How Christian nationalism is driving American politics

February 29, 2020 By Paul Rosenberg, Salon

LONG READ

In early 2018, after a year of confusion over why Donald Trump had been elected, Clemson sociologist Andrew Whitehead and two colleagues provided compelling evidence — which I wrote about here — that “voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage.” That is, it represented “Christian nationalism,” even when controlling for other popular explanations such as “economic dissatisfaction, sexism, anti-black prejudice, anti-Muslim refugee attitudes, and anti-immigrant sentiment.” The puzzle of why white evangelicals voted for Trump so overwhelmingly turned out to have a simple explanation: It wasn’t their religion that he championed — Trump is conspicuously not a person of faith — but rather its place in society.

Now, Whitehead and one of those colleagues, University of Oklahoma sociologist Samuel Perry, have a new book taking their research approach much further: “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States.” Donald Trump doesn’t figure as a central subject in the book, but then, he doesn’t have to. By exploring and explaining the power of Christian nationalism, Whitehead and Perry provide one of the best perspectives possible on the 2020 race, and the larger forces that will continue to polarize America for some time to come.

Significantly, the authors explore Christian nationalism’s influence on society as a whole — not just on those who embrace it, but on those across the whole spectrum, from adherents to opponents — while not forgetting how extreme its animating vision is. They cite Corey Robin’s “The Reactionary Mind” and Jason Stanley’s “How Fascism Works,” for example, in making the point that while “Christian nationalism seeks to preserve or reinstitute boundaries in the public sphere,” its believers are “most desperate” to influence “Americans’ private worlds,” as is true of “all reactionary movements.”
This is both an extremely timely book and one that’s likely to shape our self-understanding as a nation for generations to come. I recently interviewed Andrew Whitehead by phone. This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Your book is about “Christian nationalism.” Let’s start with explaining what you mean by that.

When we talk about Christian nationalism, we identify it as a cultural framework that is all about trying to advocate for a fusion between Christianity, as they define it, and American civic life. This Christianity is something more than just orthodox Christian belief — it contains and overlaps with a number of other things. It operates like a signal to those that hear it, to a certain population, to say “people like us,” which is generally white, native-born, culturally Christian. So it intertwines not only with narratives about the Christian heritage of the United States, but also different traditions and symbols and value systems, and really is a fusion of these identities, put together to create what they see as the “ideal” America.

As you note in your introduction, there’s a large literature on Christian nationalism, including another book coming out next week, Katherine Stewart’s “The Power Worshippers.” What’s distinctive and different about your approach, both in terms of methodology and purpose?

What we’re doing that really hasn’t been done before is quantifying and empirically defining Christian nationalism. “The Power Worshippers” by Katherine Stewart is amazing, and really a great journalistic look at who’s pulling the levers, and who these power worshipers are. But what we do is we gather data from thousands of Americans through surveys, and then we interview them. What we’re trying to do is empirically show this ideology and cultural framework of Christian nationalism: How does it affect and influence the views of all Americans, their beliefs, their values, their behaviors? There really hasn’t been a sustained, empirical examination of this cultural framework and that’s what our book does.

In your introduction you lay out three main arguments. First, you argue that “understanding Christian nationalism, its content and its consequences, is essential for understanding much of the polarization in American popular discourse.” Your analysis doesn’t just look at supporters of Christian nationalism, but those with a broad range of perspectives, which you characterize in four broad groups. I’d like to ask about each of them, starting with those you call “Ambassadors.” What is distinctive or characteristic of them?

Ambassadors are those Americans who most strongly embrace Christian nationalism. We ask a series of questions of Americans and then we combine their responses across the six questions, and we are able to measure the strength with which they either embrace or reject Christian nationalism. Ambassadors are those who strongly agree with a series of questions like, “Do you believe that the United States or the federal government should advocate Christian values?” Or, “Should we allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces?” The more Americans agree with those, they score highly on our scale, and those Americans we call Ambassadors. So they are the ones that would want to see religious symbols in public spaces, they would want to see the government advocate for Christian values, declare the U.S. a Christian nation. They believe that the success of the United States is part of God’s plan, so they would be those who most strongly embrace this idea of the U.S. as a Christian nation and would want to see Christianity privileged in the public sphere.

On the other extreme are those you call “Rejecters.” What’s distinctive or characteristic of them?

Rejecters are those Americans who completely oppose and repudiate any notion of a close relationship between Christianity and American civil society. They’re in some ways a mirror image of Ambassadors, where for them to have a strong civil society, or pluralistic democracy, we should not be privileging any religion in the public sphere. They wouldn’t necessarily say that religion shouldn’t be a part of American life, but that in the halls of power one religion shouldn’t have an upper hand over another. So they wouldn’t want to see Christianity privileged in that sense.

One thing we want to make clear is that these aren’t just non-religious Americans. We show that there are evangelical Protestants who are Rejecters, and we interview them in the book. There are other Americans who are religious, who reject the desire to see Christianity privileged in the public sphere. Now, many Rejecters are pretty non-religious, but not all. So what we’re looking at isn’t just a religious/non-religious divide. It really is a divide about the role that they think Christianity should play in public life. Rejecters would say that while religion is fine to be part of people’s lives, we wouldn’t want to see Christianity privileged in some way.

In between these extremes there are two groups. Those called “Accommodators” are closer to the Ambassadors, but not the same. What’s distinctive or characteristic of them?

Accommodators lean towards accepting this idea of a U.S. civil society that embraces or in some ways might privilege Christianity. So their support is undeniable, but it’s not comprehensive. They would maybe be more equivocal about whether there should be certain religious symbols in public spaces. They might say that Christianity has been important to the history of the U.S., and that it generally is a good thing. But when you ask if other religious groups should be able to also integrate or be a part of it, they will be more open to that, whereas Ambassadors would say that this is a Christian nation, and if you don’t like it you should leave. Accommodators accommodate the “Christian nation” narrative and Christian nationalism, but they wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to other religious groups at least being able to live and operate here. So they are supportive of it, but it isn’t as comprehensive as Ambassadors.

The other in-between group, called “Resisters,” are closer to Rejecters but, again, not the same.

Resisters are more of a mirror image of Accommodators, where they are uncomfortable with the idea of a Christian nation, but not wholly opposed. So they lean towards opposition. They might say that Christianity played an important role in the founding of the United States, but they’re uncomfortable with any idea of trying to privilege Christianity in the public sphere. We find that there are a number of Resisters who are Christians, who think that Christianity can play a positive role in society, but it shouldn’t be held up over any other religious group — that Christians and other religious groups should be able to work alongside one another. So compared to Rejecters, who might say no one religion should have the upper hand, Resisters might still see a positive role that Christianity can play, but they wouldn’t want to see that formalized in any form by government.

You also make the point that these groups cut across all other demographics, although unevenly. One of the most notable findings is that the percentage of Rejecters rises with each succeeding generation, while the number of Ambassadors falls, pointing to a seeming waning of Christian nationalist influence. But there are contrary factors at work as well. Could you explain?

We do find, in other research, that Americans will respond to historical events, and might embrace Christianity as integral to American identity much more strongly. One example is when 9/11 happened. In the late ’90s, a certain number of Americans would say that being Christian was important to being truly American, but after 9/11, when asked that question, a much larger percentage of Americans said that to be truly American you need to be a Christian. So they were responding in some sense to the 9/11 attack on America, trying to identify “Who are we, and what are we all about?” A lot of the rhetoric surrounding that revolved around religion. But we found that 10 years after that event, those levels decreased, back actually below the 1996 levels.

Throughout history Christian nationalism has been a part of our cultural context, but it does wax and wane. Around the Cold War, trying again to identify who we are as Americans, Christianity was put on our coins — “In God we trust” — in this kind of push. Kevin Kruse shows in his book “One Nation Under God” how, in response to the New Deal and fears of creeping socialism, people pushed this idea that we’re a Christian nation. With Jerry Falwell and others, the Moral Majority were responding to the civil rights movement and the gender and sexuality movements of the ’60s and ’70s.

We see this current iteration of Christian nationalism responding to that. If there’s uneasiness or if we’re trying to define who we are, Christianity becomes kind of an easy go-to, to say, “This is what we’ve always been about.” With recent demographic shifts in U.S. society, that is another example, where Donald Trump and others would say that we’re a Christian nation and this is what we’re all about, and others would be willing to hear and embrace that. Even as there are fewer Ambassadors today, Christian nationalism is still a very powerful cultural framework and ideology that will help them define themselves against the outside. It still is a really strong explanatory tool to understand why people see and think the way they do about politics, their own lives and whatever is happening in the world today.

Your second main argument is that “to understand Christian nationalism, it must be examined on its own terms. Christian nationalism is necessarily part of a complex web of ideologies.” What are the main ideological connections that are most salient, politically and statistically?

People usually will try to say, “Is it racism or authoritarianism that really explains these effects?” What we find is that while Christian nationalism does overlap with these different ideologies, like racism or authoritarianism, it has an independent effect. While there are aspects of Christian nationalism where people do want to see a highly ordered society, it isn’t just that desire. There is something about wanting to see Christianity privileged in the public sphere that is an independent influence on how they see the world, or might view the criminal justice system or anything else. And the same with racism, where Christian nationalism is associated with generally prejudiced views towards nonwhite groups. It isn’t just that there’s racism. There’s something about this idea of seeing Christianity privileged in the public sphere that tells us something over and above the other ideologies. So while they’re related, they aren’t one and the same.

It seems like Christian nationalism is something broader than these ideologies it is connected to.

I think it is. I think it tells us something about the nature of this desire to see religion and especially Christianity privileged in the public sphere. It tells us something more about where that came from and why that’s important, and helps to explain why Americans might believe one way versus another.

Finally, your third argument is that “Christian nationalism is not ‘Christianity’ or even ‘religion’ properly speaking,” and indeed that “Christian nationalism often influences Americans’ opinions and behaviors in the exact opposite direction than traditional religious commitment does.” In fact, as one table in your book shows, in virtually all areas of social policy — everything except personal fidelity to religion — the influences are at odds.

It’s a recurring theme we see throughout our book. When we look at different hot-button political wedge issues in the U.S., or we look at views toward nonwhite groups or even non-Christian groups, we find that Christian nationalism encourages people generally to think and believe one way, while once we take that level of Christian nationalism into account, individual Americans who are more religious will actually be moving in the opposite direction.

One example is fear of Muslims. We ask a number of questions about, “Do you feel threatened by Muslims physically?” Or, “Do you think they hold moral values that are less than yours?” The way I explain it is that if you could take a carbon copy of me and the only thing you change — increase or decrease — is my Christian nationalism, then I will be more fearful of Muslims as you increase that. But if you took a carbon copy of me, and my level of Christian nationalism stayed the same level, and all you increased or decreased was my religious practice — as you increase my religious practice, I would actually feel less threatened by Muslims. So these things aren’t one and the same. While many Ambassadors and Accommodators are religious, it isn’t necessarily their religiosity that’s causing them to view immigrants or Muslims or nonwhite minorities this way. It’s their Christian nationalism.

The one topic where we find religious practice and increasing Christian nationalism work similarly is when we talk about gender, homosexuality or transgender rights. We do find that more religious people tend to be less willing to be open toward gay marriage, as an example, even when we account for Christian nationalism.

I’d like you to talk more about that. Why do those views translate from Christian nationalism to religious practice, whereas when it comes to attitudes towards Muslims or people of other races, the same is not true?

Christian nationalism is really focused on creating boundaries between “us” and “them.” This idea of true American identity is white, Protestant, culturally Christian, native-born. So that’s why we see religious practice and Christian nationalism work differently in that sense. But when we’re talking about sexuality, what we see is that for those that are religiously active they’re still seeing and believing that there should be some sort of ordering within gender and sexuality that is in line with what they see as traditional Christian beliefs. So Christian nationalism in the end works in the same direction with religious practice.

We see that same thing in our interviews. Those who were strongly Christian nationalist, who were Ambassadors, they would oppose same-sex marriage really along the lines of trying to protect this Christian nation. They would see it as a threat to America’s Christian nation. But when we talk to Americans who are very religious, but who reject or resist Christian nationalism, they might be opposed to gay marriage, but it isn’t that they want to see it outlawed at the federal level. They would think that it’s against the dictates of their Christian tradition.

I want to ask about two specific examples you discuss, which I think most observers don’t have a good handle on, but make perfect sense in your analysis. The first is a lack of sympathy for black victims of police violence, even in the face of video evidence. What are the reasons behind this lack of sympathy?

What it comes down to is that Christian nationalism is fundamentally about preserving or returning to a mythic society where there are traditional hierarchical relationships — between white and black, or even men and women. The authority structures that are in place are instituted by God, so any claims by minorities — in this case, racial minorities — that there are inequalities, to Christian nationalists and to Ambassadors, they would see that as disingenuous.

What we find is that when it comes to maintaining law and order, Christian nationalists are enthusiastic about that, so they’re basically biased toward seeing and defending fairness in that force that’s used against different people. They’re more likely to think that police treat blacks the same as whites, or that police officers shoot blacks more often because they are inherently more violent. They’re less likely to believe there are inequalities in policing, because to them that authority structure is put in place by God. So that is a little bit more about how Christian nationalism can uphold or encourage white supremacy, or specifically inequality in the criminal justice system.

The second example is attitudes towards guns, epitomized by the Florida legislature after the Parkland shooting, when they responded by overwhelmingly passing a bill requiring the prominent placement of “In God we trust” in all Florida schools. That bill is part of the Christian nationalist agenda pushed by Project Blitz. How does this make sense in terms of Christian nationalism? What’s the logic involved?

For Christian nationalism, for Ambassadors, they would say the real issue with our country when it comes to violence or anything else is that individuals are not Christian or not following the Christian God. So if we’re able, as a country, to encourage Christianity in the public sphere, that will heal a lot of the fracture in our nation, or these issues that make people want to inflict violence on others. They don’t see where larger structural changes like limiting access to guns might change it, because they say — and you hear this over and over — that if somebody couldn’t use a gun, they would use something else. But we can’t just outlaw evil, it is always going to be with us, violence is always going to be with us. So the only way to reduce violence is through encouraging Christianity overall.

Another reason they would oppose gun control is because they view the Constitution — and, by default, the Second Amendment — as ordained by the Christian God. So, to oppose the Second Amendment right to bear arms, they would say, is to oppose what God has instituted for this nation. The only way to heal our country is through encouraging Christianity, not limiting access to guns.

One thing that stood out for me was that Rejecters stand alone in seeing Christian nationalism as a threat — not spelled out as such, but in terms of those who support it. This seems problematic to me, if understandable. Could you talk about that?

We show that Rejecters are the only ones that are more likely to feel that threat or to be afraid of conservative Christians. The other groups are no different from one another. Even Resisters might see some room for Christianity to play a role in the public sphere. What is important to underscore is that Christian nationalism as a framework isn’t just equal to conservative Christians, or religious people, but is something different, and we find that it’s present across both the religious and non-religious groups and socio-demographic categories. So Americans in a lot of different places will embrace this, to different levels, and it can have profound impacts on how they might view policing of religious minorities or immigration or other issues.

Finally, what’s the most important question I didn’t ask? And what’s the answer?

A point I would want to make is that Christian nationalism has serious implications for two areas. One is American civil society, about upholding a pluralistic democracy. Christian nationalism, we find over and over again, doesn’t encourage an ability to compromise or to work together across differences or to find a common way that we can all agree on. For them it’s more and more about trying to defend a particular version of religion in the public sphere. So it’s really difficult to have a pluralistic democracy, which should be founded on compromise, when increasingly Christian nationalists desire their way or nothing. So that has deep implications for our democracy.

It also has serious implications for the American Christian church. With Christian nationalism in many ways subsuming common Christian traditions and symbols to its own ends, that really can go against the dictates of orthodox Christianity, like loving your enemy or your neighbors, or equality across all races and ethnicities. To the extent people are interested in or are trying to live out the dictates of the Christian scriptures, in many ways Christian nationalism is wholly opposed to them.

So for those who are interested in defending a pluralistic, democratic society, non-religious Americans can find common cause with those Christians who reject Christian nationalism, because they are focused on trying to ensure religious freedom for all or to live in harmony with their neighbors. One example is the Baptist Joint Committee [For Religious Liberty] or Christians Against Christian Nationalism. Non-religious or secular Americans who don’t want to see Christianity privileged in the public sphere can in some cases seek common cause with those who may be devoted to the Christian faith, but reject Christian nationalism.

How today's GOP has embraced the 5 elements of fascism
Robert Reich
June 15, 2023, 

L-R) Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) attend a House Judiciary Committee hearing with testimony from U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland at the U.S. Capitol on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. 

(Photo by Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images)

The Washington Post calls Trump’s vision for a second term “authoritarian.” That vision includes mandatory stop-and-frisk. Deploying the military to fight street crime, break up gangs and deport immigrants. Purging the federal workforce and charging leakers.

“In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” Trump said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference and repeated at his first 2024 campaign rally in Waco, Texas. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

How do we describe what Trump wants for America? “Authoritarianism” isn’t adequate. It is “fascism.” Fascism stands for a coherent set of ideas different from — and more dangerous than — authoritarianism. To fight those ideas, it’s necessary to be aware of what they are and how they fit together.

Borrowing from cultural theorist Umberto Eco, historians Emilio Gentile and Ian Kershaw, political scientist Roger Griffin, and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, I offer five elements that distinguish fascism from authoritarianism.

1. The rejection of democracy, the rule of law, and equal rights under the law in favor of a strongman who interprets the popular will.

“The election was stolen.” (Trump, 2020).

“I am your justice. … I am your retribution.” (2023).

Authoritarians believe society needs strong leaders to maintain stability. They vest in a dictator the power to maintain social order through the use of force (armies, police, militia) and bureaucracy.

By contrast, fascists view strong leaders as the means of discovering what society needs. They regard the leader as the embodiment of society, the voice of the people.


2. The galvanizing of popular rage against cultural elites.

“Your enemies” are “media elites,” … “the elites who led us from one financial and foreign policy disaster to another.” (Trump, 2015, 2016).

Authoritarians do not stir people up against establishment elites. They use or co-opt those elites in order to gain and maintain power.

By contrast, fascists galvanize public rage at presumed (or imaginary) cultural elites and use mass rage to gain and maintain power. They stir up grievances against those elites for supposedly displacing average people and seek revenge. In so doing, they create mass parties. They often encourage violence.


3. Nationalism based on a dominant “superior” race and historic bloodlines.

“Tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border … The United States has become a dumping ground for Mexico and, in fact, for many other parts of the world.” (Trump, 2015)

“I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.” (2019)

“Getting critical race theory out of our schools is not just a matter of values, it’s also a matter of national survival … If we allow the Marxists and Communists and Socialists to teach our children to hate America, there will be no one left to defend our flag or to protect our great country or its freedom.” (Trump, 2022)

Authoritarians see nationalism as a means of asserting the power of the state. They glorify the state. They want it to dominate other nations. They seek to protect or expand its geographic boundaries. They worry about foreign enemies encroaching on its territory.

By contrast, fascists see a nation as embodying what they consider a “superior” group — based on race, religion, and historic bloodlines. Nationalism is a means of asserting that superiority. They worry about disloyalty and sabotage from groups within the nation that don’t share the same race or bloodlines. These “others” are scapegoated, excluded or expelled, sometimes even killed.

Fascists believe schools and universities must teach values that extol the dominant race, religion, and bloodline. Schools should not teach inconvenient truths (such as America’s history of genocide and racism).

4. Extolling brute strength and heroic warriors.

“You’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong. (January 6, 2021).


“I am your warrior.” (2023).

The goal of authoritarianism is to gain and maintain state power. For authoritarians, “strength” comes in the form of large armies and munitions.

By contrast, the ostensible goal of fascism is to strengthen society. Fascism’s method of accomplishing this is to reward those who win economically and physically and to denigrate or exterminate those who lose. Fascism depends on organized bullying — a form of social Darwinism.


For the fascist, war and violence are means of strengthening society by culling the weak and extolling heroic warriors.


5. Disdain of women and fear of non-standard forms of gender identity and sexual orientation.


“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.” (Trump, 2005)

“You have to treat ‘em like shit.” (Trump, 1992)

I will “promote positive education about the nuclear family, the roles of mothers and fathers and celebrating, rather than erasing, the things that make men and women different.” (Trump, 2023)

Authoritarianism imposes hierarchies; authoritarianism seeks order.

By contrast, fascism is organized around the particular hierarchy of male dominance. The fascist heroic warrior is male. Women are relegated to subservient roles.

In fascism, anything that challenges the traditional heroic male roles of protector, provider, and controller of the family is considered a threat to the social order. Fascism seeks to eliminate homosexuals, transgender, and queer people because they are thought to challenge or weaken the heroic male warrior.


***

These five elements of fascism reinforce each other.

Rejection of democracy in favor of a strongman depends on galvanizing popular rage.

Popular rage draws on a nationalism based on a supposed superior race or ethnicity.

That superior race or ethnicity is justified by a social Darwinist idea of strength and violence, as exemplified by heroic warriors.

Strength, violence, and the heroic warrior are centered on male power.

These five elements also find exact expression in Donald Trump and the White Christian National movement he is encouraging. It is also the direction most of the Republican Party is now heading.

These are not the elements of authoritarianism. They are the essential elements of fascism.

America’s mainstream media is by now comfortable talking and writing about Trump’s authoritarianism. In describing what he is seeking to impose on America, the media should be using the term “fascism.”

'Little fires everywhere': Extremism expert warns of 'deep civil unrest' in US
Sky Palma

RAW STORY
June 15, 2023


Washington, DC - January 6, 2021: Pro-Trump protester with Christian Cross seen during rally around at Capitol building (Photo: Lev Radin/Shutterstock)

In the wake of Donald Trump's indictment over his handling of classified information, some worry that the anger and resentment that led to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot has been kicked back into high gear. According to extremism expert, author and podcast host Brad Onishi, the religious underpinnings that inspired the violence on Jan. 6 could spark violence once again.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Onishi said that while it's good that no violence erupted outside the Miami courthouse where Trump was booked this week, "there are little fires everywhere that are pointing us toward deep civil unrest and deep mistrust in our public square."

Onishi says that "Christian nationalism is pervasive in right-wing American politics at the moment," and it emanates from politicians, pastors, and Fox News hosts.

Christian nationalism seeks a nostalgia for a time when America was the “city on a hill," Onishi says.

"The narrative now is that that city on the hill has been overrun by interlopers, and those for whom the country was never intended. So maybe we need to 'build a wall' around the city, because it needs protection — too many folks have gotten in and ruined it and eroded the order that we need in the country."

According to Onishi, when Christian nationalists talk about "freedom," what they really mean is "living out your role in God’s hierarchy."

"They may see the trans person, for example, as not living according to their God-given gender," Onishi said. "So just by being on the subway, or being in their kids’ school, they’re making them less free, because the order is all out of whack. And therefore they need to do something about it. They need to go tear down displays at Target or put forth anti-trans legislation."

Christian nationalists believe that America is on the precipice of an Apocalypse, but they don't see it as the end of the world -- they're more focused on the end of the United States, he said.

"It is a sense of a cosmic war between good and evil. Many Christians believe that they are characters in an epic, and that the ending hasn’t been written yet in terms of what happens to the United States," Onishi says.

Read the full interview over at Rolling Stone.

BEHIND PAYWALL

Understanding the relationship between Zionism and Fascism

Despite the mutual admiration between Zionists and fascists, they are usually seen as separate political movements. However, when viewed through the lens of Western racism, colonialism, and imperialism, the connections become clear.

By Alana Lentin 

 December 28, 2025

MONDOWEISS

Israeli lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir takes part in a march in Jerusalem, on April 20, 2022. (Photo: Jeries Bssier / APA Images)

Editor’s Note: The following paper was presented during the online seminar, “Is Zionism fascist? What will judges think?” hosted by Riverway Law on December 9, 2025.

Despite the mutual admiration of Zionists and fascists, both historically and in the present, it is generally considered unhelpful to characterize Zionism as fascism. However, viewing fascism from the perspective of the Black radical tradition, with its emphasis on racialism, colonialism and imperialism, rooted in supremacist ideas of western civilization, helps make fascism a useful concept for understanding Zionism.

In popular definitions of fascism it is detached from nationalism and associated most strongly with authoritarianism. Israel’s self-presentation as a liberal democracy, the result of a national self-determination project, and even an anticolonial Indigenous manifestation, conflicts with dominant ideas of what fascism is. But this approach to fascism is elusive by design.The history of fascism is dominated by liberal historians who mainly do not see racialism, colonialism and imperialism as central to it. Rather, they tend to see fascism as an aberration of the European/western political project.

In contrast, the revolutionary Black imprisoned intellectual, George Jackson, wrote in 1972 that the definition of fascism is not settled because of ‘our insistence on a full definition… looking for exactly identical symptoms from nation-to-nation.’ In fact, fascism is still under development. For the Black radical political scientist, Cedric Robinson, speaking in 1990, because Black political thought is treated as derivative, Black theories of fascism have generally not been considered ‘worthy of investigation’. Rather, popular culture and mass media are informed by mainstream academic fascist studies which constructs fascism as ‘right-wing extremism’ and ‘neurotic authoritarianism’, and ‘fascism proper… restricted to Europe between the First and Second World Wars.’ These western theorists found it very difficult to see fascism as anything other than the ‘dark side of Western civilization’, briefly flirted with but ultimately rejected.

Black theorists, Robinson goes on to say, based themselves on the experiences of the Black masses. They therefore did not see fascism as the ‘inherent national trait’ of Spain, Italy or Germany, but as ‘composed from the ideological, political and technological materials’ of the entirety of Western civilization. Their approach to fascism was shaped by the ‘crushing defeats’ Black people had already sustained in Cuba, Haiti and Liberia well before Mussolini invaded Libya and East Africa. Indeed, they mobilized en masse against Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 because, as the Black radical intellectual, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote they recognized that ‘other nations have done exactly what Italy is doing’. Italy wanted a slice of the colonial pie that other European powers had kept for themselves. Italian colonization of East Africa was seen as the latest in a litany of attacks on Black life up to and including enslavement which many descended from directly. ‘Anti-fascism,’ Robinson remarks, ‘was thus spontaneously extended throughout the Black world.’

Not all Black intellectuals took the same approach to fascism. For example, C.L.R James tended to side with Marxists who saw fascism as the result of the clash between capitalism and Communism. Fascism was seen by capitalists as their salvation from a workers’ movement with revolutionary potential. But when the Trinidadian intellectual George Padmore returned to the question in 1956, he saw that something more than the crisis of capitalism within Europe was at stake: fascism was the sign of ‘a new aggression of Europeans in Africa.’

W.E.B. Du Bois already saw this in the early 1930s writing later, ‘I knew that Hitler and Mussolini were fighting Communism, and using race prejudice to make some white people rich and all colored peoples poor. But it was not until later that I realized that the colonialism of Great Britain and France had exactly the same object and methods as the fascists and the Nazis were trying clearly to use.’ This echoes Aimé Césaire’s famous remark that Nazism was the manifestation of what had already been done to non-Europeans before being brought to the Continent and turned inwards.

What Dan Tamir calls, a ‘genuine fascist movement’ also existed in Palestine in the 1920s and 30s, especially within the virulently anti-Communist Revisionist Zionist movement’ of Jabotinsky which opposed the supposedly more gradualist approach of Labor Zionism. Tamir suggests that because fascism emerges in periods of crisis, it is unsurprising that it also emerged in what he calls ‘modern Hebrew society’ in Palestine in the 1920s and 30s, a society riven by deep in crisis. However, like most mainstream fascism scholars, and from a perspective that almost totally ignores the existence of Palestinians, he sidesteps the emphasis placed by Black radicals on race.

For many, it was – and continues to be – unthinkable that Zionists could be fascists because of the centrality of antisemitism to fascism in Europe. However, Zionist fascists, like Abba Ahimeir, an admirer of the authoritarian philosopher Oswald Spengler, believed that fascism had no inherent connection to antisemitism, and that therefore Zionists could be fascists. However, more consistent with the Black radical approach is that the European Zionists – Christian but also Jewish – were in fact antisemites, in addition to being racists. Theodor Herzl famously declared antisemites Zionism’s ‘most dependable friends’ and opposed Jewish immigration, arguing they carried ‘the seeds of anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America.’ In 1897 he depicted the anti-Zionist caricature, ‘Mauschel’, ‘a distorted, deformed and shabby fellow’ who he did not see as belonging to the same race as the Jewish Zionist who must be freed from association with Mauschel.

It is well-known additionally that Zionists actively thwarted the saving of European Jews from the Nazis. Ralph Schoenman documents that ‘From 1933 to 1935, the WZO turned down two-thirds of all the German Jews who applied for immigration certificates’ because they were seen as of little use to the requirements of the Zionist colony.

Despite this, the dominant tendency to exceptionalize antisemitism leads many to downplay the role of race for Zionism. But there is no colonial project that is not founded on racial rule. Thus, Zionism enacts racial domination over Palestinians. The ability to colonize another’s land is based on the belief that the people are inferior at best, less than human and utterly killable at worst. Statements and actions to that effect are made constantly by Zionists throughout the current genocide.

The case of Zionist collusion with Italian fascism demonstrates the centrality of race to both fascism and Zionism. Mainstream interpreters of Italian fascism have tended to downplay race, for example citing the fact that Mussolini did not enact racial laws until 1938, and only to side with Hitler. However, as Robinson shows, Mussolini believed in Italian racial supremacy before this pivot, but more important than his personal attitudes were his ambitions in Africa. Mussolini’s relationship with Zionists, according to an article by Michael Ledeen discussed by Robinson, was because they ‘could be useful agents’ to destabilize the British mandate in Palestine and to ‘enlist Jewish populations in Libya and east Africa in the “pacification” of colonized populations.’ Mussolini kept Jews on side in various ways, for example allowing a rabbinical school to transfer from Germany.

Jews in Italy and beyond were widely favorable to Mussolini. However, this was not only because of the protection offered them up to 1938, but also because Italian Jews believed in Mussolini’s colonial project, considering, as Shira Klein notes, ‘that Italy’s pride and reputation depended on its colonial conquests.’ There was thus no reason why Jewish Zionists would not see Italy’s ambitions in East Africa and the Levant as consistent with their aspirations in Palestine.

Zionist obsessions with what Max Nordau called ‘muscular Judaism’ echoed Nazi practices, but also the eugenicist beliefs that were widespread among Europeans, US Americans and practiced throughout the colonized world, including by those with ostensibly social democratic views. Medical experiments carried out on Arab Jews were part of the quest to trace the genetic line of Homo Israelensis to Biblical times. Medical experimentation has also been carried out on Palestinian prisoners. Zionist eugenics cannot be detached from its aim to ‘form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism’ as Herzl put it in The Jewish State, as European is synonymous with whiteness. This is expressed in Palestine via the appeal to a messianic Jewish destiny, but contra the worrying trend of white nationalist attempting to capture the Palestinian liberation struggle in the west, this should be seen as consistent with all settler colonial visions of manifest destiny.

Indeed, it was the ambition of Zionist founders such as Arthur Ruppin to be accepted as wholly European, something they could only achieve by emulating European Herrenvolk nationalism in Palestine.

Zionism is fascist because it is the tip of the spear of European, western, white supremacist racialism, settler colonialism, and imperialism in the current conjuncture. But it is not unique in that regard. In the context out of which it emerged and of which it is a product – European civilizational supremacism, driving colonialism and imperialism – it is no surprise that Zionists admired and emulated fascism and continue to do so, building ever stronger ties to fascist movements globally, from Trump to Millei and Orban. It is also no surprise that Zionism embodies the ambitions of white supremacist nationalists everywhere.

Fascism’s global nature was remarked upon by George Jackson who noted that ‘we have been consistently misled by fascism’s nationalistic trappings. We have failed to understand its basically international character.’ Zionism can be seen as part of an international movement whose acute manifestations resulted from the crisis of capitalism. But as Black radicals showed, it never developed without its core defining feature: racial supremacism.

Just as Black radicals identified that fascism was a manifestation of their everyday experiences under colonialism and slavery, Zionism’s fascism goes far beyond its most extremist proponents, from Jabotinsky to Kahane to Ben-Gvir. From the perspective of the Black radicals, beyond these figures, it is the fact that almost the entire Israeli population is in lockstep with its genocidal colonial project which makes Zionism fascist in all its dimensions.

Henry A. Giroux and the Culture of Neoliberal Fascism

  By Christian Fuchs

The Terror of the Unforeseen

HENRY A. GIROUX

HENRY A. GIROUX’s book The Terror of the Unforeseen analyzes the conditions that have enabled and led to Donald Trump’s rule and the consequences of that rule, that have ushered in an authoritarian version of capitalism. Giroux provides a realistic analysis that holds out the hope that, through collective efforts, change is possible and democracy can be saved.

There is an intellectual debate on whether or not the power wielded by the likes of Trump, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, Matteo Salvini, Geert Wilders, Heinz-Christian Strache, or Jörg Meuthen and Alexander Gauland constitutes fascism. Some analysts — such as Noam Chomsky, Neil Faulkner, John Bellamy Foster, Robert Kagan, Gáspar Miklós Tamás, and Enzo Traverso — speak of creeping fascism, new fascism, or post-fascism. They find both continuities and discontinuities between the classical forms of fascism in Italy and Germany and these contemporary right-wing politicians. Representatives of this position hold that Trump is not Hitler, but stress certain similarities between the two.

Others — including Wendy Brown, Nancy Fraser, Roger Griffin, Chantal Mouffe, Cas Mudde, Robert Paxton, David Renton, and Slavoj Žižek — argue that it is an exaggeration to characterize Trump and other contemporary demagogues as fascists. They prefer terms such as the new authoritarianism, libertarian authoritarianism, reactionary neoliberalism, right-wing populism, the populist radical right, or demagoguery on behalf of oligarchy. They see Trump as dangerous, but stress that his authoritarianism is quite different from classical fascism and Hitler.

Giroux takes the first position. He speaks of “the new form of fascism updated under the Trump administration” and “an updated American version of fascism of which Trump is both symptom and endpoint.” He argues that Trump does not use storm troopers and gas chambers, but divisive language, language that is itself a form of violent action. Fascism is not uniform, but dynamic and therefore takes on variegated forms in different historical and societal contexts. For Giroux, Trump constitutes the rise of neoliberal fascism and the culmination of a long history of authoritarianism that includes historical moments such as the oppression of Native Americans, slavery, US imperialism, torture, and extrajudicial detention and imprisonment (Guantánamo). One of the backgrounds to Trump’s rise is the culture of fear since 9/11, but another is neoliberalism’s dismantling of public education, critical reason, and radical imagination that represents a “full-scale attack on thoughtful reasoning.”

Fascism can exist at the level of individual character, ideology, institutions, or society as a whole, but fascism on one of these levels is a necessary foundation but not a sufficient condition for fascism on the next. Erich Fromm and Theodor W. Adorno argued that the authoritarian, sadomasochistic, necrophilic personality was the psychological foundation of fascism. But the existence of political leaders with fascist characters, even if they communicate fascist ideology, does not automatically imply the existence of a fascist society. For a fascist society to come into existence, these leaders need to call forth collective political practices that result in the full institutionalization of authoritarianism.

In his essay “Anxiety and Politics,” Frankfurt School critical theorist Franz Neumann specifies conditions necessary for the emergence of a fascist society. They include political crises, the alienation of labor, destructive competition, social alienation that threatens certain social groups, political alienation, and the institutionalization of fascist practices, such as collective political anxiety, propaganda and terror, persecutory nationalism, political scapegoating, and xenophobia. A condition that needs to be added to Neumann’s list is the weakness of the political left, beset by rivalries, internal trench wars, factions, splintering, isolation, and orthodoxy, and its frequent miscalculation of the actual dangers of the political situation it is facing —in the Weimar Republic, the Communist Party of Germany did not consider the Nazis, but the Social Democrats as their main enemy. Stalinist Communists characterized the Social Democratic Party of Germany as “social fascism” and believed German capitalism would automatically collapse after Hitler’s rise to power.

Many observers agree that today we find leaders with an authoritarian personality and ideology in a significant number of countries and that there are conditions in these places that can lead to fascist regimes. But the claim that countries such as the United States have become fascist societies goes too far. In a fully fascist society, there is no rule of law and the political opposition and other identified enemies are imprisoned or killed by the exercise of terror. A fascist society is a political Behemoth. Trumpism poses a very negative development, and perhaps has the potential to fully develop into a fascist political economic system — especially if the opposition cannot establish an alternative — but there is still a difference between Trump’s character structure and policies and the total character of US society.

A key contribution of Giroux’s book is the creation of the notion of neoliberal fascism for characterizing the contemporary negativity of politics. But he also uses terms such as populist authoritarianism, American authoritarianism, authoritarian populism, right-wing populism, and inverted totalitarianism. These terms are vague and create more confusion than elucidation. Both totalitarianism and populism can be used for arguing against both socialism and the far right; both, some argue, are threats to democratic societies. For example, Jan-Werner Müller writes in his book What is Populism? that populism is “a danger to democracy” and that Trump and Sanders are “both populists, with one on the right and the other on the left.” Such theorizations often end up in the legitimation of what Tariq Ali calls the “extreme center” of neoliberal ideology, which in action has the material effect of managing the state solely for the benefit of the wealthy.

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In The Road to Serfdom, the leading neoliberal theorist and ideologue Friedrich A. Hayek claims that socialism and fascism are “inseparable manifestations of what in theory we call collectivism.” He claims that both do not “recognize autonomous spheres in which the ends of the individuals are supreme.” As a consequence, Hayek rejects the notions of the “common good” and the “general interest.” He argues that only a neoliberal society, where society and its institutions are organized as markets and are based on the commodity form and capital accumulation, can secure democracy and freedom. Augusto Pinochet’s neoliberal, military, fascist regime in Chile already showed in the 1970s how mistaken it was to assume that capitalism spontaneously brings about and provides the foundation for democracy. And in the more than 45 years since Pinochet’s coup d’état in 1973, the rise of new authoritarian forms of capitalism have shown repeatedly that Hayek was wrong.

Trump’s plan to build a wall at the US-Mexican border and the resulting government shutdowns aimed at forcing through this project, the travel ban for citizens from majority-Muslim countries, the separation of children from families at the border, his racist attacks on socialist congresswomen, his attempt to dismantle the legal protection of Dreamers from deportation — these are all examples of the ideologically motivated cruelties of the Trump regime and what Giroux (following Rob Nixon) terms slow violence. Over time, an accumulation of such cruelties can reach a tipping point where the current system is devastated and democracy abolished.

Neoliberal fascism, Giroux writes, is a formation “in which the principles and practices of a fascist past and neoliberal present have merged,” and which connects “the worst dimensions and excesses of gangster capitalism with the fascist ideals of white nationalism and racial supremacy associated with the horrors of the [fascist] past.” Giroux reminds us of Horkheimer and Adorno’s insights that liberalism and capitalism have inherent fascist potential, that fascism is a terroristic version of capitalism, that fascist potential has not ceased to exist after the end of World War II, and that “whoever is not willing to talk about capitalism should also keep quiet about fascism” (Horkheimer).

Trumpist policies favor the rich and US corporations, advance an economic version of Social Darwinism, with all-out competition ensuring that only the most powerful survive and the rest face precarity, debt, and ruin. Trumpism tries to compensate for the social void created by this neoliberal individualism by fostering what we can call repressive collectivism, and which, as the present author suggests, can be analyzed at three levels — economic, political, and ideological.

On the level of political economy, repressive collectivism is organized as an antagonism between austerity and precarity, which is used to advance protectionist policies that favor the interests of US capital.

At the level of politics and the state, deregulation, privatization, and commodification give wide freedoms to corporations while policing the poor, promoting law-and-order politics, and instituting progressively more draconian racist immigration policies.

At the level of ideology and culture, we find a combination of hyper-consumerist, narcissistic individualism, the cult of leadership, and nationalism. Under repressive collectivism, nationalism promotes the idea of the unity of US capital and US labor and advances the racist and xenophobic scapegoating of immigrants, refugees, people of color, Muslims, and foreigners.

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The conjuncture of neoliberalism and right-wing authoritarianism has brought to the fore an emotional, ideological anti-intellectualism, which impedes any discussion of socialist ideas and ideologically justifies and cements capitalism. Thus, the billionaire capitalist Donald Trump can successfully pretend to be a working-class hero. Right-wing authoritarians often appeal to the working class by displaying crude manners, showing a proletarian habitus, and using simple, dichotomous language. But in reality, of course, these ideologues oppose the interests of the working class. When in power, they often implement laws that give tax breaks to corporations and the rich and harm the working class by dismantling the redistributive effects of the welfare state and public services. Trump signifies the rise of the one percent’s direct rule of the state.

Giroux writes that “fascism begins not with violence, police assaults, or mass killings, but with language.” One of Trump’s infamous, but typical tweets reads: “The FAKE NEWS Media […] is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” Dismissing all criticism as “fake news,” he identifies his person with the American people, and labels any criticism of him as anti-American. Trump’s political anger and authoritarian character replace reason by ideology, facts by fiction, rationality by emotionality, truth by lies, complexity by simplicity, objectivity by prejudice and hate. His combination of anti-socialism, nationalism, and racism were evident recently when he tweeted that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib are “a bunch of communists” who “are Anti-America” and should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Such political communication is not best characterized as post-truth politics, but as propaganda that tries to create false consciousness by simplification, dissimulation, manipulation, diversion, and outright lies. In this context, Giroux argues that we do not live in a post-truth world but in a “pre-truth world where the truth has yet to arrive.”

The Cambridge Analytica scandal has shown how the far right uses data breaches, online data collection, and targeted ads for trying to manipulate elections. “Alt-right” platforms such as Breitbart, InfoWars, Daily Caller, Philosophia Perennis, Unzensuriert, Westmonster, and the rest are projects that spread distortion, false news, and far-right conspiracies. Bots have partly automated the creation of political online attention, and it has become difficult to discern whether humans or machines are creating online content and attention. The culture of false news is one of the factors of Trump’s political success.

As I argued in Digital Demagogue: Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump and Twitter, Twitter and Trump are a match made in heaven. Trump uses first-person singular pronouns much more frequently than first-person plural pronouns, which is an indication of the narcissistic character structure that Erich Fromm argues is prone to engage in destruction for the sake of destruction. Twitter’s me-centered, narcissistic medium invites the authoritarian political communication Giroux characterizes as a show of evil banality: “Trump’s infantile production of Twitter storms transforms politics into spectacularized theater” — Twitter spectacles that are part of a culture of spectacle deeply ingrained in the capitalist tabloid culture that has turned political debate into superficial, personalized, high-speed events that lack the time and depth needed for exploring the complexities of antagonistic societies. In political television debates, candidates are asked to give answers in less than 30 seconds. The capitalist culture of speed, superficiality, tabloidization, and personalization is part of the apparatus that has enabled Trump the spectacle.

The liberal media and Trump have a love/hate relationship. Although these media are some of Trump’s fiercest critics, they helped create him. The Tyndall Report found that in 2015, Donald Trump received 23.4 times as much coverage in evening television newscasts as Bernie Sanders. The capitalist mainstream media are in a symbiotic and symmetrical relation to the political spectacle Trump. The capitalist media require Trump just like Trump requires the capitalist media.

When Trump took to Twitter to call Kim Darroch “a very stupid guy” and the “wacky Ambassador that the UK foisted upon the United States,” The New York Times immediately ran a story titled “UK Envoy’s Leaked Views Inspire More Insults in Trump Tweets.” No matter how silly or insulting, Trump’s tweets are what the mainstream media talk about. The liberal media thereby do not deconstruct Trump but help construct him, giving him the constant public attention that he instrumentalizes for his own political aims.

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Henry Giroux’s book takes inspiration from teachers who strike against terrible working conditions and young people who protest against racism, police violence, student debt, and sexual violence and stand up for gun control, peace, environmental protection, social security, equality, and prison abolition. He argues for a broad protest movement that forms a “united front” against neoliberal fascism, brings together the multiple interrelated issues, interests, and struggles, and “connects the dots among diverse forms of oppression.”

Giroux also stresses the importance of critical pedagogy as a central intellectual weapon in the struggle against neoliberal fascism. Developing “critical consciousness” helps form “knowledgeable citizens who have a passion for public affairs”:

Revitalizing a progressive agenda should be addressed as part of broader social movement capable of reimagining a radical democracy in which public values matter, the ethical imagination flourishes, and justice is viewed as an ongoing struggle. In a time of dystopian nightmares, an alternative future is only possible if we can imagine the unimaginable and think otherwise in order to act otherwise.

Giroux argues that driving back authoritarianism requires informed citizens, critical thinking, deliberative inquiry, a culture of questioning, dialogue, debate, and thoughtful action, cultural production, and at a minimum requires that we provide secure jobs for teachers.

A revival of the public sphere depends on the creation of new debate and news formats run on public service internet platforms and platform cooperatives, new formats that challenge the dominance of Fox News, CNN, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook in the organization of political communication. In order to save democracy, we need to reinvent communication so that digital tabloids and digital capitalism are replaced by digital public exchange and the digital commons. Challenging authoritarianism today requires the remaking of political culture and a radical reconstruction of the political economy of the media and the internet. Arguing for such change in this decisive moment for the future of US democracy, Henry Giroux’s book is an important contribution to the development of the intellectual tools needed in the anti-fascist struggle for 21st-century democratic socialism.

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August 12, 2019   • 

Christian Fuchs is professor of media and communication studies at the University of Westminster. He is the author of books such as Digital Demagogue: Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump and Twitter (2018) and Nationalism on the Internet: Critical Theory and Ideology in the Age of Social Media and Fake News (2019).