Christian Nationalism

An excellent editorial in the New York Times about Christian Nationalism and the signs of it in the January 6 Insurrection.

An instructive comment by a reader:

"What we are seeing with self deluded Christain Nationalists fringe groups are on a smaller level part of the ongoing culture war between progressives & everyone else. In survey after survey the majority of voters both Democrat & Republican identify as liberal, moderate, or conservative. Progressives are a small minority of our electorate with good reason. They drag us into polarizing battles that inflame populist sentiments. They've become self-righteous, denunciatory & obsessed with issues that have alienated voters who use to be a cornerstone of our base. This fact can't be emphasized enough. Remember when we stood for the dignity of hard work, family, faith & coming together around basic kitchen table issues? Sadly, over the past 10 years the DP has abandoned those core values in a desperate attempt to please the strident advocates of identity politics who find it easier to insult mainstream Americans rather than build coalitions. The far-left never stops mocking these people. You're bad for eating factory-farmed meat, owning a rifle, & driving an SUV. You're bad for speaking the language of micro-aggressions, patriarchy, & cultural appropriation. Are you kidding me? Dems can't win over working-class voters if they allow a  wing of the party to persist in ridiculing their cultural values. The coming battle will be between the working class & the leftist elites who purport to posture as their will on earth. I'm with the working class, not those who take cheap shots at them."

In which I learned that "driving an SUV" is a cultural value, along with eating factory farmed meat and speaking the language of micro-aggressions and patriarchy.  Meanwhile, apparently Medicare for All, Free College, College Debt Forgiveness, and a Jobs Guarantee--key issues for Progressives--are not kitchen table issues.   And one of the most terrible things, is to be mocked and ridiculed.  (Interestingly, this is also the way Islamists feel.)

A lot of what I see in this reply, as in many unhinged accounts on all sides, is a thoroughgoing grouping shell game, here using labels like "Democrat" "liberal" "progressive" and "far-left" in different ways at different times, most often lumping them as the same and ignoring differences among them or the reverse, meanwhile "populist" and "working class voters" as something different from all of them, and more in line with "Christain Nationalists."  This guy is with the working class, but apparently not of them.