Any time folks call white Christian nationalism a fringe movement, I end up screaming, "IT'S ACTUALLY MAINSTREAM" while dying a little on the inside.
I have spent over an effin' decade trying to convince folks that white Christian nationalism is mainstream.
It doesn't matter how much evidence I bring to the table. There are still folks that insist loudly that it is a fringe movement.
It doesn't matter how much evidence I bring to the table. There are still folks that insist loudly that it is a fringe movement.
And I'm not just talking about the people who are white Christian nationalists but the ways in which their ideas about faith and nation are common place.
White Christian nationalism isn't contained by a movement or movements. It's a mistake to think that it is.
White Christian nationalism isn't contained by a movement or movements. It's a mistake to think that it is.
But, the story that white Christian nationalism is a fringe movement is a powerful one, a useful one that allows white folks to suggest that it is an anomaly rather than common place.
Anomalies can be underplayed or dismissed.
Anomalies can be underplayed or dismissed.
And white Christian nationalism is dismissed or ignored until it isn't.
Until it becomes unavoidable like with the coup/insurrection.
Until it becomes unavoidable like with the coup/insurrection.
And even then, even in the face of a coup, there are still attempts to push white Christian nationalism to the fringe rather than reckon with how mainstream those ideas are and who is espousing them and acting on them.
One of things that I tried very hard to do in my work on white Christian nationalism was to show that it's a grave error to assume that it's ideas and practices go away because a particular movement fails or disappears from the public eye.
I am pretty sure that I have not succeeded in that.
Also, I'm grateful when folks take my work seriously. Truly. I'm in awe really.
While I am also deeply tired that my work is taken seriously generally when terrible shit happens.
While I am also deeply tired that my work is taken seriously generally when terrible shit happens.
I am even more weary that after working on white Christian nationalism for over a decade that I am still fighting to get folks to realize not it is not fringe but instead recognize how mainstream it is.
(Periodically, I also feel like I need a time machine to go back and ask 2005 Kelly if she really wants her scholarship to be on white supremacists or, you know, anything else.)
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