Elective Affinity between Religious Nationalism and Right Wing Populism

Professor Philip Gorski of Yale University gives an excellent account of the elective affinity between religious nationalism and right-wing populism that we see in many countries today (See Religious Nationalism and Right-Wing Populism: Trumpism and Beyond). I have copy-pasted the whole article. Enjoy.

One of the great puzzles of the 2016 elections in the United States was the extraordinary support that Donald Trump received from white evangelicals. Nearly 80% ultimately voted for Trump. It is important to note that most non-white evangelicals did not vote for Trump, and that most white evangelicals voted for other candidates during the Republican primaries. And yet, Trump was still the first choice of a plurality of white evangelicals. 

One of the great puzzles of the first 18 months of the Trump administration is the steady increase in Trump’s approval ratings amongst white evangelicals. Over 80% now approve of Trump. During the presidential elections, many white evangelical leaders were prepared to publicly excuse Trump’s patently un-Christian personal behavior—including his ill-concealed racism and misogyny—and many white evangelical voters were evidently willing to overlook them as well. Now, they appear ready to overlook his ongoing assault on American democracy, too—including the rule of law, the freedom of the press. 

This is not a uniquely American puzzle. The affinity between religious conservativism and right-wing populism is a phenomenon that antedates Trump and extends beyond America. That affinity is perhaps less obvious and less important in Western Europe, where the ranks of Christian conservatives have been in rapid decline for some time now. But even there, neo-populists often position themselves as defenders of “Christian civilization.” Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen did not borrow this move from Trump’s playbook. On the contrary, the opposite is more likely the case. 

Elsewhere in the world, the connection between religious conservativism and right-wing populism is both striking and significant. In Hungary, for instance, Viktor Orban has promised to replace “liberal democracy” with “Christian democracy,” by which he evidently means an ethno-nationalist form of one-party-rule and plebiscitary democracy. Moving eastwards, to the inner boundary of Eurasia, we arrive in Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, where the “secular democracy” of the Kemalist regime has been supplanted by an Islamic version of the Orban model. 

Source: Meetup 

Any suspicion that Western analysts might harbor concerning the European origins of this phenomenon are however promptly shattered when we arrive on the Indian sub-continent. There, civilizationist discourse is nearly a century old. The Hindu nationalist movement has long had both religious and secular followers, and Hindu nationalist discourse has long claimed that Hinduism is a way of life or a form of civilization to which non-Hindu Indians can and indeed must belong. 

While the origins of left-wing populism are usually traced to the American populist movement of the late 19th century, the genealogy of right-wing populism begins further South, in Latin America. There, too, authoritarian populist leaders found substantial support amongst Catholic conservatives. 

Of course, not all religious conservatives feel attracted to the populist message. In the US, for instance, the ranks of the #neverTrumpers include a good number of conservative Christian intellectuals, Protestants as well as Catholics. The question, then, is which religious conservatives and why? The tentative answer that I’d like to advance here is: “religious nationalists.” 

Until recently, of course, most scholars of nationalism would have dismissed the very concept as an oxymoron. Nationalism was assumed to be a wholly “modern” phenomenon, a kind of ersatz religion for secular modernity. Today, many scholars understand religious nationalism as a distinctive variant of modern nationalism, one that makes religious identity the litmus test of national belonging. 

While religious nationalism may well be a modern phenomenon, the connection between religion and nationalism long antedates modernity. Indeed, one could argue—and many including myself have argued—that Western nationalism has religious origins. For the definitional triptych of “people, land, and state” is already sketched out in the Hebrew Scriptures, which speak of a chosen people, a holy land, and a Jewish state. 

Academic analysts have often remarked on the quasi-religious character of modern nationalism. Some have explained this in functional terms. In this account, nationalism fills the “God-shaped hole” left by secularity. Others have explained it in instrumental terms. From this perspective, nationalist politicians invoke religious language to galvanize their followers. The genealogical account suggests a different explanation: modern nationalism has a religious “unconscious” that can always be summoned back to the surface again. 

In “Western” versions of religious nationalism—by which I mean versions that are historically rooted in the Jewish and Christian scriptures—this religious unconscious has at least four key elements: 

Blood tropes. Talk of blood is a red thread that runs through both the Jewish and Christian scriptures. There is talk of blood sacrifice, blood conquest, blood purity, and blood atonement, amongst other things.

Apocalyptic narratives. The histories of Judaism and Christianity are both replete with apocalyptic discourse. For most of these histories, literalist interpretations of the apocalyptic texts (viz., Daniel, Revelation) were confined to fringe movements. Today, they are a core element of evangelical Christianity.

Persecution/victimization narratives. The “pariah” status of the ancient Jews and Roman persecution of the Jesus movement left a deep imprint in the collective memories of both traditions. It is especially deep amongst present-day evangelicals, who expect to be persecuted for their faith.

Messianic expectations. Full-blown messianic movements have probably been somewhat more common in modern Judaism, but modern Christianity has certainly had its share (e.g., Mormonism) and the history of modern evangelicalism is of course rife with charismatic preachers who claim quasi-messianic powers. 

These four elements are not “key” in the sense of being “unique” characteristics of Judaism and/or Christianity that distinguish them from other religious traditions. On the contrary, they are commonly found in “non-Western” versions of religious nationalism as well (e.g., Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamist). They are key, then, not in the sense of grounding a typological distinction between religious traditions, but rather in the sense that they underlie the elective affinity between religious nationalism and right-wing populism. 

What do I mean by “right-wing populism”? There is widespread scholarly agreement that populism is not an “ideology,” at least not in the sense that, say, liberalism or communism are ideologies. Populism does not have a Mill or a Marx, a treatise or a manifesto, nor a program of reform or revolution (e.g., the expansion of individual rights or the abolition of private property). And yet, while it may lack the intellectual systematicity of these 19th century ideologies, it is not without a certain coherence. Some analysts have proposed that it is best understood as a political discourse centered around the notion of the “sovereign people” and related notions such as “popular will” and “popular unity.” This is why populist rhetoric often has a democratic ring. However, as proponents of this interpretation are quick to point out, right-wing populists also reject core elements of liberal democracy, such as the rule of law, the rights of the minority, and the internal pluralism of all peoples. 

Building on Arlie Hochschild’s work, some scholars, including myself, have argued that populism is not just a discourse but a narrative. In her widely-read ethnography, Strangers in Their Own Land, Hochschild argued that her subjects interpreted the world through the frame of a “deep story,” a narrative that they were not always able to articulate themselves, but which they immediately recognized and affirmed as “theirs” as soon she articulated it for them. The central event in the populist story is “line-cutting.” Hochschild’s subjects imagine themselves to be waiting patiently in a long line that leads to the “American dream” of material prosperity. But the line is standing still. In fact, it hasn’t moved in years, decades even. Why? Up ahead, her subjects notice, other people are cutting in line, immigrants and minorities who just recently arrived. Not only that, the Federal Government is guiding them to the front of the line. This, they feel, is deeply unjust. 

In my view, Hochschild’s deep story is just one variant of a more generic narrative that underlies right-wing populism. It features four actors: a pure people, a corrupt elite, an undeserving other, and a messianic leader. The people have been betrayed by the elite which is allied with the other, and the leader promises to restore the people to its birthright. There is also a left-wing version of this story. It features three actors: an oppressed people, a corrupt elite, and a social movement. In this account, the people are being exploited by the elite and have joined together in a movement of liberation. 

Right-wing populist movements have at least two other common, if not universal features. The first—and the most important for our purposes—is a charismatic leader. Because the populist goal of popular unity can never really be achieved it is often performed. In left-wing populist movements, unity is usually embodied in “the movement.” In right-wing populist movements, by contrast, it is more often incorporated in a leader. The second common feature of right-wing populist movements (sometimes found in the left-wing variant, too) is the performance of “bad manners,” above all by the leader, but also by his (or, occasionally, her) followers. By “bad manners,” I understand ongoing violations of social norms of polite speech and sometimes also of dress and grooming. The speech of populist leaders is often impolite and profane. And their personal appearance is often unconventional. Bad manners serves two purposes: it distances the leader from the elite and signals his or her closeness to the people. But it also distances the leader from “ordinary” people and suggests extraordinary talents or superhuman powers. 

Having enumerated some important characteristics of both religious nationalism and right-wing populism, it is now possible to identify some of the elective affinities between them. They run in both directions. Religious nationalists are attracted to right-wing populist movements and parties if and insofar as they: 

Invoke notions of blood sacrifice, blood conquest, blood purity and, more generally, attribute mystical powers to human blood.

Paint the contemporary situation in Manichean and apocalyptic terms, as a cosmic struggle between good and evil, that is hurtling towards its final denouement.

Portray the dominant ethno-cultural majority as a persecuted, religious minority; in particular, a minority persecuted on account of its faith.

Are headed by a charismatic leader who makes messianic promises and claims messianic powers. 

Conversely, right-wing populists are attracted to religious nationalism if and insofar as it: 

Emphasizes the moral purity of the common people.

Blames national decline on cultural elites, and especially on secular intellectuals.

Clearly identifies moral and/or religious others who can never become full members of the people.

Sanctifies the charismatic leader, despite or even because of his or her bad manners. 

Against this backdrop, the ongoing love affair between Donald Trump and white evangelicals becomes a good deal less perplexing. Trump has a peculiar (and possibly psychotic) obsession with human blood, particularly but not exclusively, women’s blood. He espouses a dark, “us vs. them” view of the world, always on the brink of disaster. He espies conspiratorial plots and nefarious enemies most everywhere he looks. And he imagines that he can easily fix difficult problems with simple solutions that have somehow eluded his predecessors. Conversely, Trump-supporting evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Franklin Graham envision the United States as a Christian nation that has been corrupted by secular elites, often on behalf of underserving others (typically racial, religious or sexual minorities), and they have not only given Trump a series of “mulligans” for his personal morality, they often seem to revel in his bad manners, particularly when they are aimed at those they dislike. 

The goal of this memo has been to sketch out the cultural logic that underlies the elective affinity between religious nationalism and right-wing populism and, more broadly, to dispel the view, quite widespread among Western intellectuals, that the alliance between religious nationalists and neo-populists is purely instrumental or patently hypocritical. While I am confident that this framework can “travel”—i.e., that it gives us some theoretical purchase over other cases of neo-populism, Western and non-Western alike—I do not imagine that it would survive such a journey unscathed. Further comparative work is of course necessary, particularly comparisons that go beyond Europe and the Americas to include various regions of Asia and Africa. Nor do I wish to suggest that this cultural analysis constitutes an adequate explanation much less an exhaustive account for the rise of neo-populist movements or their relative success or failure. That would require a fuller analysis, not only of national-level factors (e.g., party systems, immigration patterns, religious demography etc.) but also of global and geopolitical changes as well.

Christian nationalism is a robust predictor of voting for Trump

More statistical evidence for what has been said since mid-2016. A new report presents new evidence that links the rise of trump with Christian nationalism. Those who believed in Christian nationalism were more likely to vote for Trump even if one controls for economic dissatisfaction, racism, anti-immigrant sentiment and sexism, as the abstract of the report reveals:

Why did Americans vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election? Social scientists have proposed a variety of explanations, including economic dissatisfaction, sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. The current study establishes that, independent of these influences, voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage. Data from a national probability sample of Americans surveyed soon after the 2016 election shows that greater adherence to Christian nationalist ideology was a robust predictor of voting for Trump, even after controlling for economic dissatisfaction, sexism, anti-black prejudice, anti-Muslim refugee attitudes, and anti-immigrant sentiment, as well as measures of religion, sociodemographics, and political identity more generally. These findings indicate that Christian nationalist ideology—although correlated with a variety of class-based, sexist, racist, and ethnocentric views—is not synonymous with, reducible to, or strictly epiphenomenal of such views. Rather, Christian nationalism operates as a unique and independent ideology that can influence political actions by calling forth a defense of mythological narratives about America’s distinctively Christian heritage and future.

Source: Donald Trump is a ‘Christian Nationalist’

An article (see 'Make America Christian Again': How religious nationalism explains the rise of Donald Trump) by James Macintyre in ChristianToday on the report explains:

The report explains that Christian nationalism is not synonymous with 'civil religion'. It says: 'Civil religion, on the one hand, often refers to America's covenantal relationship with a divine Creator who promises blessings for the nation for fulfilling its responsibility to defend liberty and justice. While vaguely connected to Christianity, appeals to civil religion rarely refer to Jesus Christ or other explicitly Christian symbols. Christian nationalism, however, draws its roots from "Old Testament" parallels between America and Israel, who was commanded to maintain cultural and blood purity, often through war, conquest, and separatism. Unlike civil religion, historical and contemporary appeals to Christian nationalism are often quite explicitly evangelical, and consequently, imply the exclusion of other religious faiths or cultures.' 

As the website truth-out.org has pointed out, the report examines 'the extent to which Christian nationalist ideology represented a unique and independent influence leading to the Trump Presidency,' and argues that, 'Christian nationalism operates as a unique and independent ideology that can influence political actions by calling forth a defense of mythological narratives about America's distinctively Christian heritage and future'. 

One of the authors, Whitehead, told the website that Trump is likely to continue drawing on Christian nationalism in the mid-term elections this November. 

'It proved helpful to them in the 2016 elections and so there is no reason they should move away from it now,' he said. 'I think that Trump has delivered on some of the promises made to Christian nationalists, especially concerning his pick for the Supreme Court. I don't think we'll see any reduction in the importance of Christian nationalism in upcoming elections.' 

Trump continues to enjoy the almost unqualified support of evangelical leaders despite policies and personal behaviour that appears consistently to contradict the Christian approach to politics and to life... 

Make America Christian Again explains that, 'The 2016 election was repeatedly labeled as conservative Christians' "last chance" for citizens to protect America's religious heritage and win back a chance at securing a Christian future. As Trump told conservative Christian television host Pat Robertson, "If we don't win this election, you'll never see another Republican and you'll have a whole different church structure...a whole different Supreme Court structure"'. 

The authors argue: 'Christian nationalism operates as a set of beliefs and ideals that seek the national preservation of a supposedly unique Christian identity. Voting for Donald Trump was for many Americans a Christian nationalist response to perceived threats to that identity.'

The report concludes: 'Although sexism, anti-black animus, xenophobia, and economic anxieties or dissatisfaction have been proposed as possible reasons for supporting Trump, we find that net of the influence of Christian nationalism, these receive limited support, at least as measured here. Specifically, none of the alternative explanations outside of Islamophobia exhibited significant associations with voting for Trump when Christian nationalism was accounted for... Beyond the 2016 Presidential election, future research should examine Christian nationalism and its relation to various contentious topics animating politics and civil society in the United States, as well as future voting patterns at multiple levels of governance. 

'As a flexible and pervasive set of beliefs and ideals, the influence of Christian nationalism will likely prove important across a wide range of contexts. It is especially critical to examine Christian nationalism and its significance in subcultures and social arenas both inside and outside of institutional religions.'

Shiaphobia: Is there evidence of millennium-long tradition of Shia persecution in South Asia?

National identity is mainly about setting boundaries and creating two groups, ‘us’ and ‘them’. ‘Us’ are the good guys, having all the noble qualities and inheritors of a marvelous civilization. ‘They’ are the bad guys, always cheating and scheming to defeat the good guys. Obviously, these two groups cannot be alike (otherwise there is no need of a separate nation), so their differences are highlighted. Complex world of interactions spread over centuries between the two groups is simplified. Narratives expounding the differences go into great lengths in telling people how these two groups were always very dissimilar. This focus on differences sometimes leads to politics of purity (or as according to Freud, the ‘narcissism of small differences’) and even ‘us’ group is scrutinized and some people are declared not pure or worthy enough to be part of ‘us’. 

Not surprisingly, in states based on ethnic nationalism, the focus of scrutiny is on ethnicity while in states based on religious nationalism, religion is center of emphasis as it is the main marker of national identity. This issue was discussed in this previously (See Religious Nationalism and Sectarianism)

Pakistan, being a state based on religious nationalism, has to deal with sectarianism.  

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid wrote an interesting article on Shiaphobia (See Shiaphobia). In this article,  he presents the evidence of a ‘millennium-long tradition of Shia persecution in this region’. Please read the article and following are my comments. 

Before commenting on the article, I want to clarify that I am against the persecution of minorities in Pakistan and ashamed of how Pakistani state has collaborated with militant groups involved in the harassment and oppression of minorities, including Shias. So, I share author’s concern about the recent upturn in horrible incidents against Shias.

However, as a budding historian, I feel it necessary to point out that (as senator Moynihan said) author is entitled to have his own opinion but not his own facts. I suppose author does not like creating long narratives by picking and choosing facts as he starts his article with the phrase, ‘When Muhammad bin Qasim was busy becoming the first Pakistani 1,200 years before the country actually came into being’, however, he commits the same mistake.

Let’s start with Mahmud of Ghazni. In his history of Mahmud’s reign, Persian Shia historian Mahmud Qasim Hindu Shah Ferishte, while giving account of Mahmud’s one of the earlier attack on Multan, writes that Mahmud decided to attack Multan’s Ismaili ruler Abul Fateh because he failed to pay tribute as Abul Fateh’s father and grandfather used to do. Later, when Mahmud was about to defeat Abul Fateh, Abul Fateh pleaded and Mahmud went back to Ghanzi with the promise of twenty thousand gold mohurs, enforcement of sharia and renouncement of Ismaili faith. It was only in a later expedition that he captured Multan and killed Ismailis. Sultan Mahmud also fought with other Sunni Muslims rulers during his lifetime and killed many Muslims, so it is difficult to prove that he was killing people because of their religion or because he wanted power and gold. The account by Ferishte shows loss of tribute was certainly a big part of what Mahmud was doing. So, author’s claim that it was a pre-mediated Shia genocide seems to be somewhat exaggerated.

Again claim that Shias were persecuted from 16th to 19th century is difficult to accept. Except for Aurangzeb, there is not much evidence that other Great Mughals (1526-1707) were trying to systematically persecute Shias. As Humayun was helped by Iranian Shias regain his throne, it is difficult to think he would persecute Shias and Akbar was certainly not persecuting any major religion.

After Aurangzeb, Mughals generally lost their power and were unable to pursue any policy in the whole of their empire as provincial governors became the main decision-makers in their own areas. So, claim for systematic persecution is improbable in the later Mughal period (1707-1856), although some individual rulers/governors might be doing it.

I also find it difficult to believe that there was a campaign against Shias during the 1950s to 1970s. There were some incidents but the proof of a campaign is not there. I personally think most of the groups that later on led the anti-Shia front were busy against Ahmedis. However, if author has more evidence to prove his theory, everyone would be happy to consider it.

Since 1980s, I agree that Shia phobia has increased in strength in both state and society and this is reprehensible. Moreover, involvement of Pakistan in Syria would be disastrous for country to say the least. We have enough troubles already. We should return the few billion dollars and say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks’.

However, there is not much evidence of ‘millennium-long tradition of Shia persecution in this region’.

Is Religious Nationalism in Malaysia an end in itself or just a mean to continue the erstwhile Malay Nationalism?

Michael D. Barr and Anantha R. Govindasamy discuss this issue in their article 'The Islamisation of Malaysia: religious nationalism in the service of ethnonationalism' in Australian Journal of International Affairs (2010). The abstract is copied below.

The relationship between religious, ethnic and national identities in Malaysia has long been fraught with uncomfortable tensions especially for the 50 percent of Malaysians who are outside the dominant Malay- Muslim communal grouping. Until the accession of Dr Mahathir to the prime ministership at the beginning of the 1980s, it was clear that ethnic identity trumped religious identity, even though being Muslim was already intrinsic to being accepted as Malay. Being a non-Malay Malaysian was to accept a subordinate, but not a drastically uncomfortable role in the nation. Since the 1980s, however, religious identity appears to have replaced ethnicity as the central element of nation identity as the society has been systematically even aggressively Islamised. Yet appearances can be deceiving, and there is a strong case to be made that Islamisation in Malaysia is basically a variation of the original Malay ethnonationalism, using the nearly complete symbiosis between Malay and Muslim identity as the point of articulation that allows religious nationalism to serve as a cipher for ethnonationalism but a version of ethnonationalism that is much less accommodating of minorities than was traditional Malay nationalism. This article places contemporary events in a historical context and then focuses on just one aspect of Malaysia’s program of Islamisation that is both contemporary and central to national identity developments in the education system, and particularly within the secondary school history curriculum to demonstrate that in this instance at least, religious nationalism is operating as a surrogate for ethnic nationalism and has, in fact, intensified ethnic nationalism by raising the stakes for the communities that are outside the core national group.

Source: Early Malay nationalism

As the title and abstract shows, authors think that the current Islamization is just a way to promote Malay nationalism which has been diluted over the years because two of its main pillars, Malay language and adat, have been widely adopted and are not the distinguishing features anymore. So, Islam is the only distinguishing feature of Malay identity and so it is being used to keep the Malay ascendancy intact and promote the centrality of Malay identity in the national identity.  As authors contend:

It should rather be regarded as a tool in the service of that ethnic agenda -- a program of hegemony designed to reinforce Malay occupation at the heart of Malaysia’s nation-building project and to condition non-Malays and non-Muslims to accept their assimilation into the Malaysian nation as subordinate, peripheral partners. We also argue that this project has had the entirely predictable effect of reducing the comfort levels of the non-Muslim minorities.

To prove their point, authors trace the history of Malaysia and show that Islam was previously only a part of Malay identity and was not given much prominence. Since Dr Mahathir became Prime Minister in 1981, however, Islamization of state has made great strides. Islamic diet, dress, architecture etc. have been promoted by the state. There also have been changes in laws and constitution and non-Malay partners of UMNO have been unable to stop these changes which make them peripheral partners in the national project. Authors also present a detailed analysis of history books of two grades that show how Islam is prioritized.

That Malaysia has been more Islamized since the 1980s is, without doubt, true and almost all of the article gives evidence of that. However, the evidence that authors give for it being a facade for continuing Malay dominance is not strong. Evidence from many Muslim-majority countries shows Muslims societies being more concerned about religious practice and behavior and governments enacting laws to promote them. Why cannot Malaysian elite be following this global trend? Why the change in Malaysian state is not the result of the change in society which is now more religious than thirty years ago? Why is it not the result of identity issues becoming more important for Malays (the main voting bloc for UMNO) as they become more prosperous, making previously dominant economic issues recede in significance?