MAGA's White Christian Nationalists

The threat of white Christian antinationalism

There has been an unholy alliance between two factions within MAGA. An alliance that went largely unnoticed until recently, when one faction exposed themselves as the antisemites they always were but had kept quiet about. Most of these antisemites call themselves conservatives, which in many respects they are.

But they are more accurately described as Christian nationalists. These are people who share many classic conservative, biblically based values. Values most mainstream conservatives refer to as ‘Judeo-Christian’. But they reject the ‘Judeo’ portion of that identifier entirely.

Christian nationalists are the ideological descendants of the old-line conservatives who harbored antisemitic feelings. Only they have taken those feelings to a new level. They  see no value in supporting Israel and have expressed some of the same venomous accusations against her as have Palestinians and the left. They are antisemites who believe Jews threaten their vision of a Christian America and subscribe to conspiracy theories about secret Jewish cabals plotting world domination. In some cases, these theories are so far-fetched they are comical. Can anyone say ‘space lasers’?

One of the accusations made by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was that Jewish space lasers were responsible for California’s forest fires. Taylor Greene is a Christian nationalist and one of the most prominent MAGA figures in the Republican party. Unless you live under a rock, you know she is not alone. Fellow travelers who see American Jews in this light include populist influencers like Tucker Carlson, an obvious Christian nationalist.

MAGA is a movement created by candidate Donald Trump during his first presidential campaign. It is an acronym for ‘Make America Great Again’, which in brief describes a desire to return the country to a time when its values more closely reflected biblical principles, rather than the progressive values that have come to dominate in recent decades.

Americans are divided: roughly half welcomed those progressive changes, believing modern values are more just than the biblical values of old. The other half believed that abandoning biblical values was dragging the country into an immoral abyss. It is from this latter group that MAGA supporters emerged. Trump championed their values and promised to implement them. He has tried to do just that.

But the president is not a Christian nationalist. He is, in fact, a strong supporter of Israel and  the Jewish people. At least of those Jews who want to see biblical values guide the morals of the country. (Those Jews who reject some of these values as incompatible with their modern sense of justice have in fact been a target of his harshest criticism. It’s hard to argue with that, since many have substituted progressive values for biblical values thereby rejecting the very primes of MAGA.)

Mainstream conservatives are generally not Christian nationalists and accept the premise that this country was founded on Judeo-Christian values. But the MAGA ‘tent’ housed both types of conservatives. Until recently, the antisemitic voices within MAGA were muted. But as the president continued embracing policies favorable to Israel - even as much of the world, including the American left, condemned her - these Christian nationalists saw an opportunity.

They raised their voices and aligned themselves with the same anti-Israel canards being promoted by Palestinians and the hard left, both domestically and abroad. They are attempting to commandeer MAGA away from its founder and redefine it in their own image. One in which MAGA equals Christian nationalism, an ideology that vilifies Israel and Jews as a whole.

It should be noted that many fair-minded people have totally rejected MAGA because they believed that MAGA was comprised almost entirely of white Christian nationalists that were inherently antisemitic. Believing Orthodox Jews who identified with MAGA were unwittingly partnering with antisemitic  faction that, given the opportunity, would treat them as conspirators and subversives.

There is no doubt in my mind that a substantial portion of MAGA supporters do in fact feel this way. Far more than I would have ever imagined. But I strongly doubt that the mainstream of MAGA are antisemitic Christian nationalists or that they buy into the conspiracy theories promoted by this faction’s politicians and spokespeople.

If anyone is a conspiracy by anyone, it is this faction of MAGA that wants to wrest control of the movement from its founder. They are relatively small in number but have powerful voices, making them appear more threatening than they truly are.

It is probably a good thing that these people are now exposing themselves as the antisemites they have always been. The president would do well to expunge them from the movement entirely. They are rotten apples who, if left unchecked, can destroy MAGA and, as a result, push the country even further to the left than it already is. Which is pretty far. How far? All one has to do is look at who the next mayor of New York is going to be. What was once unimaginable is now reality. If MAGA does not purge its extremists, it will not like the backlash that will surely result. And that may ultimately destroy whatever progress has been made in restoring the values that made America great. Instead it will accelerate the country’s descent into an immoral abyss which will surely destroy it from within.

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