White Christian Nationalism Threatens Pluralistic Democracy

Do we believe in the Declaration of Independence?

Next year, the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. This foundational document set forth America's creed: “All men are created equal...”, which has never been fully realized but has never been rejected by a major political party in the modern era. For more than half a century, both parties recognized that “American” was defined not by a status (e.g., race), but by an idea.

However, under the Trump regime, the rise of White Christian nationalism—which postulates that America is a White, Christian country facing an existential threat from non-Whites, globalists, and secular elites—is replacing that American creed. A nation founded largely on the basis of religious freedom is at risk of becoming a theocracy, heavily salted with racism.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson announced after he took over the gavel that his guide was the Bible (not the Constitution). The Supreme Court’s right-wing majority deferred to a sectarian definition of “life” as a means to crush our constitutional rights. By implementing Project 2025, the Trump true believers have rejected biology and medicine in an attempt to erase transgender Americans. The Trump Transportation Department even perpetuates a bias toward those who are married and have procreated when allocating transportation grants (!). This is The Handmaid’s Tale on stilts.

Under the thin veneer of rooting out “DEI,” Trump falsely suggested that hiring Black people and/or women contributed to the fatal helicopter collision near Reagan Airport. His administration aims to dismantle secular public education to subsidize private religious academies, some of which resemble the white schools in the South created to evade desegregation.

A recent study from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) underscores the degree to which a warped view of America has taken hold in the MAGA Republican Party. PRRI’s mammoth survey of over 22,000 Americans explores “the connections between support for Christian nationalism and voting for Trump, support for political violence, church attendance, partisanship, media habits, and more.” Simply put, White Christian Nationalists dominate the GOP and provide the core of Trump’s support. A majority of Republicans qualify as either Christian nationalism Adherents (20%) or Sympathizers (33%), compared to less than one quarter of independents … and less than one fifth of Democrats….White evangelical Protestants (65%) and Hispanic Protestants (57%)” have adopted Christian Nationalist beliefs.

These beliefs include:

“(1) The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation,

(2) U.S. laws should be based on Christian values,

(3) If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore,

(4) Being Christian is an important part of being truly American, and

(5) God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.”

White Christian Nationalists are avid consumers of right-wing media and adopt fringe conspiracy theories. “Two-thirds of Americans who most trust far-right TV news sources (such as Newsmax or One America News Network) qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents (26%) or Sympathizers (40%), as do a majority (52%) of those who most trust Fox news.” Half of the hard-core Christian nationalists endorse QAnon beliefs (vs. 19 percent of Americans at large.)

More frightfully, these Americans reject the very idea of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy. “Two-thirds of Christian nationalism Adherents (67%) and nearly half (48%) of Sympathizers agree that God ordained Trump to be the winner of the presidential election… [and] agree that ‘because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.’”

An overwhelming majority of Christian nationalists think immigrants are “invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background,” and agree that immigrants entering the U.S. illegally today are “poisoning the blood of our country.” By an even larger majority they think American is “too soft and feminine;” and a substantial majority think that “society is better off when men and women stick to the jobs and tasks they are naturally suited for.” Trump ran arguably the most misogynistic presidential campaign in history for a reason: he was feeding his followers’ antediluvian views about women and gender.

The results of PRRI’s survey reaffirm that the MAGA identity is not merely a political grouping but a deeply held, religiously indoctrinated view of White supremacy and Christian theocracy. As such, its tenets (e.g., only two genders, Whites are being replaced, Christianity is under siege) are not subject to rational argument or factual dispute. A group that can twist “All men are created equal…” into a directive to put White Christian men in charge is unlikely to be persuaded by a crash course in civics or demographic data that contradict its worldview. That poses a substantial challenge to democracy, which depends on a shared set of facts, equality before the law, tolerance, and respect. When you believe God, survival, and “America” (as they define it) are at risk, you might well see fit to override or shred institutions, norms, and laws that pose a barrier to achieving one’s ideal society.

So, what can we do to preserve a pluralistic democracy? White Christian Nationalists are not a majority, although they have a lock on the GOP. Two things follow from this.

First, the 70 percent of Americans who do not share that twisted vision of America need to form a pro-democracy, pro-plurality alliance. This does not mean becoming a DEI caricature; it means insisting that the government not enact religious doctrine. It demands advancement of voting rights and voting reform (allowing the electorate to look like America). It necessitates engaging younger adults (who are less religious than their parents) in politics.

Second, the White Christian Nationalist movement has capitalized on minority rule elements embedded in the Constitution to gain a lock on power. Some aspects of our Constitution will remain (giving red, rural states with White evangelicals disproportionate power in the Senate), but we can make our government more democratic, and hence pluralistic. Everything from expanding the House (to increase the electoral votes of heavily populated states), to ending gerrymandering (i.e. ending the grip of White, rural areas in state legislatures and the House), to ending lifetime tenure of Supreme Court Justices (doable by statute, according to many Supreme Court experts), should be on the table.

It may seem that extreme White Christian nationalists are “winning.” Indeed, they are in political control of all three branches. But we the people, in all our diversity, still control the country’s destiny and the definition of “America.” During the year celebrating the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is time to reclaim the true meaning of our country.

Those of us who hold fast to the vision of a pluralistic democracy are the “real” Americans.