Abstract
The Religious Right’s discourse rests on the urgency to address the persecution of Christian citizens in the United States, but an analysis of their words reveals an ideology of ethno-nationalist and authoritarianism befitting the political persona of Trump. This religious rhetoric might have undergone a shift resulting from both the impending loss of majoritarian status in the country on the part of white conservative Christians, and on the movement’s allegiance to the figure of the 45th president. The rhetoric deployed is built on a lexicon rich in war and fight terminology, and those espousing a conservative Christian worldview are portrayed as the victims of an unjust system whose only aim is to eradicate every form of religious experience and expression from every corner of the nation. In this discourse, Donald Trump is the hero of the faithful citizen, and his efforts to protect Christians, Christmas, and religious freedom are recounted via his actions, as well as the merciless comparison with the person who is instead characterized as the archenemy of United States Christians: Barack Obama.
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Notes
- 1.
The Updates that have been coded start on January 5, 2017 and end on February 7, 2019, for a total amount of 106 articles. The themes covered by Perkins’ writing, with the aid of FRC’s senior staff members as specified at the bottom of each piece, range from the inauguration of Donald Trump to the most highlighted religious-freedom cases discussed by the Supreme Court in the last two years. In between, find place for discussion topics such as the strengthening of the military, tax reform, and Christmas. I decided to select only the Updates involving specific issues, chief among these, Trump and religious freedom, as the main aim of this analysis was to present the characteristics of the FRC’s narrative portraying religious freedom in danger and the former president as the man who could restore it, in particular for Christians. In the 106 coded Updates, Donald Trump has a presence of 147 records, discrimination gains the second place with 117 records, religious freedom presents a groundedness of 92 records, Barack Obama 80, several contested issues 73, Christians 61, and liberals and the left respectively 49 and 45.
- 2.
Stutzman was involved in the following cases: Ingersoll v. Arlene’s Flowers and State of Washington v. Arlene’s Flowers.
- 3.
Or, at least, that is a lie that fits the narrative, as in other cases “Ironically, business only boomed” (ibid.).
- 4.
In July 2016, a student from a San Diego school reported on incidents of discrimination happened to her to the San Diego Unified District Board of Education. The Board and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) decided to implement programs aimed at widening the knowledge over Islamic religion and preventing discrimination against Muslim students. Some parents though saw the action as a clear case of state supporting a religion and filed against the San Diego Board with the help of the legal firm Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (Shenoy, 2018). In early 2019, a settlement was reached that prevented members of the CAIR, a religious organization, to directly present to students, but did not apparently stop the implementation of the anti-discrimination program.
- 5.
- 6.
For how LGBTQIA+ rights’ issues began to be framed in conspiracist tones by the Religious Right’s ideologists, see the aptly titled section in Berlet and Lyons “The Great Gay Conspiracy” (2000, 235). Unsurprisingly, Weyrich was behind this strategy too. As recounted by the authors, “he commissioned staff member Father Enrique Rueda to write The Homosexual Network, about ‘the social and political impact of the homosexual movement in America’” (ibid.). Other titles appeared in that period are Gays, AIDS, and You, and Homosexual Politics: Road to Ruin for America.
- 7.
Better known as the proposed modifications to Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments Act in order to implement transgenders’ protection policies.
- 8.
See, for example, the quote from Barronelle Stutzman’s Washington Update.
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Migliori, C.M. (2022). Dispatches from the Swamp. In: Religious Rhetoric in US Right-Wing Politics. Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96550-1_8
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