In last week’s column for @GuardianUS, I wrote about how the Right is infatuated with foreign autocrats like Putin who they perceive as defenders of “Christian values.”
I’d like to address a few reactions to the piece - and some misconceptions about white Christian nationalism:
I’d like to address a few reactions to the piece - and some misconceptions about white Christian nationalism:
https://twitter.com/GdnUSopinion/status/1499693273224417280
There are four common reactions / misconceptions I’d like to address:
- “These are just fringe voices”
- “Putin is not a real Christian”
- “If they love Putin so much, why don’t they go live in Russia?”
- “How can they possibly go from hating Communism to loving Putin?”
- “These are just fringe voices”
- “Putin is not a real Christian”
- “If they love Putin so much, why don’t they go live in Russia?”
- “How can they possibly go from hating Communism to loving Putin?”
1) ”Just the fringe”
Like I said in my column, to describe Donald Trump, the Right’s political leader, and Tucker Carlson, one of its key media activists, as “fringe” is either wishful thinking and / or deliberately disingenuous.
Like I said in my column, to describe Donald Trump, the Right’s political leader, and Tucker Carlson, one of its key media activists, as “fringe” is either wishful thinking and / or deliberately disingenuous.
It is true that outside the Far Right - which would be worth its own exploration - most conservatives have backpedaled, are actively trying to memory-hole their well-documented admiration for Putin, and are engaged in some good old saber-rattling.
But even if we assume that this rather sudden change of heart is genuine, the fact remains that even among those conservatives who now want Russia defeated, most very much agree with Putin’s diagnosis and critique of the weak, “woke” West.
Conservatives are displaying a strong affinity with what they see as Putin’s key project of preserving Russia as a “strong” white Christian patriarchy - in opposition to the multicultural, pluralistic hellhole into which “the West” is supposedly degenerating at alarming speed.
That hasn’t changed since the invasion of Ukraine: I see no sign of introspection, no critical self-reflection, no “Maybe we need to talk about why we’ve been so enamored with this guy’s strongman Christian nationalism, and that of other autocrats like Orbán as well” voices.
Yes, openly siding with Putin in this war is not GOP mainstream – siding with his critique of “woke” leftwing forces as the central threat to the nation very much is. That is hugely significant, as it reveals so much about the Right’s animating vision for American society.
2) “Putin is not a Christian”
In general, equating the term “Christian” with “good” is a form of Christian supremacism we should avoid; we’re not in a vacuum: Christian is what Christians do; and we need to pay attention to white Christian nationalism as a political project.
In general, equating the term “Christian” with “good” is a form of Christian supremacism we should avoid; we’re not in a vacuum: Christian is what Christians do; and we need to pay attention to white Christian nationalism as a political project.
More specifically, the question of Vladimir Putin’s personal religiosity, of whether or not he “truly” believes and what he believes in, is irrelevant. What is important is the place of Christianity in his nationalistic project, and how he’s been perceived on the Right.
Putin has consistently portrayed himself as a defender of Christian values against the onslaught of the godless forces of “wokeism,” thereby presenting himself as an alternative to the West – both to his own people as well as to those in the West who abhor pluralism.
And Putin has been undeniably successful in his quest to appeal to the Christian Right: Americans who define the U.S. as a “Christian nation” have a much more favorable view of Putin’s Russia, and Pat Robertson claims Putin is “being compelled by God” to invade Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1498410764113256455
3) “Why don’t they go live in Russia?”
Western reactionaries don’t really love Russia, they love an imagined version of “Russia” (or “Hungary”). They imagine a homogeneous nation of and for white Christians, where men get to be real men. It’s not a real place, more an idea.
Western reactionaries don’t really love Russia, they love an imagined version of “Russia” (or “Hungary”). They imagine a homogeneous nation of and for white Christians, where men get to be real men. It’s not a real place, more an idea.
More importantly, the idea that conservatives would just leave America behind – a nation they are convinced belongs to them, is theirs to rule – underestimates the Right’s will and determination to dominate.
It is true that some religious conservatives, like Rod Dreher, have flirted with the idea of retreating from America, that land of God-less liberal excess, altogether. Dreher has been fixated on Orbán’s Hungary as the Promised Land where the natural order is still intact. 
More widespread, however, is a more aggressive vision: Sohrab Ahmari, for instance, likes to talk about the “Highest Good” and the necessary reordering of the public square to achieve it – by whatever means, against majority will.
What religious conservatives like Ahmari, Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule, or former attorney general William Barr propagate is a deeply anti-democratic, authoritarian idea of forcefully transforming the polity – something that is hard not to describe as a theocracy.
And they are determined to force that transformation here, in the U.S. – to make America the land of white Christian patriarchs again, restore what they believe the country was always supposed to be, what “real America” has always been to them.
4) From hating Communism to loving Putin?
The obvious part of the answer to that question is the fact that the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War was, of course, an important moment and allowed conservatives to openly embrace white Christian “Russia.”
The obvious part of the answer to that question is the fact that the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War was, of course, an important moment and allowed conservatives to openly embrace white Christian “Russia.”
The less obvious part of the answer has to do with what “Communism” has meant to the American Right, even at the height of the Cold War. When they invoked the specter of “Communism,” conservatives didn’t necessarily have an economic system in mind.
A few examples of how the label was used and what conservatives / rightwingers actually imagined as “Communism.” Here is arch-segregationist Strom Thurmond in 1948:
https://twitter.com/Randall_Stps/status/1499751400443629569
Here is a famous photo taken at the Little Rock, Arkansas state capitol, in August 1959 – the “Communist Race Mixing” in question was the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School (from a Library of Congress collection):
And here is Senator Tom Cotton with a current version of the “Dismantling systemic racism is Communism” idea:
Conservatives have always derided anything that threatens the social and racial hierarchy, any sort of leveling attempt, as "Communism," and used the term to demonize anyone who dares to question the righteousness of past, present, or future white reactionary elite rule.
https://twitter.com/marcushjohnson/status/1493751817104146433
Based on this specific understanding of what the danger of “Communism” actually is, it is perfectly consistent to rail against Communism while admiring the ex-KGB officer in the Kremlin for his willingness to uphold traditional hierarchies by whatever means.
The American Right’s infatuation with foreign autocrats is not over, was not a fluke, not just a fringe phenomenon: Conservatives prefer white Christian patriarchal nationalism, and they admire anyone willing to fight back against multi-racial, pluralistic democracy.
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