Okay, I agree with you. Someone who says his/her goal is to make America a theocracy, with a real state religion, and penalties for those who oppose it – we have to fight such people tooth and nail. And we might even have to ally with people on the Left in such a fight.
But, as you say, such people are a small minority. I haven’t done any research on just how small … that needs doing. But I would guess that in number they’re probably like another nasty bunch, the outright neo-Nazis and such. They’re there, but not in large numbers.
And here’s the problem: just as the Left does its best to conflate actual racist white supremacist anti-Semite neo-Nazis and allied groups with conservatives … so also do they do their best to conflate genuine theocrats with naive Christians who use the term ‘Christian nationalist’ to describe themselves, but who are not theocrats.
And, of course, there are some overlaps in both cases … part of our political struggle is to win naive conservative leaning people away from the neo-Nazis and theocrats. (Yes, people with decent conservative instincts can be influenced by indecent people, if the latter are organized and active and seem to present a coherent worldview. I’ve seen this among young workingclass ‘red-pllled’ males. The genuine conservative movement is hopeless at organizing, unfortunately. Most conservatives just sit back and watch their country being destroyed from within … at most the vote Republican or post the occasional anti-socialist ‘witness’ on line. Too bad.
Why do I think that there are a lot of people who call themselves ‘Christian Nationalists’, but who are in fact just naive conservatives, and therefore people we can have some influence among, convincing them that this is a bad phrase to use in describing themselves?
Because I’ve been in touch with one. We were both members of a now-defunct organization called the ‘Civilian Defense Force’. I believe she is typical of many rank-and-file conservatives … not politically sophisticated, but good instincts and a good patriot.
She lives in Pennsylvania and when Doug Mastriano decided to run for governor, and called himself a “Christian nationalist”, she decided to as well. I have argued with her about why it’s such a bad idea. My last exchange with her was before the election, when the Republican Christian Nationalist was creamed by the secular liberal, just as I predicted he would be. I’m going to take up the argument again soon.
But here’s the point: she is not a theocrat. She doesn’t even attend church. She knows I’m an atheist and that doesn’t matter a bit to her.
Yes, 1 is not a valid sample size, and the sample may be biased. But I believe that she in fact represents a significant number of rank and file conservatives. They are for ‘American first’, love their nation, so don’t see anything wrong with calling themselves ‘nationalists’.
They are Christians, resent the sneering attitude of superiority that many non-religious Lefties take towards them (‘deplorables’),
know that their Christianity is benign … and so describe themselves as ‘Christians’. ‘Christian Nationalist’ is just the association of those two terms, each harmless in itself.
Of is it? It certainly gives the genuine theocrats an opening, to fill that term with their own content.
What we need to do is to patiently explain to people who might call themselves ‘Christian Nationalists’ why the use of this term is a gift to the Left. What matters is not what they think it means, or even what it might ‘objectively’ mean, but what it will be taken by most Americans to mean.
Calling yourself a ‘Christian Nationalist’ helps the Left to destroy America. That’s the only thing that matters.
