The Political Cesspool: The Rise of Christian Nationalism

You won’t be surprised to learn that James Edwards is upbeat about the rise of Christian nationalism. We’ve both spent the last 20 years trying to reach our own people.

These overlapping polls on rising support in the Republican base for secession, Christian nationalism, opposition to the Great Replacement and even openness to political violence all point to the same conclusion. White evangelical Protestants who live in the South, particularly those who live in communities like we do in rural areas, small towns and small metros, are getting extremely radical.

For years, I traveled all over the region with the League of the South going to towns like Pikeville, Shelbyville, Uvalda and Wetumpka trying to reach this demographic. These people overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. They became the core of MAGA. They have never been as radical as us. These people are the normies. They are the sort of people who are our family members and neighbors.

The “journalists” have a more accurate view of these folks than the atheists and pagans in the online White Nationalist movement. These people are overwhelmingly Protestants and Christianity is at the core of their identity. Those who aren’t deeply religious and who don’t even attend church are cultural Christians in their values, beliefs and attitudes. They feel under siege for being White and Christian. They despise our elites and want to overthrow them. It animates their politics.

Evangelical Protestantism is the folk religion of the South:

These people are on fire now.

Millions of White people across Dixie are open to revolution. “Christian” to these people means folks like us. It means the people in my church and community. This is completely lost on the atheists immersed in online racial nationalism who don’t understand how religion functions as the glue that holds cultures together and is the foundation of the social order.

James Edwards has taken slings and arrows from Never Trump evangelical elites in the Southern Baptist Convention like Russell Moore and David French, but what James believes and what I believe and people like Dr. Michael Hill believe too is slowly winning out. It is becoming the conventional wisdom in our swath of the population. These people now understand that they are under attack for being White and Christian.