Christian Nationalism is the Biggest Threat to Democracy and Human Rights in the US
The SCOTUS has struck down Roe v. Wade, a regression of women's rights in the US by five decades and a major win for American Christian nationalists
Photo by Mike Theiler/Reuters
In the aftermath of the US Capitol attack, a direct assault against democracy in the United States, several publications and commentators, from CNN and The View to The Guardian, have pointed out to the role of white supremacy in the insurrection. Attention must also be paid to a more normalised and mainstream far-right ideology in American politics today, Christian nationalism.
Without getting into the legal debates about Roe v. Wade, understanding the influence and danger of Christian nationalism in American politics is important for a full comprehension of the related political context that led to a regression by five decades of women's rights with the decision of the Supreme Court to overturn the constitutional protections of abortion rights, and it's also important in order to make sense of the other major attacks against democracy and against minorities in the United States.
The role of this ideology in the US is far bigger than in Canada, most of Western Europe, Australia, or New Zealand, and it presents a clear threat to basic liberal values in the country. This major threat can be seen in many horrifying official positions and actions by the Republican Party and statements from highly influential figures in the American religious right about women's rights, minorities, and democracy. If the left, secularists, and anyone who cares about democracy don't tackle this issue with the urgency that it deserves, then a dystopian future in the United States might be closer than what many people think.
Religion is a major force behind the support of the former US President who openly attacks democracy
The most religious evangelicals were the biggest supporters in the 2016 presidential elections of a future President directly calling for a total and complete shutdown of the country's borders to Muslims, and building a wall in the US-Mexico border while claiming that Mexico will pay for it. Before, during, and after his presidency, Donald Trump has repeatedly endorsed and promoted baseless conspiracy theories including questioning Obama's birth certificate, which is a conspiracy claiming that the first Black President in the history of the United States was ineligible to be president by falsely asserting that he was not born citizen of the Unites States. Trump has also promoted conspiracy theories about science and public health, from climate change and vaccines to his catastrophic management of the COVID-19 pandemic which combined conspiracies and lies, and led some of the world's most prestigious scientific and medical journals to endorse Joe Biden against him, an unprecedented move for the first time in their history, in addition to eighty-one Nobel laureates in science endorsing Biden as well.
Trump's conspiracy theories haven't stopped at racially charged attacks and unfounded statements against science. He continues to deny the results of America's most secure election in history as his own officials agree, and claims to be the legitimate winner in a clear attack against American democracy. He also incited the inserruction of the US Capitol, and his complicity has been further confimed recently by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Research shows a positive correlation between religiosity and conpiracy theory endorsement. QAnon conspiracy theory, which was instrumental in the US Capitol attack, has been attractive to White evangelicals in the US like many other conspiracy theories including the ones that Donald Trump has promoted. The attacks against American democracy are just one of the many conspiracy theories that Christian nationalists find appealing and constantly use to undermine liberal democracy in the United States, as well as America's position in the world.
Even outside QAnon and the most extremist echo chambers, Donald Trump is not a fringe figure. Polls continue to show that a majority of Republicans still believe Trump's claims about the elections and don't see Joe Biden as a legitimate President, which makes such anti-democratic views far from limited to just the most extremists within the party. Only 10 House Republicans voted to impeach Trump for his role in the insurrection, no more than 7 Republican Senators voted to convict him, and Republicans in Texas, the largest conservative state in the United States, formally support Trump's false claims about the elections. The conspiracies and the extremism are now mainstream.
Christian nationalists have declarded war against women's bodily autonomy
Donald Trump, who calls himself the "most pro-life President in American history," has reguarly instrumentalised religious feelings to energise support for himself, and he was the first sitting US President in history to attend the March for Life rally. Had he lost the presidential elections in 2016, when his biggest supporters were regular churchgoer evangelicals, the SCOTUS wouldn't have overturned Roe v. Wade by the time you're reading this.
With the overturning of consitutional protections of abortion rights, the US joins a dark list of only three other countries that have restricted abortion rights since 1994. More than fifty countries around the world have taken a more liberal approach to the issue over the same period. These three countries are Poland, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. All of them are suffering from a democratic decline. Poland recorded the fastest decline in democracy across the 29 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia in 2021, and this year, it continues its decline for an eight consecutive year reaching its lowest recorded level. El Salvador and Nicaragua, on the other hand, have the most draconian abortion laws in the world by making abortion illegal even when the mother's life is at risk. In other words, doctors have to watch pregnant women dying and do nothing about it. One month ago in El Salvador, a woman was sentenced to 30 years in prison for homicide after miscarriage. Abortion law there wasn't always as bad as it is today, it changed during the same period of the rise of evangelicalism in El Salvador due to the influence of proselytising campaigns of US Protestant churches. Evangelicals are in fact even more anti-abortion than Catholics throughout Latin America.
As long as the Republicans continue to embolden Christian nationalists while they remain a major party in US politics, Americans should not be too optimitistic about the future path of their country. Many thought that Roe v. Wade is secured and the feminists warning that women's rights might regress by five decades were exaggerating, the fear was totally rational and the SCOTUS overturned Roe. Extremist laws against abortion in conservative states might be coming and might affect millions of women, and there are already plans to stop pregnant women in red states from getting an abortion in liberal states even when they can afford it. It's worth remembering that laws against abortion don't stop abortion and instead can kill women because of unsafe abortions. For some Christian nationalists, targeting abortion is not enough, they're targeting birth control as well, and when Justice Thomas argues that the SCOTUS should reconsider contraception, it seems that things might take an even more extremist turn.
Fundamentalists hate gay and trans people and they're not hiding it
The Republican Party's platform in Texas calls homosexuality an "abnormal lifestyle choice," and they're transforming their views into action. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he'd defend a sodomy law in Texas if the SCOTUS revisits its ruling that made criminalising homosexuality unconstitutional in the United States. And Justice Thomas argues that the decision should be revisited. The United States waited until 2003 to decriminalise homosexuality following the arrest of an "interracial" gay couple in Texas, and the decriminalisation occured thanks to the SCOTUS. The year 2003 is significantly later than dozens of countries around the world that had already decriminalised homosexuality by then, it's even centuries later than some countries, which makes conservatives in the US an extremist case compared to the mainstream right-wing in most of the Western world because of the influence of Christian nationalism in the United States. Louisiana, a red state, also voted in favor of perserving its unconstitutional sodomy law. American Christian fundamentalist efforts in criminalising homosexuality have extended beyond the borders of the United States, with US evangelicals playing an important role in the anti-gay movement in Uganda, and the movement there ended up so extreme to the degree of trying to make homosexuality legally punishable by death.
Gay people are not the only target of extremist Christians. There are also attempts to criminalise even age-appropriate drag shows for children which could de facto result in banning drag queens, crossdressers, and many trans individuals from the public view. Additionally, there are attempts to criminalise care for trans kids regardless of whether it's evidence-based, and some major Christian nationalist voices are supporting banning medical transitioning for adults as well. From "Don't Say Gay" to anti-trans legislation, this year is set to break records with hundreds of anti-LGBTIQ bill accross the United States. There are also efforts to normalise calling gay and trans people "groomers," which seems to be a projection considering the horrendous numbers of child sexual abuse in religious institutions.
Christian nationalism is making extremism mainstream in American politics
White supremacy is the biggest threat of domestic terrorism in the United States, and contrary to populist claims, racial issues are a bigger concern for Trump's supporters than economic anxiety. However, when it comes to politicians and open white supremacy, not many would say anything that's directly white supremacist and racists often prefer hiding behind dog whistles. Racism is rightly very stigmatised in the United States, while religious fundamentalism on the other hand, and specifically Christian nationalism, is mainstream. Politicians don't even have to bother pretending that they're separating religion from politics, and Republicans in Congress directly attack the separation of church and state.
Christian nationalism has long been used in the United States to support and justify racist policies or actions, from slavery to the KKK to Jim Crow. It is not a total coincidence that racism is widespread in the Bible Belt, and many can remember the disturbing imagery of Donald Trump holding the Bible while threatening military force during protests against police brutality and racism in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. Christian nationalism takes the white supremacy on the fringes of American politics today and brings it into the mainstream.
Terrorism was also used by fundamentalists to oppose abortion rights in the United States. Since Roe, 11 murders, 26 attempted murders, 4 kidnapping, 42 bombings, and 667 bomb threats alongside hundreds of other threats and attacks and thousands of harassment campaigns happened in the name of "pro-life." And Christian nationalism played a major role in the anti-democratic violent insurrection of the US Capitol.
The Christian nationalist vision of the United States is a country where women die from anti-abortion laws, homosexuality is a crime, and democracy is attacked whenever a non-conservative politician wins the presidential elections. A country that looks far different from most of the developed liberal democracies in the West and looks closer to the the countries that the US lectures about democracy and human rights. This vision is not on the fringes of American politics but is actually a mainstream view of the Republican Party. It's time for secularists to step up. Non-religious people are among the most left-leaning demographic groups in the US, their number is significant and continues to rise. The extremist views of Christian nationalists are by no means supported by a majority of Americans, but this doesn't matter when they continue to inflitrate American institutions. If they can undo five decades of progress in human rights, then secularists can undo all the damage and push for further progress with the right strategies. As a start, it must be fully recognised that Christian nationalism presents the biggest threat to democracy and human rights in the US, and fighting against it is an urgent priority before it gets too late.