Cultura y noticias hispanas del Valle del Hudson
Ku Klux Klan parade in Washington DC in 1926
It's the Religion, stupid
White supremacy in the US elections
Por Miriam Schwartz
December 2024“If you want to motivate people, you have to give them a reason to vote,” said Corey Lewandowski, an adviser to former President Trump before the 2018 election. “Saying ‘build a wall and stop illegals from killing American citizens’ gives them an important issue.” These words expose the logic of white supremacy that has entered popular discourse: fear of the “other” as a political tool.
Between 2022 and 2023, the number of white nationalist organizations in the United States grew by just over 50%, from 109 to 165, according to the advocacy organization Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Additionally, SPLC tracked 1,430 extremist hate and anti-government groups in the United States in 2023, which can be viewed on a U.S. map on their website. These groups constitute the institutional structure of white supremacy in the United States, dedicated to raising fear of perceived threats to the potency of white, Christian, patriarchal culture among non-white (particularly immigrants), non-Christians, and gender non-conforming people.
While the ideologies of these groups are not new, they have surfaced in popular culture and media since the rise of former President Donald Trump, who stands out for his explicit treatment of these issues unlike other politicians who obscured or euphemized them to appeal to moderate voters. The scare tactic is particularly prominent in the history of religion, according to the recent presentation “It’s Religion, Stupid” by Professor Bruce Chilton, a scholar of early Christianity and Judaism and an Episcopalian priest at Bard College.
In the first of a series looking at the role of religion in various contemporary “crises,” Professor Chilton, a tall, solemn, gray-haired man with a vaguely British accent (he studied at Cambridge, he said), traced the religious roots of white supremacy, and how they affected the political campaigns of the November election. The inspiration for the series, he said, is his “belief that you can’t understand these crises until you understand the religious factor, which doesn’t mean religion is the direct cause, but that we look at the present using historical materials.”
The fundamental difference between white supremacy then and now, Chilton said, is that you don’t have to be white to be a white supremacist these days, and he gave the example of Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina who, according to CNN, referred to himself as a “black Nazi” on a pornographic site. White supremacy, Chilton said, is no longer based on a pseudoscience of race but on “adherence to the ideas and values of the culture that ‘should be dominant’ but unfortunately, from their perspective, is no longer.” It is the fear of the loss of this previously dominant culture that fuels white supremacy.
In summary, Chilton specified that “when religions turn against their enemies, they allow themselves to say things they know they cannot prove. That reflex has been incorporated into American politics, and that is dangerous.”
The most recognizable instance of this trend can be seen in false claims by political candidates. For example, that immigration increases crime when in fact, according to a study by the Center for American Progress, immigration tends to reduce crime. “Linking crime to migration serves to activate fear of outsiders, which can increase support for authoritarian solutions that promise to protect the so-called native population,” the report says.
The solution to this simple and difficult fear? Bard College Catholic chaplain Jim Hess recalled a local episode. He was out to lunch with a family from the Hudson Valley, and the question arose as to whether a couple of times a year everyone at Bard went around naked. There was much laughter in the audience. “I smiled,” the priest continued over the laughter, “and said, ‘Well, that hasn’t been my experience.’ I went on to tell them some of the things I did experience here at Bard.” The audience began to pay more attention. “I think the more we can step into places we wouldn’t normally be and bring out conversations that allow us to shed fundamentalism to some degree, but also be able to connect and realize that there are more things we have in common that we fear from each other.”
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COPYRIGHT 2024
La Voz, Cultura y noticias hispanas del Valle de Hudson
While the ideologies of these groups are not new, they have surfaced in popular culture and media since the rise of former President Donald Trump, who stands out for his explicit treatment of these issues unlike other politicians who obscured or euphemized them to appeal to moderate voters. The scare tactic is particularly prominent in the history of religion, according to the recent presentation “It’s Religion, Stupid” by Professor Bruce Chilton, a scholar of early Christianity and Judaism and an Episcopalian priest at Bard College.
In the first of a series looking at the role of religion in various contemporary “crises,” Professor Chilton, a tall, solemn, gray-haired man with a vaguely British accent (he studied at Cambridge, he said), traced the religious roots of white supremacy, and how they affected the political campaigns of the November election. The inspiration for the series, he said, is his “belief that you can’t understand these crises until you understand the religious factor, which doesn’t mean religion is the direct cause, but that we look at the present using historical materials.”
The fundamental difference between white supremacy then and now, Chilton said, is that you don’t have to be white to be a white supremacist these days, and he gave the example of Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina who, according to CNN, referred to himself as a “black Nazi” on a pornographic site. White supremacy, Chilton said, is no longer based on a pseudoscience of race but on “adherence to the ideas and values of the culture that ‘should be dominant’ but unfortunately, from their perspective, is no longer.” It is the fear of the loss of this previously dominant culture that fuels white supremacy.
In summary, Chilton specified that “when religions turn against their enemies, they allow themselves to say things they know they cannot prove. That reflex has been incorporated into American politics, and that is dangerous.”
The most recognizable instance of this trend can be seen in false claims by political candidates. For example, that immigration increases crime when in fact, according to a study by the Center for American Progress, immigration tends to reduce crime. “Linking crime to migration serves to activate fear of outsiders, which can increase support for authoritarian solutions that promise to protect the so-called native population,” the report says.
The solution to this simple and difficult fear? Bard College Catholic chaplain Jim Hess recalled a local episode. He was out to lunch with a family from the Hudson Valley, and the question arose as to whether a couple of times a year everyone at Bard went around naked. There was much laughter in the audience. “I smiled,” the priest continued over the laughter, “and said, ‘Well, that hasn’t been my experience.’ I went on to tell them some of the things I did experience here at Bard.” The audience began to pay more attention. “I think the more we can step into places we wouldn’t normally be and bring out conversations that allow us to shed fundamentalism to some degree, but also be able to connect and realize that there are more things we have in common that we fear from each other.”
back to top
COPYRIGHT 2024
La Voz, Cultura y noticias hispanas del Valle de Hudson
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