasts and encouraging your friends and family who listen to do the same. Subscribe, follow so you never miss an episode, and continue all that sharing and commenting on social media.

It’s giving season and I want to shout out Mark, Ron, Joan, Miriam, Lisa, Lynda, Ken, Richard, Marsha, Damien, Ian, Renee, William, Jennifer and Linda with an “i” for giving since we’ve been off the air. Thank you for supporting the show and the work of Refuse Fascism. We have a special deal for you dear podcast listeners. With a donation of $35.00 or more to support this weekly, independent, podcast, when you give you will get a Refuse Fascism beanie for yourself, and one to give for holiday gifts, for winter use, or whatever you want to gift for. To do so, head over to RefuseFascism.org, hit that donate button, and be sure to include your address so we can mail to you.

Before we get to today’s interview, we have to talk about where we are right now in relation to the fascist threat. We need to start with the new frontiers in normalizing antisemitism. Since we last aired, Trump hosted just have to mention briefly that earlier this week, Trump gave his support to coup participants, folks that were involved in the deadly January 6th insurrection. He said in a video played during a fundraiser that “People have been treated unconstitutionally, in my opinion, and very, very unfairly. And we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”

Then Trump just yesterday, Saturday morning, called to be reinstated as president, declared the winner of the 2020 election or to have a new election immediately. Over on the Truth Social he posted, “So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC and the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER? Or do you have a NEW ELECTION.” A Massive Fraud of this type of magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want and would not condone, false & Fraudulent Elections!”

What was this “revelation” that he was speaking about? It was the Musk release of the internal Twitter files on Friday night, which detailed already publicly known information about the company’s deliberation surrounding the New York Post’s publication of files from Hunter Biden shortly before the 2020 election. It is extremely dangerous for the former president and fascist in chief, the current GOP front runner, to spew this unhinged fascist lunacy. And let’s be clear, it is even more dangerous for it to be ignored or laughed off as pathetic. With that, I want to urge folks to stay vigilant, to not allow this white supremacy, this anti-semitism, this misogyny, this fascism to be normalized, to be accommodated to.

With that, here is my conversation with Sarah. Today, I’m excited to welcome on to the show: Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz. She’s an assistant professor of religion and anthropology at Northeastern University. I am really looking forward to getting into continuation of topics that we’ve been exploring regarding where are we now, post the midterms, still reeling from horrific attacks, not just one, but multiple attacks or attempted attacks on LGBTQ siblings. Still reeling from anti-semitism that is more overt and more rampant than we’ve ever seen in my life. There’s a lot to get into as it relates to what on this show we refer to as the Christian fascist threat. I couldn’t think of anybody better to talk to about this than Sarah.

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 13:03

Thanks for having me on.

Sam Goldman 13:04

I wanted to start with a larger question that, in my opinion, affects the way that people understand and therefore act in response to this dangerous situation. Amongst the extreme right, there are diverse and often overlapping sects, group interests, and coalitions in two groups we’ve spoken about in depth on the show are white Christian nationalists and Dominionists. I was hoping that you could talk to us a little bit about: What are the meaningful differences among these categories? Why should we care? And what unites the Christian right? Maybe we could just start with what are the meaningful differences amongst these categories?

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 13:50

I think if you’re looking at meaningful differences, they’re usually theological, and they’re not going to have that much social difference. What I mean by that is, each of these groups are sort of united, because they have a similar end game, or a similar social trajectory in mind. Perhaps the Dominionists think they can create a new earth before Christ comes back, which is in opposition to Premillennialism, which is the standard Christian doctrine on the return of Christ but that doesn’t really have any sort of social impact in how they unite or how they form coalitions.

I would say, sometimes we want to parse out the sort of theological differences these groups have, and I certainly have to do that because I work on reactive Orthodox, which are far right Orthodox converts who also form coalitions with white Christian nationalists and Dominionists. But at the end of the day, thier commonalities I think, are more important than their differences. They’re focused on sort of creating a social schematic that tracks with what they assume is right, has a lot of similarities across these disparate groups.

Sam Goldman 15:00

That makes a lot of sense. I was wondering what is the value in people understanding what white Christian nationalist aims are, what Dominionist aims are, and how that impacts their role in American politics?

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 15:16

Well, I think the Dominionists are fascinating because if you think about what’s going on in terms of politics, and the midterms didn’t, I think turn out well, for some Dominionists who are running, but they’re really focused on infiltrating systems of governance. Dominionists have this idea that there’s these seven mountains–I’m sure you’ve talked about this extensively on your podcast already–or the seven hills that you infiltrate of society. So, politics being one of them.

If you’re thinking about what’s good to know about Dominionism, these are communities that will work their way into secular institutions and transform them from the inside out. That is good if you’re thinking about how do I combat this on the ground right at the grassroots level. In terms of white Christian nationalism, we have to remember that some Dominionists are also white Christian nationalists and some white Christian nationalists are also Dominionists. You have these overlapping theological or ideological components. White Christian nationalism is insidious, because as Phil Gorski and Sam Perry have talked about extensively, it’s been here since the beginning, right. It’s part of coloniality. It’s part of American exceptionalism. It’s embedded into the social fabric of our society, in part because of systemic racism, but also, in part because of the privilege of Protestantism in America.

Sam Goldman 16:32

Do you think there’s more than the white supremacy that unites these different sects?

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 16:38

Yeah, it’s interesting because, you know, I work with a group that would say, we’re not white supremacists, but then the discourse is exceptionally anti-semitic, is racist. It smacks of white supremacy that we understand in the sort of long history of American white supremacy and white nationalism. But of course there’s more. We see that in the attempts to curate how women should govern their own bodies. We see that in the blatant homophobia and transphobia that’s pervasive right now. So it’s not just about white supremacy. It’s about heteronormative masculine supremacy, I would argue, at the end of the day.

Sam Goldman 17:13

Can you talk more about that, and why you think that’s the focal point?

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 17:17

If you think about, Mastriano and the way he and his wife talked during his campaign for governor of Pennsylvania, it was exceptionally noticeable that his wife privileged the space of the masculine within the conversations that she had with their constituency. I would argue that’s a perfect example of how this is not just about whiteness, but it’s about white masculinity, and white domination and heteronormative masculine domination. There’s a million examples of that we can find. I think it was horrific.

What I loved about Mastriano’s campaign was the fact that everything we talk about in terms of Dominionism and white Christian nationalism and white supremacy, whiteness discourse, it was all there in his campaign, just in real time for everybody to see. And what’s shocking for me is that in the analysis of his campaign by journalists, certainly the religious overtones were there when he was praying. Journalists were on it, they were analyzing it, but they weren’t analyzing as much the sort of masculine gender dynamics of his campaign. That was really frustrating for me, because these are intersectional issues, and if we’re not looking at all of them, we’re not getting a complete picture of what’s actually happening.

Sam Goldman 18:29

I think that’s a really important point. I did a lot of reading of people’s coverage on Mastriano and a lot of articles that walk people through what this symbol meant in terms of religiosity, what that symbol meant, and much of it was interesting, right. I learned a lot through it. I do think that there continues to be a failure to recognize the subtle and, in his case, not so subtle, [SRS chuckles] role of the most vicious forms of patriarchy, and how that intersects with a lot of his very horrifying aims, and those who surround him that support that. We were talking before, we were recording and I was noting that I’m in Pennsylvania. I was very relieved that he is not the governor. I think there was, in the run up, a lot of: We’ll cover Mastriano as an oddity. [RS: Yeah] And when he loses, we will dismiss him and his people. I think that’s something that’s been done repeatedly. I’d love to hear your thoughts on why it is they’re struggling to take Dominionist Christian nationalism seriously?

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 19:36

That is the question I asked myself repeatedly. I think what many saw across journalism and media and scholarship– what we felt is relief, in many respects. It was also tempered by some of us because we recognized that there are so many like Mastriano, who have won seats. Right around the election, NBC News was projecting 195 Trump-backed candidates won their races and only 30 lost. But that is important because a lot of the candidates who won those 195 seats are exceptionally similar ideologically, or overlapping ideologically, with Mastriano.

Sam Goldman 20:16

Including in the Dominionism, would you say?

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 20:18

I would say it depends. They may have ideological values that are similar, but they may not call themselves Dominionists. We have to remember, Dominionism is just sort of an ideological component of a certain type of Christian theology. One might hold the values of, hey, we need to infiltrate the government and put in our Christian values. You see this sort of small scale at school board meetings where moms come to the meetings. They’re very angry about CRT and they’ll say things like, this does not reflect my Christian values.

Their goal, is, often they’ll say: Well, I think I’m going to run or a seat. Their goal is to potentially transform that school board, transform the school district, but they may not align with the actual institutions of Dominionism itself. But the impulse to transform their particular political space in that school board has the same impulse as Dominionism does. If we look at folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene, she won her seat again, and she has a very similar impulse to a Mastriano, that essentially the United States has fallen into progressive secularism. We have to transform it. How do we do that? We bring Christian values into the government. Now, I’ve never heard Marjorie Taylor Greene call herself a Dominionist, but that ideological principle is Dominionist in nature.

Sam Goldman 21:32

I think that is a really helpful example. Just like, in many ways, Mastriano in many ways, she is laughed at, she is ridiculed – and I’m not saying that she’s not deserving of ridicule, plenty deserving of ridicule, but – she’s not taken seriously. [SRS: Yeah] Mocked, but not throughly rebutted.

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 21:32

Or thoroughly interrogated. Even scholars don’t take her seriously sometimes.

Sam Goldman 21:35

Exactly, it’s like: Oh that’s goofy. She’s goofy, or stupid or all of this, meanwhile, you know who does take her seriously? Kevin McCarthy, who is planning to put her back on committees. Who is listening closely to what she’s saying. There are people who are taking her seriously, and I think that we need to question why is it that, not just the press, and as you’re saying, even some scholars do it, but I think it’s very much the press that is just training to laugh her off.

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 22:29

Well, the problem is that we did that with Trump early on, and that was no laughing matter by January 6th.

Sam Goldman 22:35

Or the host of things that were done before then. It was not a laughing matter, building a wall. [SRS: Yeah] It was not a laughing matter, banning Muslims. It was not a laughing matter to stack the court with justices who were overt in their plans to decimate abortion rights. You can be the goon and a fascist. You can be both. There are a lot of historians that will point out often ridiculous, laughable things that Hitler exemplified, and yet, he was incredibly dangerous. There’re many, many examples – Trump is a great one – of laughing it off, mocking it, and not confronting the danger. We’re seeing the same with Marjorie Taylor Greene, but it’s not like she’s the only person we’re seeing this with, like Lauren Boebert.

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 23:23

It’s done with women, there’s definitely a gender dynamic with this, becuse, you’ll notice, the press takes seriously DeSantis. They take seriously that DeSantis will probably try to run, or, I’ll listen to pundits who’ll be like: Well, what would be wise is if DeSantis would wait until the next cycle, because then he might actually win. And I’m like: Are you listening to what you’re saying? Right. And DeSantis holds a lot of the same ideological policies in mind that Marjorie Taylor Greene does, that Lauren Boebert does, that Trump certainly does, he’s just perhaps far more sophisticated in the way he promotes and pushes these policies through, but look at the bills that have passed recently in Florida, and look at the outright homophobia, transphobia, and just the ridiculous emphasis on CRT being taught in K-12 schools, which those of us who are in academia know that Critical Race Theory is generally not taught in intro classes; it’s often taught at law schools, primarily. To even bring that into the public discourse is just so blatantly racist, but for some reason, the press seems to like DeSantis.

I agree, he epitomizes a kind of conservative political figure, but ideologically, he is compatriots with all of these figures that seem laughable to the press. Absolutely, I think there’s a gender dynamic. There’s also this dynamic of charisma and caricature that we use with Trump. Trump is dynamic, he has charisma – even though some of us don’t like it – he is a caricature of himself, whereas DeSantis is more serious, he seems more even keeled, even though his policies are very radical, and so I think that the press sort of leans into: Ok, he seems serious, he seems like he knows what he’s doing. Whereas, these women don’t know what they’re doing, and this cartoon of a man doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Sam Goldman 25:05

That’s really clarifying. I want to loop back to some of what you were touching on regarding the midterms. The Republi-fascist slate, as we call it on this show, in the midterm elections, included more open and extreme fascists than ever before, and while they didn’t sweep, that didn’t seem to hurt them. I wanted your thoughts on how are you viewing this, how do you think we should be understanding what happened?

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 25:35

I think you’re absolutely right, it didn’t hurt them. The assumption is that losing, or not winning fully, has somehow hurt them. It hasn’t. Boebert has still got her seat, Taylor Greene has still got her seat. Vance picked up a really pivotal seat, and Vance is just one of this figures that, again, he’s Trumpian, and he appeals to a broad constituency. He’s got that folksy, Appalachian, charm, he’s got a bestseller, he seems even keeled, and serious enough to be a politician, and he does not seem to have a problem with him winning, and there’s not interrogation of: Look, this is a candidate who has had horrific views on gender, on race, on class disparities, and he is also backed by Trump.

I agree with you that at first blush, I think that the election seemed to be more helpful for the liberals or the Democrats, but if you actually get into the numbers, I mean, that 195 seats is not even including local elections. Local elections are a whole other thing, and that’s where you have that grassroots movement. That’s where you get those weird hybrid formations of fascism emerging, where you have a Proud Boy, or a 1 percenter, or a Dominionist getting on a school board or running for mayor, and actually transforming communities from the ground up.

I am not as positive as some are about the trajectory of this politics in this country since the midterms. I think that even this off cycle in 2023, there are seats that are up – I know the governorship of Kentucky is up in 2023. Andy Beshear is a fabulous governor, but there were a lot of conservatives in the state of Kentucky that weren’t happy with his COVID protocols; they were too constrictive for them. So, who’s going to be the next governor of Kentucky? That’s an important thing to think about. I think they’re going to build on the momentum, quite frankly, I think that we’re gonna see more far right Christians take office in 2023, and I think in 2024, who knows? Now that Trump’s on the slate again. But, we’ll see.

Sam Goldman 27:47

I think that your points about who has held on to power and the lessons that should teach us in terms of the fact that that continues to have popularity, plus the way that gerrymandering and a bunch of other factors work that is allowed to go down — so I want to be clear that this is not like me saying it’s the will of the people, whatever, that we’re all fascist, that’s not what I’m saying — I think that is instructive. I think it’s instructive to look at how many Trump-backed candidates were victorious. How many election deniers won.

I think there’s also this factor that people struggle to recognize, that this movement isn’t limited to the sphere of electoral politics. [SRS: mm hmm] That their momentum isn’t limited to who wins, who loses. [SRS: Yeah] That this is only one of their many, if you will, means of impacting or seizing power. We have sadly seen one of their other tools, which is acts of violence, you know, what we saw at Club Q [SRS: Yeah] — that was another example. People struggle with seeing the full range of what these forces do, [SRS: I agree], which does include violence, and is not limited to acts of violence either. [SRS: Right] There’s people who are terrorized without acts of violence.

Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 29:17

I also think when we focus on electoral politics, we have to think about who’s winning or losing, you know, Senate seats, or whatever. We’re not thinking about state politics as much. We’re not thinking about legislation passed at the state level. That’s so important, given the anti-trans bills that have been passed in Texas recently, and other states that are denying gender affirming care. These bills that are passing are important because if we see a transformation of our institutional politics at the level of the Senate and the House in the coming years in terms of shifting farther right, we have to remember that one of the things that the right loves is to give power back to the states. If the states are then the ones deciding who’s allowed to marry whom, that is going to be a big deal.

I think sometimes we fail to look at state politics enough and to understand what’s happening from the ground up. It was really interesting — I was having a conversation with colleagues yesterday and they said: Well, when I talk to students about politics, they’re always thinking about electoral politics. I was like, absolutely, if you put politics in a syllabus, title, they are immediately thinking electoral politics. They’re not thinking the politics of the body, the politics of religion, the politics of sexuality and gender. They’re thinking about electoral politics. So you are absolutely right that this violence that is perpetuated by electoral politics is also expressed in a multitude of different ways on the ground.

Sam Goldman 30:45

Yeah, often that escalates in response, as you’re saying, to a loss. It’s not that they feel a sense of defeat and then back down or retreat at all. [SRS: Right] I was also thinking that this kind of connects to what we were talking about Marjorie Taylor Greene and that crew, but there’s been a new level, I feel like, of normalization in terms of the way that people view the midterms. Because it wasn’t as bad as people feared, in terms of the most extreme people, I feel for a period of time, there was a sense of recognizing, naming of the fascist threat. There are risks to what people perceive as democracy in this country. And now, I feel like we’re back to normal. [SRS: Yeah] We did a reset, and we’re good now for a couple of years. What is that about? How? How far does this go?

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 31:44

I think a lot of that, to be honest, has to do with our 24-hour news cycle. We’re so inundated with information, and it becomes overwhelming, both positively and negatively.

Sam Goldman 31:44

That makes sense. I feel like the example would be the fact that fucking heroes in Iran, who are still in the streets, these women, that are still risking their lives every day. And I feel like it’s not even in major newspapers anymore.

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 32:14

Right, yeah. A few women on Tik Tok shaved their heads, and then it was out of the system of American social consciousness. You had a few influencers who were like: This is important. We stand by these women. This is amazing. Empowerment! And then it’s gone. Because the feed has updated, there’s other things to think about, right. I understand that the United States is going through severe economic difficulties, and we have our own sort of political wars that we’re waging ideologically with each other and sometimes actually happening on the ground and violent manifestations here among people, but at the same time, to not be attuned to what’s happening in the global sphere is to not be really focusing on what’s happening in the United States, because we are not unmoored in the United States from global politics. It’s all connected. We live in a globalized world.

Sam Goldman 33:04

It’s really important. Also people are not staying attuned and paying attention to what is happening in this country either. Oh, that was so two months ago we were worried about that. That little democracy thing that we were worried about, you know. I wanted to talk a little bit about Andrew Torba’s book, which continues — correct me if I’m wrong — to be an Amazon best seller. His book is ‘Christian Nationalism, a Biblical Guide for Taking Dominion and Disciplining Nations’. [SRS: Yeah] I wanted your thoughts on it, and why we should even care that this book exists. But the wave upon wave of anti-semitism that is strengthening and growing, I think we have to talk about it, because there’s this belief that people who are not as attuned to these these movements as you are. There’s this belief that these fanatical Christians have some view of religious freedom, that they don’t actually have; this view of caring about all people of faith, and they just want their own. So I just wanted your thoughts on this connection and do you want to say anything about the book in general that you think is important?

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 34:22

First of all, your point about religious freedom is fascinating because there is this assumption that Christians are okay with religious pluralism. Let’s be very open here: There are a lot of Christians who are absolutely okay with religious pluralism. We see that expressed beautifully at institutes like the National Council of Churches, where people have interfaith dialogue and all sorts of great wonderful interreligious conversations. Beautiful.

There are also far-right Christians who do not like religious pluralism and for whom religious freedom should only be for them. Religious freedom is great if it’s for persecuted Christians, and by persecuted Christians we are not talking about actual Christians who have experienced persecution in the Middle East or in other parts of the world in Egypt, they’re talking about white American Christians who they believe are being currently persecuted by the so-called progressive secular state of America right now, of American politics. They believe that their religious freedoms are being taken away. That was exceptionally expressed during COVID when tons of far right Christians came out and said, we can’t go to church because of COVID health protocols. This is infringing on our religious freedoms, right. There were court cases. All sorts of journalists wrote about this. It’s really fascinating to watch in real time. White American Christians believe they’re being persecuted by the state because of public health protocols.

So Andrew Torba, I don’t know what to say about this book, Sam, except it is a dumpster fire, and it is so anti-semitic. In my work among far-right Christians anti-semitism is just so blatant right now. I’ve been doing this work since 2017. I have never seen anything like what I have experienced in the past two years. This may be because of the time the pandemic allowed people to be on social media and sort of connect with each other across these disparate geographies and across ideological institutions, but the massive amount of anti-semitism that I track online, and in real life, is just overwhelming to me. I have never seen anything like this. Tarva’s book is filled with it. It’s just so anti-semitic.

In fact, I have it here in front of me, and he lists in the recommended readings, ‘Logos Rising’ by Dr. E. Michael Jones, who has been labeled by the ADL as an anti-semite. He also has Roosh V. who, if any of your listeners know was a former pickup artist who converted to Russian Orthodoxy, who is also extremely anti-semitic, and who draws on E. Michael Jones constantly in his social media work and his blogs and his podcasts. I mean, this is just filled with anti-semitism.

Sam Goldman 36:56

There was that quote that you read, can you read that quote.

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 37:00

In chapter four, which is called This Is Not a Judeo Christian Movement, he says he’s writing to the propagandists, or the lazy journalists, as he calls them, and he says: “To start, Christianity and Judaism are totally distinct, incompatible and irreconcilable religions. One religion believes Jesus Christ is the eternally begotten Son of God, the second person that the Trinity, the divine Logos made flesh and currently rains over the earth and his Father’s right hand. The other believes Jesus is merely a human who is dead and suffering for eternity in hell. These are not minor differences, they are fundamental to the entire Christian and Jewish worldview, respectively.” It’s just mind blowing.

Then he critiques being called anti-semitic. But you know, this is just one of many of the new far right books that are about Christian nationalists. I think Torba’s is interesting because right away from the onset, you know, that he’s talking about Dominionism and he’s talking about Christian nationalism. And this idea of disciplining the nations is part of that Dominionist impulse, that man, as these favorite Christians understand humanity — man — has been given dominion over the world. And through that Dominionship, which is God ordained in their minds, the world should transform religiously, socially, morally, through the impact of Christianity. So I think that’s what we absolutely see in Torba’s book.

Sam Goldman 38:23

Related to this onslaught of anti-semitism that you were just talking about last Tuesday, I think it was how Trump invited virulent anti-semite, Christian fascist, MAGA moron, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, to dinner at Mar-a-Lago, and Kanye brought his new bestie, Nick Fuentes. Nick Fuentes, as listeners of the show know, is not as the Washington Post would like to call him a far right activist. He is a Nazi; an open, overt white supremacist, misogynist of the highest order, anti-semitic to his core, Holocaust denying, Nazi. He is somebody who marched through Charlottesville with a torch, proudly. He is someone who chanted Jews will not replace us. He is someone who was at the US Capitol on January 6th for the fascist coup and reported back afterwards that it was awesome and he wasn’t gonna pretend that it wasn’t.

There are many things that Fuentes said recently that I could not even put in my mouth, they are so horrifying. He is very clear on what he is for and what he is against. Very clearly not for democracy, not for suffrage, not for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, the list goes on and on and on. I was wondering, how are the communities that you study looking at this? What should we be taking away? Those are two different questions, but I think that they connect. What are your thoughts on this?

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 40:13

I have been tracking Fuentes for so many years, and to me it was not surprising that he was at dinner with Trump. For him to be there was not a shock to me at all. He is a perfect expression of where the ideological center of far-right Christianity is shifting to. He also, if you recall, is a massive fan of Vladimir Putin, and at his America First rally in early 2022, he shouted “Putin, Putin, Putin” on the stage to cheers by the audience, and he invited his surprise guest who happen to be Marjorie Taylor Greene.

If we look at the constellation of the far right, Nicholas Fuentes, as horrific as he is, is just one of many who holds the same views. I think he just happens to be a little bit more open about his views than Trump, because he feels like he has nothing to lose. He’s never going to run for president or win some sort of seat — I would be shocked if he did. Those who are sort of more conservative in their vocal protests about the same things, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, do win seats. But at the same time, they hold ideological tenets that are the same. Fuentes is, I think, becoming a sort of figure for the right that is both chaotic — in the sense that he just opens his mouth on these live streams and just says these horrific things that nobody wants to repeat — and at the same time he’s sort of becoming this expression of political freedom that many find appealing. I think that’s what we see Ye and Trump really homing in on is the fact that he speaks to a group of the far right, and, arguably, just a lot on the right in general, who want to voice their opinions but can’t, and who desire political freedom; freedom from what they often see as like this two party tyranny.

Sam Goldman 42:21

I agree completely and I think that there is a — unnerving to me — mainstreaming of Fuentes’s ideology. [SRS: Yeah] I think that people underestimate — there’s not that much that’s unique that he holds that many of the people that are in power hold. [SRS: Yeah] That is worth paying attention to. You can see that in who has condemned this Nazi. [SRS: Right] Who has denounced or even distanced themselves in any way.

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 43:01

Let’s remember, one of his, I would say, fellow travelers in the circles, Lauren Witzke, ran a really compelling campaign just a few years ago, as a Republican nominee for the state of Delaware, for the Senate. She lost, ultimately, but her campaign was exceptionally compelling. She didn’t lose by that much. And she holds many of the same ideological values — and she was vocal about them — that Fuentes does. So, I think that you’re correct, we are seeing a mainstreaming of it. To downplay it by saying: Well, the midterms weren’t that bad. That does a lot of damage, I think, in American politics, because if we’re not taking seriously the threat of the sort of hybrid forms of fascism that are rising in the United States, then before we know it, we may see another January 6th.

Sam Goldman 43:55

Yeah, I think it is past time that people wake up and smell the fascism that is brewing. It is brewing and it’s brewing more vengeful, more vicious, more determined.

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 44:08

And more globally connected.

Sam Goldman 44:09

I think that’s part of what strengthens it. They’re not doing it alone. This is just another sign of how far things have come and where we’re heading if this dynamic continues.

Sam Goldman 44:22

I wanted to thank you for going on this journey with us and talking with us, and I wanted to ask if there were any final myths you wanted to bust, any things that we didn’t get a chance to talk about that you wanted to bring up?

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 44:37

No. I think this was such a rich conversation. I really enjoyed talking with you. Despite the very depressing content that we covered, I had a great time. Thanks, Sam.

Sam Goldman 44:48

You know, we talk about this a lot; about that these are upsetting things, they are real things. There’s a lot we can do, but there’s nothing that we can do if we don’t look at it frankly. So, if people want to connect with you, your scholarship, your thoughts, where do you want people to be directed to?

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 45:09

They can find me at Twitter @RiccardiSwartz, and I also have a website which is RiccardiSwartz.com

Sam Goldman 45:16

Awesome. Thanks so much.

Dr. Sarah Riccardi-Swartz 45:18

Thanks for having me, Sam.

Sam Goldman 45:19

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