This is the land that made Barry Goldwater the GOP nominee for president in 1964. My church and hometown were those of Richard Nixon’s. This is the place where Ronald Reagan’s political career was cultivated. Our airport in Orange County is called John Wayne Airport. He was a deeply conservative figure who was invested in campaigns for Reagan and others.
And now Orange County has changed. It’s no longer a Republican stronghold.
It went for Hillary Clinton in 2016, the first time it voted for a Democrat since the Great Depression. There are many people of color, especially Asian Americans. And yet the white Christian nationalists have become even more extreme. It is now a battleground politically, in ways it hasn’t been for a long time.
You write about a connection between evangelical purity culture, which promoted an abstinence-until-marriage ethic, and white Christian nationalism. Explain the connection.
White Christian nationalism envisions the American body politic as straight, white, Christian, born in the U.S. and abiding by patriarchal norms. Purity culture, which manifested itself in the 1980s and 1990s, encouraged teenagers to be celibate before marriage. It also told teenagers that following God’s plan for sexuality and playing the role God has given you in terms of gender would renew the nation. It would save America from ruin and from sin. Creating the right kind of teenaged bodies would create the right kind of America. For me, the desire for white Christian nationalism was thrust upon the bodies of white teenagers.
You argue that the Jan. 6 insurrection is just a foretaste of what’s to come, and use some interesting comparisons to examine it. What are they?
It’s easy to conclude that, since we have not had a similar event in the two years, we’re in the clear. But events like Jan. 6 can turn into a battle cry for victory. The Confederate argument for the Lost Cause and Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch are both seeming defeats that only strengthened movements based on a conception of the nation being stabbed in the back by elites and invaders. To me, if we don’t adjudicate and hold responsible those who incited (the events of Jan. 6), we are in danger of allowing it to become something that encourages further violence. The Big Lie has not evaporated. It’s only gained traction. To me, that’s quite frightening.
You write that as many as 50 of your church friends have now left Southern California for what’s sometimes called the American Redoubt. Why?
As we speak today, I think I could find 100 church people or high school friends. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, as well as parts of Washington and Oregon, are a refuge for Christians who hold traditional values on family, gender, guns, religious liberty. This part of the country is more than 90% white.
The goal of many people in the American Redoubt is to prepare for the next civil war and to rebuild this country in their own image, which is theocratic. There are counties in Idaho where far right extremists have made inroads. It’s not a matter of “Why do we have LGBTQ books in the library?” People are asking, “Why do we have a library?” That’s an indication of how far rightward some of the politics have crept.
This article originally appeared here.
