Christian Nationalism, Evangelicals, and the Role of Violence on the Political Left

 

Christian nationalism, often a term used to describe a portion of the evangelical part of the Christian community, has a Roman Catholic contingent as well. It is a response to an issue every thoughtful Christian must face: the relation between Christianity and the culture in which it carries out its mission. The church has an incarnational ministry, which carries with it the implication of a ministry tied to its unique time and place. The mission of the church in every nation needs to include a proper love of the country in which they find themselves, for people will rarely listen if they do not sense that you care. Simply put, Christian nationalism is obedience to Jesus Christ that manifests itself in working for the good of the nation. What motivates the interest I have here is that the political Left and Christians of various theological persuasions view Christian nationalism as a danger. The scholars (Sean Wilentz for one) who make the accusation against the Christian conservative, lumping all Christian conservatives in the Christian nationalist camp, that they are planning an authoritarian takeover of the United States are intensifying a genuine crisis of partisan polarization and eroding social trust.

There is a form of Christian nationalism that Mark Tooley of IRD has explored in a helpful manner. I will be exploring both my disagreement and my dismissal of extremist accusations.

The Declaration of Independence grounds the ability to declare independence from Britain in “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” It explicitly roots the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” in an endowment from the “Creator.” It addresses its appeal “to the Supreme Judge of the world,” with “a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.” This suggests that human rights are prior rights, that is, the state does not establish human rights. The state is bound to acknowledge and respect those rights which have their source in the transcendent dignity of the human person created by God. Such language would qualify as “Christian nationalist” in the minds of some on the political Left.

            Christian nationalism has an intellectual pedigree that I want to contrast with what the Pew Research Center refers to as the “Faith and Flag” conservative. It is not what some on the political Left fear and it is certainly no conspiracy, since those who adhere to this line of thinking are in the open.

Christian nationalists,[1] as represented by Stephen Wolfe, A Case for Christian Nationalism (2022), are post-liberals who wants some level of explicit state established Christianity, a “Christian America” by statute. To be clear, Stephen Wolfe is not the only representative of Christian Nationalism. It is, however, a sort of cultural touchstone for the conversation. He presents a Protestant confessional state that suppresses the outward display of false religion while not trying to govern human hearts. Chapter 7 presents his case for a Christian prince who will lead America to a great renewal, making him more open to the strong man view of history. As staunch Calvinists, they have a strong view of social hierarchy. Some quietly oppose voting rights for women. They have more trust in the “elect.” He is a Calvinist, as are most Christian nationalists. I am put off by his use of the word “man” when he is clearly referring to persons or human beings. His presumption of male head of households and male-dominated vocational associations is off-putting to me. It leads him to discuss feminine virtues like empathy, fairness, and equality that become vices toxic empathy in the public sphere. It reminds me of Bill Girard, Basic Youth Conflicts seminars I attended while in my 20s. I resisted that teaching then, and I still do. Both reason and experience instruct people willing to be taught that women are fully capable of exercising religious and political authority. 

Wolfe refers to Reformed dogmatics, an interest he shares with Karl Barth, which I want to explore to provide some of the theological background for his version of Christian Nationalism. In sharing this, my point is both that there is nothing to fear and that the intellectual pedigree is not violent. He refers to Herman Bavinck. He affirmed dogmatic theology to be a scientific exercise based on thought and reality. God as Trinity is the foundation of dogmatics, scripture is the external cognitive principle, and. The Holy Spirit is the internal cognitive principle. For Barth, Bavinck recovered the theological significance of the hiddenness and incomprehensibility of God. "The distinction between God and us is the gulf between the Infinite and the finite, between eternity and time, between being and becoming, between the All and the nothing. However little we know of God, the faintest notion implies that he is a being who is infinitely exalted above every creature." As such, his initial category for considering the nature of God is that of incomprehensibility and mystery: "Mystery is the lifeblood of dogmatics" (II.1, 186). Bavinck also prefaced his anthropology with a reflection on the spiritual and material world, which moves toward the idea of using a theology of creation for developing a cosmology, a view of the totality, a worldview (III.2, 5.). For Bavinck, God as Creator implies a categorical distinction with the creation (i.e. 'the Categorical Distinction' or 'infinite qualitative distinction'): Thus does not mean that God is unknowable, but simply that he is not exhaustively knowable mediately and through created forms. Human beings have an ineradicable sense of that existence and a certain knowledge of God's being. This knowledge does not arise from their own investigation and reflection but is because God revealed who God is to us in nature and history, in prophecy and miracle, by ordinary and by extraordinary means. In Scripture, therefore, the knowability of God is never in doubt even for a moment. The fool may say in his heart, "There is no God," but those who open their eyes perceive from all directions the witness of his existence, of his eternal power and deity (Isa. 40:26; Acts 14:17; Rom. 1:19-20). The purpose of God's revelation, according to Scripture, is precisely that human beings may know God and so receive eternal life (John 17:3; 20:31). In other words, for Bavinck, the idea of God's essence is thus tied to finite reality as revealing him, a nexus of ontology and epistemology. Some interpreters view his thought as centering in a grace-restores-nature structure. Created by the Father, ruined by sin, creation finds restoration in the death of the Son and in the re-created grace of the Holy Spirit into a kingdom of God. revelation centers in the person of Christ and extends to creation which finds a grand unity-in-diversity that integrates ontology and epistemology. Francis Turretin was the last great teacher of orthodoxy in the Genevan church (II.1, 574). The Institutes uses the scholastic method to dispute several controversial issues. In it he defended the view that the Bible is God's verbally inspired word. He also argued for infralapsarianism and federal theology. The Institutes was widely used as a textbook, up to its use at Princeton Theological Seminary by the Princeton theologians only to be replaced by Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology in the late 19th century. Hedistinguished between the revelation of God in Jesus Christ and the Bible as revelation, but he was especially aware of the danger in which the theologian works in listening to the prophets and apostles and take the risk of misunderstanding that word for later generations (I.1, 309). He also credits Turretin with tracing the same outline of theology as Barth in showing from scripture that the Messiah has appeared, Jesus is the Messiah, and flowing from this is the Incarnation (I.2, 25-6). Turretin traces a path against Mariology that Barth will follow (I.2, 146), stressing that Christ could not have a mother as the eternal Son and could not have a father as the Incarnate (I.2, 193), that Mary had no special aptitude toward God (I.2, 195), that conception by the Spirit prohibits exploration of how (I.2, 201). Barth separates himself from Turretin in trying to identify a list of fundamental articles to which Christians are to assent (I.2, 863-4). He criticizes Turretin for dealing with the theological problem of the omnipotence of God from the perspective of logic and metaphysics, crediting Thomists with approaching it as affecting divine knowledge and the practice of prayer (II.1, 578). Turretin is typical of Reformed theologians in dealing with the doctrine of predestination following the doctrine of God and before the doctrine of creation, and Barth follows that pattern (II.2, 77), presenting the infralapsarian position (II.2, 129-32), and relying upon the internal witness of the Spirit for assurance of divine election for individuals (II.2, 337). Turretin argued that deny providence is to deny God. providence results from the being of God as omniscient, omnipotent, and good, but it also results from the being of the creature as dependent on the Creator and in need of divine support. Providence results from the marvelous harmony and order of all things, which would be unthinkable without a supreme director, from the existence and fulfillment of so many prophecies, the preservation and renewal of the benefit of political orders and from the occurrence of extraordinary favorites and judgments including human conscience (III.3, 31-2). He wrestled with the nature of divine accompanying and the presence of evil in relation to divine providence (III.3, 97, 292). His view of the church is that on the one side the whole act of reconciliation and salvation was accomplished in Jesus Christ and self-revealed in the power of the Holy Spirit, and on the other the existence and activity of the church constitute a closed circle and a perfect world apart in the midst of the rest of the world in all its imperfection (IV.3/2, 767). Zacharias Ursinus was the drafter of the Heidelberg Confession, to which Barth often refers. Johannes Althusius was an early proponent of Federal Theology, which Barth will explore as he expresses his view of the covenant (IV.1, 54-66). Althusius developed his views as the European continent was ravaged by religious wars. In his view, a confederation could be built on successive levels of political community where each community pursues common interests. A village was a union of families, a town was a union of guilds, a province was a union of towns, a state was a union of provinces, and an empire was a union of states. The purpose of politics was the "science of those matters which pertain to the living together" and federations perfectly put the purpose of politics into practice. His federalism rested on responsibly sharing power. He viewed the German Holy Roman Empire as a commonwealth where the majority could decide matters. In his federalism, power is shared among autonomous smaller and larger political communities, where political associations that were grounded in the free initiative of citizens. Natural law gave citizens the right to resist tyrannical government and sovereignty rested with the community, not the ruler. Therefore, legitimate political authority was founded on smaller communities. 

All this assumes human beings are rational beings. The Christian narrative involves the creation, fall, redemption, and glorification of humanity, which suggests that human ends are both earthly and heavenly. This is true of both divine intention before the fall and of divine activity after the fall. God created human beings for monogamous and perpetual heterosexual union, the basis for family. Men are the head of households. Human beings are gregarious or social by nature, a notion affirmed through all theological traditions. Hierarchy, subjection to authority, and inequality are part of the civil order, although slavery violates human nature. Free subjects submit to authority, which itself directs people toward the common good. He presumes vocational associations would be male dominated as well. Civil government has the power to suppress sin. Sanctification restores the moral responsibilities of Adam, including exercising dominion as part of sanctification, exercising the gifts restored to the people of God. The people of God gathered for worship focus on the means to eternal life and not their political struggle.

For Wolfe, Christian nationalism is the idea that people in the same place and culture should live together and seek one another’s good. The grace of the gospel does not eliminate our geography, our people, and our neighbors. Instead, it restores us to pursue local needs and local leadership freely and without apology. He quotes C. S. Lewis: “I think love for one’s country means chiefly love for people who have a good deal in common with oneself (language, clothes, institutions) and is in that way like love of one’s family or school: or like love (in a strange place) for anyone who once lived in one’s home town.” Stephen Wolfe is not interested in American patriotism or very much in America in general. As a postliberal, he wants a premodern Christian society. His goal is to reinvigorate Christendom, for the alternative is the suicide of the West before hostile forces of secularity, authoritarian government from the Left, and Islamic militancy. He rejects a creedal view of America, which suggests a disembodied people, in favor of the intimate connection of people and place. He affirms the significance of ethnicity and that each people-group ought to self-affirm and act for itself, thereby rejecting universality and globalism. Such ethnicity implies familiarity with others based in common language, manners, customs, stories, taboos, rituals, calendars, social expectations, duties, loves and religion. In obeying the command to love the neighbor, he will distinguish, as does Karl Barth, between the near and the far neighbor. The nation is a particular people with ties of affection that bind them to each other and to their place. Wolfe advocates for the justifiability of the “principle of similarity.” That similarity between people facilitates fellow-feeling and therefore that it is right and natural to desire to dwell with people like yourself, with whom you share a common “ethnos.” Defining who should fall within this principle of likeness is difficult, and Wolfe denies it is identical to physical appearance or skin color; instead, the likeness is predicated on a combination of language, culture, and highest ideals that unify nations. He affirms hospitality to the stranger, but there is no obligation to welcome strangers to the detriment of the good of our near neighbors. The stranger has a duty to conform, recognizing they are guests in the home of another, and thus the disposition of the stranger is respect, humility, deference, and gratitude. As a type of nationalism, the Christian nation is ordered to heavenly life in Christ as grace perfects nature. Christianity is an infusion of Christian belief and values into a national way of life that makes Christianity benefit from the nation and the nation benefit from its relation to Christianity. He rejects the notion that Christians should always be in exile, sojourners, and strangers (I Peter 1:17), which would reject the notion of Christianizing civil and social institutions. He thus rejects the renewed anabaptist position of Stanley Hauerwas and John Yoder. Most Christians can feel like strangers in their nation, but he raises the question of whether the relation between Christianity and culture should include that of making a home, of enjoying earthly goods as a means toward enjoying heavenly goods. This would be a way for culture to prepare people to receive the Christian faith and move toward enjoying eternal life, to develop a commodious social life, and to make the earthly city an analog to the heavenly city. This puts him on the side of infant baptism and against placing patriotic symbols in the sanctuary. The church administers Word and sacrament to the sacred assembly for heavenly life. He distinguishes his position from that of Russel Moore, who celebrates the decline of Christian influence in America. He points to a show like Andy Griffith as nostalgia for an America that had more commonality than today, one lost by negligence and malevolence. He asks the reader: how is the loss of cultural Christianity going for you? He thinks that the common good of Americans has not been advanced by the move away from Christianity since the 1960s. The move away from Christianity has not brought neutrality. He views American political and cultural institutions as hostile to Christianity and thus advises a program of separating Christians as much as possible from them. American institutions are doing all they can to undermine Christian beliefs and values. He stresses that Christians do not thrive when those hostile to Christ and the gospel oversee social and political institutions. For him, such social and cultural power is part of the prevenient grace of God, not for coercing people to Christ, but as a way of opening the way to personal faith. As nature abhors a vacuum, so does culture. Something other than cultural Christianity will become the organizing principle of culture. One can see that some form of oppressor/oppressed critique of social relations has replaced Christianity, but one can also see the slow emergence of Islamic militancy on the horizon, in the form of groups like Antifa and BLM. There is no common ground between the vision of Christian nationalism and this Leftist critique of American culture and politics. Christian nationalism is an existential threat to the secularist regime. They are enemies of the church and, as such, enemies of humanity. George Orwell captured this phenomenon in Nineteen Eighty-Four. He called it the “Two Minutes Hate”—propaganda repeated day after day, bringing people to a sort of ritualistic frenzy in opposition to whatever the people were told to hate. It is only a matter of time before Christian nationalists become the villains in the next imagined reality, and our fellow believers, who are just as enmeshed in this world as their secularist neighbors, will join in the Two Minute Hate. But let us remain free in mind, be the true liberals. The mind is its own place. He urges Christians to separate as much as possible from the hostile culture. As an alternative, young people should find a path that maximizes their independence, especially from HR departments, DEI standards, woke administrators, government mandates, etc. Learn skills that provide services to people directly, both locally and online. But healthy individualism expands each person’s possibilities for action and development. It sets the goal at greatness. It encourages an active life of competence, self-command, and a command of nature.

Stephen Wolfe does not present the only version of Christian nationalism. The 2025 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America has a commission studying Christian Nationalism. A common theme is the historic connection with the Reformed tradition and represents the consensus within that tradition. Christian nationalism will go further to say that it is theologically sound and politically prudent. David VanDrunen in his Politics after Christendom, suggest that the principles and the framework established by 16th- and 17th-century thinkers like Calvin and Turretin is broadly correct and useful, establishing a difference between what is “common” and what is “sacred,” leaving the sacred to the church and the common to the magistrate. At the same time, they could suggest these thinkers are merely mistaken when they treat, for example, blasphemy laws as within the proper purview of the civil magistrate. Retrieval of this kind says that these thinkers are broadly correct in principle, incorrect in their application, and can thus be adopted with modifications.

A hint of Christian nationalist themes is in National Conservatism’s 2022 Statement of Principles, declares that Christianity “should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private,” with Jews and “other religious minorities…protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions,” and with all adults “protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes,” but not evidently in their public lives.  

Thus, Christian nationalism is uncomfortable with the constitution, which has public neutrality about religion, with a state granting equal rights to all regardless of faith, is subversive to morality and social cohesion. Christian nationalists are a form of Protestant integralists (John Williamson Nevin, Brad Littlejohn), who push for faith to inform politics deeply, without full dominance by the church, where society presumes the value of biblical norms. Catholic integralists want a society where the Catholic Church is paramount in society including in civil law. Both Protestant and Catholic integralists believe the state cannot be neutral. Either it will support the growth of the “true” faith, or it will establish a false one, which is currently, as they define it, aggressive secularism. Islamic militants aggressively seek to fill the void secularism is creating. Integralists believe that a truly Christian society will have a government pointing to the highest good, and that magistrates are God’s shepherds for directing the people towards the truth. Coercion in religion is not necessary to protect society and individual souls. “In the United States the influence of religion is not confined to the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people. . . . Christianity, therefore, reigns without any obstacle, by universal consent.”—Alexis de Tocqueville. Historian John Fea affirms that Christians believed they were living in a Christian nation, and that a close examination of historical documents suggests they were right. His view is that most of the founders accepted this Protestant view of religious liberty and conscience and that a minority, represented by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, embraced Enlightenment arguments. All founders understood that religion was important to morals and public happiness, which is why churches were distinguished from other associations for the public good. 

Christian nationalists are isolationist and concerned about restricting immigration. They are not supporters of Israel, which is a sharp contrast with Faith and Flag conservatives as defined by the Pew Center. They are suspicious of limited government and believe in a regulatory state when it is in the right hands, giving preference to biblical norms. This puts them at odds with the libertarian part of political right. 

Rousas John Rushdoony represents a Christian Reconstruction persuasion, also called Dominion Theology or Theonomy, which would seek to replace the American constitutional order with a new conception of biblical law. Their brand of post-millennial eschatology guides their conviction that by the spreading of the gospel and the observance of biblical law, the faithful are preparing the world for the return of Christ, who is coming to complete the mission of the faithful in this world.^[2] The Coalition for Revival, with an Internet presence at www.reformation.net, presents its statements of fundamentalist worldviews and calls to action. They believe in separation from other Christians, wants to rescue the church, and want to make America a Christian nation.  Such persons want “biblical law” applied to today where possible. Christian nationalists do not want biblical law in terms of Old Testament punishments. But they do want establishment explicitly favoring Christianity against other religions. This pervading of Christianity in culture and politics provides a background harmony that moves people toward the common good. Christian nationalism is more intellectual and has far fewer adherents. But its intellectual prowess enables it to insinuate itself into postliberal wider circles.

            From an historical perspective, Christian nationalists prefer the First Great Awakening, led by Calvinists like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, and mostly still tied to established churches. But even more so, hardcore Christian nationalists revere earlier Christian commonwealths such as the seventeenth century Puritans, or Scotland under John Knox, or Geneva under Calvin, whose models they deem instructive if not binding. More moderate Christian nationalists will try to argue the U.S. Constitution, even while disavowing religious establishment and religious tests for public office by the federal government, did not preclude established religion for local government.

Such views are distinct from “Faith and Flag” of traditional Christian conservatism. As Wolfe would put it, such conservativism highlights the minority view of the relation between church and state promoted by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson and expresses itself in the US Constitution. However, a 1981 statement, Christianity and Democracy, was drafted by prominent Christian conservative intellectual Richard Neuhaus, backed by fellow Christian conservatives Michael Novak, who was Catholic, and Carl Henry, who was Baptist. It is a vigorous affirmation of democracy, human rights, religious freedom for all, limited government, and capitalism, which most Christian conservatives could still support. Religious freedom is paramount. They are American exceptionalists and enthusiasts for the country’s founding charters and for democracy. One could argue that America has never been a Christian nation in the sense Wolfe describes it, and in fact the settlers who first came here were escaping the Christian nationalism that they experienced in Europe and sought to form something different at least by the time that they rebelled against England and started forming their own country through the US Constitution.

They value the Virginia Statue of Religious Freedom, crafted by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. They trace their heritage to the Second Great Awakening that followed the American Revolution, which was voluntarist, democratic, hostile to state churches, and launched a tradition of moral and social reform through political action. They advocate for an aggressive American role in the world rooted in foreign and defense policy. They championed U.S. victory in the Cold War. And they supported the Iraq War. They support the resistance of Ukraine to Russia. They are staunch supporters of Israel. They favor limited government and free markets. Christian conservatives are more suspicious of political strong men, which they would deem cultic. Christian conservatism has mostly been a populist movement mobilized by parachurch groups and leaders, all of which leads to a natural alliance with the populist Right. 

Noble ideals do not make their way into history except through persons and institutions. Such carriers inescapably fall short of the ideals to which they witness. This is most dramatically true of the Church as the bearer of the Gospel. To say that America has a singular responsibility in this historical moment does not mean that America is God’s chosen nation, as, for instance, God chose Israel. God has made no special covenant with America. God’s covenant is with creation, with Israel, and with the Church. However, because America is a large and influential part of creation, because America is the home of many Jewish people who are heirs of the divine promise to Israel (Rom 9-11), and because this is a land in which the Church is vibrantly free to live and proclaim the Gospel to the world, America has a peculiar place in God’s promises and purposes. This is not a statement of nationalistic hubris but an acknowledgment that America bears a particular and grave responsibility. Beyond this, Faith and Flag conservatives are also mindful that this is the nation for which citizens and the church of America are most immediately accountable.

Part of my point here is that there is no conspiracy to forcefully institute a theocracy. While such conservativism will justify the right of a people to overthrow tyranny, that is not part of the Christian nationalist program for this moment in American history. That is a chimera for those who want to believe the worst of their political opposition and who project onto their opponents the violence they themselves protect and the coercion through government agencies and through manipulating popular technology that they are willing to use, to impose their ideology upon the country. They do this to create a shiny object that distracts from their protection of their own violent groups. Pundits’ fearmongering about the rise of "Christian Nationalism" seems disingenuous, for right in front of their eyes Islam is taking over public places and gaining political power. Islam is a fundamentally political ideology that aims to conquer western democracy and pluralism, militarily or demographically.

            I mentioned earlier that replacing cultural Christianity is an oppressed/oppressor critique of cultural and political relations. Dissolving such relationships into this alienating critique inevitably leads to the justification of violence. This revolutionary instinct of the progressive political Left is part of the heritage of the progressive that reaches back to the Jacobins of 18th century France, as well as Marx in the 19th and 20th centuries. Politicians on the Left provide ideological justification for their violent sympathizers, such as Antifa, BLM, and attacks on law enforcement, such as the Border Patrol and ICE, both of which are doing today what they have always done but now are called thugs and Nazi foot soldiers by political leaders on the Left. The fact that so few progressives or others on the political Left today express little concern for this violence and undemocratic use of power places democratic institutions at risk. This suggests that the fears attached by the Left and others for Christian nationalism is a shibboleth, displaying a profound misreading of what motivates the conservative vote of the Christian and is an egregious misunderstanding of Christian conservatism by writers who ought to know better. Part of the strategy becomes creating a shiny object to distract from actions they have taken. It represents a demeaning view of some on the political Right, a pluralistic aggregate of political communities that includes persons of various religious persuasions, various sexual orientation, various ethnic groups, and of various intellectual commitments (traditional conservative, nationalist, libertarian), The instinct in such a tradition is the preservation of home that involves a covenant relationship with the living and the dead and future generations. Displacement of God in the minds of such persons by a political party, a political leader, or a political ideology is not in the cards. Such Christians love their country. You may disagree with them, but they are not fascists to be opposed at all costs, but fellow citizens with whom to engage in rational discourse. 

            The Lord’s Prayer includes the petition to deliver us from evil, which suggests that one of the major tests of a human life is to recognize such evil and resist its temptation.

            There is an idolatrous hope placed in politicians and political parties. The revolutions inspired by Marx, their attainment of political power, and the failure of Marxist states, reveal the emptiness of its romantic and utopian dream and its failure to deal with human communities as they are. The dream of a Christian prince who will be so faithful in implementing biblical law that it will prepare the world for the fulfillment of that mission in the return of Christ is just as empty.

America is not on the verge of a Christian nationalist theocracy. Such an accusation is virtue signaling to your progressive tribe that you are with them, but it also lets the political conservative know you are not to be taken seriously. It is part of the accusation by those of the Left to raise the danger of a radical right-wing violent takeover of the country. For those who make the accusation, such a civil war inspired by the right-wing constitutes how “democracy dies in darkness.” However, no one is arguing that Christians should throw out the Constitution and replace it with the Bible, or that we should make citizens, candidates for office, or government officials recite the Nicene Creed before they may enjoy legal rights. The fears regarding Christian nationalism are similar to the accusation so easily placed upon anyone who disagrees with the Left is fascist. It has no connection with the real opponent the political Left face in conservatives of the secular or religious variety. 

            It would be a gift if America could at this juncture in its history have a president who could act upon the humble and gracious sentiments Lincoln expressed in his Second Inaugural Address: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.”

---

[1] https://juicyecumenism.com/2024/02/22/christian-conservatism-vs-christian-nationalism/

^[2] Murray Friedman, The Neoconservative Revolution, p. 213.

January 6, Insurrection, and the Corruption of Political Discourse

 

I am concerned with the way political conversation has degenerated. I am also concerned with how a Christian responds to that conversation. I begin with some background on the way I think our minds deepen and broaden our experience. I will then apply it to the danger is see for our public discourse. In a certain way, the soul of the nation is at risk, and in a democracy, the people need to be engaged in what is happening. I will use the event of January 6, 2020, to shed light upon the danger I am sensing. This reflection is from one minor participant. 

            One way to think of the process of intellectual development is as a continual movement between self and world. We are learning who we are and can be through our engagement with the world. As we mature, our experience of the world keeps broadening and deepening, so our experience of self keeps broadening and deepening as well. This movement between self and world involves heightening the difference between self and world, for we are engaging that which is not us, our opposite, to mature into the authentic self we hope to be. The encounter with that which is different from us generates creativity of thought and emotion. The pressure of the negative, the different from us, deepens and broadens our minds. The power of the negative is that it holds out the possibility of reconciling the opposition we experience between self and world. The tensions we experience because of the difference between us and world find some form of resolution in the healthy and mature person, even though the restlessness of the mind will perceive the pressure from new oppositions that will further the process of deepening and broadening the mind. Understanding the process of mind in this way assumes an underlying rationality in the way a set of assumptions encounters their opposite. 

            My exploration here focuses upon the encounter that occurs between persons. This understanding of the mind assumes well-intentioned opposition or difference in the other person whom we encounter, meaning here the respect for the self-worth and dignity of the opposition. It also assumes that the continuing presence of this opposition or difference is a good for society, regardless of how deep the difference. This difference could occur within various spheres of society. We see it in the variety provided by the economy, the variety of moral choices available, and the variety of religious options, all of which arise from the human desire for a flourishing or happy human life.

            My focus here is the encounter in the public square of political and ideological difference. At its best, the encounter with the negative, meaning that which is different from the ideological stance we have embraced, is a positive and optimistic encounter, as we engage in a respectful discourse and debate around the role of government in our lives at national, state, and local levels. As an ordered society, elections provide a temporary resolution of the difference, but the next election may shift that resolution into another direction. Governing often requires some reaching across the aisle to attain a result partially agreeable to both.

            Here is the question I am pondering. What if an historical moment arises in which you as one who opposes their ideas become a threat to democracy, a promoter of racism and bigotry, have a hidden hate of women, are fascists, and are therefore a threat democracy?

            To engage the negativity presented by the pluralism and even tribalism of this historical moment requires commitment to rational discourse. I believe that commitment can lead to a deepening and broadening of our intellectual capacity to handle different and maintain respect for the other. 

            Here is the problem I am seeing. When one side within this historical moment places itself in a pure power equation, rational discourse that arises from mutual respect of the other disappears. All that matters to that side is who has the power to impose its views upon the other in an attempt to obliterate the other. This side will not view itself as totalitarian, since it is not locking people in prison, but given the technology available, there are many ways to silence or render ineffective any opposition to one’s own perspective. In this sense, those who once embraced a form of classical liberalism grow tired of the rationality that democratic institutions require.

            My debatable suggestion is that the progressive opposition has become tired of rational discourse with the conservative. My suggestion is also that conservative opposition has not given up on rational discourse. The problem I am seeing is that progressives are placing the public political debate outside the normal reconciliation processes of the mind. 

            I want to test a thought that has been brewing in my mind. I guess I understand that in political discourse there is some satisfaction one receives, by ascribing superior intelligence to oneself, in declaring that half the voters, your political opponents, are crazy, fascist, racist, and a threat democracy. I refuse to be that devoted to my political ideology, however. I still think that those with whom I disagree deserve my respect.

            I want to use a test case in the charge of insurrection arising out of January 6, 2021. An insurrection is an organized attempt by a group of people to engage in a rebellion against their government, usually manifested in acts of violence designed to attain control of the government. I grant that America may need to go through its own post-modern version of insurrection from either the Left or the Right, not knowing what the result of that path will be. It may well mean that such a process of differentiation is necessary to rediscover a common desire for human flourishing and a respect for differing rational conclusions. However, at this point, to suggest that this is what Trump had in mind is a conspiracy theory of large proportions. I am not inclined toward conspiracy theories, so my mind goes toward the motivation behind those making the accusation. Why would they engage in such deceptive, lying rhetoric regarding the opposition? Why would they label Trump and those associated with him, such as Ben Carson, Nikki Haley, and many others, as engaged in such activities? This is a dangerous use of language that tends to hook the anger of those who believe it. Such anger naturally leads to acts of violence, as Jesus pointed out in Matthew 5:21-2. Why poison the public square with such explosive language?

In 1954, four Puerto Rican terrorists attacked the Capitol. Unlike those who got inside the Capitol building two years ago, the 1954 terrorists were armed with guns. The four opened fire from the House Gallery, wounding five lawmakers: Reps. Alvin Bentley, Ben Jensen, Clifford Davis, George Hyde Fallon, and Kenneth Roberts. In 1971, a domestic terrorist group, the Weather Underground, bombed the Capitol, causing $300,000 worth of damage. Luckily, no one was killed or injured. The so-called Weathermen returned in 1983 and set off another bomb that “tore through the second floor of the Capitol’s North Wing,” according to the Senate’s history website. There were no fatalities. As for January 6^th arrests, not was convicted of insurrection and some were charged with sedition.

The term “insurrection” has a specific legal definition under the U.S. Code (U.S.C. 2383), which says:

 

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

 

According to Biden’s own Justice Department, none of the 950 arrested in connection with the riot was charged with insurrection.

Prosecutors did charge 50 defendants with conspiracy, and four have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. The other conspiracy-related charges were conspiracy to obstruct a congressional proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct law enforcement during a civil disorder, or conspiracy to injure an officer. 

Seditious conspiracy (under U.S.C. 2384) is defined this way: 

 

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than [20] years, or both.

 

            The argument is that Jan 6 was legal “incitement” when Trump told rally-goers to walk to the Capitol and “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”  I assume this means that the words “peacefully and patriotically,” were a secret signal, meaning, “commit wanton acts of violence for no purpose whatsoever.” Thus, with these words, I am not convinced that he was trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power. He and most of the crowd were present to protest peacefully. He was not attempting to stay in power after he had lost. He was not trying to drive a stake through the heart of American democracy on that day. We did not almost lose our democracy on Jan 6 and saying so repeatedly just reminds those who are conservative that progressives will say anything, including using hateful speech, the arousal of anger, and deception, to let other progressives know they really hate Trump and really hate conservatives and are loyal soldiers in the progressive movement to transform the culture. It has also meant that they will not condemn any act of violence when directed against those they claim are part of an insurrection.

            The Washington Post, one of Trump’s most ferocious critics, completed a stunning investigative report back in January quoting distinguished prosecutors, defense lawyers, law professors, and judges on whether our country’s former chief executive could be criminally charged for any of his actions on Jan. 6, 2020—or even on days leading up to that event. The verdict: The Justice Department would find it difficult to get an indictment and even more difficult to get a conviction. The Post reported that the legal experts to whom reporters talked believe that much of what Trump’s critics have accused him of has traditionally been protected speech by the First Amendment. 

2000 Mules is a 2022 American political documentary from controversial political commentator Dinesh D'Souza. He is a passionate believer in the conservative cause and in the notion that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. His passion and commitment skewed his vision of what happened. He wants to see the election as stolen so badly that he sees it there. He connects dots and sees patterns, but in this case, all this was in his mind. The film claims unnamed nonprofit organizations associated with the Democrat Party paid "mules" to illegally collect and deposit ballots into drop boxes in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin during the 2020 presidential election. A Reuters article explains the gaps in evidence in the documentary. In addition, when any evidence has been presented before the courts, the evidence falls short of the legal standards for proof. I do think many practices of elections as conducted today open the door for fraud in close elections. There is some fraud in every election. If it were up to me, we would go back to elections occurring on one day. We have learned that Democrats through the money of Zuckerberg, AFL-CIO, and Chamber of Commerce, got out the Democrat vote in the swing states they needed, much as Trump did in a separate way four years before. 

            I want to be clear, and in doing so I will risk making conservatives who support Trump upset with me. Jan. 6, 2020, was the worst day of the president’s term. The rioters were some of his most devoted followers and had been stoked by the president’s unproven claims that voting machines had been rigged to give Biden the victory. And no matter how much Trump may proclaim that he won the election, neither the constitution nor the Congress empowered his vice president to unilaterally prevent Biden from becoming the 46th president. Trump’s behavior is often deplorable. Trump was reckless. In the early hours of the next day, Trump tweeted an invitation to a rally in his support set for Jan. 6, ending with the words: “Will be wild.” In one clip from his deposition, Cipollone said he believed that once the Electoral College voted on Dec. 14, 2020, all of Trump’s legal options were closed. But Trump was frustrated with the White House lawyers, Giuliani said. “You guys are not tough enough,” Giuliani recalled Trump saying.  “You’re a bunch of p—–s. Excuse the expression. But I’m almost certain that was the word that was used.” Cipollone also said during the deposition that he told Trump that seizing voting machines “is a terrible idea.” “I don’t even know why I need to tell you why that’s a bad idea,” Cipollone recalled saying. Trump seemed not to act quickly enough when the rioting at the capitol occurred. I would argue that he showed himself to be a man who does not have the moral qualities or moral judgment to lead this nation. He was wrong to tell those gathered on that day that he really won the election, and the Democrats rigged the election. Trump never conceded the election, to my knowledge, another example of his deplorable and reckless behavior.

            Despite all this, Alan Ryskind said that the Washington Post conducted a stunning investigative report quoting respected and impartial legal experts that Trump was not obviously guilty of any criminal act on Jan. 6. Not one. The Post took every major accusation tossed by Trump’s political enemies—including Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.—and had an answer for each charge. 

            To be clear, what happened on January 6, 2020, was not a good thing for the country or for conservatives. 

            However, the use of that event to label conservatives as a danger to democracy is a greater danger to democracy than any action on that day. As Roger Kimball put it, the Jan 6 committee is a “model trial,” wherein the “aim isn’t to discover the truth—which was supposedly already known—but to stage a propagandist exhibition.” Progressives are showing the conservatives their intolerance and totalitarian nature through their words and actions in this regard. We need to have open ears and listen and open eyes to see what is before us. Of the more than 100 subpoenas issued by the Select Committee established to probe the Capitol riot, less than 10 percent, according to a Federalist analysis, have targeted individuals directly involved in the chaos. The rest has gone after Americans who committed the now-apparent crime of holding a peaceful demonstration at the White House and espoused unacceptable views in the eyes of the incumbent regime. 

            Yes, Trump is wrong for claiming the election was stolen. In this regard, the Democrats were wrong as well. Were they engaging in criminal behavior? 

            Beginning with George W. Bush’s victory in the 2000 presidential race, Democrats have contested three Republican victories in the 21st century, with two Democrat House members opposing Trump’s victory on the grounds that the Russians had illegally interfered in our elections. As Mollie Hemingway put it so well: If claiming elections were stolen were a crime, the entire Democrat Party and much of the media establishment would be in prison. The last time the Democrats completely accepted a presidential election they lost was 1988. 

Hillary Clinton repeatedly declared Trump an “illegitimate president,” and claimed that 2016 was “not on the level” and “stolen.” She is by the definition Democrats embrace an “election denier.” As are Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, John Kerry, Al Gore, the late John Lewis, the late Harry Reid, Paul Krugman, Jerrold Nadler, virtually the entire Washington Post editorial page, Time magazine, every other major media outlet, the White House Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, former DNC chairs, and scores of others. Democrat operative Jon Karl interviewed Liz Cheney, who promised to work against “election deniers,” people who do not “respect the outcome of the election.” Among the people Cheney will reject are Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz—neither of whom, as far as I can tell, deny that Biden is the legitimate president of the United States. That is not enough anymore. Do Democrats believe Trump won 2016 squarely and fairly? Mere months after Biden said the 2022 midterms could “easily be illegitimate,” but later claimed, “We honor the will of the people. We do not deny it.” Biden’s current press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, along with many other Democrats, explicitly rejected the will of 63 million people in 2016 when they realized that will was for Trump to run the White House. Democrats in Congress not only tried to block the certification of Trump’s election and every GOP election this century, something they accuse Republicans of doing in 2020, but they campaigned on and continue to campaign on the delusion that Trump “stole” the election and was an “illegitimate” president. More Democrats denied that Trump won the 2016 election than people who claimed Biden was not legitimately elected in 2020. One in three House Democrats boycotted Trump’s inauguration celebrations in 2017. The Washington Post giddily bragged about various groups formed to impeach Trump in his first days in office, on the pretext he was illegitimately elected. Rosa Brooks, an Obama administration Pentagon lawyer, less than two weeks after Trump’s inauguration wrote a long denialist essay in Foreign Policy outlining a strategy to remove the illegitimate president. She discussed the options of impeachment, the 25th Amendment—and even a military coup. Time magazine’s Molly Ball in a triumphalist essay bragged that in 2020 a combination of Big Tech money from Silicon Valley—fueled by Mark Zuckerberg’s —absorbed the balloting collection and counting of several key voting precincts weighed to help Biden.

            Democrats, however, are trying to use the House select committee, whose sole purpose is to find out what happened on Jan. 6, to prosecute the former president and his advisers for a crime they have yet to discover. The damage to the country and even the world caused by that false and damaging stolen-election claim — which, again, was the result of a plot, secretly funded by the DNC and the Clinton campaign, with allies in the FBI and CIA — was far greater than the one-day riot at the Capitol, or even the months-long Democrat riots during 2020 that destroyed cities, businesses, homes, monuments, and peace. This is not “what-about-ism,” but a matter of equally applying the law.

            It seems that slurring half the voters of the country with the label of insurrection and of being a threat to democracy is okay for the progressive community, given that Biden can call those who remain loyal to Trump semi-fascist. 

 

•   Yet Biden is the one without constitutional authority to remove some $500 billion in student loan debts— the single largest executive action in American history.

•   He illegally tasked his Occupational Safety and Health Administration with forcing vaccines on some 80 million people because of a “public health emergency”. 

•   He used his Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to try to propagate an eviction moratorium on the same basis. 

•   He bragged in July that he will reshape the American economy on his own if Congress does not act to forestall a supposed “climate change emergency.”

•   He could refer to many in the Republican Party of being “a threat to the very soul of this country.”

•   He has illegally failed to secure the border.

•   He has failed to confront the violence plaguing American cities, most run by fellow Democrats.

•   He has adopted policies that have destroyed the wealth of many retired persons, led to inflation, and increased dependence upon authoritarian regimes for oil rather than expanding our production of oil to serve a questionable crisis related to the environment. 

         

            We may well need to be concerned with the soul of the nation. That soul has included the recognition of valid and rational opposition to those who temporarily through the electoral process have gained political power. 

            Here is the danger I see. The continuing accusation of semi-fascism and insurrection has become a way to dismiss millions of voters as an irrational threat to the nation. To dismiss the votes of millions of Americans in this way is to refuse to hear the genuine concerns behind them. Those concerns are not oriented to fascist and racist beliefs, but to a concern for liberty, for continuing respect for the founding of the nation, for respect for traditional and religious values, and for the sense that Washington DC has fallen out of touch and is corrupt. Many will vote for the most conservative candidate on the ballot. Many are concerned with the effect of illegal immigration. Many want a smaller federal government with less regulatory influence upon their lives. Many have concerns for the cultural, economic, and political elites in that they have little concern for the average American. Many were disengaged because of the feeling of alienation from the institutional life of the country. Accusing such persons of semi-fascism and insurrection lifts the burden from the progressive from engaging the opposition with rational discourse as to the direction of the country, by seeing only their comprehensive world view as viable. The use of the human language to deceive, lie, and an anger that leads to violence is a threat to the soul of the nation. Thus, the nation may well be experiencing its own dark night of the soul, a period of ignorance and spiritual crisis. 

            Yet, I do have a hope for the nation. Political leaders could recover the insight that we broaden and deepen the soul of the nation through respectful difference with the opposition. My further hope is that out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls for, as Paul put it: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies (II Corinthians 4:8-10 [ESV]).”

A Thought Experiment on the Political Effectiveness of the Accusation of Fascism in America Today

            

             One performs thought experiments, or imaginary experiments, in the imagination. We set up some situation, we observe what happens, then we try to draw appropriate conclusions. In this way, thought experiments resemble real experiments, except that they are experiments in the mind. I want to state at the outset that it is debatable whether such an approach can provide helpful insights into what is going on the world. If you can join me in the experiment, and not get too defensive, we might open ourselves to a helpful insight. I might be making a too-subtle approach to what I want to say. If that is your experience reading, I apologize at the beginning.

            To carry out this thought experiment, I will need to refer to President Trump and his supporters. The reason is that progressives too often use the fascist label for him and his followers, which number in the millions. Personally, I would prefer that Trump enjoy the rest of his life and allow Republicans to explore a future without his direct involvement. I would like him to be quiet. I did not expect him to do that, and although I hoped for Nikki Haley, I am not surprised at the result of the Republican primaries of 2024. I feel like I do not have a political party.

            For this thought experiment, I am using Trump and his voters to explore whether such an accusation sheds light on the debate occurring in the public square of America today.

“Everyone seems to have become Hitler.” Historian Gavriel D. Rosenfeld wrote these words in his study of how the Nazi past has become a recurring theme in contemporary culture – to the point of almost becoming trivial. Its prevalent use in political conversation is part of the nasty character of political dialogue today. When people make facile comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis, they are trying, usually in good faith, to warn us about the dangers of ignoring history and its lessons. It attempts to deliver a knock-out blow that will end the argument. Thus, in political conversation, we may agree on nothing else, but we can agree that Hitler is a symbol of evil. Negotiating him was futile, so rational political discourse becomes futile if either side considers the other side as Hitler. False equivalencies not only risk trivializing Hitler and the horrors he unleashed. They also prevent people from engaging with the actual issues at hand – ones that urgently require our attention. The standard for inhumanity to other human beings is set high in referring to Hitler, who engaged in genocide. Dehumanizing the political opponent occurs far from genocide, and may include the comparison of the opponent with Hitler.

            The 1930s were the time of Nazi rise to power in Germany. They used the crisis of German defeat in WWI and the global depression as a path to power. The populace was desperate, and the slogan “bread and work” was effective to bring them to power. However, they also effectively used methods of public intimidation to strengthen their hold on the population. The history of fascism does not begin with a dictator simply marching into a nation’s capital and seizing total power. It more frequently begins with the destruction of the legislative branch at the hands of centralization of executive power. Adolf Hitler did not just declare himself dictator; dictatorial power preceded him in the chancellor’s office by several years, dating back to Heinrich Bruning invoking emergency powers under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution in 1930. Benito Mussolini came to power under constitutional means in 1922 and did not consolidate his rule until 1925. Fascism, in other words, is a gradual process. And that process starts with executive branch actors accumulating authority they did not legally acquire.

            I want to begin the thought experiment by illustrating the accusation of fascism used by a progressive. A progressive I follow on Twitter kept waiting for Trump to attempt the beerhall putsch, the feeble attempt by Nazis to take Germany by force. Some Nazis were killed, and Hitler was himself almost killed. Hitler memorialized those who died when he became chancellor. The progressive I follow thought January 6 was that moment, but it never materialized. Two years after Trump was no longer president, he was still seeing signs of that putsch. Such comparisons tell me much about how Trump and his voters disgust him, how dear his progressive ideology is to him, and nothing about Trump, except that he never took over the government by force. The progressive raising this fear was wrong. His accusation did nothing to persuade. It was a signal to his progressive friends that he was a loyal member of that community, and that was about all. The fact that he is a theologian and has written some solid theology on Bultmann but has never admitted his wrong is troubling but expected.

            Thus, one way to read all this is that amid the collapse of the “public”-“private” distinction and the “other”-izing of half the citizenry by President Biden means that the stakes could not be higher. The vision for America promoted by progressives has grown increasingly dark. Its embrace of identity politics has morphed into an all-out drive for divisiveness, demonizing huge swaths of the American people for purely political purposes. Demonizing releases those who oppose demons from the responsibility of engaging the opposition rationally and respectfully. Thus, one could argue that if anyone is a danger to the soul of this nation and what America represents in the story of human history, it is President Biden and his allies. The idea that a sizable portion of the opposition to the party in power have replaced fascists, Soviets, and radical Islamists as the true enemies of America would seem to be a declaration of war on half of the country.

           I want to concede that an American version of fascism may be the path through which the nation may need to travel to discover itself anew. Such a post-modern differentiation may be the dangerous path down which America needs to travel for its citizens to discover anew their common desire for human flourishing and respect for rationally arriving at divergent political conclusions. Let us now engage in a bit of irony by exploring a few fascist methods and relate them to a reading of certain recent actions by progressives.

            A widely accepted element of “fascism” is the cooptation of the “private” sector by the “public” sector, especially in service of entrenching a one-party state. 

            One could argue that progressive ideology so permeates Big Tech and other large corporations so deeply that its alliance with a progressive power structure in Washington DC constitutes a move in the direction of a one-party state-private sector. Removing not just Trump but other conservatives, removing posts that are not consistent with the progressive view things, placing warnings on conservative views of climate change, are among the hints of such an alliance. 

            One method of fascism was the control of major information outlets. They told reporters what the theme was to be in their communication. They made sure their political views were the dominant concepts in the major newspapers and on the radio. Everywhere one turned, the only acceptable political views allowed were views consistent with the Nazi program. 

            One could argue that progressives are using this strategy effectively. It does not require a central organization dominated by a charismatic personality because it is a shared ideology. We see it in major media outlets (NYT, Washington Post, and the major papers of every major city, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC). We also see it in entertainment, as progressive ideology works their way into movies and television shows. The practice of shaming entertainers if they do not tow the progressive line has been effective, in part because if one moves against it, one is less likely to get a job. 

            Another method of fascism was physical intimidation. The brown-shirts were thugs that occasionally went through the streets to kill and physically intimidate opponents. They were the reason in the Night of Broken Glass they destroyed many Jewish businesses, and they killed 100 Jews, was what it was. 

            One could argue that for the progressives, Antifa and Black Lives Matter were organized to intimidate voters before the 2020 election. It made it appear that if Donald Trump were just not President, everything would quiet down in the streets. This has been true, as the organizations have become less vocal and less violent. One can be sure their violence will increase if the next President is GOP.

 

•   There were riots throughout the nation that shut down many cities. The use of violence through Antifa and BLM were designed to intimidate voters into electing whomever the Democrat Party nominated to assure peace. 

 

            Another method of fascism was political intimidation. The goal was to eliminate any legal political opposition for the sake of national security. 

            The progressive needed the Democrat Party for this, and some Never Trump persons, and it worked. 

 

•   Using many lies, notably the Russia narrative which some journalists like Margot Cleveland and others have exposed as the Russia hoax, and the Steele Dossier, making Trump Hitler and Trump supporters Nazis. 

•   They had a sustained effort at the nullification of the 2016 election, which Hillary Clinton still questions its legitimacy.

•   When rioting exploded in the streets of Washington, D.C., after the election results of 2016 became clear, Madonna infamously shouted to a mass crowd that she dreamed of blowing up the White House, with the Trump family in it.

•   Do they believe that Georgia or Texas run “fair and square” elections? Doubtful. Yet, the media asks only conservatives to treat every election law passed by Democrats as a sacrosanct pillar of “democracy” or risk Democrats and their many friends in the media smearing them being as traitors. 

•   As an aside, the election of Biden with a $419 million infusion from Zuckerberg and friends targeting Democrat strongholds in purple states to get out that vote was a significant victory, especially since Trump outpaced past GOP votes from among Hispanic and Black voters. 

•   The President accusing his political foes as “semi-fascist” is the same one who sent the federal law enforcement to execute a predawn raid on the private residence of his former, and perhaps future, ballot box opponent. 

           

            Another fascist practice was to discredit by fabrication and lies. They would turn on each other. The Nazi Storm Troopers came under suspicion by Hitler. In 1934, Hitler had many killed and Ernst Rohm imprisoned. Other Nazi leaders, such as Hess, Himmler, and Goehring, wanted Rohm killed, but Hitler resisted until they fabricated evidence of the disloyalty of Rohm. 

            This allows me to expand on the point above, reading the behavior of progressives in a certain way. 

 

•   Progressives used this method in the fabrication that was the Steele Dossier, the basis for the accusation that Trump colluded with Russia. 

•   This form of intimidation continues in the January 6 committee, in which the opposing political party did not have a representative. No one thinks what happened in the capitol of the nation was a good thing. However, it was not a good thing that riots occurred throughout the country, property destroyed, and lives lost because of it. The use of public show trials of political enemies is a favorite of authoritarian regimes in every time and place. 

           

            Another method was fear. Fascists wanted Germans to blame Jews for their financial woes and for their defeat in the war. This proved to be tricky. When they tried a national boycott against Jewish businesses and planting SS troops outside such businesses, many Germans walked past the troops and did their businesses anyway. They lied about the violence against Germans in neighboring Czechoslovakia, generating a fear in the German population and acceptance of the invasion of that country. 

            One way to read progressive methods is that they have effectively used lies about Trump, but they have also used lies about the effect of overturning Roe vs Wade and lies about the climate, to generate fear and justify calls for national emergency measures and increased restrictions on businesses and individuals that line-up with the lies. 

            My question is this: does such a comparison of fascism and progressive methods have any effectiveness? The comparison I am making between fascist and progressive methods in this thought experiment tells you as a reader that I really dislike these actions by progressives and that I hate fascism. However, does my concern about recent progressive methods and actions equate to fascism on the part of progressives? More importantly, does the comparison do anything to advance the conversation America needs to be having in the public square? 

            If a progressive were to read to this point, I can imagine the reader offering many objections. That is my point. While from my conservative political position I do not like what I see happening, the point of my thought experiment is to explore whether the accusation of fascism in the American context sheds light upon the issues facing the country today. I used a conservative reading of progressive behavior to show that as easily as the charge of fascism rolls off the tongue of a progressive when directed to President Trump and his supporters, a conservative has plenty of behavior by progressives in government and culture to make the same charge. However, do such accusations advance a discussion of the issues facing the country?

            To make my point directly and clearly, not only is history not repeating itself, but it is also not even rhyming, as it relates to the horrible experience of fascism in the 1920s and 1930s. All Americans agree that fascism as experienced in the middle part of the 20th century was a horrible part of the experience of the Western democracies and none of us want it repeated. I encourage you to watch documentaries related to the historical movement of fascism, especially the rise of Hitler to power and its effect of concentration camps and a war that resulted in the loss of 50 million lives. No one on either side of the political spectrum wants this. Thus, the accusation of fascism in that sense ought not to be part of honest discourse. However, an American version of post-modern fascism stemming from intense anger, which the progressive seems to nurture toward all who disagree with that ideology, is clearly a possibility. I have no idea what that path would like or the type of transformed nation it would create. I clearly would prefer not to find out.

            The question then arises as to why both sides use the accusation of fascism against their opponent. I will share my view.

            The accusation of fascism displays an anger that arises from a view of an opposition that considers the political opponent to be either evil or irrational. Such a view results in relieving oneself from the burden of respecting the other and engaging in honest debate with the other. It does not matter if the accusation comes from a conservative or a progressive, for in both cases, it absolves the accuser of engaging the political opponent rationally and respectfully. Instead of thinking of Trump supporters as monolithic haters, one might listen to their concerns for fiscal conservatives, traditional values, illegal immigration, smaller federal government, preserving what is best about America as represented in its founders and its constitution, the sense that cultural, economic, and political elites have isolated themselves from the concerns of the common person, and the alienation some of these voters from institutional life. They are men, women, black, Hispanic, young, old, and of varying economic status and educational level. 

            I suggested that this thought experiment might lead to a helpful insight. I stress that this is only an imaginary experiment. To repeat: the point is not that progressives are fascists. I have seen that accusation proposed concerning Trump and his supporters and find it disgusting. I would find such an accusation against the progressive equally wrong. To state it clearly, I do not think progressives are fascists. 

            Could such a thought experiment help the progressive see with greater clarity what might be happening to the progressive side of the political equation in America today? If I were a progressive, or a never-Trump conservative, I would be concerned with the methods used and with the direction such methods will lead it. 

            However, I think even that might be too optimistic for the use of a thought experiment as a method of argumentation. All this thought experiment has done is solidify the resolve of those who are concerned with the progressive ideology as practiced by its devotees today. If a progressive were to read this and receive an insight that would question these methods, even if not the ideology, I would be shocked but pleased. However, I suspect that all I have accomplished is tell the reader something about my beliefs. Obviously, I do not like the progressive ideology. By comparing certain practices to those of fascism, the thought experiment is expressing how intensely I dislike these practices. This thought experiment tells you I cannot imagine anything worse than the fascist, so comparing progressive methods in certain areas to them tells you how offensive I find them. Of course, I would like any potential reader to find them equally offensive. The thought experiment assumes that any potential reader would find fascist practices offensive.

            My thought experiment has a modest goal. These concluding words are for the conservative or the progressive engaged in the public square. It has to do with our use of language in the public square. It also has to do with Christians commenting on what is happening in the political world today. It can be difficult to resist the anger so prevalent in the cultural and political discourse of the country, but we need to find a way. 

            I want to share some good wisdom. Since the wisdom derives from the Bible, I want to be clear that my point here is not that the public square become Christian. Rather, I would like to encourage participants to become wiser. 

            For example, blessed are the merciful, said Jesus, for they will receive mercy. If we are merciful in the way we approach those of opposing political positions, we have a greater possibility of receiving mercy from them. It will move us toward the other rather than distancing ourselves from them. From this closer position, we might find common ground and learn from each other. Blessed are those who make peace, said Jesus, rather than allow oneself to be caught up in the war of words so prevalent in the public square today. 

            As another example, Paul in his vice lists refers to stirring up enmity, which involves hostilities between individuals and communities, on political, religious, or racial grounds. He urges that we avoid strife (quarrelsomeness, contention, and wrangling). We are to avoid anger, which is often vengeful. He wants us to avoid malice, which suggests ill will or a desire to injure the other, or to adopt a vicious disposition toward the other. Feuding and rivalry in this form lead to little more than division and disorder, even revolution and anarchy in the political and moral sphere. From the perspective of the virtues (Galatians 5:22-23) we are to develop, such language does not move us toward love, it does not nurture peace, it does not cultivate patience, kindness, or gentleness.

            All political perspectives could remove the accusation of fascism when describing their opponent. If they did, it would increase the fruitfulness of the debate occurring in the public square. Fascism, like all moments of history, was a unique happening that none of us want repeated. It had enough evil for its time, and we do not need to relive it in our language. However, I am confident that the removal I suggest will not happen, but one can always hope — and pray. Let it be so.