Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

The (far)right-wing "Christian" National Conservatism (NatCon) conference is underway in London.

Imho, this is profoundly disturbing.

Their 'Statement of Principles' reads like a blueprint for the imposition of patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic states like #Gilead.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1657328729683632129

It's bankrolled by & ideologically aligned with libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel, who in 2009 said "I no longer believe that freedom & democracy are compatible", & who has funded far-right candidates peddling Trump’s lie that the US election was stolen.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1475127556152205313?s=20

National Conservatives are closeted authoritarians who believe in entwining church & state, using government to encourage childbearing, & ‘intervening energetically” to combat “immorality & dissolution” - think 'Christofascism', Viktor Oban, & Putin.

nytimes.com/2021/10/19/mag…

Think I'm exaggerating?

Unlike the US, England & Wales at least are now minority Christian countries for the first time since census began - less than half the population self-identify as Christian, with a big increase in the proportion of people saying they have no religion.

The changes in the 2021 census are significance. As we saw with the Coronation, the Church of England is afforded influence & privileges that some argue are out of kilter with a falling proportion of the population identifying as Christian.

The census revealed that, for the first time, less than half of the population of England and Wales, at 46.2%, describe themselves as Christian, down from 59.3% in 2011, & 72% in 2001. The second-highest proportion of people were those not identifying with any religion at 37%.

National Conservatives & other national populists on the hard right, eg Nigel Farage, sought quickly to misleadingly & opportunistically weaponise this data, predictably blaming immigration for the shift. But this explanation for religious changes is not supported by the data.

In cities like London, immigrant populations from Africa, Asia and eastern Europe, are in fact helping to prop up the number of Christians. The rise in people identifying as Muslim — at 6.5% of the overall population & 15% in London — was a relatively marginal factor in change.

Instead, it is places like Rhondda, where the population is almost exclusively white and working class, where the Christian faith has declined the furthest and secularisation is accelerating fastest.

Britain is now a thoroughly secular society.

Take a look at these, imho disturbing & misleading quotes, taken directly from the National Conservatives' Statement of Principles:

"No nation can long endure without humility and gratitude before God and fear of his judgment that are found in authentic religious tradition."

"The Bible should be read as the first among the sources of a shared Western civilization in schools and universities, and as the rightful inheritance of believers and non-believers alike."

"Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private."

"Trans-national corporations showing little loyalty to any nation damage public life by censoring political speech, flooding the country with dangerous and addictive substances and pornography, and promoting obsessive, destructive personal habits."

"We recognize that most universities are at this point partisan and globalist in orientation and vehemently opposed to nationalist and conservative ideas. Such institutions do not deserve taxpayer support unless they rededicate themselves to the national interest."

"The traditional family is the source of society’s virtues... built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."

"The disintegration of the family, including a marked decline in marriage and childbirth, gravely threatens the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations. Among the causes are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden...

...while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life. Economic and cultural conditions that foster stable family and congregational life and child-raising are priorities."

"Today’s penchant for uncontrolled and unassimilated immigration has become a source of weakness and instability, not strength and dynamism, threatening internal dissension and ultimately dissolution of the political community."

"We call for much more restrictive policies until these countries summon the wit to establish more balanced, productive, and assimilationist policies. Restrictive policies may sometimes include a moratorium on immigration."

Many of the NatCon's 10 priorities read, at first, like banal restatements of conservative ideology in general: national independence, the rule of law, God and public religion, free enterprise, family and children. But these familiar terms don't all mean what you'd think.

The first two NatCon 'principles', national independence & rejecting globalism & imperialism, attempt to divorce nationalism from its associations with the fascist regimes of Nazi Germany & Mussolini's Italy, which NatCons see as imperialist.

salon.com/2022/06/24/nat…

NatCons want to attach the concept of nationalism to smaller countries that resisted the Nazis or Soviet Communism.

They warn against their "transferring" authority to any "transnational or supranational bodies" and advocates opposing "imperialism in its various forms."

Those forms include modern-day China and Russia, of course, but also "the liberal imperialism of the last generation, which sought to gain power, influence and wealth by dominating other nations and trying to remake them in its own image."

The "liberalism" described here isn't the 'centre-left' politics of the Democrats or Labour, but rather "classical" liberalism, focused on individual rights, free trade and pluralistic cultures, which until recently was embraced by most mainstream conservatives as well.

But within the post-liberal and NatCon world, that small-l liberalism contained the seeds of conservatism's undoing, leading inevitably to the big-L liberalism of progressive ideology by creating a culture in which it's too hard to raise children along traditionalist lines.

In this grotesque 1930s worldview, societies that uphold pluralistic tolerance & diversity are inherently unfair as they deny the 'majority' the right to live in a culture that 'supports their values' — in essence, allowing the minority to oppress the majority.

"Empire" has a particular meaning for NatCons. First, echoing Brextremist arguments, they believe that international compacts, accords & governing bodies like the EU or the UN infringe on 'national sovereignty', particularly when it comes to social issues.

At last year's NatCon conference in Brussels, controversial Yoram Hazony, Chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation (out of which 'National Conservatism' grew as a project) sought to align the NatCon vision with Ukraine's fight against Russian aggression.

Vladimir Putin's disdain for borders & national independence, Hazony suggested, was not an example of rampant nationalism, but rather it mirrored the attitudes of bureaucrats in Brussels and Washington.

The subtext is that post-liberal nationalist Hungary & Poland (admired by NatCons) face EU sanctions over human rights issues, which their leaders reject as an attempt to squash 'the rights of the nation-state', which other speakers cast as the workings of a new "evil empire."

Secondly, and more broadly, "empire" in the NatCon world also refers to the sense of fighting a long, losing battle (the 'culture war') on the cultural front, largely against what American & increasingly UK conservatives have taken to calling "woke corporations."

This can take the form of Twitter bans, corporate Pride celebrations, or the Walt Disney Company lobbying against Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1639586824074018816?s=20

The NatCon manifesto's next item is on religion, outlined above. Debate around this will be central to this week's NatCon Conference: should Christians be allowed to set the terms of public life, with space religious minorities, but no pretense of a neutral public square?

Should Western countries adopt the idea of "cultural Christianity"? Some NatCons argue that governments should "inculcate virtue" in the public, & laws should therefore focus less on individual freedoms than on 'the common good' (as understood by conservative Christians).

The shift towards a call for "cultural Christianity" comes from those NatCons arguing that maintaining the trappings of public religion in "post-Christian cultures" — as seen in Trump's patently insincere Bible-waving — can help create a society more hospitable to the faith.

The troubling section on government, where it shifts into Gilead territory, is where it proposes that while federalism is generally a good thing, central governments should be ready to "energetically" intervene in states "in which lawlessness, immorality and dissolution reign."

It's hard to read this as anything other than a potential crackdown on states or regions which might encompass everything from banning Drag Queen Story Hours & so-called "immoral" books, to Police & National Guard raids on areas that allow homeless encampments.

Many NatCon ideas have already spread well beyond the ranks of the NatCon faithful & into the US Republican & UK Conservative parties.

At CPAC Hungary last year, speaker after speaker extolled ideologically extreme ideas using dangerously irresponsible rhetoric that will no doubt fit in seamlessly at this week's NatCon conference.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1556918330480631808?s=20

A drumbeat conspiracy message throughout the NatCon conference will be the sacred sovereignty of "the nation-state," under threat from both the "globalist agenda" & "major multinational corporations" who are working together to "undermine faith & nation."

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1656974764429426688?s=20

Anti-immigrant talk will be vehement & ubiquitous. Mass migration will be described as THE major threat to western civilisation, a weapon of mass destruction, worse than a nuclear bomb, along with the claim leftists are seeking to eradicate 'white Western nations.'

Speakers at the NatCon conference should have learned from previous reporting to be careful not to be too explicitly far-right in their rhetoric, strategies, & policies designed to deliver their dystopian vision - but given the UK Govt's "invasion" rhetoric, perhaps they won't.

Republican-dominated states like Florida & Texas, are already doing their utmost to emulate Hungary, the country NatCons view as their primary model.

We can look forward to ever more Orbanist rhetoric & policies being formally adopted & pushed by UK @Conservatives.

The notion that conservatives are valiantly confronting a progressive cultural empire as powerful as any invading force from history has become the backbone of myriad cultural panics over things like CRT & LGBTQ rights, recasting opposing minority rights as a liberation struggle.

Public universities in the US, UK, & across Europe are already facing  threats to their funding unless they appease conservative leaders. And even corporations too are facing relentless campaigns to punish them for supposedly "woke" activism.

The seeds of the NatCon plan are now germinating, & its leaders are planning ahead. Days after the release of the manifesto, Yoram Hazony tweeted that it was "not time to compromise," but rather to "Consolidate our camp," "Clarify its vision" & "demonstrate our strength."

This #THREAD quotes extensively from some of the articles linked within it, especially this one: salon.com/2022/06/24/nat…

Some commentators are covering the national Conservatism conference in London:

https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1658017797778145280?s=20