Jeff Sharlet on Christian Nationalism

Twitter Thread

I've been reporting on the Right for 20 years. I remember when the head of the National Assoc. of Evangelicals told me he knew they'd lose fight on same-sex marriage, but it was just a wedge issue: what they really hated, he explained, is secularism.

 
"Secularism" is a boring word for an idea that isn't boring at all: that nobody's religion should rule another. When Christian Nationalists make trans kids the latest target of their assault on that idea, don't think you're immune if you're not trans: they're coming for all.

18 years ago, Christian Nationalists framed same-sex marriage as one of the greatest threats. They lost that fight against adults, as they knew they would. So now they're making kids their targets.
This is not a debate about values. It's an assault on children.

What makes it truly grotesque is that if Christian Nationalists thought another target would better serve their ends, they'd stop talking about trans kids. They are, as their own theorist Chuck Colson wrote, motivated not by any "issue" but by hatred for all secularism.

Think about how often Christian Nationalists change their mind about just who it is that they say is the great threat: Muslims, gay teachers, queer marrieds; before that, interracial couples; before that, women voting. Once it was Catholics. Often, Jews.

Christian Nationalists seek out who they think is vulnerable & use that group as leverage to seize power over everybody. Maybe you're not trans, don't know any trans folks, maybe you think this isn't your fight. Christian Nationalists are counting on you thinking that.

Far right Christian nationalists are counting on cishet* liberals tsk-tsking over their assault on trans kids w/out doing anything because they provide room for the Right's expansion of power over everything, including those tsk-tsking liberals.

All of which to say is that even for cishet folks, the defense of trans kids, currently the target of a far right campaign of hateful ferocity, isn't altruistic. It's self-defense. This isn't one of those "first they came for X" things; the Right is coming for it all, now.

Vital point: "Christian nationalists" doesn't equal "Christian." It's a political formation w/in larger sphere of Christianity, & there's no successful resistance against it without solidarity w/ the many Christians--some conservative as well as liberal--of good & open faith.

* “Cishet” means someone is both cisgender and heterosexual. It could also mean both cisgender and heteroromantic. In other words, a cishet person identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth, and they're attracted to people of the opposite gender.