https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/from-the-pilgrims-to-qanon-christian-nationalism-is-the-asteroid-coming-for-democracy/ar-AAWJ1Tz?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0ecfda033c55402a9488272b9d73c27d

John Eliot, (1604-1690), American Puritan minister and missionary, preaching to the Algonquian Indians. Bettmann/Getty Images

If the New York Times' "1619 Project" and Donald Trump's 1776 Commission mark two defining moments in American history, as well as opposite sides of an ideological chasm, a new book by sociologists Philip Gorski and Samuel Perry identifies a third defining moment. It's not a new proposed founding, but rather an "inflection point," the moment when the nation's history could have gone in another direction.

In "The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy," Gorski and Perry argue that in the years around 1690 — when Puritan colonists began envisioning their battles against Native Americans as an apocalyptic holy war to secure a new Promised Land, when Southern Christians began to formulate a theological justification for chattel slavery — a new national mythology was born. That mythology is the "deep story" of white Christian nationalism: the notion that America was founded as a Christian nation, blessed by God and imbued with divine purpose, but also under continual threat from un-American and ungodly forces, often in the form of immigrants or racial minorities.

The result was an ethnic nationalism sanctified by religion as it established a new "holy trinity" of "freedom, order and violence," meted out variously to in-groups and out.

RELATED: How this tiny Christian college is driving the right's nationwide war against public schools

When rioters driven by that vision broke into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, they were just reenacting a story that has been told in this country for centuries. But it's a story that again threatens to "topple American democracy" unless, Gorski and Perry write, a new "united front" is formed to defend it.

Perry spoke with Salon this April.

You describe white Christian nationalism as the "San Andreas Fault" of American politics.

We see America torn apart by an authoritarian populism that was characteristic of Trump's movement, which distrusts any opinion not tied to the nationalist leader. There's a lot of distrust for experts, even medical experts when it came to COVID, in favor of somebody like Trump or organizations that put a conservative slant on all news related to politics, COVID, immigration, Muslims, all those things. So when we say white Christian nationalism is the San Andreas Fault, we mean it is a thread running through all of our current conflicts.

And the implication that we're waiting for the big one.

Rather than seeing Jan. 6 as a fringe event and the religious symbols seen there as puzzling, we see it as an eruption of forces that have been building for a long time.

Exactly. We all observed the events that took place on Jan. 6 with horror and shock, but there's this puzzling juxtaposition of images from that day: violent chaos, suffused with Christian symbolism. There are "Jesus Saves" signs and Christian flags and a prayer in Jesus' name in the Senate chamber. Rather than see that event as fringe and those religious symbols as puzzling, we believe Jan. 6 should be thought of as an eruption of forces that have been building for a long, long time.

article way too long to post all

>>16175707

Salon

From the Pilgrims to QAnon: Christian nationalism is the "asteroid coming for democracy"

Opinion by Kathryn Joyce - 1h ago

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/from-the-pilgrims-to-qanon-christian-nationalism-is-the-asteroid-coming-for-democracy/ar-AAWJ1Tz?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0ecfda033c55402a9488272b9d73c27d

One of the reasons we wanted to write the book is to say: This is the asteroid. This is the thing that is coming for democracy. And we've got to unite to overcome that.

>>16175707

>>16175787

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-right-s-new-conspiracy-theory-kamikaze-planes-and-food-fires/ar-AAWJf9j?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=09204613e03b444b9c7c4f5cf67d0568

new q articles

will sommer

The Daily Beast

The Right’s New Conspiracy Theory: Kamikaze Planes and Food Fires

Opinion by Will Sommer - 2h ago

Anew conspiracy theory on the right—that a marauding band of arsonists and kamikaze pilots have been sabotaging the national food supply—has captivated Donald Trump supporters with the help of a big name: Tucker Carlson.

The theory has no basis in fact. Last week, an image began circulating on Facebook showing local news headlines about fires and other accidents at American food processing plants that produce everything from Hot Pockets to potatoes. The implication was that something was afoot with the food supply, even if the conspiracy theory’s proponents themselves couldn’t explain what it was. The image spread to Telegram, the social media messaging app that's become popular on the American right, with conservative figures like Jan. 6 rally organizer Ali Alexander reposting it.

But despite a total lack of evidence that anything out of the ordinary is going on, that didn’t stop Carlson from running a Fox News segment on the debunked supposition.

“Industrial accidents happen, of course, but this is a lot of industrial accidents at food processing facilities,” Carlson said during an April 21 segment on his primetime show.

Carlson opened the segment by suggesting that a sinister plot was at play, even if no one could explain what it was. He then kicked it to his guest, Seattle talk radio host Jason Rantz, who called the timing of recent fires “very suspicious.”

“You’ve got some people speculating this may be an intentional way to disrupt the food supply,” Rantz said.

Despite what Carlson, Rantz, and an anonymous image posted on Facebook say, there’s no evidence of an unusual amount of fires at American food-processing plants. A Snopes review found similar numbers of fires in earlier years. And while Carlson pointed to roughly a dozen fires as proof of a conspiracy theory, a 2017 Census report found that the United States has 37,000 food processing plants—suggesting that a dozen fires wouldn’t significantly hurt the food supply.

Right-wing blogs promoting the plot have also used an expansive definition of “recent.” In the widely circulated Facebook image, for example, the first headline about a fire cited in the meme came from January 2021, more than a year ago. A post on right-wing commentator Tim Pool’s blog about the fires cited a Tysons Meat fire as far back as 2019 as evidence of a suspicious sabotage campaign.

This new brand of conspiracy theorist doesn’t just suspect a nationwide arson gang, though. They’ve also seized on two recent plane crashes at food processing plants, at an Idaho potato plant and a General Mills plant in Georgia.

Neither of those cases suggests a plot to deliberately crash planes. In the Idaho accident, a UPS pilot crashed into a factory chimney that her father claimed was positioned too close to the approach to the runway where she was trying to land. In Georgia, the plane crashed into a group of mostly empty tractor trailers in a remote part of the plant. Neither incident appears to have been targeted at a linchpin of the food supply.

Still, Carlson had questions.

“What's going on here?” he asked on his show about the plane crashes.

Even the arson theory’s proponents have struggled to explain the motivation behind launching an elaborate attack on food processing plants. There are often vague insinuations that Joe Biden’s administration is behind the “attacks,” or that the fires are to blame for rising food prices. But it’s rarely explained why Biden would want to induce a famine ahead of the midterms by, for example, sabotaging a Hot Pockets facility.

All the same, right-wing personalities have theories. On the far-right personality Stew Peters’ show, one pundit claimed nefarious forces—bent on causing a repeat of the Ukrainian Holodomor famine—were behind the industrial accidents.

Even Carlson, the conspiracy theory’s most prominent proponent, struggled to figure out whether the number of fires was even notable.

“What are the odds of that?” Carlson said. “I have no idea.”