White Christian nationalism explained

I. Let’s talk about white Christian nationalism.

It’s one of the greatest threats to our country, our rights, and our vaginas, and yet one of the least understood. Because while I’m sure you have a picture in your head when I say “white Christian nationalist” – I’m guessing this guy? – there’s a lot more influence, history, and scary goals that lie below the surface of this Project 2025-shaped iceberg; ones that most people don’t even know about. And it’s not because people aren’t looking or don’t care – it’s because this movement is masterful in disguising itself as a fascist in a Christian’s clothing.

So I’m partnering with the People for the American Way to provide a thorough primer on Christian nationalism–specifically white Christian nationalism: what it is, what it isn’t, the history behind this movement, what motivates it and how they want our country to look.. Oh – and how you can stop them.

A. You Know It When You See It

Now, whether you realize it or not, you’ve definitely heard Christian nationalist talking points. They’re everywhere: on TV –

[new clip]

[CLIP – Robert Jeffress: “Law enforcement officers are ministers of God sent to punish evildoers.”

CLIP: Jason Whitlock: “I think a lot of what the left supports is satanic.” 

[CLIP – Rachel Campos-Duffy: “You either impose a Christian value or thate vacuum is filled by somebody else's values.”

On the Internet –

[CLIP – Vincent James: “As far as forcing people to believe what we believe, yes.”

[CLIP – Nick Fuentes: “I want a supreme leader totalitarian Christian dictator.”

[CLIP – Dennis Prager: “I would live in a state governed by Judeo-Christian values versus one governed by left-wing values.”

And even in our public institutions:

Gov. Kevin Stitt: “Father, we just claim Oklahoma for you, every square inch. We claim it for you in the name of Jesus.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis: “This society– the United States of America, you know, was built on the foundation of what happened thousands of years ago in the Holy Land.”

Gen. Michael Flynn: “So if we’re going to have one nation under God, which we must, we must have one religion.”

White Christian nationalism is ubiquitous in America, from high-ranking elected officials to evangelical interest groups to more extreme right-wing factions. And right now, all of those blocs are working toward a single goal: To force this extreme, unpopular ideology on the rest of America, whether we want it or not.

II. So what is white Christian nationalism?

You might wonder why I keep including the word “white”. And it’s not because I’m a reverse racist, whatever that means – It’s because this is a specific ideology that relies on a white identity, which supersedes everything else: both the Christian and the nationalist part.

And look, call me controversial, but I don’t like religious extremism of any sort. Any type of fanatical religious or ideological movement results in a push to take away others’ rights and control their way of life. That’s not good. But white Christian nationalism specifically is a unique and dangerous ideology that poses maybe the most dire threat to our country and our democracy right now.

A. Christian Nationalism Definition

But before we get into that, I should define plain old Christian nationalism.

The “Christian” part of the term refers to the religion of Christianity. And “nationalism” is an identity of loyalty to one’s nation-state – for example, America. This is often and especially to the detriment of foreign parties. Together, those ideas of Christianity and nationalism create a specific ideology.

Freedom Forum writer Scott A. Leadingham defines Christian nationalism as the “belief that the United States is a country defined by Christianity.” This includes ideas like:

• The government should protect and advocate for Christian values and pass laws that reflect those values or at least certain interpretations of them.
• Christian nationalists also believe that separation of church and state isn’t real and that God’s divine plan includes America’s success – well… Christian America’s success.

These talking points can be found in pretty much any denomination of Christianity, regardless of race.

To define white Christian nationalism, I’m going to cite a book that was a major source for this video: It’s called The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy. It’s written by sociology professors Philip Gorski and Samuel Perry, and it’s an extremely enlightening book.

Essentially, Gorski and Perry tried to follow the development of modern white Christian nationalism in the United States, partly to explain how we got from point A to January 6. In the first part of the book, the professors survey people to create a Christian nationalism scale, basically a way to see where Christian nationalism and whiteness intersect and amplify each other.

For example, at the start of this book, they show these two panels, with various scores on the Christian nationalism scale. The higher the factions score, the more they think the US is defined by Christianity. This one, Panel A, shows general Christian denominations like Presbyterian, Jehovah’s Witness, and Pentecostal. Pentecostal is at the top – the most Christian nationalist denomination – and the United Church of Christ is at the bottom.

This panel - Panel B - focuses on Ethno-Religious Traditions, a combination of religious and racial identity. These categories include white, Black, Hispanic, and Eastern Orthodox Christians. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that White Evangelicals scored highest on the scale. But it’s worth noting that Black conservative Protestants were the second highest category.

This demonstrates that some people of all races can embrace Christian nationalist ideas. Black conservative Protestants, for example, might think about how MLK Jr. used scripture to convince Christians to be better on ideas of racial justice. And it’s not a far leap to get from there to the idea that scripture should be in our government. But just like white southern Christians had a very different opinion than MLK Jr., recent research shows that Christian nationalism affects the political worldview of white Americans in a unique way.

Let’s go back to Gorski and Perry. Gorski and Perry asked various respondents basic questions about American political history, for example, did the Supreme Court stop students from praying in public schools?

But the results of these questions were staggering, especially when you see differences between white and black respondents. There is a huge disparity between the scores of secular white Americans and white Christian nationalists in terms of correctly answering these factual questions. Conversely, while there is an uptick the higher you get on the Christian nationalism scale as a Black American, it is much less different than for secular Black Americans. Basically, the higher you score as a white American, the less likely you are to know basic facts.

But this doesn’t apply to everything. When asked about universally accepted scientific concepts, white Christian nationalists scored the same as everyone else. It’s only when it came to hot-button culture war topics that the situation changed drastically.

Let’s take history, for instance. Less than 10% of white secular Americans opposed removing Confederate monuments. But look at the other end of the scale. Almost 100% of white Christian nationalist respondents went to bat for Robert E. Lee.

Just like Jesus would’ve wanted.

But this trend applies to a lot more than high school science and Civil War history. Take a look at this graph about COVID. These people at the top right corner, the highest part of the Christian nationalism scale? Their most trusted source on COVID was Donald Trump. And all the way down here? That’s the CDC, scientists, and medical professionals.

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering, “How can someone be grounded enough to understand atoms and lasers but also get your medical advice from Donald Trump? And why does this pattern seem to only apply to white Christian nationalists?” 

B. White Christian Nationalism Definition, part 1

Well first, we’ll need to define white Christian nationalism as an ideology.

White Christian nationalism is focused on the first word: white.

While Christian nationalism more broadly is centered on the idea that America is inherently Christian and should tout Christian values above all else, white Christian nationalism takes that already dicey idea to an even darker place.

Essentially, white Christian nationalists believe that yes, America is a Christian nation, but their vision of a Christian nation is rooted in white supremacy. And we’re not just talking about preachers and pastors saying stuff like this. People involved in the secular worlds like media and politics say this stuff all the time, but they usually use different words. Sometimes they’ll talk about defending “Judeo-Christian values” or protecting “Western civilization”, vague-ish ideas that are still palatable to a less-religious right-wing audience.

[new clip]

[CLIP – Josh Mandel: “...the United States of America – It was founded on Judeo-Christian values.”

CLIP - Will Cain: “We’re undercutting the values of Western Civilization, of free thought.”

[CLIP – Tucker Carlson: “It’s civilization-ending poison.”

And that might not sound so bad – I mean, they’re just standing for our beautiful, gleaming, well-endowed country. But in this context, “Judeo-Christian values” means “white”.

[CLIP –  Sebastian Gorka: “White is not a culture? You mean Western Civilization, the greatest civilization the world has ever seen, isn’t a culture because we’re white? That’s racism.”

C. Dog-whistles

These stand-in words (at least when they’re used  more subtly) are called “dog-whistles”. It’s like a physical dog-whistle: They emit a tone – or in this case meaning – that only certain people can understand. It’s meant to evoke a strong emotion from a seemingly innocuous phrase.

For example, conservatives love to refer to Barack Obama by his full name:

[CLIP – Barack Hussein Obama]

[CLIP – Barack Hussein Obama]

[CLIP – Barack Hussein Obama]

Now I know what you’re thinking: Kat, you’re such a snowflake. What’s wrong with using his middle name? It’s on his birth certificate. Supposedly.

Sure, but that’s not the point. These are people who constantly fear-monger about Muslims and by emphasizing Hussein, the name associated with an Iraqi dictator, they are trying to activate a fear response in your brain.

Similarly, you could get *gasp* canceled for saying the N-word on national television, or just brazen generalizations about the Black community. But if you replace Black with inner city, you can claim plausible deniability when you are rightfully called out for your racism.

[CLIP – Bill O’Reilly: This isn't, you know, the inner city; you would think that these kids would have some kind of a values system.]

This practice of obfuscation is central to all bigoted movements. Most people don’t want to admit their own biases, at least publicly. That’s why it’s so effective to sanitize racist opinions as “community concern” or hatred towards queer people as “protecting children” – or white supremacy, whether consciously or not, as Christian values.

D. Personal Views on Religion

Now, I don’t talk a lot about my own views on religion publicly but I do take it very seriously. My parents made a real effort to not force religion on my brother or myself. My father was raised in Muslim household in Lebanon and my mom’s family was Protestant. I went to Catholic school because there were a lot of great academic opportunities, but I was never pressured into any faith.

That being said, I found great comfort in Christianity growing  up. On my own accord, I read the Bible, I asked my parents to send me to a Christian summer camp every year, and I chose to get baptized when I was 18. Now, I more identify with values rather than a specific faith, but I do believe in things we can’t understand. And religion, interfaith displays, and the memory of daily chapel services as a kid still bring me comfort to this day.

I say all of this because I want to make clear that Christianity or religion are not inherently evil. They give a lot of a people a sense of strength and community and purpose. They spur many to think larger than themselves and help others. This is not a space to demonize or make fun of faith, even if you don’t believe in it.

But for the white Christian nationalists who are building power to reshape our country, religion acts as camouflage for the ideas underneath it.

E. White Christian Nationalism Definition, part 2

And the reason we know that is because, despite what you may have heard, the word “America” is not in the Bible. In fact, the entire faith centers around a Jewish guy who died in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. His ideas are still pretty popular – maybe you’ve heard of them – but they’re a lot more woke than Tucker Carlson would like.

That’s why white Christian nationalists had to create their own religious political identity, one more focused on bigotry than beatitudes. For these people, Christian is a key part of their sense of self. But so is white, and American. 

Ironically, it’s kind of similar to the idea of the Christian Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three separate entities that are also somehow one, each part equal to the other. So if a person’s worldview is simultaneously shaped around their race and their national identity, and then justified by religious devotion, it’s no mystery how all those become synonyms in that person’s mind.

White Christian nationalists seek to institutionalize their version of Christianity in our government. And for them, that faith is intrinsic to whiteness, and vice versa.

Gorski and Perry summarize this concept perfectly: It’s “not just religious nostalgia or even religious conservatism … Rather, it’s an acute strain of ethno-traditionalism in which ‘white’ and ‘Christian’ are conflated into a single identity: ‘white-Christian’.”

F. More Examples + Conclusion

It’s how we get results like this: If you’re white and a Christian nationalist, you’re more likely to think we need more guns in society, that voting is too accessible, and that Antifa was responsible for January 6. You’re probably a strong believer in free market capitalism and the Electoral College. And you most likely think white people suffer more discrimination than Black people.

In case you didn’t know, none of those ideas are in the Bible. Yeah, Jesus didn’t in fact say January 6 was a setup –

[clip] Roger Stone: On the morning of Jan. 6, I was in the shower… the Lord came to me in the shower. A voice clearly told me, ‘Do not go to the Capitol.’

And while Christian nationalists of all races typically believe in core ideals like the Constitution was divinely inspired, there is a direct correlation between believing right-wing misinformation and your identity as a Christian nationalist if you are a white American.

Once again, this is not about religion. It’s about far-right ideology and fascist goals: specifically, to take away freedoms from people who don’t “deserve them” – women, people of color,  LGBTQ people, non-Christians, the poor. The list is endless.

III. So how did we get here?

Well to be clear, Christian nationalism and white supremacy are not new ideas, especially in America. This country was originally founded by the blood of Native peoples and Black slaves. And Christianity has always been used as a justification for that domination.

Even before Jamestown, Christopher Columbus justified his genocide of Native tribes as an effort to spread Christianity… through a crusade… to bring about the apocalypse. Great normal guy.

But as far as the continental United States go, fascist predecessors have always usedChristianity as a tool for subjugation.

A. Brief Background

i. Early Settlers

Early English settlers, for instance, used the Bible as justification for colonizing native land. Specifically, Genesis 1:28 – “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the Earth, and subdue it.”

Now, their  motivation is debatable to say the least, but some missionaries did genuinely try to convert native tribes. For example, John Eliot spent years translating the Bible into Algonkian. These efforts were at best paternalistic, and far less common than outright aggression in the name of God.

The is actually how we got the Pocahontas story. Jamestown was ordered to Christianize all of the local natives and when that didn’t work, the London Company came in and slaughtered them instead. Pocahontas was actually a hostage, a bargaining chip to end the war.

ii. Slavery

Now, as Europeans began to colonize North America, they saw the Atlantic Slave Trade as necessary for their growth. I mean, how are you supposed to succeed without brutally enslaving people?

I should note that many Christians – especially in the North – were a large part of the abolitionist movement. But at the same time, many slave owners – especially in the South – used Christianity as an excuse for enslavement. They often cited scripture, particularly a story from the Old Testament, where Noah’s son Ham was condemned to perpetual servitude. Can you guess who Ham’s ancestors would be?

Some went even further. Georgia Bishop Stephen Elliott celebrated the fact that “millions … have been made to know their Savior through the means of African slavery!” Not only that, but this was the only way “semi-barbarous people” could learn obedience, perseverance, and self-control.

It’s like I’m reading a Florida textbook.

iii. Lost Cause

Now, during and after the Civil War, these concepts melded even more into white Christianity. Despite taking one of the most historic L’s of all time, white Confederates used Christianity to create an alternate reality of Southern victimhood. This is where we get the Lost Cause myth – the idea the Civil War was about states’ rights and not slavery.

One of the most crucial parts of Lost Cause ideology is the idea that the Old South – where white slave owners ruled over everyone else – will “rise again”. This was often compared to the resurrection of Christ and was such a common idea that historians refer to it as the Lost Cause religion. It’s described as marrying the ideas of Confederate heroism and Christian piety’; basically a prototype for today’s white Christian nationalism.

iv. Manifest Destiny

Now while some stayed in the South, clinging to dead dreams of national white domination, others went West, claiming the rest of the continent as their own under orders from God. This doctrine is called Manifest Destiny.

v. Civil Rights Era

But as post Civil War America grew in size and power, so did adherents of these racist philosophies. This is when we get the KKK, legal segregation, and rabid anti-communist movements, all of which used to opporess people of color, women, and the queer community.

But it was really during the Civil Rights Era when the right turned their affinity for Christian branding up to an eleven.

Many white Americans, especially in the South, were terrified of desegregation. But as it gained popularity across the country, it was becoming at least more frowned upon to be outwardly, aggressively racist. So just like slave-owners before and fanatical transphobes now, these people used Christianity as a way to excuse their bigotry, sanitizing their view that America is meant for white Christians.

I mean, you can’t get mad at someone for listening to God.

vi. Post-Segregation

This obviously didn’t work, but that didn’t stop racists from clinging to the rotting remains of a segregated America. In many places, church congregations were still whites-only and as public schools began to desegregate, many white people sent their children to private, religious schools – schools that could accept certain students and reject others. In some places, these white so-called “Christian Academies” were used as a reason to underfund public schools. Because of that, in other places, public schools were closed all together. 

Remember that for later.

I consider this the first true form of modern white Christian nationalism. As the government gave more freedoms to Black people, bigots had to use private religious institutions to skirt the law. This created countless exclusively white communities that were primarily characterized by their Christian affiliation.

vii. Moral Majority

But the reality is at the time, America was becoming more progressive and conservatives were losing control. Additionally, crazy left ideas like accessible reproductive health care, state recognition of gay people, and secularism in school were becoming norms across the country. And at a certain point, the federal government told private schools they could either keep their segregationist, racist policies, or their tax exempt status, but not both. Conservative white evangelicals saw this as an attack on their religious freedom and political control. That’s why in 1976, Baptist minister Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority.

To Falwell and friends, Jimmy Carter’s support of the Equal Rights Amendment and communist ideas like social welfare programs were a direct threat to their power. So they organized with members of the Christian right, especially in the South, to create an organization that could lobby for greater Christian rule in American politics.

To the Moral Majority, this meant attacking women’s rights and abortion, criminalizing homosexuality, and removing any limitations on increased military arms.

Because Jesus loves nukes.

This crescendoed in 1980, when the Moral Majority and other similar groups provided Ronald Reagan with the first significant united conservative Christian voting bloc, one that married the ideas of taking freedoms from others and a Christian-American identity.

To this day, what many know as the evangelical voting bloc is essential to right-winger who wants to win office. But they don’t need to be a pastor or even that religious. These candidates just need to commit to the views that group wants to hear in the technical name of God. It’s how a serial philanderer and legally-designated rapist who doesn’t know it’s called Second Corinthians can not only win the presidency but have his administration characterized like this:

[CLIP – Christopher Harris: I would argue that it's probably three of the greatest years since maybe Jesus walked the Earth with his ministry.

IV. But what is actually driving white Christian nationalists?

Well no group is a monolith and certain people will have higher priorities. But the most common thread between all of them is that this belief system is motivated by fear.

Fear of progress. Fear of divergence. Fear of a loss of power.

Because most of these people see rights as a zero sum game. There is a finite amount of freedom and if we give some of it to, say, women, then men will lose their own.

Most – if not all – conspiracy theories follow this exact same format. I mean you don’t blame anything on Jewish Space Lasers unless you are terrified of everything beyond your narrow worldview.

But along with a fear of losing power comes resentment. White Christian nationalists feel like this country belongs to them. And it makes them angry that they have share it and share the power with anyone else. So it’s very easy for people to gain political power by manipulating and  inflaming that fear and resentment.

A. Hypocrisy & Bullshit

Now first, I should first emphasize what white Christian nationalists don’t believe, what doesn’t motivate them. And that’s what millions of Christians would call actual Christian values.

Like I’ve said, the religion part of all this is inextricably tied to the race part. I’d bet a lot of money that if Jesus was alive today – a poor refugee who hung around derelicts and condemned rich people – many on the right would attack him for being woke.

In fact, some evangelical preachers say that when they preach Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, some people in their congregations have complained that they’re pushing liberal values.. 

But I do understand how all of this is hard to reconcile – these are two directly opposing ideas. But that’s why I want to stress how much far-right ideology relies on cognitive dissonance: the ability to hold two conflicting ideas in your head at the same time. 

For example:

Calling yourself a Christian while you rail against welfare programs. Defending “freedom” while you dismantle civil rights. Or spamming that one MLK quote while ignoring all the other stuff he said.

CLIP: Jesse Watters: “You don’t judge people by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

I’d go as far to say that hypocrisy is essential to fascism, especially when it comes to recruiting people for your cause that are uncomfortable with the more caustic rhetoric.

CLIP: Dennis Prager: “The left has made it impossible to save the n-word any longer. It’s a farce. It’s the only word you can’t say in the English language.” 

So that’s one of the main ways Christian nationalists justify their thinking.

On the other hand, some just change reality to fit their own belief system. This is how we get such aggressive rhetoric from a supposedly peaceful group: Because they’ve re-masculinized Jesus.

Basically, to justify violence and authoritarianism in the name of the Prince of Peace, the white Christian right has spent the last century retconning Jesus from a “neutered, limp-wristed Sky Fairy” – an actual quote from evangelical pastor Mark Driscoll – to an aggro, hypermasculine warrior, just like every big strong white American man.

This might sound weird but think about it: Religion is supposed to be a core part of your belief system. So what happens if you worship some pacifist soyboy who washes his buddies’ feet and doesn’t even own a gun? You very well may turn gay.

Now this type of testosteronic thinking directly translates to the IRL leadership white Christian nationalists want. They want a warrior, someone who will fight for them and against their perceived persecution. As Gorski and Perry write, “They want a fighter for Christians (read: people like us), not someone who fights like a Christian.”

This is how a guy like Trump can get so much support from conservative “Christians” while a guy like Pence… Well, you know…

[CLIP – Hang Mike Pence!]

B. Authoritarianism

1. Priorities

So now that we know how we got here, let’s talk about the real-life priorities of white Christian nationalists, as voters and in our government.

And number one on that list is authoritarianism.

This is the foundation for white Christian nationalism and the ultimate goal for the movement. It serves as the arbiter of everything else I will mention in this video. 

Clip: Nick Fuentes: “This is why you need fascism, okay.”

Authoritarianism is a system of governance that concentrates most of the power in a central figure at the expense of democracy, checks and balances, and civil liberties. It’s usually  characterized by a specific ideology that is forced on its citizens and requires total obedience and conformity to whatever the party in power demands.

Remember: These people want to force their ideology on you, whether you want it or not.

And it’s not limited to their religious affiliation. All of the ideas they’ve associated with Christianity and whiteness and America come with the sabotage of our democracy. Basically, it’s the world’s worst “Buy One, Get Ten Free” deal.

Now, fascism and authoritarianism are inherently rooted in a desire for a strongman, that warrior figure I mentioned before. And whether it’s white, roided up Jesus or Vladimir Putin shirtless on horseback, the vision is the same: We need an indomitable leader who will come in and enact a specific vision at any cost.

This is how authoritarian leaders get elected in the first place. Adolf Hitler – maybe the most infamous dictator of all time – preyed on Germans’ fear in the face of their financial ruin, and fanned the flames of existing racism to promise that he alone could deliver them. Mussolini did the same, specifically hitting on the importance of traditional values to activate a base that was apprehensive of an increasingly modernized world.

Now, most Christian nationalists are hesitant to endorse the vision of Hitler or Mussolini (at least publicly), but they frequently praise authoritarian leaders in power right now.

In fact, if you want to know what kind of country white Chistian nationalists have in mind, take a look at Victor Orban’s Hungary. He’s built an authoritarian, dissent-crushing, freedom-squelching regime on the basis of nationalist rhetoric, especially focused on anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBTQ ideas. 

America's white Christian nationalists love Orban. They love him so much they held a special edition of CPAC, the right wing activist conference, in Hungary.

Oh, and Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025, says Orban's Hungary is “the model” for what they want to do in America.

These men run brutal regimes and keep their power through aggressive, nationalist rhetoric and by using the state to squash dissent. And that’s because fear is always the tool of choice for authoritarianism.

And right now, White Christian nationalists are motivated by that same type of fear. They’re scared of losing a place of societal superiority, of having to accept coexistence with people unlike them rather than dominating with the government’s approval. To them, the liberal dream of a diverse, modern society means losing their own dream of a country where they alone hold the power.

So their solution is trying to cheat the system, to get someone in power who will overwrite the will of most Americans to enact God’s vision. And this isn’t some alarmist rhetoric from a crazy lib. They are telling us this every day:

[CLIP – Jesse Watters: “Anyone who gets things done in Washington has to be a dictator. Only the Nazis wanted a great country, I guess”

[CLIP – Ali Alexander: “We need a good authoritarian leader for like 10 years. It’s just a healthy, cathartic reset.”

[CLIP – Nick Fuentes: “We need to take control of the media or take control of the government and force the people to believe what we believe. Or force them to play by our rules. And reshape the society.”

2. Examples of Authoritarianism Throughout the Country

Unfortunately, this is not just rhetoric happening in the fringes. The white Christian nationalist push for authoritarianism is active and ongoing across the country. I mean, just three years ago, a bunch of these people tried to overturn the results of a democratic election in the name of God.

Thankfully, the attempted insurrection on January 6 failed. But many state and local governments – y’know, where some of the most consequential, enactable laws are passed? – aren’t as lucky.

Ron DeSantis is a textbook example of authoritarianism on the state level. His administration has spent the last five years trying to consolidate power wherever they can, appointing sympathetic cronies in key institutions and using the state to punish anyone who threatens his power, from private businesses to elected officials. And DeSantis portrays all this as a mission from God. 

[clip from “God made a fighter” ad]  Video Narrator: “God looked down on his planned paradise and said, I need a protector. So God made a fighter.”

Authoritarian Christian nationalism is flourishing at the local level as well, often flying beneath the national radar.

For example, in Colorado, a guy named Andrew Wommack has helped people from the church he runs take over the local school board. He’s also connected to the New Apostolic Reformation, an org whose whole mission is literally to “take dominion over every institution in society”. These people aren’t subtle:

[CLIP – Andrew Wommack: “This county ought to be totally dominated by believers.”

These people aren’t subtle.

C. Violence

1. Priorities

Now with every authoritarian movement comes physical violence. And white Christian nationalism is no different.

Research shows that people with white Christian nationalist views are a lot more likely to support political violence for their own gain than other Americans. In fact, the Religion News Service reported that Christian nationalists are about twice as likely to believe political violence may be justified to get the country back on track.

So it’s no surprise that white Christian nationalists frequently engage in overtly violent rhetoric.

A key part of this identity is self-victimization: White Christian nationalists, especially the men, believe they are the most oppressed people in society, constantly under fire from the liberals in power.

[CLIP – Tucker Carlson: “The FBI, as an organization, has joined in the hunt for Christians.”

[CLIP – Sean Duffy: “There is an issue and an affront and a war on Christians in America.”

[CLIP –  Charlie Kirk: “The war on white people continues.”

A big inspiration for this mindset is the Great Replacement Theory, a white nationalist conspiracy theory that has inspired many mass shooters and is now regularly espoused by Christian nationalists across the country.

I could make an entire separate video essay about the Great Replacement theory, but here’s the gist. Liberals are trying to replace white (and especially white Christian) Americans with immigrants. Well, Black and brown immigrants. Oh, and by the way, this is all being run by the Jews.

This theory has been popular in fringe right- wing circles especially for the last decade, but in 2021, Tucker Carlson made it mainstream:

[CLIP – Tucker Carlson: “The left and all the little gate keepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement,’ if you suggest the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World.. But they become hysterical because that’s what’s happening, actually. Let’s just say it. That’s true.”

He was rightfully condemned for this statement. But that didn’t matter. The floodgates were opened. After all, if the top cable news host in the country can say it … 

CLIP - Tucker Carlson: “The Great Replacement? That’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s their electoral strategy.”

CLIP - Tucker Carlson: “Remember the Great Replacement theory? It sounds more like a statistical fact.”

CLIP - Tucker Carlson: “They will change the electorate. Again, they say that. We’re not guessing.”

… why can’t our elected officials?

30:35 CLIP JD Vance: Joe Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country. 

CLIP: Ron Johnson - “Is it really that they want to remake the demographics of America to ensure that they stay in power forever?” 

CLIP: Dan Patrick - “This is trying to take over our country without firing a shot.”

So when you combine all of that fear with a religious devotion to certain ideas, white Christian nationalists are able to justify violence at any cost.

[CLIP – Lisa Boothe: “It feels like there's a battle between good versus evil, a spiritual battle that's being brewed in America.”

[CLIP – Jack Posobiec: “I'm a Christian, but I'm done turning the other cheek.”

[CLIP – Nick Fuentes: “Because we’re willing to die in the holy war, we will make them die in the holy war.”

Now imagine what happens when those people are in power.

2. Examples

It’s easy to simply write off these violent statements as political rhetoric. Or to think, “That could never happen in America!”

But it’s already reality.

White Christian nationalists have consistently used violence for their own gain throughout our history. The KKK burned crosses and lynched Black people in the name of their white Christian utopia. George Tiller, an abortion doctor, was murdered by an anti-abortion extremist who considered himself part of the “Army of God”. And that was in 2009. Some of the worst mass shootings in our country’s history are being committed in the name of white Christian nationalism.

Far-right actors want to characterize these as one-offs, individual acts of violence that have nothing to do with each other. But the Stop the Steal rally on January 6, that was in part organized by far-right evangelical groups. Some of their members were participants in the violence against Capitol Police. Others conducted prayers before and after breaching the Capitol, in many cases invoking biblical violence to justify the riot. Hell, the QAnon Shaman not only led prayer inside the Capitol, but has said he breached the doors at God’s behest.

Since then, violent rhetoric from the far right has ramped up, often calling for state-sanctioned violence once they get into power.

Clip: Dan Ball: “The mainstream media should be charged, the folks that made that call at the top, with treason to this nation.”

[CLIP – Tucker Carlson: “Leadership requires killing people. Sorry.”

CLIP - Josh Bernstein: “Give me liberty, or give you death. Signed, sealed, and f*** delivered.”

Believe them when they tell you who they are.

D. Educational Takeover

Priorities

Now if you’ve watched any Fox News in the last five years, you’ve probably heard a lot about our schools. Critical race theory, Drag Queen Story Hour, parental rights – these are now common talking points for the right.

And that’s because the authoritarian movement seeks to quash education.

Nazi Germany had their famous book burnings, the Soviet Union conducted mass exterminations of academics, and the Cultural Revolution in China hunted down teachers and the overeducated bourgeoisie. In all of these cases, schools were shuttered and curricula that benefited the regime, usually focused on a single political ideology or pseudoscience and eugenics, were installed instead.

I say this all the time, but authoritarianism is antithetical to the human condition. You might have noticed, but it never wins in the end. However, if you want to prolong your regime, you’ll have much better luck trying to mold young minds than change older ones.

Now, the right has accused liberals of Marxist indoctrination and getting rid of free speech in our schools. But it’s really the opposite.

College campuses, for instance, are seen as a hotbed for leftist brainwashing. The reality is just that kids are finally meeting new people and hearing new ideas; ideas and people that, say, Ron DeSantis would prefer didn’t exist.

In our K-12 education system, educators have been attacked as “groomers” for informing children that queer people exist. That’s just true. And pretending otherwise not only leaves students unprepared for the real world but also erases queer students and same-sex parents.

White Christian nationalists seek to control our educational system, because then they control an entire generation’s perceived reality; a reality that should be godly and patriotic and usher in a new age of conservative supremacy, rather than adapt to the current interconnected, diverse modern world.

And before you ask about the separation between church and state, that doesn’t matter to these people. They’ve said as much.

CLIP - Charlie Kirk: “There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication. It’s a fiction. It’s not in the Constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.

CLIP - Kayleigh McEnany: “Separation of church and state is found nowhere in our founding documents.” 

CLIP - Rachel Campos-Duffy: “I think that we have to get over this fantasy of neutrality in institutions and schools.” 

And all of this, of course, also applies to public schools.

CLIP – Joseph Backholm: Public schools are religious schools.

Let me say this again: White Christian nationalists desire a new educational reality, one that revolves around a Christian God and a white America.

This is the onus for far-right groups like Moms for Liberty, an extremist organization that advocates for more conservatism, less education, and zero vaccines in our schools. They are a large part of the right-wing push to take over school boards. Oh yeah? All of that drama about school board elections on your local news? Another non-coincidence.

CLIP – Charlie Kirk: It's more important to go run for your local school board than it is just to show up for another political rally.

CLIP – Franklin Graham: We need Christian men and women running especially for school boards all across this country.

CLIP – Steve Bannon: Are we going to start taking over school boards? Tiffany Justice: Absolutely, we’re gonna take over the school boards. But that's not enough. Once we replace the school boards, what we need to do is we need to have search firms that are conservative search firms that help us find new educational leaders. 

Examples

Whether it’s under the guise of teaching children godly values, protecting their innocence, or preserving parental rights, white Christian nationalists are currently degrading education across the country in the name of their ideology.

Oklahoma is basically a prototype for what these people would like to accomplish nationally. And that’s in large part thanks to this guy: Ryan Walters, the State’s Superintendent of Public Instruction. I should note Walters probably wouldn’t be in his position if he hadn’t been appointed Secretary of Education in 2020 by Gov. Stitt.

Now Walters, along with the help of other white Christian nationalists in the Oklahoma government, has made it his mission to take liberal indoctrination and critical race theory out of public schools… and replace them with a Christian God.

As of this year, Oklahoma public schools are required to incorporate the Bible lesson plans. This order was spearheaded by Walters – who also just requested $6 million to put Bibles in every classroom.

Walters has also surrounded himself with other far-right extremists. For example, he appointed the woman behind Libs of TikTok, an account which has inspired bomb threats and harassment campaigns to schools and children’s hospitals across the country, to Oklahoma’s library advisory committee.

Awesome fun facts about this: She doesn’t live in Oklahoma, advocates for book bans on a near-daily basis, and once posted a doctored video that caused Tulsa schools to be inundated with some of those aforementioned bomb threats.

Great stuff.

Of course, this type of political maneuvering is not unique to Oklahoma. In Florida, Ron DeSantis has essentially banned the word “gay” from the classroom, along with hundreds of books and comprehensive sex education. 

But ideally, these people would like to just get rid of public schools altogether.

White Christian nationalists – and Project 2025 – have repeatedly called to eliminate the Department of Education.

CLIP – Kennedy: There really shouldn’t be public schools.

CLIP – Rachel Campos-Duffy: We need a mass exodus from the public school system.

CLIP – Pete Hegseth: So, until you can get rid of the Federal Department of Education, which every Republican candidate should run on.

Some more enthusiastically than others.

CLIP – Matt Walsh: Kill the Department of Education. Kill it with fire. Burn it down. Dance around its ashes. Metaphorically, I mean.

Of course, right now, that’s not feasible, which is why the right has chosen to prioritize charter schools. These are institutions that receive public educational funding but are exempt from many of the requirements and qualifications that public schools have. This is what right-wingers are talking about when they say, “school choice”.

Despite the many scandals associated with charter schools, particularly a litany of corruption and financial crimes, the right has positioned “school choice” as one of their top priorities.

Until they can totally eliminate the DoE, they want the government to subsidize charter schools, where the regulations are few and the uncertified teachers are many. And a recent Supreme Court decision opened the door to a future of taxpayer-funded religious charters schools.

And that future is now in places like Oklahoma, where the state approved the first taxpayer funded religious charter school. And it’s true in Arizona, where a voucher program sent so much money to a megachurch’s unregulated school that the public schools around it had to shut down. 

Sound familiar? 

Make no mistake about it: If Christian nationalists get more power, this is the future of our educational system. 

E. Women’s Rights & Abortion

1. Priorities

Now it’s time to talk about the albatross hanging around the anti-choice movement’s neck right now: Abortion.

It’s no secret that the far-right doesn’t like women.

CLIP – Candace Owens: I think that virtually every societal ill that we are facing today is because of women.

From attacking “childless cat ladies” to insisting they stay with abusers to forcing them to carry their rapist’s baby – and that’s just Ohio Senator JD Vance.

For a while, a lot of conservative women could shrug off this rhetoric, especially if it didn’t directly affect them. But since Roe v Wade was overturned, abortion has been the largest electoral thorn in the far-right’s side.

Let me be very clear: Restricting abortion is unpopular. By a large margin. Women across parties disapprove of abortion bans. It is one of, if not the biggest issue, for women voters. And every electoral attempt to further restrict abortion has failed, even in red states.

But while plenty of right-wingers have railed against abortion in the past, the reason we are here, where women are bleeding out in ER bathrooms because doctors are too scared to treat them, is because of white Christian nationalism.

Until the late 70’s, evangelicals largely considered abortion a “Catholic” issue. Jerry Falwell, the founder of that group Moral Majority which we talked about before, didn’t even preach his first anti-abortion sermon until five years after Roe v Wade.” 

So, what changed? How did we get from there to describing abortion like this?

CLIP – Tucker Carlson: “You are promoting an ancient religious rite called human sacrifice.”

Remember when we talked about segregation and the Christian right? And when the government threatened to take tax-exempt status from Christian organizations if they kept being racist? 

Well, leaders in these extreme conservative movements didn’t like that. But they realized that pure racism was no longer enough motivation to recruit less-openly prejudiced voters to join their cause, so their solution was abortion.

This framing worked on three levels. Number one, “saving babies” is a hell of a rallying cry. Number two, the structure was inherently anti-government. And number three, controlling women’s bodies played into extreme evangelical ideas about women and social roles.

Because abortion is not just about abortion. It’s about controlling women’s bodies and women’s lives by taking away their privacy, forcing them into motherhood, and keeping them at home.

Now, banning abortion is a two-pronged approach. First off, you have to legally restrict healthcare. But second, you’re also trying to usher in a new age where your political beliefs are seen as the status quo. As one Project 2025 ally so eloquently said:

CLIP – Kristan Hawkins: We should make abortion unthinkable, but I'm over here going, well, it should also be unavailable too. It has to be both things.

It’s easy to underestimate the goals for this movement. But don’t.

Before I get into some of the ludicrous anti-choice goals white Christian nationalists have said on the record, let’s talk about some of the legislation that exists now.

Texas restricts abortion to six weeks after conception, before the vast majority of people even know they’re pregnant. But on top of that, the state has passed what is essentially an abortion bounty-hunting law. If you know someone who got an abortion, even across state lines, you can sue anyone who helped them for $10,000. And if you’re not successful, the defendant can’t recoup any of their legal costs This is a recipe for vigilante harassment against medical providers, women, and their loved ones.

Idaho also restricts abortion after six weeks. This left one woman bleeding out in an ER bathroom because doctors were too scared to treat her. Why? Because if they did, those could lose their medical license and be fined up to $20,000.

Judges have denied children abortion access because they’re not “mature enough” to make the decision. 13-year-olds are forced to give birth to their rapists’ babies. And women are dying preventable deaths because doctors are scared of prison time if they do their jobs. All in the name of God and the sanctity of life.

Speaking of life, these are the same people who are trying to ban IVF and describe gay couples using a surrogate like this:

CLIP – Candace Owens: It is a form of trafficking.

CLIP – Michael Knowles: Every single adult involved in this should be imprisoned for life.

If you found any of that scary, you should hear what else white Christian nationalists have planned: state surveillance of your menstrual cycle, federal laws to stop you from crossing state lines (if you have a vagina), and the death penalty for reproductive care, just to name a few.

In case it wasn’t obvious: White Christian nationalists seek to take away your freedoms.

And this is already happening right now in the United States to millions of American women.

And it could be expanded further into more states with even more extreme measures if white Christian nationalists get any more access to power.

F. LGBTQ Rights

But as the right has hemorrhaged voters thanks to the Christian nationalist crusade against abortion, it’s hoping to gain some of them back by another extreme authoritarian tactic: aggressively attacking the LGBTQ community, rhetorically, culturally, and legislatively.

Queer people are often forced to canaries in a proto-fascist coal mine, as authoritarians tend to target them first. And America is no different.

We have a history of this. The Lavender Scare was one of our first major state-sanctioned discrimination campaigns against queer people in the US. It worked in tandem with Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare, painting gay men and lesbians as national security risks. And as the gay liberation movement picked up in the 60’s and 70’s, especially after the Stonewall Riots, those conservative Christian groups I mentioned before, grew with it.

Singer Anita Bryant launched a campaign to “Save Our Children” – i.e., reinstate laws that discriminated against queer people. The AIDS crisis also ushered in a new age of homophobia. This was exacerbated by Ronald Reagan whose inaction, partly because he didn’t want to alienate his new white Evangelical voting bloc, led to at least 100,000 deaths from the disease. And throughout the years, mass shootings and hate crimes have occurred across the country in the name of homophobic and transphobic bigotry.

Things started to improve a bit in the early 2010’s, as decades of political organizing and changes worked their way into law. Gay marriage was legalized, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed, and it became more possible for LGBTQ people to live openly and honestly while serving in the government, military, and just about everywhere else.

But the backlash has never died. Lots of the same people who worked for years to overturn Roe v Wade now want the conservative Supreme Court to overturn its marriage equality ruling. In other words, they don’t just want gay books out of the libraries, they want to go back to a time when gay people couldn’t get married – or states could criminalize homosexuality. They know most Americans don’t agree with that agenda, that’s why they’ve focused on building their power by demonizing transgender people.

It’s an explicit political strategy – even if they do sometimes sound ridiculous:

CLIP – Matt Walsh: “The guy in a dress is a million times more objectionable than blackface.”

CLIP - Benny Johnson: “If you have red blood in your veins, then you do not buy a Bud Light product.”

CLIP – Candace Owens: “Do not shop at Target or else you're gay and you're a pervert.”

Queer people, particularly trans people, are being villainized on a daily basis by far-right politicians, media figures, and religious leaders. Doctors and teachers are accused of “grooming” children into changing their gender or being sexually active. States are trying to shut down private queer spaces like drag shows. And hate crimes against LGBTQ individuals skyrocketed in the last few years.

This unfortunately isn’t surprising, not when so many far-right figures talk about queer people like this:

CLIP – Michael Knowles: “Transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”

CLIP – Mollie Hemingway: “It's a social contagion right now that this is happening.”

CLIP – Greg Kelly: “It would seem that transgender is, potentially, more of a threat if applied recklessly than, say, white supremacy.”

LGBTQ people are being labeled as pedophiles, aberrations, affronts to God himself and his plans for the traditional family. Because that is what this is supposedly about: the traditional family. Translation? The specific type of family white Christian nationalists approve of.

CLIP – Rachel Campos-Duffy: “Dr. Levine is part of a cultural Marxist movement that wants to erase gender in order to destroy notions of the traditional family. They want to destroy it.”

Like everything else I’ve talked about, this anti-gay hysteria rising alongside authoritarianism is not a coincidence. They go hand-in-hand. And right now, we’re in the phase of normalizing this type of hate and bigotry.

By framing the issue around protecting children and loving your family – things every person cares about – you can make the oppression of a certain group sound like a societal good. And for the more die-hard allies, well… you can always just call trans people “demonic”.

But what this comes down to is an authoritarian regime using LGBTQ people as an Other, some scary unknown that is meant to distract their already-angry base from real issues. And the reason we know this is because this is not the first time queer people have been targeted at the start of a rising fascist movement.

Current authoritarian regimes target their queer populations specifically to consolidate their own power. Under Vladimir Putin, for instance, hostility against homosexuality in Russia has increased from 60% to 74% in the last 20 years.

Notably, hate crimes against queer people tripled in Russia after the implementation of the “Gay Propaganda Law”. This started as a ban on distributing “homosexual propaganda among minors” – y’know, to protect their innocence from the scary, scary gay people - but in 2022, Putin signed an amendment that banned propaganda of “non-traditional relationships” across the board, no matter your age.

Russia’s oppressive laws were passed in the name of “traditional family values” and “protecting children”, which not only gives white Christian nationalists a reason to ally with the country –

CLIP – Tucker Carlson: “Russia is an orthodox Christian country with traditional social values. And for that reason, it must be destroyed.”

– but also eerily mirrors the language of some of our own elected officials.

CLIP - Tim Scott: “There’s a war against the family.”

CLIP - Marco Rubio: “They indoctrinate children and try to turn boys into girls.” 

CLIP – Ron DeSantis: “We are going to do battle with anybody seeking to rob our children of their innocence.”

Think about that for a second. 

But just for a second – because in some places, it’s already happening.

2. Anti-LBGTQ Laws in Florida and Elsewhere

Most Americans are at least aware of Ron DeSantis’ War on Woke, especially his Don’t Say Gay bill. This bill was signed into Florida law in 2022 and prohibits “classroom discussion” or “instruction” of sexuality or gender in public schools. Originally, it started as kindergarten through 3rd grade, but DeSantis recently expanded it to include all K-12 grade levels.

I feel like we just talked about this. No, wrong country.

This law has loosened slightly after multiple lawsuits, but it’s just one of many extreme anti-LGBTQ laws that have passed under DeSantis. This includes banning gender-affirming care for minors, allowing insurers and providers to discriminate in patient care and hiring, and opening the door to remove race or gender studies from higher ed. Other states have followed suit, erasing queer existence from their educational system, banning gender affirming care, and ensuring anti-LGBTQ discrimination at both the state and local level.

Oh, and on the federal level, if white Christian nationalists get their way, workplace protections, health care access, and military service are on the immediate chopping block.

And so, to manufacture consent for these extremist policies, far-right pundits have been attacking the queer community on repeat, often calling for or directly inspiring violence.

Anti-LGBTQ posts from Libs of TikTok, which are often amplified by elected officials, have been linked to dozens of bomb threats and harassment campaigns against schools, libraries, and children’s hospitals.

Other Christian nationalist personalities have called for queer people, teachers, and doctors to be jailed –

CLIP – Michael Knowles: “Republicans need to wield the law to arrest these people. This is sick, sick stuff.”

CLIP – Greg Kelly: “People should be arrested for supporting Drag Time Story Hour.”

CLIP – Charlie Kirk: “These doctors need to be put in prison quickly.”

– or even executed.

CLIP – Charlie Kirk: “A Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.”

CLIP – Shawn Farash: “And if you come for their kids, they're probably going to exercise their Second Amendment rights.”

CLIP – Dave Rubin: “I might kill that person. That's where we're at?”

White Christian nationalists seek to take rights away from everyone they disapprove of. And right now, the homos top that list. But someone has to come next.

I cannot stress this enough: We have seen this happen before. And it never stops here.

So, think about what they want and if you can live under that. 

Because to white Christian nationalists, it is imperative that you conform to their narrow standards. This means following their interpretation of the Bible, espousing their political views, and acting, dressing, and living in a way that they approve of. Anything else deserves full and robust consequences.

So, tell me, can you do it?

G. Religious Discrimination

1. Priorities

Now everything we’ve talked about is being done and said in the name of Jesus Christ – even if it’s a version of Jesus that millions of Christians wouldn’t recognize. Nevertheless, these tenets are central to the white Christian nationalist agenda.

Authoritarianism is necessary to impose that white Christian values system. Violence is necessary because those same white Christians are somehow also an oppressed class.

We have to disassemble our education system, to convert an entire generation to a specific ideology.

We need to ban abortion to ensure that women stay in their God-assigned roles.

And we have to get rid of those evil LGBTQ ‘groomers,’ because otherwise they’re gonna nuke the nuclear family.

So, it shouldn’t be surprising that the last major tenet of white Christian nationalism that we’re going to discuss is religious discrimination. The most obvious way, of course, is villainization.

Villainization of Islam:

CLIP – Jesse Watters: “You have to admit there is a Muslim problem in the world.”

CLIP – Jeanine Pirro: “There is a reverse crusade in progress -- a Christian genocide.”

CLIP – Steve Deace: “Islam would gut Christian and Jew alike if it could, and has.”

Of Judaism:

CLIP – Charlie Kirk: “Jews have been some of the largest funders of cultural Marxist ideas and supporters of those ideas over the last 30 or 40 years.”

CLIP – Elijah Schaffer: “Talmudic Judaism is closer to witchcraft, in my opinion.”

CLIP – Rick Wiles: “I consider these Jews to be domestic enemies.”

Hinduism:

CLIP – Joel Webbon: “I don’t think that the forms or expressions of God’s judgment merely lie with Drag Queen Story Hour, but that they also include the fact that my neighborhood is 30% Hindu.”

Buddhism:[CLIP – Brit Hume: “He’s said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of redemption and forgiveness that’s offered by the Christian faith.”

Sikhism:

CLIP – Stew Peters: “She’s been exposed as a fake Christian who pimps Christianity for votes, while taking part in third-world Sikh rituals, because she’s an Indian.”

And, of course, people with no religion at all.

CLIP – Bill O’Reilly: “Do the atheists in Wisconsin realize they’re going to Hell?”

CLIP – Mario Murillo: “Your atheism isn’t going to stick. Your wokeism isn't going to stick.”

CLIP – Andrew Torba: “This is a Christian nation. Why do we have a bunch of atheists and pagans in power, and Satanists?”

Notice how all of those faiths are framed as inherently threatening to Christianity – especially Judaism. 

That’s because despite spamming the phrase “Judeo-Christian values” in public, much of the white Christian nationalist vision is built on antisemitism. Especially anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. These types of lies have existed for centuries, and historically have been used to justify racist massacres, state-sanctioned oppression, and the literal genocide of Jews.

In their current and most popular iteration, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories follow much of their predecessor’s outlines, just with new characters. Instead of running the banks and inspiring communists, Jews like George Soros control the TikTok algorithm, while also still running the banks and inspiring communists. 

Hey, if the racist conspiracy theory ain’t broke, why fix it? 

Oh, and by the way, white Christian nationalists have similarly vicious things to say about Christians who don’t accept their worldview – you know, the idea that they should control everything and have dominion over everybody. Liberals cucks. 

Now the final goal for all of this, for everything we’ve talked about, is simple: Force the entire country to follow a white Christian nationalist interpretation of the Christian faith. But they wouldn’t just cultivate white Christian nationalist beliefs – some of them want to explicitly enforce a white Christian nationalist theocracy where the rules are made by people like Charlie Kirk.

CLIP – Charlie Kirk: “The Civil Rights Act, let’s be clear, created a beast and that beast has now turned into an anti-white weapon.” 

There is a religious motive here, but as we’ve discussed throughout this video, it’s equally political. It’s about power – a white Christian nationalist theocracy would mean all of those cultural and legislative goals that we’ve discussed would be imposed at the same level as religion.

This is the endgame.

And we know this because they tell us.

CLIP – Ryan Helfenbein: “The idea that religion and politics do not mix is a lie the Devil came up with to keep Christians from running their own country.”

CLIP – Dalton Clodfelter: “I want to make sure everyone believes in what I believe in. Everyone needs to believe in Christianity.”

CLIP – Nick Fuentes: “What I want is a political revolution that puts Christians in the position to change the laws, and the laws will govern the conduct of public and private affairs. Like, it's that simple.”

Far-right voices have spent decades trying to implement religious requirements for our leaders and ban non-Christians from office. And they continue to do so now.

Not only that, but they’re getting more brazen about it. 

A powerful group of white Christian nationalists have now demanded that the next president only consider Supreme Court nominees that meet their “biblical worldview.” 

This is scary and it’s not hypothetical. standard. Because for all of its public flops and online cringe, the right is really good at one thing: its long game. 

And that has most clearly manifested in a little thing called Project 2025.

V. Project 2025 Vision

Written by the Heritage Foundation, an extremely conservative think tank, the Mandate for Leadership – also known as Project 2025 and the Presidential Transition Project – is a 900-page guidebook for how white Christian nationalists can easily implement their goals under a conservative president.

And that agenda is… batshit.

It paints a picture of a country run under a strict white Christian nationalist regime. It would jettison government services, target anyone who’s not a straight white Christian man, and sell any resulting power vacuums to the highest bidder.

But before we get into the specific policies in Project 2025, we need to talk about who's behind it.

A. Associations

Now, since Project 2025 became public knowledge, many high-ranking political figures have tried to publicly distance themselves from it. And I don’t blame them. Most Americans would rather let RFK Jr pet-sit than live under this nightmare for a single day. But if you look at the numbers, it’s hard to find distance between Project 2025 and the last conservative administration.

Of its almost 280 contributors, at least 140 of them worked in that administration. Nearly two-thirds of its authors and editors worked in it as well. And 25 of the 30 chapters were written by administration officials 

Not only that, but this isn’t even the Heritage Foundation’s first Mandate for Leadership. They’ve written one of these every election cycle since 1981. And that last conservative administration implemented 64% of their 2016 Mandate for Leadership policy recommendations within its first year. I mean, the Heritage Foundation’s own website brags that the administration’s policies and Supreme Court nominees were based on Heritage advice.

V. Project 2025 Vision

Written by the Heritage Foundation, an extremely conservative think tank, the Mandate for Leadership – also known as Project 2025 and the Presidential Transition Project – is a 900-page guidebook for how white Christian nationalists can easily implement their goals under a conservative president.

And that agenda is… batshit.

It paints a picture of a country run under a strict white Christian nationalist regime. It would jettison government services, target anyone who’s not a straight white Christian man, and sell any resulting power vacuums to the highest bidder.

But before we get into the specific policies in Project 2025, we need to talk about who's behind it.

A. Associations

Now, since Project 2025 became public knowledge, many high-ranking political figures have tried to publicly distance themselves from it. And I don’t blame them. Most Americans would rather let RFK Jr pet-sit than live under this nightmare for a single day. But if you look at the numbers, it’s hard to find distance between Project 2025 and the last conservative administration.

Of its almost 280 contributors, at least 140 of them worked in that administration. Nearly two-thirds of its authors and editors worked in it as well. And 25 of the 30 chapters were written by administration officials 

Not only that, but this isn’t even the Heritage Foundation’s first Mandate for Leadership. They’ve written one of these every election cycle since 1981. And that last conservative administration implemented 64% of their 2016 Mandate for Leadership policy recommendations within its first year. I mean, the Heritage Foundation’s own website brags that the administration’s policies and Supreme Court nominees were based on Heritage advice.

B. Project 2025 Goals

But no matter who the hypothetical, sympathetic conservative president could be, the content of Project 2025 can’t be ignored. The goals are clear: Take away freedoms, opportunities, and a safety net from anyone the Heritage Foundation deems unworthy. It’s a wish list for the country’s most extreme white Christian nationalists and a blueprint of how to make those fucked-up dreams come true.

First up, consolidating power in their strongman. Project 2025 calls for taking partisan control of the DOJ, FBI, FCC, FTC, and Department of Commerce, and eliminating their independence so they are directly under presidential control. Additionally, tens of thousands of civil servants would be reclassified as “at-will employees” and most likely fired. But don’t worry, they’ll be easy to replace with Project 2025’s personnel database, a digital library of pre-vetted loyal ideological warriors.

Under a Project 2025 government, state prosecutors could also face legal action from the federal government if they don’t prosecute offenses that the administration deems criminal. Right now, many on the right accuse Democratic states of not prosecuting enough people of color, especially for crimes like protesting, so in a Project 2025 world, the federal government can abuse their power to make sure that happens. Oh, and on top of that, the DOJ would use “the full force of federal prosecutorial resources” to prosecute any institution – public or private – for participating in diversity initiatives.

I’m glad they have their priorities straight. 

When it comes to education, Project 2025 proposes eliminating the DoE, elevating school choice (i.e. charter or religious schools), and cutting services for low-income students like free school meals, the Head Start program, and federal funds meant for impoverished families. Teachers’ unions would also be eliminated and anything the right deems critical race theory would be banned from classrooms.

Project 2025 also praises the Dobbs decision, calling it “just the beginning”. It aims to ban abortion pills, erase the phrase “reproductive health” from anywhere in the government, and force states to report every unsuccessful pregnancy to the HHS. The Comstock Act of 1873 would get a reboot, and any sender or recipient of anything that could be used for an abortion could be criminally prosecuted. 

To confront “radical gender ideology”, Project 2025 proposes rescinding any regulations preventing discrimination against sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, or sex characteristics. This could also include cisgender women, by the way. Additionally, anything related to gender or sexual identity would be removed from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, and piece of legislation that exists”. Trans kids would have pretty no access to gender-affirming care and while the Heritage Foundation was at least smart enough to not exclusively commit to Christianity in writing, Project 2025 does call “religious devotion and spirituality the greatest sources of happiness around the world.”

More than that, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts gives a remarkably limited definition of freedom in his introduction to Project 2025. Here’s what he wrote: “When the Founders spoke of ‘pursuit of Happiness,’ what they meant might be understood today as in essence ‘pursuit of Blessedness.’ That is, an individual must be free to live as his Creator ordained—to flourish. Our Constitution grants each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought.” In other words, in a Project 2025 country, you only have the freedom to live according to the Heritage Foundation’s interpretation of the Bible.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Like I said, it’s a 900-page document. There’s a lot of insane shit in here. Banning pornography, getting rid of free weather reports, a federal God-ordained Sabbath rest. 

Look, I’m all for days off, but not because God gave them to us. Unions did. 

Immigration would be attacked from every angle. Healthcare would be gutted. And any progress made in the fight against climate change would be rolled back and worsened tenfold.

If a president adopted just 64% of these policies again, things will get very bad, very fast.

These people learned their lesson after 2020 and they want one more shot to make their fascist hellscape a reality. They’re planning to make it count by dismantling every part of our democracy as fast as possible. This is the only way they can get their white Christian nationalist vision.

VI. Conclusion

I know this is all pretty scary. I don’t like thinking about it. But ignoring the reality – the rhetoric from the far-right, the goals in Project 2025, the promises made by some of the most extreme people in our government – only helps them.

This all falls apart under scrutiny. It turns out, most Americans don’t want to live in an authoritarian theocracy where only certain people get rights. That’s why people on the far-right are publicly distancing themselves from Project 2025.

But I have good news: This hasn’t happened yet. Most Americans don’t want to live in a Project 2025 reality, and we have time to make sure we don’t.

The most important thing you can do this election cycle is vote. I know you’re sick of hearing it. I am too. But it’s true. 

Read up on the candidates, decide whose vision you want to see, and cast your vote for that person. And not just for the president, either. Even though the Heritage Foundation wants to take over the country from the top down, your state and local elections matter just as much. 

Also, talk to the people in your life. Ask them if they’re registered to vote. Make a plan for election day. And if they aren’t aware of what’s at stake, tell them. Make it very clear that these are not hypotheticals. 

Parts of this white Christian nationalist plan have been enacted at the state and local level. We cannot let it spread any further. And we definitely cannot let white Christian nationalists take control of the entire country. 

And as daunting as it may seem, it’s truly up to all of us to make sure that reality doesn’t happen.

To learn more about the dangers of white Christian nationalism, consult these additional resources:

Documentaries: 

• “Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy” 2024 

• “God and Country” 2024

   

Podcasts:

• “What is White Christian Nationalism,” Jemar Tisby
• Christians Against Christian Nationalism podcasts and discussion guides 
• “Straight White American Jesus,” a podcast on religion and politics hosted by Daniel Miller and Bradley Onishi. 

• Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish studies: Christian nationalism podcasts with Matthew Taylor.

   

Books: 

• “The Violent Take it By Force: The Christian Movement that is Threatening Our Democracy,” Matthew Taylor, 2024
• “Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism--and What Comes Next,” Bradley Onishi, 2023
• “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: and the Path to a Shared American Future,” Robert P. Jones 2023
• “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism,” Tim Alberta, 2023
• “The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy,” Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, 2022
• “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism,” by Katherine Stewart, 2022
• “White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America,” Anthea Buter, 2021