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Religion, White Supremacy, and the Alt-Right

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Religion, White Supremacy, and the Alt-Right BERKLEY CENTER WHITE PAPER for Religion, Peace & World Aairs February 2019 EXPLORING THE ROLE OF RELIGION AND CHRISTIANITY IN ALT-RIGHT POLITICS Shaun Casey Contents Introduction 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Background 2 This paper offers an overview of what is What Is the Alt-right? known about the sources of the alt-right Where Did the Alt-right Come From? movement and its present religious Religion, White Supremacy, dynamics and provides a framework for and the Alt-right 3 future study of religion and the alt-right. Christianity and Medieval Religion Among Contemporary White Nationalists Religion as Mythology-building Tool In Defense of White Christian Identity Potential Paths for Studying the Alt-right 5 Understanding the Flow of Ideas Between the Alt-right and Christianity Christian Theology and the Alt-right Social Science Approaches Conclusion 6 Endnotes 7 About the Author 9 INTRODUCTION The 2016 election of President Donald Trump prompted American media and academia to scrutinize the “alt-right.” The alt-right is an ill-defined political force that is “at its core, a racist movement.”1 Put succinctly, one may define it as a “political bloc that seeks to unify the activities of several different extremist movements or ideologies” and that is “overwhelmingly white nationalist.”2 Movements associated with the alt-right share white supremacy as a core belief, but encompass neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan, and men’s rights groups with varied desired political outcomes.3 The alt-right phenomenon is primarily an American one, but parallels can be drawn throughout the world and particularly in Europe. Given the troubling agenda and effective mobilization of the alt-right as a political force, identifying the origins and current manifestations of alt-right politics is a priority for scholars and activists. This paper offers an overview of what is known about the sources of the alt-right movement and its present religious dynamics and provides a framework for future study of religion and the alt-right. BACKGROUND What Is the Alt-right? The alt-right represents an attitude and worldview rather than a coherent ideology, but at its core is a racist rejection of liberal multiculturalism and mainstream conservatism. In fact, the alt-right is perhaps most easily described by what it isn’t, rather than what it is, namely a movement unlike any current political movements as we have come to understand them: “The Alt-Right also poses a challenge for political observers who are used to thinking of politics in binary terms. Especially in the United States, with its two-party system, people tend to think in dichotomies: Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative. Thus, whenever a new radical voice emerges on the political right, there is a tendency to describe it as a more extreme version of conservatism. In the case of the Alt-Right, this is inappropriate…. The Alt-Right rejects the major premises of the conservative movement: the so-called three-legged stool of moral traditionalism, economic liberty, and strong national defense…. Because it rejects both liberty and equality as ideals, The alt-right represents an it is difficult to compare the Alt-Right to most attitude and worldview mainstream political movements.”4 rather than a coherent ideology, but at its core is a Complicating the definition is the fact that alt-right racist rejection of liberal members themselves do not seem to agree on what exactly the movement is. Some leaders multiculturalism and mainstream conservatism. In “present the movement as more diverse than being fact, the alt-right is perhaps simply white nationalist, but critics on one side have most easily described by what described such a position as simply a white washing of it isn’t, rather than what it is. the racism in the movement, and critics on the other side have condemned it as a betrayal of the movement…. For [alt-right figure Greg] Johnson, the whole point of the Alt-Right is to become the vehicle for moving white nationalism into the political mainstream in spite of those who may wish it would not be moved there. In this sense, the Alt-Right as it exists today is relatively ill at ease with itself and perhaps struggling to find a clear identity.”5 Despite this lack of established definition, most scholars agree that the alt-right is primarily concerned with race and ties its identity to its modern online presence.6 The alt-right encompasses a cross-section of Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs | 2 white supremacists, male supremacists, and anti-Leftists.7 In fact, one of the only ties that binds members of that alt-right seems to be a blend of anti-Semitism and anti-black/anti-brown racism,8 as well as anti- feminist sentiments.9 Ultimately, alt-right members’ core beliefs revolve around “cultural preservation and homogeneity.”10 Fueling this desire to preserve white culture is a sense of injured white identity.11 Fairleigh Dickinson University political scientist Dan Cassino explained in an interview with the Guardian that “the founding myth of the alt-right is that the disadvantaged groups in American politics are actually running things through a combination of fraud and intimidation. By doing this, they’re actually oppressing white men.”12 Where Did the Alt-right Come From? While the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was perhaps the alt-right’s most prominent entrance into the American public’s awareness, the alt-right traces its origins back much further. The alt- right’s rise is, according to “The Algorithmic Rise of the ‘Alt-Right’” by Hunter College professor Jesse Daniels, “both a continuation of a centuries-old dimension of racism in the U.S. and part of an emerging media ecosystem powered by algorithms.”13 Indeed, the role of the internet in shaping and fueling the alt- right cannot be overstated. While the alt-right may be, in large part, “an outgrowth of Internet troll culture,” as University of Alabama political scientist George Hawley suggests,14 the racist ideas behind the umbrella term began to spread on the internet well before the rise of social With the dawn of the social media. Daniels argues that white supremacists were media age, white supremacists “innovation opportunists” who knew to capitalize on the have been able to push the shift in the media landscape from the broadcast (“one- to-many”) model to the internet’s more diffuse (“many- Overton window even further 15 to-many”) model. She points to early adopters such as on forums such as 4chan, 8chan, Don Black, founder of the Holocaust denial and racist Reddit, Twitter, and Gab, forum Stormfront (1996) and later the “cloaked site” providing alt-right Internet martinlutherking.org (1999), a propaganda-filled site, as users a virtual-turned-political alt-right pioneers who pushed the Overton window (that community with which to bond is, the range of acceptable ideas to discuss).16 With the over shared racism or misogyny. dawn of the social media age, white supremacists have been able to push the Overton window even further on forums such as 4chan, 8chan, Reddit, Twitter, and Gab, providing alt-right internet users a virtual-turned-political community with which to bond over shared racism or misogyny. RELIGION, WHITE SUPREMACY, AND THE ALT-RIGHT Christianity and Medieval Religion Among Contemporary White Nationalists Historically, white supremacy has been deeply intertwined with Christianity. The Ku Klux Klan famously used Christian symbols and rituals to justify terrorism against African-American communities in the post-Civil War era. Similarly, the push to protect policies of racial segregation throughout the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras was led by the religious right.17 Christian notions of female virtue, virginity, and the “cult of the Southern woman” coupled with racist fantasies of sexually predatory black men served as a central argument for the separation of races.18 Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs | 3 Contemporary white nationalist movements are, however, increasingly rooted in the pursuit of a “white ethnostate” Despite this overt rejection of instead of Christianity. Pointing to Christianity’s Jewish Christianity as anti-white by origins, some white nationalist theorists view Christianity as 19 some, Christian symbolism a Jewish-led conspiracy to weaken the white race. still plays a significant role for Despite this overt rejection of Christianity as anti-white the alt-right. Internet trolls by some, Christian symbolism still plays a significant role and self-identified alt-right for the alt-right. Internet trolls and self-identified alt-right sympathizers have drawn sympathizers have drawn from imagery and messages of from imagery and messages of the medieval Crusades. Internet users on 4chan, 8chan, the medieval Crusades. and Reddit have linked anti-immigrant and Islamophobic statements with the phrase “Deus Vult” (God wills it). Users have created memes with leaders such as Donald Trump superimposed over Crusader knights riding into battle against Muslim enemies. At the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, this medieval Christian imagery emerged from Internet chat rooms with white supremacists carrying homemade shields emblazoned with the words Deus Vult.20 Some white nationalists have turned to other religions— Norse religion has emerged as specifically those they have identified as originally an appealing alternative to “white”—for inspiration. Norse religion has emerged as Christianity, both because an appealing alternative to Christianity, both because white nationalists view white nationalists view Vikings as white and are attracted Vikings as white and are to the Berserker warriors. Groups such as the white attracted to the Berserker supremacist Wolves of Vinland have adapted Odinism warriors. to create a hypermasculine culture where members must engage in ritual physical combat to prove their worth.21 This reimagination of Odinism not only ignores historical racial diversity among Vikings, but also demonstrates the white nationalist desire to create meaning within a white identity.
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