Speak Now with Columnist Maddie Raymond: A look at white supremacy culture

Published: 1/12/2022

This last month has been hard for me. Even before I was rejected from my top college, and my mom tested positive for COVID-19 two days later, I was cracking under the weight of immense pressure, feeling the need to rest my body but at the same time fear that I wasn’t doing enough. I wasn’t searching up and applying for enough scholarships to make sure my parents could afford my education next year, wasn’t studying enough for AP physics (my hardest class) or putting in enough hours at my job. I was, and still am, exhausted, but I felt the need to keep going.

Sitting here in my room alone, reeling from the one-two punch that was the last week of my life, I wonder if I’m even qualified to write about rest. If I’m even qualified to tell you all that my inability to rest without guilt (and the one you likely have too) is a product of white supremacy culture. The culture that we all live in, which values quantity over quality and working through the pain. As usual, it is the system we live in that is at fault — the system us white people enforced on the world through colonial violence.

TemaOkun explains to us that the society we live in, the one that values perfection and black-and-white thinking, the one that hoards power and pushes us to work with urgency hanging over our heads, is but one way to live (white supremacy culture). It is the way formulated by the Dutch, the English, the colonizers that spread all over the world and coalesced their cultures into one they called whiteness in order to lord over everyone else. And the simple fact is, it hurts us all. Even us white people, though we simultaneously benefit from it.

But I’m not the best one to explain this, so I turn you over to a website I found called White Supremacy Culture. Based on the original 1999 article by TemaOkun outlining the tenets of the white supremacy culture we all operate in, it expands on these ideas, whether that be through art, further explanation, or collaboration with other activists such as Cristina Rivera Chapman of Earthseed Collective.

To me, this website was a soft place to land after the hardship of the last few weeks. It gave me the permission I needed to enjoy my downtime without the fear that I wasn’t enough, that in this sink-or-swim society we live in just because I didn’t want to push myself every second of every day. It helped me let go of that feeling I’d been harboring since my college rejection; that if I’d just done a little bit more and rested a little bit less I would’ve gotten in and avoided this devastation.

This culture that I have grown up in — that we have all grown up in — has worn me down. My whole life I have been told both consciously and unconsciously that there is one right way. That I have to become an expert in my field, and do what it takes to pull myself up and build a life all on my own. I struggle with the pressure of college season, with the guilt of how many adults have put effort in to raise me. I feel I must return on their investment.

Yet that’s exactly it, an example of white supremacy culture rearing its ugly head. I cannot speak for the horrific violence white supremacy and by extension the hatreds it cultivates and the culture it creates on marginalized people, but I can speak on how it is detrimental even to those it is supposed to support. To truly move in the direction of a liberated society for all people, we must actively practice dismantling the tenets of white supremacy culture, not just with others but with ourselves.

Personally, I know where I must work. I’m still stuck on the idea that a prestigious college and career are what I must have, and anything else will be at least a little lesser. I still feel I must work until my bones give out before I can rest. I’m still writing this to justify my rest. But I hope what I have shared with you gives you an outlet for solace, and an outlet for positive change. I don’t want to turn my pain into a product, but rather show the world that they are not alone in their hurt.No matter what kind of month you’ve had, I suggest you take a look at this website. For some, it will offer solace, like it did me. For some, it will offer an educational experience, or a call to action. Whatever the outcome, I hope you feel empowered to make some changes in your life to bring down these systems, whether that’s letting yourself rest more often, giving more grace to your employees or coworkers at work, or doing work to accept that more than one kind of path in life is acceptable. These are just examples, the website has so much more.

Maddie Raymond, who lives in the hilltowns, writes a monthly column.

Guest columnist Ilan Stavans: A Texas politician wants to investigate my book and 849 others — bring it on

Ilan Stavans, Amherst College Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture, at his Amherst home, in 2017.

By Ilan Stavans
Published: 1/12/2022 8:04:27 PM
Modified: 1/12/2022 8:03:38 PM


Editor’s note: This op-ed by longtime Amherst College professor Ilan Stavans originally ran last fall in The Forward, is a news media organization for a Jewish American audience.

State Rep. Matt Krause, a Republican candidate for Texas attorney general, has prepared a list of 850 books that, in his judgment, should be banned from the state’s classrooms. He is concerned that such books address sexual and racial themes that “make students feel uncomfortable.” According to news reports, Mr. Krause, who chairs the House Committee on General Investigating, is “initiating an inquiry into Texas school district content.”

I’m honored to have one of my books in that list. The book, “Quinceañera,” is about the rite of passage to adulthood among Latinas. I’m not sure Mr. Krause read it, but if he did, I can’t figure out anything particularly noxious he could find in it. Its audience isn’t Quinceañeras themselves; instead, the essays collected in it looks at the ritual itself — like the Jewish bar mitzvah — from an ethnographic perspective. Does he believe this is dangerous? Should Quinceaneras be seen as fairies instead?

Frankly, I would have preferred if Mr. Krause chose other books of mine. Like “Spanglish: The Making of a New America Language,” in which I argued that Spanglish, the mix of English and Spanish, will redefine the American social landscape in this century. It has made more than a few readers uncomfortable. Or “Mr. Spic Goes to Washington,” inspired in the Jimmy Stewart film of 1939, about a Chicano gang member who becomes a U.S. Senator. Or “How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish,” where racial and sexual themes are subtly featured. But I won’t complain. Instead, I want to thank him for the opportunity to engage him in dialogue.

In Mr. Krause’s view, my book and 849 others are threats to Texan students, and, therefore, to American democracy. We promote that demonic ideology called critical race theory. What is it about these three words — “critical,” “race,” “theory” — that makes them explosive? I have thought long and hard about them. To be critical is to approach our circumstance with a dose of skepticism. It doesn’t mean to undermine the tenets of our society, but to question them in order to improve on them. Race is one of the foundations of the American tapestry, starting with slavery. Diversity makes us strong. It is essential that we understand the interaction of races in order to strive for “a more perfect union.” And theory is what the Founding Fathers talked about when they imagined a nation that would improve on the handicaps of European models of the 18th century.

All this is to say that there is really nothing new under the sun. Nor is there in the banning of book. That is an ugly tradition in these shores. Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn,” Nabokov’s “Lolita,” John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The list is long, not unlike the index created in 1545 by the Spanish Inquisition that compiled European books considered heretical.

As Mr. Krause is aware, the allure of the forbidden is enormous; it is good for a book to be banned because it attracts readers. It happened in imperial China, in the Soviet Union, under Fidel Castro’s Cuba, and it will continue to happen until the end of times. In that sense, I thank the Texas State Representative for the honor. Ray Bradbury, whose novel “Fahrenheit 451” is an extraordinary plea against cancel culture, thought there are worse crimes than burning books. “One of them is not reading them.”
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We must be vigilant against the excesses Mr. Krause indulges in. Where I most adamantly disagree with him, however, is in his view of students. He seems to believe that making students uncomfortable is a pedagogical sin. That, to me, is more alarming than the insidious list he has compiled. I’m sorry to break the news but the classroom is a place designed precisely for discomfort. Not to make students feel unsafe, but to introduce them to the complexities of life. How else does one do that if not through uneasiness?

Americans fetishize comfort and Mr. Krause is a prime example. A common expression in our national language these days is “the comfort zone.” Leaving such a bubble is deemed risky. Yet it is only when we do leave it that we realize the true size of our talent and scope of our dreams. It is ridiculous to think that teachers indoctrinate students. What we strive for is to make them think, which, let me assure you, is much harder. Not to make them think like us, but to make them think independently. The least satisfying response a teacher ever gets from a student is the one that is most expected; the best response is the one that surprises us, making us think things anew.

Yes, we want for them to think critically, even about us teachers, but also about the politicians that represent them, and about the world as a whole. We want to make them skeptical not for the fun of it, but because it is the best way to discern what’s valuable and what isn’t in the onslaught of information that overwhelms us every day. Democracy is a messy system; no one said it was harmonious. But ideas cannot be killed. They always manage to spring back. America, Mr. Krause, isn’t only a marketplace of material goods; ideas, too, are sold and bought. Trying to protect students won’t make them more intelligent; on the contrary, it is an invitation for ignorance.

I’m an immigrant from Mexico. The nefarious legacy of the Spanish Inquisition is still palpable in modes of thinking in the Hispanic world. It is vividly present in the memorable chapter VI in Part I of “Don Quixote” in which a priest and a barber throw Alonso Quijana’s personal books out the window because they are the reason he went mad. Today readers in Mexico talk of that chapter as a cautionary tale: Don Quixote doesn’t lose his mind because he reads too much; he loses his mind because Spanish reality in the 17th century was too uncritical.

Likewise, I’m a descendent of Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. My family fled Eastern Europe because of poverty and antisemitism. Soon after, Hitler burned Jewish books. As Mr. Krause knows, where books go up in flames, so do people.

I don’t write these words facetiously. As I said, I welcome the opportunity for dialogue. Mr. Krause is running for attorney general, meaning he understands how important dialogue is in democracy. I therefore invite him to a public debate on the value about having a critical eye about topics he and I hold dear. We should talk about censorship and about our tragically polarized country. And about his list. Was it done simply to attract publicity? Is there anything in those 850 books that he deems worthy? What kinds of books does he actually believe students ought to have access to? Has he ever taught in a classroom? Was the experience significant? Did he feel uncomfortable at any point? What were the consequences of that discomfort?

Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Kruse and I, as a result of that conversation, could find that neither of us is a bigot.

Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin America and Latino Culture at Amherst College, the publisher of Restless Books, and a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary. His latest book is “Jewish Literature: A Very Short Introduction” (OUP).

Ohio Congressman posts Nazi health card in attack on DC vaccine mandate

Warren Davidson (OH) was the latest Republican to liken vaccine mandates and public health measures to Nazi-era regulations – a practice condemned by Jewish and Holocaust remembrance groups.

By RON KAMPEAS/JTA
Published: JANUARY 13, 2022 

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, a Republican from Ohio, listens at a House Financial Services Committee hearing on oversight of the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve coronavirus pandemic response on Capitol Hill on in Washington, DC, Sept. 30, 2021.
(photo credit: Al Drago/Pool via REUTERS)

Warren Davidson, a Republican Congressman from Ohio, posted a photo of a Nazi-era health pass and compared Washington, DC’s vaccine mandate to the Nazis’ dehumanization of Jews in urging local residents not to comply.

Jewish groups and Jewish Democrats blasted Davidson for the comparison, which appeared in a tweet commenting on new vaccine instructions shared by Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser.

“This has been done before,” Davidson said Wednesday on Twitter, posting a Nazi-era health pass that appears to be from a website selling Nazi memorabilia and has been circulating on the internet among anti-vaccine activists. He added the hashtag “#DoNotComply.”

Starting Saturday, anyone 12 and older will need to show proof of at least one vaccine shot before entering D.C. restaurants and other indoor venues.

COVID-19 Vaccination record card and a blue pen on black background. 

(credit: VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)

“Let’s recall that the Nazis dehumanized Jewish people before segregating them, segregated them before imprisoning them, imprisoned them before enslaving them, and enslaved them before massacring them,” Davidson tweeted.

Davidson was the latest Republican to liken vaccine mandates and public health measures to Nazi-era regulations, a practice condemned by Jewish and Holocaust remembrance groups.

“In what is becoming a disturbing trend, @WarrenDavidson is the latest elected official to exploit the Holocaust by making immoral and offensive comparisons between vaccine mandates and this dark period of history,” the American Jewish Committee said on Twitter. “Congressman, you must remove this shameful post and apologize.’

Ohio State Rep. Casey Weinstein, a Democrat in that state legislature’s Jewish caucus, pleaded with Davidson to retract the tweet. “Congressman, a vaccine requirement meant to PROTECT lives is NOT the same thing as the systematic GENOCIDAL MURDER of 6,000,000 Jews,” he said on Twitter.

GOP lawmaker compares DC vaccine protocols to Nazi Germany

By Brian Rokus and Annie Grayer,

 CNN
Wed January 12, 2022

Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican from Ohio

(CNN)Republican Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio is drawing condemnation from his House colleagues for his comparison of Washington, DC's vaccine and Covid-19 protocols to Nazi Germany.

Responding to a tweet from DC Mayor Muriel Bowser reminding residents that proof of vaccination will be required to enter many business in the city beginning on Saturday, Davidson tweeted an image of a Nazi document with the comment, "This has been done before. #DoNotComply."

Davidson separately tweeted Wednesday, "Let's recall that the Nazis dehumanized Jewish people before segregating them, segregated them before imprisoning them, imprisoned them before enslaving them, and enslaved them before massacring them."

Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who is Jewish, told CNN's Jake Tapper that he confronted Davidson about the tweet

"I told him that the use of such imagery wasn't just a repugnant and dangerous false equivalency, but deeply offensive and painful for Jewish people," Phillips said. "I said I'd debate mandates and tyranny whenever he wishes, but there's no debate on the offense of his post. He could have cared less."

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois also responded to Tapper, saying, "This is the new politics. It's not about leading anymore. It's about how can we out-outrage the other person."

"It's insane," Kinzinger added. "Every Republican leader needs to be condemning that kind of B.S. right now."

Davidson's office did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment on the criticism.
The Anti-Defamation League also tweeted a response to Davidson, writing, "It's never appropriate to compare requirements for public health with the tactics of Nazi Germany. As we've said too many times to count, minimizing the Holocaust in this way is deeply offensive and harmful."

Nicaragua In The Multipolar World – OpEd

Flag of Nicaragua.

January 13, 2022

By Margaret Kimberley

The United States and the European Union announced new sanctions on the day that Daniel Ortega was inaugurated as president of Nicaragua. The move was not surprising, given that the United States congress passed the RENACER Act one week before elections which were held on November 7.

The people of Nicaragua have acted in defiance of the United States ever since the 1979 revolution. First, Ronald Reagan used reactionary forces, the Contras, as proxies in an attempt to destroy the new government. The Reagan administration mined Nicaragua’s harbors and fomented a war which cost an estimated 30,000 lives. The United States still owes Nicaragua $17 billion in compensation for the damage it created decades ago.

It is Nicaragua that has acted as a democratic nation, as the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) gave up power in 1990 after losing an election. They were re-elected in 2007 and three more times, but the desires of the Nicaraguan people are of no importance to the United States. All talk of democracy is a cynical ruse used to secure a neoliberal government which will act as a U.S. vassal state.

The Donald Trump administration picked up where Reagan left off when it instigated a 2018 coup attempt which brought violence and havoc to the country yet again. As in all other foreign policy decisions Joe Biden followed Trump, and called the 2021 election a fraud before it had even taken place. As one of more than 200 election acompañantes, companions, this columnist witnessed a process which was open to all citizens and where opposition candidates freely campaigned.

The bipartisan RENACER Act passed by a huge margin, by voice vote in the Senate and then with 387 in favor and only 35 opposed in the House of Representatives. Biden signed the new law just three days after the election. It is a classic example of hybrid warfare, as it calls for “supporting independent news media and freedom of information in Nicaragua.” Such language is a declaration of interference in the rights of a sovereign nation, in short, a blueprint for war propaganda and regime change.

Fortunately for the people of Nicaragua, the United States is not the only player on the world stage. As part of its effort to protect itself from U.S. aggression and align itself with the majority of the world’s people, Nicaragua established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, making clear that it would not give up its rights easily. China enthusiastically accepted the recognition and immediately began to discuss new partnerships between the two nations. China also donated 1 million doses of its Sinopharm covid vaccine.

The United States surely has power, and can force its puppets at the Organization of American States (OAS) to join in the non recognition of the Nicaraguan election. But the days of the Monroe Doctrine, and claims that the entire hemisphere are “America’s backyard” are given no credence anywhere else but in Washington.

Nicaragua’s sovereignty is the heart of the matter. It doesn’t matter what Joe Biden or members of the Senate and House think about that government. It also doesn’t matter what fair weather leftists have to say either. The facts are on the side of the Nicaraguans. There were no presidential candidates jailed before the election. There were golpistas, the coup makers, who defied their government’s amnesty and legitimate legislation requiring that they disclose foreign funding.

Be that as it may, anti-imperialists in this country and elsewhere in the world must defend the rights of self-determination for Nicaraguans and all other people. Their choices and their struggles are their own and no one here in the empire has a right to judge what they say are “mistakes.” Nicaragua’s human rights record is head and shoulders above that of the U.S.

Joe Biden presided over mass incarceration as a senator. He enthusiastically supported wars of aggression against Iraq and Libya. Nicaragua has no reason to explain itself to him or to liberals who happily take on propaganda points and in so doing make common cause with claims of American exceptionalism.

A classic regime change trope is to refer to the targeted country as “isolated ,” which means nothing more than being in U.S. cross hairs. As a member of a Black Alliance for Peace delegation in Nicaragua, this columnist saw the presidents of Venezuela and Cuba, and diplomatic representatives from Russia, China, Angola, India, Sudan, Vietnam, Japan, Syria, Libya and Palestine among others, in attendance at the presidential inauguration. Billions of people from every continent were represented there and prove that U.S./NATO/EU opinions carry little weight elsewhere.

Nicaragua does not have to suffer insults at the hands of the Organization of American States (OAS), Washington’s creation and vassal. It made the principled decision to leave the OAS and expose the group for the sham that it is. Nicaragua is represented in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), an independent organization working in consensus on behalf of millions of people.

The United States is still a military and economic power. But that power has its limits, which is why the need to undermine a small Central American country with a population of only 6.5 million people is given such a high priority. Every victory against U.S. authoritarianism is significant. Just consider how much effort is put into marginalizing those countries that do manage to exist outside of U.S. influence. The world is multi-polar and Nicaragua’s continuing efforts to shape its own destiny is proof.

Margaret Kimberley's is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. Her work can also be found at patreon.com/margaretkimberley and on Twitter @freedomrideblog. Ms. Kimberley can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com."

 

Is Democracy Falling Out of Popularity With White Americans?

Are we moving in the wrong direction? Let’s unpack this.

Allison Gaines

5 days ago

Statue of Liberty in 1905 | Universal Historical Archives | Getty Images

One of the most iconic American symbols, the Statue of Liberty, was a gift from France. So, why did the French give America a statue in the likeness of the Roman goddess Libertas in 1885? French artist and abolitionist Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi wanted to celebrate this born-again version of America, the triumph of the Union army, which liberated all enslaved African people within her borders. The Statue of Liberty became a gift to celebrate a newly founded multiracial democracy.

Without abolition, we would not have the Statue of Liberty gazing over the New York Harbor. See, France abolished slavery in 1794, and the Confederacy’s attempt to maintain slavery did not bode well amongst the French, who had long abandoned the barbaric practice. We never hear about why the French gifted the statue in public schools, which sends a message that Black liberation is inconsequential. Yet, at the Statue of Liberty Museum in New York, the curators clearly state that the Statue of Liberty “was created to celebrate freed slaves, not immigrants.”

Lady Liberty was originally designed to celebrate the end of slavery, not the arrival of immigrants. Ellis Island, the inspection station through which millions of immigrants passed, didn’t open until six years after the statue was unveiled in 1886. The plaque with the famous Emma Lazarus poem — “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” — wasn’t added until 1903 (Brockell, 2019).

Democracy has always been a temperamental topic in America because only White, landowning men had the right to vote and have agency when the nation began. So, the Statue of Liberty represents an expansion of democratic principles, and in that way, it has become an appropriate symbol to welcome immigrants. Unfortunately, however, somewhere along this arduous colorblind journey, many Americans have forgotten the true purpose of the Statue of Liberty. In the same way, many White Americans have become disenchanted with the concept of democracy.

The principles of freedom and self-governance sounded great when this only protected White people’s interests. Still, now that democracy is once again trying to expand, cement the rights of a multiracial population through voting rights protections, democracy has become less popular. As Rick Shenkman wrote in Politico, “Democracy is hard work and requires a lot from those who participate in it. It requires people to respect those with different views from theirs and people who don’t look like them.”

French abolitionists believed that Americans were capable of the hard work required to embody democratic principles. And, while it may not look like it from the outside, Americans are trying. But, now we’re faced with the obstacle of anti-scientific, anti-historical propaganda that has become intrinsically linked to a group of White Americans more interested in preserving power in the hands of few than embracing what it means to live in a true democracy. I can’t help but think that many White Americans who oppose voting rights legislation are losing their way. And that includes those who say they support voting rights but won’t vote to protect them.

Initially, many Black Americans considered the Statue of Liberty a “false idol,” which reminded them of the false promises made at the end of the Civil War. While the Union army and the Confederacy put down their arms and stopped fighting, Black Americans bore the brunt of white backlash. Yet, the symbol of the Statue of Liberty, while a beautiful gesture from White men who wanted to dismantle slavery in all corners of the world, seemed a cruel reminder of the gap between American democracy and Black people’s access to civil rights.

“Shove the Bartholdi statue, torch and all, into the ocean,” the Gazette argued, “until the ‘liberty’ of this country is such as to make it possible for an inoffensive and industrious colored man in the South to earn a respectable living for himself and family, without being ku-kluxed, perhaps murdered, his daughter and wife outraged, and his property destroyed. The idea of the ‘liberty’ of this country ‘enlightening the world,’ or even Patagonia, is ridiculous in the extreme (Smithsonian).

Bartholdi displayed the statue’s head at the 1878 world fair in Paris | Photo Credit | Library of Congress

The Statue of Liberty may have been a false idol to Black people, as writers in the Gazette argued years ago. However, it’s the responsibility of Americans and those who believe in democracy to make it true. You see, Bartholdi did not gift the Statue of Liberty because America was perfect or even exceptional. Rather, as many Americans still do, he believed that America would one day be a self-governed, multicultural, multireligious, multiracial democracy that embraces differences as strengths and not weaknesses.

As of late, The United States has been backsliding into authoritarianism, with some Americans rejecting the democratic principles that made her worthy of receiving the Statue of Liberty. Studies show Democracy has been falling out of favor with White American conservatives in particular; 90% oppose making it easier to vote. A Vox report revealed, “the Republican turn against democracy begins with race,” with many scoring high on the ethnic antagonism scale.

Those who believe America should embody democratic values, stay vigilant, organize, and plan to vote. Democracy may be falling out of popularity, but it’s worth preserving. Americans should remember that expanding who has access to our democracy strengthens it. And unless we plan on giving back the Statue of Liberty, it’s time we commit to living up to those values and embrace a more perfect democratic union.

Former Proud Boy Leader ‘Based Stickman’ Arrested for Attacking Health Care Workers

BRAWLER

A man who was a mascot for alt-right violence during the early Trump presidency, and praised by Gavin McInnes, has been arrested for attacking health care workers in Idaho.

Kelly Weill
Reporter
 Published Jan. 12, 2022 


Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty

Kyle “Based Stickman” Chapman, a mascot for alt-right violence during the early Trump presidency, became famous brawling with leftist activists in California. He got probation for giving a man a brain hemorrhage with a barstool in Texas.

Now he might have violated the terms of his probation by allegedly attacking health care workers in Idaho.

Chapman was a leader in far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the New England-based “Resist Marxism.” Since then, he has pleaded guilty or no contest to a series of crimes, ranging from violent attacks to trespassing on federal land—sometimes while on probation for previous offenses.


“If he screws up, he goes to jail.”
— Kyle Chapman’s lawyer

And prosecutors in Boise, Idaho say Chapman has done it again, this time allegedly attacking health care workers. Court records accuse Chapman of committing one such attack on Nov. 11. He was arrested on Tuesday, jail records show. Assaulting health care workers is a felony in Idaho, where public health employees have previously reported COVID-related harassment, including a mob of demonstrators at a Boise official’s home.


Details of the incident are still scant. A criminal complaint was not immediately available on Wednesday, and prosecutors were unavailable to comment on the case.

The Idaho Statesman reported that at 10:30 p.m. on Nov. 11, a local hospital called police to report battery on a worker. During his arraignment on Wednesday, Chapman said that he was being treated in the hospital, where he had been intubated for what he described as pneumonia. Chapman allegedly became verbally abusive toward hospital staff and grabbed a female employee, who reported the incident.

But Chapman has a long history of violence—political and otherwise.

Chapman earned the nickname “Based Stickman” after he was filmed hitting a leftist demonstrator in the head with a club at the March 2017 “March 4 Trump” rally in Berkeley, California. The attack made Chapman an instant celebrity on the far-right. He gave speeches at pro-Trump events and dabbled in his own clothing line. He also received an outpouring of funds from the far right, including the paramilitary group the Proud Boys. The organization’s founder, former Vice lout-in-chief Gavin McInnes, claimed that he considered making Chapman the group’s new president, but settled for placing him at the head of a particularly noxious brawling division called the Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights.


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But Chapman’s violent legacy began catching up with him in 2019 when he was sentenced for past attacks in two states.

That year, he pleaded no contest to one count of possessing a leaded cane in the March 4 Trump attack and was sentenced to five years’ probation. After Chapman received the sentence in 2019, his then-attorney told reporters that Chapman was on thin ice.

“If he screws up, he goes to jail,” the lawyer said.

The plea deal was Chapman’s second in just three months. In July 2019, he pleaded guilty to a 2018 bar attack in Austin, Texas. The 2018 assault took place at an afterparty for a “Texans for America Freedom” rally, where Chapman had been a speaker. Witnesses to the attack described Chapman as picking a fight with another bar-goer, punching the man, and hitting him in the head with a wooden barstool. The assault left Chapman’s victim with a brain hemorrhage and facial fractures that required surgery.

In late 2020, Idaho activists reported that Chapman had relocated to their state. His alleged attack on Idaho health care workers came less than a year later.

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Officials appear to have taken his past history into account. Chapman’s bail, which the Idaho Statesman reported was set at $10,000 on Tuesday, appeared to have been increased to $100,000 by Wednesday afternoon.

It is unclear whether Chapman currently has a lawyer. Court records show that he applied for a public defender on Wednesday.

The incident could have cascading legal consequences for Chapman, who is still on probation in California and on deferred adjudication in Texas.

Under the terms of the deferred adjudication, the Travis County, Texas district attorney could sentence Chapman to 20 years in prison if he committed crimes while on probation, the Mercury News reported in 2019.

The Travis County DA did not return a Wednesday request for comment.

A new book proves right-wing politics caused mass injury and death

John Stoehr
January 12, 2022

Shutterstock.com

The Republicans are sabotaging the country’s full recovery from the covid pandemic. They don’t think so, though. They think they are standing up for individual liberty and citizen autonomy. What does sabotage have to do with defending our constitutional rights?

Not surprising.

To see sabotage, as I do, you have to believe there’s such a thing as society. You have to believe there’s such a thing as “the public.” You have to believe there’s such a thing as “the common good.” If you don’t believe these things exist, then sabotage has nothing to do with it.

Of course, these things do exist. Ergo, the Republicans are sabotaging the nation – our political community. They’re not only falling down on the job. They’re falling down on purpose, forcing the rest of us to drag them along, thus prolonging a public health disaster that would have ended by now had the Republicans believed we’re all in this together.

As journalist Heidi N. Moore put it this morning: “I really think we need to talk about how being OK with people dying is a mark of sociopaths.”

Don’t take my word for it.

Shana Kushner Gadarian is political scientist at Syracuse University and coauthor of the forthcoming Pandemic Politics: How COVID-19 Exposed the Depth of American Polarization (Princeton). Their book looks at how the former president put his needs above ours, creating polarized conditions around public health that are still with us. It’s accurate, she said during our chat, to say partisanship equals death.

Your forthcoming book is called Pandemic Politics. Everything seems like pandemic politics these days, especially given the Republican Party's attempt to sabotage the recovery. What does it mean to you?

My coauthors and I (UC Irvine’s Sara Wallace Goodman and Cornell’s Tom Pepinsky) looked specifically at politicization around pandemic policies very early on that created partisan gaps in how people in the public responded. For instance, as early as March 2020, we saw differences in health behaviors by the party someone identifies with.

We have survey data looking at policy attitudes, behaviors and evaluations of government from March 2020 to April 2021. These partisan gaps that we saw early on have stuck around.

Donald Trump focused on the economy and getting the country going again to help his reelection and undercut public health early on. So people who trusted him and identified with him and the GOP were less likely than Democrats to support public health policies, like masking.

We've seen the continuation of this alignment of party identification and attitudes on most issues around the pandemic. Even now that Trump is out of the picture, the competition for this Trumpian position continues among GOP members who want to run for president, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and is bolstered by media figures like Fox host Tucker Carlson.

Partisanship determines trust in public health policy. But it's not like the government has been perfect. It has gotten things wrong. Yet Democrats appear willing to trust it. Why do you think that is?

I think there are a couple of things at work here. First, trust in the Centers for Disease Control is now lower than it has been in a long time across the board. That's because the performance of the agency has been pretty bad.

But Democrats have been more willing to trust in public health agencies and be more compliant because party leadership has emphasized listening to experts rather than making individual decisions while Republican leaders have been much more mixed on supporting public health leadership.

Secondly, Democrats are much more concerned about the pandemic than Republicans are. Anxiety about an issue leads to more information-seeking and more trust in people who can help you fix the problem. The latter finding about anxiety is from my book with Bethany Albertson, Anxious Politics: Democratic Citizenship in a Threatening World.

Mistrust of government politics and doubts about vaccines are nothing new. In our history, is this the first time mistrust and doubt are being sown from the top of a major political party?

I think we have historical evidence that party leadership might not be interested in talking about or urging public health funding for particular diseases when they are either stigmatized or not seen as affecting their partisans (like in the HIV-AIDS crisis early on).

So, what I think is different now is that Trump saw the health crisis as mostly about his own partisans rather than through the lens of the whole country.


In the book we talk about a counterfactual about what would've happened if the first cases had been in Oklahoma City or Phoenix instead of Seattle and New York. We might have seen greater interest from the president and more coordination from the federal government.

But it's also the case that the bureaucracy had been so hollow from years of neglect that the early days were always going to be hard in the pandemic.

If nothing else, the pandemic has demonstrated how wrong it was for conservative to spend decades starving public services. Trump's stance was pretty clear in the beginning when he thought, wrongly, that the covid was a blue-state disease.

I agree with all of that. Underinvestment in public health is like underinvestment in roads and other infrastructure.

What's the potential for partisanship to influence trust in all vaccines, not just the covid vaccine? I imagine it's fairly high.

That's the real concern here. There's evidence that there was a partisan gap in uptake of the H1N1 vaccine in 2009 but normal flu vaccines don't have much in the way of partisan gaps. If Republican state legislatures start to undercut educational mandates for the covid vaccine and other childhood vaccines (like Desantis is talking about in Florida) that would be a big problem for public health.

What can be done about that?

One is the upholding of mandates by the courts. Second is a campaign to remind people about how important vaccines are for overall health. That campaign should use people from non-partisan backgrounds that are highly trusted.

But also people in power on all sides of the aisle should reinforce vaccination as an important economic, social and health tool.


Alan Greenblatt is a columnist for Governing. For a piece citing your work, he wrote this headline: "Partisanship = death." Is that accurate? Fair?

Partisanship is an identity. It's a useful one for deciding how to vote and what position to take on new issues. But it can also filter the information that we accept and what we think is accurate or useful. For the pandemic, that filtering has been really damaging.

I take that as a yes, it's accurate.

Yes, it's accurate.

John Stoehr is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative; a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly; a contributing editor for Religion Dispatches; and senior editor at Alternet. Follow him @johnastoehr.

Biden hailed for appointing 1st Somali-American senior adviser to State Department

Hamse Warfa will help advance president’s democracy and human rights agenda both in US and overseas

Hassan Isilow, Mohammed Dhaysane |13.01.2022


JOHANNESBURG/MOGADISHU, Somalia

The Somali government and intellectuals hailed US President Joe Biden on Wednesday for appointing Hamse Warfa, a Somali-American, as a senior adviser to the State Department.

“We are happy and welcome the appointment of Warfa by the US president. We extend our congratulatory messages to him and all Somali people," Somali government spokesman Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu told Anadolu Agency.

Moalimuu said Warfa’s appointment is an indication that Somalis are very active wherever they live.

Warfa was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. His family fled the Somali civil war and moved to neighboring Kenya, where they lived in refugee camps. He later relocated to the US.

He has been working as the deputy commissioner for workforce development at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).

Warfa, who has held the position since April 2019, has been the highest-ranking African immigrant in the state government.

“We congratulate Warfa. It’s a fantastic opportunity for a young, well-educated Somali-origin lad,” said Abdurahman Sheikh Azhari, director of the Centre for Analysis and Strategic Studies, a Somalia-based think tank.

He said it is not easy to be appointed to a role in an administration like that of Biden-Harris with the eyes of the world on it, especially for a Black Muslim immigrant from the Horn of Africa.

“It’s a golden opportunity for the Somali diaspora as a community across the world, the US, and Hamse particularly to serve the US’s highest office in which he can influence the policies towards Africa and the Muslim world,” Azhari said.

He said the appointment shows exactly how well-integrated immigrants and refugees can contribute to a large nation like the US.

“If the Somali communities continue to integrate, settle and contribute to the Western world, they will produce more successful leaders who can be role models to young Somalis inside Somalia. This appointment deserves to be celebrated and commended,” Azhari added.

Prof. Hassan Sheikh Ali Nur, a lecturer at Somali National University in Mogadishu, said “Warfa's nomination for senior adviser on democracy and human rights by President Biden is a milestone in race and religious recognition in the United States of America's political participation and citizenship.”

Warfa said in a tweet that he is “excited and so ready to get to work along with incredible public servants in the Biden-Harris administration.”​​​​​​​

According to reports, Warfa has become the first Somali-American presidential appointee in history. Another Somali immigrant, Ilhan Omar, made history in 2018 when she became the first Somali-American elected to the US Congress.

There are disturbing parallels between the 2020s and 1940s in America

John Stoehr
January 11, 2022

The National Guard at the US Capitol (AFP)

Regular readers are familiar with my obsession with political time – or how one party and its ideas prevail with a majority of Americans for four or five decades before falling into a period of transition, after which the other party and its ideas prevail.

But most don’t know why I’m obsessed. I’ll tell you. It’s because I have been feeling hopeless. I hate feeling hopeless. Knowing that history isn’t static – knowing that it moves in recurring cycles rather than in a straight line with a beginning and an end – well, that gives me hope. It gives me hope to know, good or bad, nothing stays the same.

These “paradigms” have been for more than a year a regular subject of discussion between me and Jay Weixelbaum. He’s a writer and business historian who’s producing a streaming mini-series about the time a Nazi spy joined US businessmen to toast the fall of France in a Manhattan hotel while a Jewish FBI agent investigated.

Jay’s project is called A Nazi on Wall Street. (You can donate to the cause here.) During our conversation, he explained why he believes we are moving into a new paradigm and how the choices made in the 1940s seem to mirror choices being made in the 2020s. We could have turned fully fascist back then. Let’s hope we don’t do that now.

READ: Prominent QAnon anti-vaxxer who called for Anthony Fauci’s execution dies of COVID-19

In a recent thread, you said the J6 insurrection was a watershed moment between “paradigms.” Can you explain what you mean by “paradigms.” What does J6 have to do with them?

A “paradigm shift” describes a major change in our lives. The term "status quo" describes a time when we have a shared understanding about how politics work, how economics work and how culture works. When a paradigm shift happens, the status quo changes.

Paradigm shifts can take many years, and my belief is that we know we're in one when it's not just scholars pointing this out – but when everyone sees it and feels it. January 6 was a moment like that.

Many historians have observed that the Republican Party had been in the business of rejecting democratic ideals since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s. They were unwilling to share democracy with people they deemed were less than them.

READ: 'Traitor' Jim Jordan mocked for refusing to comply with Jan. 6 committee — after declaring 'nothing to hide'

Watergate was part of this. The 2000 election and the 2016 election were other watershed moments of the GOP's slide toward a full rejection of American democracy. I see J6 as a culmination.

Can you characterize the paradigm we are leaving and perhaps the one we are entering?

Paradigms are a buildup of chaos in our political, economic and social systems, as unresolved problems feed off each other. In chaotic periods, even small events can have enormous impact. We're right in the middle of the shift, so it's hard to see where we are going.

The reason I'm adapting my research on American businessmen working with Nazis in 1940 into a streaming mini-series is because in 1940, it really wasn't clear which way things were going. That was a paradigm shift, too.

READ: Cult survivor explains how Trump 'weaponizes' the 'us vs. them' tactics of a 'cult leader'

We grow up with stories about a triumphant America that won World War II, but in 1940, it wasn't at all clear how history was going to play out. I want American audiences to understand that, especially as we inevitably look back and reflect on our current moment,

Just as 2020 was a crucial year. I believe 2022 will also decide our fates for the next era, however long it will be. Democrats in Congress are beginning the process of altering the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation this week, which is a direct response to GOP legislatures passing laws to throw out millions of votes they may happen to dislike. Democratic leaders call this a "continuation of January 6."

That's crucial, and we don't know how this will play out.

Another big, unpredictable factor is the pandemic. I think future historians (provided humanity survives) will debate how covid helped push the previous president out of power, particularly his lack of ability to address it effectively.

READ: Noam Chomsky: 'Proto-fascism' and 'white nationalism are prime ingredients of the GOP’s slow-motion coup

A third major factor is the midterms. Yes, the previous status quo predicts the party holding the White House to take losses. But if we are headed toward a new status quo, the rules may no longer apply.

Corporate donations to GOP House candidates is about half of what it was. And gerrymandering, while still a major threat to democracy, hasn't played out as badly as it could have after the 2020 census.

Also, depending on how the Supreme Court rules on reproductive choice, this may dramatically affect turnout.

So there's still a bunch of unknowns that could have a major impact in this critical turning point.

READ: Automated killer robots aren't science fiction anymore — and the world isn't ready

When did this start? With the white backlash against civil rights?

The civil rights era and feminism in particular, as well as a hostility to the New Deal, animated the right. They built up religious and allegedly libertarian factions in the 1970s that coalesced in the “Reagan Revolution,” which could then be escalated for four decades.

History is always events leading to and from each other. There are certainly antecedents in the 1920s and 1930s GOP. It was taking money from literal Nazi spies in order to try to sweep FDR out of power.

Our government knew this was happening. There was an intense and often unseen struggle to fight back against this Nazi-American rightwing coalition.

READ: Indiana Republican under fire after saying teachers must be ‘impartial’ about Nazis and fascism

Is this the 1940s fork in the road you were talking about?

Yes, precisely. Like with other paradigm shifts, there were years of building to this point, and years of aftermath. Nazi spies were operating in the US in the 1930s. The FBI was tasked with tracking them down. Meanwhile, US companies had businesses operating within Nazi Germany.

Beyond these lesser known activities, rightwing groups and personalities espoused the Nazi cause to millions of Americans. Many Americans found this ideology enticing. It's easy to blame immigrants for problems; many Americans believed the US should stay out of European affairs; some Americans were sympathetic to Germany post-World War I. The radio priest, Charles Coughlin, broadcast these views to millions. He was kind of the Rush Limbaugh of his day.

Nazi influence in the US culminated with a huge march and rally in New York City in 1939. Thousands gathered in Madison Square Garden to listen to blatantly fascist speeches under the banners of George Washington adorned with swastikas.

In 1940, FDR gave a fresh directive to hunt down Nazis. The FBI built a secret spy headquarters inside the 30 Rock building to spy on Nazi activities worldwide, but especially in South America where they could get raw materials a war machine needs to be effective.

Without recapping the story of WWII, FDR was reelected, despite Nazi groups funneling money into Charles Lindbergh's campaign. FDR started providing aid to Britain and preparing for war against fascism. Thus, the paradigm shift started to turn on the events of 1940.

The president pinned blame for J6 on Trump. No sitting president in my lifetime came within an inch of calling his predecessor a traitor. That seems like an indicator of paradigm shifting no?

Absolutely. I don't think we've seen anything like this since at least the Civil War. The evidence is so overwhelming, I think Biden was on safe political ground to take off the gloves.

It's also important to point out that fascist violence often starts with the war on the truth. Biden was making a clear point to push back on fascist lies.

I'd call the Republicans' sabotage of pandemic recovery a form of fascist violence, but that's just me.

I think that's also a fair observation. Fascism is unsustainable as a form of government. It's inherently irrational and destructive. It's an extreme form of populism based on emotions – feelings of grievance, more specifically. That's an inherently unstable foundation to attempt to run a society.

Economies need stability. Political regimes need economic stability to stay viable long-term. But fascists don't care about the long term. They care about feeding grievance addictions. They build policy around that.

Perhaps this ties into your observation about "civil war." It would take sacrifice of an order that most people would reject.

Exactly. I think the potential for violence and destruction is great. But I don't see that as long term, because people won't tolerate a consumer economy being interrupted so drastically by violence and disruption.

Scholars of Nazi Germany saw this. Just below their fake bravado, the Nazis were terrified about economic problems. We'll never know how the Nazi regime might have worked if it hadn't made foolish military choices, but it's pretty clear that things were quite unstable.

I think the Republican Party has been able to lean toward anti-democracy and fascism precisely, because it still rested on a liberal democratic order. Take that away and it's a new status quo

Agree. It's parasitic.

Yes! Fascism is a parasite on liberal democracy, but it can kill its host. Then all bets are off on how long it will survive.

What would tell you the coming midterms are different from previous midterms?

Preserving democracy is a key policy issue. It will be a particular policy point discussed in numerous midterm campaigns. Typically it's healthcare, guns, climate, etc. Democracy as policy is a new norm.

Telling people that they need to vote now or they won't be able to depend on the vote in the future is pretty drastic and I'd argue a new development. We saw it in 2020. It'll be here for 2022.

The white Christian nationalism tearing America apart at the seams

Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis,

 Tom Dispatch 

Common Dreams
January 12, 2022

Silhouette of crosses held up at sunset (Shutterstock)


“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The world lost a great moral leader this Christmas when Archbishop Desmond Tutu passed away at the age of 90. I had the honor of meeting him a few times as a child. I was raised by a family dedicated to doing the work of justice, grounded in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and also sacred texts and traditions. We hosted the archbishop on several occasions when he visited Milwaukee — both before the end of apartheid and after South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was formed in 1996.

"To combat [White Christian Nationalism]... it’s necessary to build a multiracial moral movement that can speak directly to the needs and aspirations of poor and dispossessed Americans and fuse their many struggles into one."

In the wake of one visit, he sent a small postcard that my mom framed and placed on the bookcase near our front door. Every morning before school I would grab my glasses resting on that same bookcase and catch a glimpse of the archbishop’s handwritten note. This wasn’t inadvertent on my mom’s part. It was meant as a visual reminder that, if I was to call myself a Christian — which I did, serving as a Sunday school teacher from the age of 13 and a deacon at 16 — my responsibility was to advocate for policies that welcomed immigrants, freed those held captive by racism and injustice, and lifted the load of poverty.

Given our present context, the timing of his death is all too resonant. Just over a year ago, the world watched as a mob besieged the U.S. Capitol, urged on by still-President Donald Trump and undergirded by decades of white racism and Christian nationalism. January 6th should have reminded us all that far from being a light to all nations, American democracy remains, at best, a remarkably fragile and unfinished project. On the first anniversary of that nightmare, the world is truly in need of moral leaders and defenders of democracy like Tutu.

The archbishop spent his life pointing to what prophets have decried through the ages, warning countries, especially those with much political and economic power, to stop strangling the voices of the poor. Indeed, the counsel of such prophets has always been the same: when injustice is on the rise, there are dark forces waiting to demean, defraud, and degrade human life. Such forces hurt the poor the most but impact everyone. And they often cloak themselves in religious rhetoric, even as they pursue political and economic ends that do anything but match our deepest religious values.

Democracy At Stake

“What has happened to us? It seems as if we have perverted our freedom, our rights into license, into being irresponsible. Perhaps we did not realize just how apartheid has damaged us, so that we seem to have lost our sense of right and wrong.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu

By now, lamenting the condition of American democracy comes almost automatically to many of us. Still, the full weight of our current crisis has yet to truly sink in. A year after the attempted insurrection of January 6, 2021, this nation has continued to experience a quieter, rolling coup, as state legislatures have passed the worst voter suppression laws in generations and redrawn political maps to allow politicians to pick whom their voters will be. The Brennan Center for Justice recently reported that more than 400 voter suppression laws were introduced in 49 states last year. Nineteen of those states passed more than 30 such laws, signaling the biggest attack on voting rights since just after the Civil War. And add to that another sobering reality — two presidential elections have now taken place without the full protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

This attack on democracy, if unmet, could alter the nature of American elections for at least a generation to come. And yet, so far, it’s been met with an anemic response from a painfully divided Congress and the Biden administration. Despite much talk about the need to reform democracy, Congress left for the holidays without restoring the Voting Rights Act or passing the For the People Act, which would protect the 55 million voters who live in states with new anti-voter laws that limit access to the ballot. If those bills don’t pass in January (or only a new proposal by Republican senators and Joe Manchin to narrowly reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887 is passed), it may prove to be too late to save our democracy as well as any hopes that the Democratic Party can win the 2022 midterm elections or the 2024 presidential race.

Sadly, this nation has a strikingly bipartisan consensus to thank for such a moral abdication of responsibility. Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, in particular, have been vocal in refusing to overturn the filibuster to protect voting rights (though you know that, were the present Republicans in control of the Senate, they wouldn’t hesitate to do so for their own grim ends).

And of course, democracy isn’t the only thing that demands congressional action (as well as filibuster reform). Workers have not seen a raise in the minimum wage since 2009 and the majority of us have no paid sick leave in the worst public-health crisis in a century. Poor and low-income Americans, 140 million and growing, are desperately in need of the child tax credit and other anti-poverty and basic income programs at precisely the moment when they’re expiring and the pandemic is surging once again. And Manchin has already ensured weakened climate provisions in President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda that he claims he just can’t support (not yet anyway). If things proceed accordingly, in some distant future, sadly enough, geological records will be able to show the impact of our government’s unwillingness to act quickly or boldly enough to save humanity.

As Congress debates voting rights and investing in the people, it’s important to understand the dark forces that underlie the increasingly reactionary and authoritarian politics on the rise in this country. In his own time, Archbishop Tutu examined the system of white-imposed apartheid through the long lens of history to show how the Christianity of colonial empire had become a central spoke in the wheel of violence, theft, and racist domination in South Africa. He often summed up this dynamic through parables like this one: “When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.”

In our own American context, they have the Bible and, as things are going, they may soon have the equivalent of “the land,” too. Just look carefully at our political landscape for evidence of the rising influence of white Christian nationalism. While it’s only one feature of the authoritarianism increasingly on vivid display in this country, it’s critical to understand, since it’s helped to mobilize a broad social base for Donald Trump and the Republicans. In the near future, through control over various levers of state and federal power, as well as key cultural and religious institutions, Christian nationalists could find themselves well positioned to shape the nation for a long time to come.

Confronting White Christian Nationalism

“There are very good Christians who are compassionate and caring. And there are very bad Christians. You can say that about Islam, about Hinduism, about any faith. That is why I was saying that it was not the faith per se but the adherent. People will use their religion to justify virtually anything.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Christian nationalism has influenced the course of American politics and policy since the founding of this country, while, in every era, moral movements have had to fight for the Bible and the terrain that goes with it. The January 6th assault on the Capitol, while only the latest expression of such old battlelines, demonstrated the threat of a modern form of Christian nationalism that has carefully built political power in government, the media, the academy, and the military over the past half-century. Today, the social forces committed to it are growing bolder and increasingly able to win mainstream support.

When I refer to “Christian nationalism,” I mean a social force that coalesces around a matrix of interlocking and interrelated values and beliefs. These include at least six key features, though the list that follows is anything but exhaustive:

* First, a highly exclusionary and regressive form of Christianity is the only true and valid religion.
* Second, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity are “the natural order” of the world and must be upheld by public policy (even as Latino Protestants swell the ranks of American evangelicalism and women become important gate-keepers in communities gripped by Christian nationalism).
* Third, militarism and violence, rather than diplomacy and debate, are the correct ways for this country to exert power over other countries (as it is our God-given right to do).
* Fourth, scarcity is an economic reality of life and so we (Americans vs. the world, white people vs. people of color, natural-born citizens vs. immigrants) must compete fiercely and without pity for the greater portion of the resources available.
* Fifth, people already oppressed by systemic violence are actually to blame for the deep social and economic problems of the world — the poor for their poverty, LGBTQIA people for disease and social rupture, documented and undocumented immigrants for being “rapists and murderers” stealing “American” jobs, and so on.

* Sixth, the Bible is the source of moral authority on these (and other) social issues and should be used to justify an extremist agenda, no matter what may actually be contained in the Good Book.

Such ideas, by the way, didn’t just spring up overnight. This false narrative has been playing a significant, if not dominant, role in our politics and economics for decades. Since childhood — for an example from my own life — I’ve regularly heard people use the Bible to justify poverty and inequality. They quote passages like “the poor you will always have with you” to argue that poverty is inevitable and can never be ended. Never mind the irony that the Bible has been one of the only forms of the mass media — if you don’t mind my calling it that — which has had anything good to say about the poor (something those in power have tried to cover up since the days of slavery).

In many poor communities — rural, small town, and urban — churches are among the only lasting social institutions and so one of the most significant battlegrounds for deciding which moral values will shape our society, especially the lives of the needy. Indeed, churches are the first stop for many people struggling with poverty. The vast majority of food pantries and other emergency assistance programs are run out of them and much of the civic work going on in churches is motivated by varying interpretations of the Bible when it comes to poverty. These range from outright disdain and pity to charity to more proactive advocacy and activism for the poor.

Geographically, the battle for the Bible manifests itself most intensely in the Deep South, although hardly confined to that region, perhaps as a direct inheritance of theological fights dating back to slavery. For example, although there are more churches per capita than in any other state and high rates of attendance, Mississippi also has the highest child poverty rate, the least funding for education and social services for the needy, and ranks lowest in the country when it comes to overall health and wellness. It’s noteworthy that this area is known as both the “Bible Belt” and the “Poverty Belt.”

This is possible, in part, because the Bible has long been used as a tool of domination and division, while Christian theology has generally been politicized to identify poverty as a consequence of sin and individual failure. Thanks to the highly militarized rhetoric that goes with such a version of Christianity, adherents are also called upon to defend the “homeland,” even as their religious doctrine is used to justify violence against the most marginalized in society. These are the currents of white Christian nationalism that have been swelling and spreading for years across the country.

A moral movement from below

“We live in a moral universe. You know this. All of us know this instinctively. The perpetrators of injustice know this. This is a moral universe. Right and wrong do matter. Truth will out in the end. No matter what happens. No matter how many guns you use. No matter how many people get killed. It is an inexorable truth that freedom will prevail in the end, that injustice and repression and violence will not have the last word.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu

In the Poor People’s Campaign (which I co-chair with Reverend William Barber II), we identify Christian nationalism as a key pillar of injustice in America that provides cover for a host of other ills, including systemic racism, poverty, climate change, and militarism. To combat it, we believe it’s necessary to build a multiracial moral movement that can speak directly to the needs and aspirations of poor and dispossessed Americans and fuse their many struggles into one.

This theory of change is drawn from our study of history. The most transformative American movements have always relied on generations of poor people, deeply affected by injustice, coming together across dividing lines of all kinds to articulate a new moral vision for the nation. This has also meant waging a concerted battle for the moral values of society, whether you’re talking about the pre-Civil War abolition movement, the Populist Movement of the late nineteenth century, labor upsurges of the 1930s and 1940s, or the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Today, to grasp the particular history and reality of America means recognizing the need for a new version of just such a movement to contend directly with the ideology and theology of Christian nationalism and offer an alternative that meets the material and spiritual needs of everyday people.

Archbishop Tutu was clear that injustice and heretical Christianity should never have the last word and that the world’s religious and faith traditions still have much to offer when it comes to building a sense of unity that’s in such short supply in a country apparently coming apart at the seams. At the moment, unfortunately, too many people, including liberals and progressives, sidestep any kind of religious and theological debate, leaving that to those they consider their adversaries, and focusing instead on matters of policy. But as Archbishop Tutu’s deeds and words have shown, to change our world and bring this nation to higher ground means being brave enough to wrestle with both the politics and the soul of the nation — which, in reality, are one and the same.