The American left is largely focused on racist fascism, and tends to treat racism as both the primary driver of fascism and it’s natural source. That isn’t wrong, but it also is not the way most American fascists are experiencing their own belief system, so it is deficient in terms of coming up with solutions or predicting fascist behavior. Moreover, I suspect that a significant number of American fascists are simply not really racist at all (other than the implicit racism that happens accidentally in a society built on racism).
The Origins of Today’s Christian Fascism
The first anti-socialism movement in the US happened during Reconstruction. It was based on racism; specifically, white landowners sought to break potential solidarity between landless white people and newly freed Black people by suggesting that the government was going to take money from working class whites and give it to Black people. Conservative politicians are still using this theme and this would be part of the racist fascism the left mostly talks about. At this point, educated people were aware of socialism and it wasn’t particularly threatening. Abraham Lincoln was a contemporary of Karl Marx, spoke favorably of socialism, and was even elected after a history of openly supporting socialism.
These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.
Abraham Lincoln, from his first speech as an Illinois state legislator, 1837
The second anti-socialism movement in the US was the Post-World-War-2 “Red Scare” which was a reaction to the Soviet Union that was encouraged by wealthy people who were still extremely angry about the New Deal (which preceded World War 2). The strategy they used was to lean on the Soviet Union’s state atheism that truly oppressed Christians and required party members to be atheists (this was both morally wrong and a mistake on the part of Russian communists). The wealthy didn’t care about Christianity, but they knew that most Americans did, so they induced a terror in working class Americans by suggesting that Stalin was coming for their immortal souls. State atheism looks a lot like Satanism from the perspective of a devout Christian.
This strategy created a strange union of wealthy capitalists and working class Christians that still exists to this day in the form of the Republican Party. Now, though, the balance of power between terrified Christian fascists and wealthy capitalists (who are technically liberals) has shifted.
Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them…
Barry Goldwater, 1994
There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C,” and “D.” Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism”.
Bill Clinton is a small-government conservative. Similarly, Hillary Clinton is a small-government conservative, and she was a “Goldwater girl“. If fiscal conservativism were really the issue that conservatives care about, they would have loved both Clintons and we wouldn’t see an increase in the federal debt every time conservatives control the federal government. They hated the Clintons not for their fiscal conservativism or their clever racism, but rather they hated them for their secularism — their failure to push Christian identity, values, and policies. Hillary Clinton being a “Goldwater girl” precisely defines her political position in regard to Christian rule of American society. In short, she’s a Satanist! I’m joking, but that’s precisely how the religious right sees her, and it makes a bit of sense for people who live in a binary Christian/anti-Christian world.
As a point of clarification, there is no necessary relationship between socialism and atheism. Karl Marx believed that religion was so often used by the powerful to manipulate people that it should be abolished, but that was easy for him to say because he didn’t have a religion. While he is technically correct that religion is often used as a tool to manipulate people, it can also be a force for good — and Karl Marx is not the final authority on what socialism should be. There are plenty of people who are leftists and also religious, and an objective reading of the life of Christ suggests that God Himself is a leftist. I’d link you to something someone else has written about that, but everything I’m seeing uses the word “liberal” instead of “leftist” which is a confusing mistake; there’s no indication anywhere that God is a liberal (i.e., someone who supports capitalism).
Thanks to this campaign of terror orchestrated by cynical wealthy people and power-hungry preachers, many American Christians have become Christian Dominionists — people who believe that their particular form of Christianity should rule the US just like particular forms of Islam rule certain other nations. Yes, they say, there should be democracy, but only for people who are Christians, and that democracy should conform to their specific Christian values. The logic is that their particular Christian values are correct and that those specific values are required for democracy to work. While this isn’t a new idea, it has become much more popular in the last 50 years, and the meaning of “Christian” has changed from the definition that was popular at the founding of the nation (much more akin to “good person”; Jefferson was a Christian but didn’t believe Jesus was especially divine) to mean a devotion to an apocalyptic metaphysical belief structure.
You could draw a Venn diagram of Christian fascists and racist fascists, and the two circles would certainly overlap. I don’t know what that overlap is, but I’m certain that the Christian fascist circle is much larger than the other one. Certainly, there are racist fascists who call themselves “Christians” but do not believe in the divinity of Christ, or even in God.
Christian Fascism and the US Constitution
There are two specific places where Christian Fascism contacts the US legal structure quite significantly: The First Amendment and the Second Amendment.
The First Amendment provides religious freedom, which dovetails with the assumption of secular (i.e., unaffiliated with religion) government to mean that no major religious or metaphysical view is put above any other from the perspective of the US government. When Christians demand that the Ten Commandments be placed at the state capitol building, actual Satanists can swoop in and demand that Baphomet stand next to it, creating a quandary that has — so far — been solved in a way that continues allowing all religious and metaphysical views something close to equity.
The First Amendment problem, however, is that a corrupted Supreme Court (like the one we have now) could choose to decide that religious freedom in the Constitution was “originally” only meant to apply to Christians. That’s not true — the founders did want to separate religion from government — but you’ve got to keep in mind that the truth doesn’t matter from a fascist view. A decision indicating that freedom of religion only applies to Christians would instantly strip religious freedom away from about 35% of Americans.
The Second Amendment problem is that these Christians who are terrified of Satanists believe that those Satanists are coming for them physically; if that were true, then the military hardware they keep buying would certainly come in handy. They also have come to believe that God is actively allowing horrible things to happen in America because of immoral behavior — especially secularism, gaiety, transness, and abortion. Those things aren’t seen as immoral for any logical reason, but rather because they are violations of God’s plan (i.e., the plan they assume God has) that replace it with chaos. When a school massacre occurs, they don’t see that as a reason to limit weapons — the weapons didn’t cause it, our sins caused it — and they need those weapons to fight the Satanists.
Related: The Devastating Truth About School Shootings in America (Christian Post) Warning: Aggressive popups.
Related: Twitter thread on GOP propaganda bowing to the right-wing Christian narrative for mass shootings
Related: Extremist Pastor: Democrats Can’t Be Christians
Calls for gun control are interpreted by far-right Christians as an escalation from the forces of Satan. In fact, any time a secular politician does anything, it is interpreted by far-right Christians as an escalation, but gun control is especially egregious because they believe that as soon as the Satanists outlaw the Christians’ guns, the Satanists will start massacring them (meaning that Christians will interpret a gun ban as a reason to start shooting liberals proactively). From a Christian fascist perspective, the citizen militia of the Second Amendment is only made up of Christians because only Christians are citizens and the highest purpose of that militia is to fight against the forces of Satan.
Christian Dominionism is Fascism
Let’s not empathize with them too much, right? There’s no doubt that Christian Dominionism is a type of fascism. Christian Dominionists would strip everyone else of power, then immediately start trying to figure out how to get rid of them. They’d probably declare that their Apocalypse had begun and that wholesale slaughter of their enemies is really the only thing that can possibly be done about this whole Satan problem; they’d point to Revelations enthusiastically — but they’d point to the Left Behind series with even more vigor. Moreover, the murder wouldn’t stop with Muslims, atheists, uppity women, and queer people; next, they’d be after the Mormons, the Christian left — even Catholics would eventually be on the menu.
Despite how egregious the behavior from Christian fascists has become, we are loath to push back against it. First off, we respect religious pluralism and find the idea of criticizing someone’s religious view to be repugnant. Second, we realize that such criticism could easily backfire making it impractical. As a result, both Christian fascists and racist fascists can play the religious freedom card and there’s not much we will do about it, even if that play is absurd in the given context (e.g., if they’re trying to take away someone else’s freedom to live true to their own religious or metaphysical beliefs). Having said that, the crucial difference between the Christian right and the Christian left is that the right-wing version fosters a culture of narcissism and is more often led by narcissistic personalities. Naturally, they will frequently accuse their enemies of narcissism — fascists love to accuse their enemies of the very thing they themselves have done.
Related: Narcissists, God, And Religion
Related: Why the Right Thinks Obama’s a Narcissist—and Why They’re Wrong
Thanks to the Nazis, most human beings now accept that racial bigotry is wrong. The same cannot be said for religious bigotry, and it is because of a very basic difference between the two things. Just because you are a given color doesn’t mean that you necessarily must believe it is better than some other color, but you must believe that your religion is superior or else you’d switch to a different religion that you believe is superior. A belief that no religion is superior isn’t really possible, because the metaphysics of different religious/metaphysical positions are wholly incompatible with each other. For example, going to Heaven is not compatible with reincarnation, and neither is compatible with the atheist’s position that “life just ends”. I suppose that you could believe that no religious or metaphysical position is better in the context of truly not caring which one is correct (i.e., belief that the truth is unknowable) but then that would be your superior metaphysical belief.
If we are to make progress against Christian fascists, we must criticize their ideas and, where necessary, directly oppose their dominion.