There is little doubt that the current power of elected Republicans has veered heavily towards White Christian nationalism. The efforts toward smaller government, deregulation and lower taxes – the fundamental values of the Reagan GOP – have increasingly become secondary. In fact, listening to Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ official GOP rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union speech suggests that it all about the “culture wars.” And those culture wars lean heavily in favor of White Christian supremacy – that in fact that the United States should declare itself to be a Christian nation – and against anyone or anything that deviates from that norm. Easy targets include Muslims and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Immigrants and people of color are next in that negative line. Owning guns has become the necessary hovering enforcement tool.
As the Democrats themselves splinter between progressives and moderates, the GOP is fractured by deeper ideological chasms. The feelings within the GOP White nationalists, however, include a vastly more open embrace of political violence and authoritarianism as well as an interpretation of the First Amendment that does not preclude a national religion. They seem to have found growing support within a very conservative Supreme Court.
While these extreme religious beliefs do not reflect the views of a majority of Americans, they have become an essential core to anyone seeking a nomination for virtually any potential GOP office. It seems to be a moral mandate from God, a holy war… an evangelical jihad. And God has always trumped “country.” To get any former GOP economic goal – that Reagan perspective – voters have to accept the religious zeal that now is ineluctably part of the Republican Party.
The problem with religious passion is that messages “from God” cannot be subject to political compromise. There is only one perspective, and those who cannot abide by that belief system cannot be the “loyal opposition;” they are heretical apostates to be dealt with accordingly. In short, democracy cannot exist where there is only one “true path” within an unyielding religious mandate from God. Theocracy must prevail. As the Bible tells us: “No one can serve two masters.” How embedded are such extreme views in the American body politic? Writing for the Los Angeles Times (via the Associated Press), on President’s day, David Lauter looks at recent polls and what they tell us about the stability of our country:
“Democrats, whose partisans have moved sharply to the left over the last decade, seem likely to defer their debate until after the election, with President Biden on track to claim the party’s nomination without serious challenge.
“On the Republican side, by contrast, the struggles are increasingly out in the open as the party, long defined by a Reagan-era ideology of low taxes, small government and strong defense, tries to figure out what it now stands for… Many of the party’s wealthy donors favor a libertarian ideology of low taxes and small government. Other GOP activists dream of a a multiracial, multiethnic blue-collar party, hoping to peel a larger share of Black and Latino voters away from Democrats… But one of the most powerful strands within the party is Christian nationalism, the belief that the U.S. is properly a Christian nation that should be governed by followers of traditional Christian beliefs.
“Two big, new studies over the last couple of weeks shed fresh light on those internal debates. One, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for the Associated Press, examined how much confidence each party’s voters have in their leaders. The other, by the Washington, D.C.-based Public Religion Research Institute, offers a comprehensive look at Christian nationalism… Both parties suffer from a lack of leadership, the AP/NORC survey found.
“Among Democrats, just 41% cited Biden when asked whom they see as the leader of their party. Asked whom they would like to have as their party leader, only about 1 in 8 named Biden — a low number for a sitting president. But no one else was mentioned by more than 5%.
“Republicans were even more split. Just under 1 in 5 named former President Trump as their party’s leader, about 1 in 10 cited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Nearly 4 in 10 had no answer. Asked who should lead their party, Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis each were named by about 1 in 5 Republicans, reflecting their current positions as early front-runners for the party’s presidential nomination.
“Asked if their party’s leaders share their values, about 4 in 10 Democrats said they were very or extremely confident; a slightly smaller group said they were only somewhat confident… Republicans had less confidence: Only about 2 in 10 said they were very or extremely confident that their leaders share their values, and more than half said they were somewhat confident.
“The chief reason Republicans show less confidence is that many of the party’s college-educated voters and moderates see a gap between their values and those of the party’s leaders. By contrast, those who identify as “very conservative” were the most likely to express a high level of confidence that their values are in sync with those of the party leadership… And what values do those conservative voters espouse? For many, Christian nationalism provides their ideological framework.
“To determine how many Americans share a Christian nationalist outlook, PRRI, which has done extensive work surveying Americans about their values, began by asking five questions of more than 6,000 Americans… The queries included whether ‘the U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation,’ and whether ‘God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society’ as well as whether ‘U.S. laws should be based on Christian values.’.. ‘The questions we picked are pretty clear,’ said Robert Jones, the group’s president. ‘They’re not soft. They’re not easy questions to identify with.’
“Almost 70% of Americans answered no to all or most of those statements. About 10% were in very strong agreement — a group that PRRI dubbed Christian nationalism adherents. Another 19% were sympathizers — agreeing with the statements, but not always strongly agreeing… Among Republicans, the picture was very different: More than half qualified as adherents (21%) or sympathizers (33%).
“The strength of Christian nationalist sentiment can be clearly seen in a wide range of issues that Republican elected officials have stressed, including efforts to curtail the rights and visibility of transgender people, but also some less obvious topics, such as immigration… As the PRRI study found, Christian nationalist beliefs correlate strongly with anti-Muslim, anti-Black, antisemitic and anti-immigrant views.”
Add guns, a built-in bias within our own Constitution favoring rural, more evangelical voters (resulting in heavily populated California and sparsely populated Wyoming having exactly the same representation in the Senate), and the White Christian wave has its finger on the election scale. While rising voters express more tolerance for diversity, they clearly do not have much influence within the GOP. Can such political differences exist side by side?
I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder why the majority of Americans continue to believe that our governance is simply the same old/same old struggle between traditional Democrats and Republicans.
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