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Opinion:
Why
white
Christian
nationalists
are in
such a
panic
By
Jennifer
Rubin
washingtonpost.com
You
might
find it
strange
that a
large
segment
of the
Republican
base
thinks
Whites
are the
true
victims
of
racism
and that
Christians
are
under
attack.
After
all,
America’s
biggest
racial
group is
still
Whites;
the most
common
religious
affiliation
remains
Christianity.
Whites
and
Christians
dominate
elected
office
at all
levels,
the
judiciary
and
corporate
America.
What’s
the
problem?
Well,
there is
a
straightforward
reason
for the
freak-out,
and an
explanation
for why
former
president
Donald
Trump
developed
such a
close
bond
with
white
Christian
nationalists.
This
group
feels
besieged
because
they are
losing
ground.
“The
newly-released
2022
supplement
to the
PRRI
Census
of
American
Religion
— based
on over
40,000
interviews
conducted
last
year —
confirms
that the
decline
of white
Christians
(Americans
who
identify
as
white,
non-Hispanic
and
Christian
of any
kind) as
a
proportion
of the
population
continues
unabated,”
writes
Robert
P.
Jones,
president
of the
Public
Religion
Research
Institute.
“As
recently
as 2008,
when our
first
Black
president
was
elected,
the U.S.
was a
majority
(54%)
white
Christian
country.”
By 2014
the
number
had
dropped
to 47
percent,
and in
2022 it
stood at
42
percent.
The
group
that has
declined
the most
is at
the core
of the
MAGA
movement,
the
group
most
devoted
to
Christian
nationalism.
“White
evangelical
Protestants
have
experienced
the
steepest
decline.
As
recently
as 2006,
white
evangelical
Protestants
comprised
nearly
one-quarter
of
Americans
(23%).
By the
time of
Trump’s
rise to
power,
their
numbers
had
dipped
to
16.8%,”
Jones
explains.
“Today,
white
evangelical
Protestants
comprise
only
13.6% of
Americans.”
Follow
Jennifer
Rubin's
opinionsFollow
And that
decline
may yet
accelerate,
because
they
skew
older
than the
population
as a
whole.
Put
differently,
there
are far
more
baby
boomers
in this
group
than
Generation
Z
members.
White
evangelicals
are
“losing”
people
with
each
successive
generation.
(“White
Christian
subgroups
have
each
lost
approximately
half
their
market
share
just
across
the
generations
who are
alive
today,”
according
to
Jones.)
If your
business
had lost
half its
market
share,
you
would be
panicking,
too.
With
those
kind of
numbers,
the
responsible
thing to
do would
be to
think
about
“fixing”
what’s
wrong by
adapting
to a
changing
market.
Instead,
many in
this
cohort
have
doubled
down,
becoming
the foot
soldiers
in the
red-hatted
MAGA
movement.
The
decline
isn’t
going to
be
reversed
by
angry,
gray-haired
folks
demanding
abortion
bans and
“don’t
say gay”
bills.
Instead,
White
evangelicals
might
look at
former
“customers”
who are
abandoning
organized
religion
in
droves.
“Nearly
four in
ten
Americans
ages
18-29
(38%)
are
religiously
unaffiliated,
an
increase
from 34%
in
2021,"
the PRRI
census
said.
"As the
cohorts
age, the
growth
in
religiously
unaffiliated
Americans
has
started
to show
up more
in the
30-49
age
category,
which is
up to
32%
unaffiliated
from 26%
in
2016.”
In some
sense,
White
evangelicals’
desperate
efforts
to cling
to
political
power
and
demand
adherence
to a set
of
outdated
cultural
norms
only
make the
problem
worse.
Not many
20-year-olds
(part of
the most
diverse,
inclusive
generation
in
history,
one
steeped
in
climate
science
and
tech)
would
leap at
the
prospect
of
living
in a
state
where
abortion
is
unattainable,
gays are
ostracized
and
secularism
is
bashed.
If
Christian
evangelicals
really
want to
slow
their
decline,
they
might
consider
getting
out of
the
unpopular
political
ideas
market
(e.g.,
abortion
bans)
and
stressing
values
that
could
win back
alienated
young
people
(e.g.,
reverence
for
conserving
the
planet,
ministering
to the
poor and
the
weak).
That
might
put more
seats in
the
pews,
although
it
likely
wouldn’t
do much
for the
aging,
mostly
White,
reactionary
GOP.
The
reality
is that
the
convergence
of the
declining
population
of White
Christians
with the
rise of
Trump
has been
bad for
both
evangelicalism
and
American
politics.
Trump
came
along,
telling
the
shrinking
band of
white
Christian
nationalists
that
they are
victims.
He
reveled
in
nostalgia
for a
time
when
they
dominated
(demographically
and
politically)
and
blamed
immigrants,
elites
and
“wokeness”
for
their
ills.
They
were the
group
most
susceptible
to a
message
that
reinforces
their
feeling
they
have
“lost”
something
or
something
has been
“taken
away.”
That
“something”
they
felt had
been
stolen
may have
been as
concrete
as the
2020
election,
or as
all-encompassing
as white
Christian
supremacy.
However
they
define
that
sense of
loss, it
fuels
their
anger
and
binds
them to
Trump.
But the
demographic
clock
cannot
be
turned
back. No
one can
claim to
be
patriotic
defenders
of
democracy
when
they
decide
their
declining
numbers
justify
anti-democratic
voter
suppression
or even
violence.
In
short,
MAGA
White
Christians
have
painted
themselves
into a
corner
where
the
majority
rejects
their
outlook
and
anti-majoritarian
tactics
cannot
keep
them in
power
forever.
A
dramatic
transformation
would
need to
happen
for this
movement
to
return
to
pluralistic
politics.
The MAGA
crowd
would
have to
recognize
America’s
complete
history,
reflecting
our full
experience,
not just
the
story of
people
like
them.
And most
important,
they
would
need to
rediscover
the
principles
on which
the
United
States
was
founded.
(“All
men are
created
equal...”)
They
would
have to
abandon
the myth
that
America
is the
domain
of one
race or
religion.
Unimaginable?
Maybe
so, but
what
other
choice
is
there?
To
thrive
in the
future,
they
eventually
must
appeal
to
America
as it
is, not
as they
imagine
it was
in the
past.
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