Thread by @monaeltahawy

Researchers found that more than half of Republicans believe the U.S. should be a strictly Christian nation, either adhering to the ideals of Christian nationalism (21%) or sympathizing with those views (33%). h/t @inpoco npr.org/2023/02/14/115…

According to the survey half of Christian nationalism adherents and nearly 4 in 10 sympathizers said they support the idea of an authoritarian leader in order to keep these Christian values in society

The survey also found correlations between people who hold Christian nationalist views as well as anti-Black, anti-immigrant, antisemitic views, anti-Muslim and patriarchal views.

npr.org/2023/02/14/115…

I have written several essays about these dangerous zealots and in each and every one my point has been that their danger has been deliberately downplayed because they are white and Christian, which are considered default in the U.S.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ha…

And I've said that the U.S. media too often will ignore the danger of those zealots because newsrooms are largely still white and journalists' fathers, uncles, brothers and husbands and mothers, aunts, and sisters are the zealots.

So successful has white supremacist patriarchy been at convincing white people in the U.S. that they’re lucky to live in the U.S. and not Saudi Arabia or Iran, that so many did not pay enough attention to the theocracy that white supremacy was building right here at home.

It was being built by white men who look like their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, not the scary brown men with beards.

And white women who look like their mothers, sisters, husbands, and daughters, not the women in headscarves and face veils.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-wh…

If Amy Coney Barrett was a Muslim would she have been nominated and confirmed to the highest court in the U.S?

Excuses and justifications are made to explain a norm for white Christian women that is pathologized when it comes to Muslim women.

feministgiant.com/p/if-amy-coney…

I was shocked to discover just how pervasive religion in politics is in the US when I moved here in 2000. I was familiar with the fact that the U.S. is the most devout of the industrialized nations. But it is stupefying to see every candidate for political office espouse a faith

That religion should play no role in politics is a truism that U.S. media and Americans in general apply only to someone else’s country (particularly countries which are not majority Christian, like my country of birth)

It is easy to see theocracy when the theocrats don’t look like you.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-wh…

In the world’s most powerful country, “child marriage” (I prefer the more accurate phrase “state-sanctioned child rape”) “remains legal in 44 states and is happening…at an alarming rate” thanks to the Christian zealots who vote against attempts to ban it salon.com/2018/03/11/ban…

In the world's most powerful country, white zealots can from one side of their mouth worship their white Jesus and from the other espouse the erosion of voting rights of fellow Americans because they are Black and yet those white zealots never question their “Christian love.”

f U.S. media finally began to pay some attention to the Christian right after #Jan6, they missed so much in the run up.

The Christian right have helped elect more than one president in the most powerful country in the world, and influence foreign as well as domestic policy.

At one point the head of the CIA held Bible readings at the headquarters of the most lethal intelligence services in the world; he later went on to become the top diplomat representing the U.S. abroad. foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/08/mor…

And there were the white Christian zealots invading the Capitol on #Jan6 flying flags for Jesus, and still too few are calling out the theocracy that wields power in this country. theconversation.com/christian-nati…

I moved to the U.S. in 2000. Over the past two decades, I have learned that many white Americans have a delusional amount of confidence in their government and its institutions. feministgiant.com/p/if-amy-coney…

That stubborn belief in U.S. exceptionalism undergirds the refusal to see the fascism that Trump brought. Black, Indigenous, and people of colour have no such delusions. They do not expect institutions to protect them because they are so often hurt by those institutions.

No matter how often those of us from authoritarian countries and those of us who've fought fascism -- be it via military rule/rule of religious fundamentalists -- warned, white Americans arrogantly shook their head that it couldn’t happen here.

And no matter how often we warned you that the fate of nations is not a straight line bending towards a “manifest destiny,” you only saw Iran and women in chadors or Afghanistan and women in burqas and refused to believe that their fate awaited you.

But that fate never comes overnight.

And the Christian right has been working for decades, their danger ignored and underplayed because they are white and Christian.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ha…

If 1979 was momentous for Afghanistan–the year of the Soviet invasion–and Iran–the year of its revolution–then it was momentous too for the U.S.--the year that the “Moral Majority” was formed. britannica.com/topic/Moral-Ma…

That white American Christian political organization, associated with the Christian Right and the Republican Party, was instrumental in mobilizing conservative and right wing Christians and turning them into a political force.

The political force that has succeeded in bringing the U.S. to where it is today, with Roe v Wade overturned.

And always remember the white supremacy at its core.

And so these numbers should not shock you npr.org/2023/02/14/115…

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feministgiant.com