Dropping the mask

Don't be taken by surprise. All the signs are there.

I’ve been a little quieter on here because I’ve been trying valiantly to wrap up the next book. It’s getting closer, but I’m finding myself torn between digging deep into historical sources and tracking what is unfolding on a daily, hourly basis around me. This morning, I decided to set aside my chapter for a bit to share what I’m seeing.

Last week, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, chair of Project 2025 (the right-wing manifesto for dismantling the government as we know it), responded to SCOTUS’s decision on presidential immunity by assuring the Right that they were winning and sending a chilling warning to everybody else: “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

You may remember that I first introduced Project 2025 back in March in a rather ominous post, Thickening Webs on the Christian Right. Back then, I was concerned not only with the agenda of Project 2025, but also with the disturbing alignment I was seeing among dozens of institutions and organizations backing the project.

Project 2025 is now getting mainstream media coverage. For a quick synopsis, here’s John Oliver. (Content warning: This overview went viral but Oliver can be crass and if that isn’t your thing, read this instead.)

While Trump has recently tried to distance himself from the project in light of growing alarm over its contents, the list of the Project’s authors is a who’s who of former Trump officials. When they sell it as the plan for the next Trump administration, there’s good reason to believe them.

Speaking of Kevin Roberts, over in Oklahoma, we have the state social studies standards being overhauled by a committee including Roberts, David Barton, Steve Deace, and Dennis Prager. “Anti-intellectualism” doesn’t even begin to describe this. We aren’t talking about a Right-wing perspective on history, we’re talking pure fabrication. For a sense of things, check out Warren Throckmorton’s podcast on Barton that I recommended in my last newsletter.

And then, over at NatCon, we have Josh Hawley embracing the term “Christian nationalism”: "Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian Nation. So I am. And some will say that I am advocating Christian Nationalism. And so I do." You can listen to the speech in its entirety to see what he means by that.

Also at NatCon, we have an Al Mohler/Doug Wilson bromance where the two agree on the need to “maximalize the Christian commitment of the state.” This language isn’t surprising from Wilson, who has deep roots in Christian Reconstructionist teachings, and I wish it were surprising from a Baptist leader like Al Mohler. I’m old enough to remember when Baptists championed religious liberty and the separation of church and state.

In Jesus and John Wayne, I wrote about what Doug Wilson teaches us about shifting alliances within American evangelicalism. He was once a marginal figure, and proudly so. His views were extreme:

“If a wife was not properly submissive, it was a husband’s duty to correct her. For instance if dirty dishes lingered in the sink, he must immediately sit her down and remind her of her duty; if she rebelled, he was to call the elders of the church to intervene. In terms of child-rearing, ‘discipline must be painful.’ God required the infliction of pain on those dear to us. Homosexuality must be suppressed, not excluding the possibility of the death penalty, though banishment was also an option. Wilson endorsed the concept of ‘Biblical hatred,’ a form of militant masculine faithfulness exhibited by one of his heroes of the faith, Scottish minister John Knox.”

On the issue of slavery, Wilson “questioned the supposed ‘brutalities, immoralities, and cruelties’ of slavery. The slave trade might have been unbiblical, he allowed, but slavery most certainly was not. To the contrary, the radical abolitionists were the ones ‘driven by a zealous hatred of the Word of God.”

And yet, platforms like Christianity Today and figures like John Piper smoothed Wilson’s path into respectable circles. (Piper praised his “unflinching, unashamed commitment to the Bible” and assured people that Doug was definitely not a racist.)

In Jesus and John Wayne, I reflected on what unites men like Piper, Wilson, Mohler, and Driscoll. In a word: Power.

United in their concern about gender and authority, conservative evangelical men knit together an expanding network of institutions, organizations, and alliances that amplified their voices and enhanced their power…Through this expanding network, ‘respectable’ evangelical leaders and organizations gave cover to their ‘brothers in the gospel’ who were promoting more extreme expressions of patriarchy, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish margins from mainstream.”

Then and now, these expressions of patriarchy go hand in hand with Christian nationalism.

Over time, the margins have become the mainstream. Many “moderate” leaders who thought firebrands like Wilson could be of use to their conservative agenda are now learning what that means.

We are seeing this play out all over the country. Recently, I featured a story on Matt Warner’s dismissal from Grace College. The man who started the smear campaign against Matt that led directly to his firing came out this week as an unashamed Holocaust denier.

In the past week we also have Stephen Wolfe, author of a book promoting Christian nationalism published by Wilson’s Canon Press, praising the virtues of “unhyphenated Americans.” When I pointed out resonances with the KKK’s defense of “100 percent Americanism,” Wolfe gleefully agreed. (His brigade of “based” supporters might not all be familiar with the KKK use of that phrase, but there is no doubt Wolfe is.)

There is apparently no need for hoods anymore.

That’s what’s changed. These ideas aren’t new, but the tone and tenor of rhetoric has shifted perceptably in the past few months, even weeks. Growing numbers of Christians are not even trying to hide their nativism, misogyny, anti-semitism, and authoritarianism.

And where are the moderate voices? Where are the principled conservative leaders, organizations, and institutions? Where are individual conservative Christians digging in their heels, defending our Constitutional government, religious liberty for all, and democratic pluralism?

They are few and far between.

All of this should be cause for alarm, even if you aren’t looking at the poll numbers.

It is not at all clear whether the Democratic party is up to the challenge our country is facing. Which means it’s up to us.

Recently, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen, issued a challenge: “One of the things that autocrats specialize in is doing what seemed unthinkable…When I did my research for my book, I didn’t realize how common it was that people were taken by surprise. Even when all the signs were there”

But it’s not too late, Ruth says: “We have a chance to turn this around before it starts….Not all autocrats talk about violence with such gusto as Donald Trump….This is an extraordinary dangerous person who now has unlimited power….We have to do everything possible to inform people of the outcomes that are possible.”

The easy thing to do right now is to despair, but “To lose hope is to give up on yourself and on your fellow Americans.”

Another temptation is apathy, thinking that someone else will take care of things. But there is no hero coming to save the day. It really is up to us—to all of us.

I’ll leave you with Ruth’s words: “We don’t have much time, but one of my mantras is ‘Never underestimate the American people.’”