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[–]Alienhunter糞大名 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

The clear exaggeration of this person conflating the backlash against trans issues in primary school with life becoming intolerable not withstanding. There is a small but persistently significant minority of Christians who essentially could be described as promoting a theocratic form of nationalism. Fascism isn't an accurate discriptive though.

Essentially these people believe that it is the duty of christians to run the government in a way that god will favor less god himself rain down divine punishments. They are essentially progressives in many ways save their opinions on abortion and gay marriage. See it as their divine charge to legislate morality.

It's nothing new in the American political landscape has existed since the puritans at least. They basically started a state where the church held a huge amount of political power and religious dissidents were shunned and banished from the territory. It's how Rhode Island territory got started after they banished Roger Williams for wanting to be tolerant to the Jews and other religious groups that didn't want to join the puritans.

These days the hardline political christians, some call them dominionists but even that exaggerates the level of organization and solidarity there is within their ranks. They largely hold only the the following in common, that America is a Christian nation and our government should reflect that, and that America needs to pursue good moral policies. They cannot however come to wide agreements on what being a Christian nation means, or what those good moral policies should be. So whenever they do gain some power they'll usually see a splintering of their base which allows for their opposition to make back their gains.

If we actually saw them gain wide power the only real issues they'd come to any agreement on would be repealing gay marriage and restricting elective abortions. They'd be unable to gain wide agreements further than that as exactly what restrictions on abortion should be would fall to debate and cripple their ability to get things done, and there would be endless bickerings between the progressive moralist authoritatian wings that see it as their charge to legislate vice from the world as the push for restrictions and bans on such things as gambling, guns, alcohol, tobacco, violent movies and TV and the like, and the more libertarian-esque leave us alone to do what we wish freedom focused constitutionalist types that would be pushing for smaller government and less power to enforce the kind of moralistic legislation the other wings want.

What people on the left fail to realize is there is no solidarity between the different groups of Christians beyond this vague idea of needing to fight against the liberal democrats. Christian groups will split their churches over even the most minor of doctrinal disagreements. They're threat to American democracy is hugely overstated, wherein lies the real danger of fascism. As the left continues to demonize their opposition and paint them as dangerous threats to society they only serve to further the attitudes that will lead to people thinking increasingly authoritarian and political restrictions on freedom of expression are necessary to stop this fictional existential threat to our society.

It's important to recognize the radical Christian Authoritatian wing of the republican party as something that's real, but we shouldn't overstate their importance or power as anything more as what it is, a small but rabid group that have a significant impact on republican fundraising and are easily influenced with the right kind of messaging. But hold little real political power and never will due to their inability to compromise or form coalitions.

As they say a fool and their money are soon parted. If you know the dance and song they like they'll throw money at you if you sing it.

[–]LordoftheFliesAmeri-kin 2.0. Pronouns: MegaWhite/SuperStraight/UltraPatriarchy 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

TL;DR: Christian nationalists do exist, and they could become a problem under the right circumstances. But right now, their actual level of threat and influence is vastly overstated by people looking for an enemy to rail against.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They'd only become a true problem if they somehow rallied around a singular coherent stance and religious dogma, I don't think that is a realistic outcome, people point out Trump as a potential contender of the kind of person who could manage that but if we look at the Christian nationalist attitudes towards Trump we see he was largely reviled by them before he won the nomination and it was only after that the Republican machine was able to repaint Trump as a god fearing christian rather than a pussy grabbing gay supporting money lover that he got any support from them. And we see now that even Trump's base will absolutely boo him if he says anything like "go get a vaccine" or whatever.

Point is he is powerless to control them. I can't think of anyone who is. The only way you can manipulate them to back you is if you've got a clear opponent you can keep their attention on. Once a dominionist or dominionist backed candidate in office they are powerless to enact any kind of lasting change. They cannot compromise on any issues when they've got the divine charge of their base or else they will lose that financial support. If they don't compromise they can't get anything done in terms of legislation and will likely get destroyed in subsequent elections.

The only real way I think this kind of no compromise Christian nationalism could actually enact their platform fully would be if they somehow work out their own internal differences, which frankly I think is impossible due to not having a common doctrinal dogma, you think Mormons Catholics and Baptists will trust each other with political power? Ha.

Second is they'd need to get a voting majority in the US. They're like maybe 10, 15 percent of the total population at very loose estimates. Maybe they are about 30% of Republican voters (but probably 50% of funding). They are forced to work with more moderate republicans to gain office, and they won't compromise so they can't do that.

Their threat is greatly overstated. Their rhetoric is strong but it's like a Schizophrenic Chihuahua trying to fight a Horse. It will make a lot of noise and be super annoying but it's going to get kicked if it starts to bite, or it will start chasing its own tail and become incapable of doing anything.

[–]Vulptexghost fox girl ^w^ 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

There is a small but persistently significant minority of Christians who essentially could be described as promoting a theocratic form of nationalism.

At least it was a small minority until 2020 when the radical left broke the last straw. Probably on purpose, to bait them.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Still is a small minority but the radical left likes to paint all opposition in the colors of the most extreme. Radical right does the same.

American political discourse is driven from the extremes but few people hold opinions that extreme.

[–]Vulptexghost fox girl ^w^ 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Well let's hope it's just my experience then. But this happened to almost everyone I know irl at the exact same time it started taking over in online spaces.

From I can gather it went something like this: when BLM and Antifa rioted and looted and burned entire towns to the ground over non-existent racism, I think that image made conservatives see the threat as anarchist rather than totalitarian. So at that point they did a 180 and instead of emphasizing individual rights and small government, law and order is now their most important virtue. It also created a larger problem of guilt by association. Up to this point conservatives usually opposed identity politics and believed in simple equality. The left constantly claimed they were racist, sexist, everything-phobic bigots, but those claims rarely held water. But I think the rioting scared them so much that now they're afraid of anything associated with the left, including any minority they claim to represent. So lately a small bit of actual racism, sexism, etc. has gained traction among them. The recent threat has made them into partisan purists, so if you voice concern over this they grow afraid that you might be an enemy in disguise and will cast you out, even though it's exactly what they would've said 2 years ago. But they no longer have any principles, the only thing that matters now is exterminating the threat. And you can bet that people like John MacArthur are taking advantage of this fear to sway the masses.

For some reason the biggest new issue with them is gender roles. I'm not talking about transgenderism, I mean they are now obsessed with following the "natural order" where every man works and every woman stays home and raises a family, and they act stereotypical at all times. This is tragic, since it was largely them who defeated this nonsense in the first place. And the strongest argument against transgenderism was that sexist stereotypes need not force someone to switch genders to be themselves. Now the only things they can come up with are "it's degenerate" or "it offends God", which are both basically "I don't like it". And I don't even think they know why they don't like it anymore, only it's associated with their enemies so therefore it's bad. A few months ago one of my family members said I should join the CCP because I said gender roles are stupid. She never talked like this before, and would've certainly agreed with me until recently. This is happening to almost everyone I know, and it's taken off online as well. And if they're just going to become the other side of the same coin as the left, this country is doomed.