The Power Worshipers

Notes on an Interview on CSPAN with author Katherine Stewart

Katherine Stewart in a CSPAN interview, points out that Trump wouldn’t be in office without the “Christina nationalists.”  There is a myth that these people “held their noses” and voted for Trump in a transactional way, but that is not true.  This is, according to Stewart, “a movement that does not believe in liberal democracy.”

“It’s aim is to smash the table, to overthrow the system as we know it and to create a new type of order one in which its leaders along with member of certain approved religious groups… and their political allies will enjoy positions of exceptional privilege in politics, law and society.”

Most people think of the movement as being “bottom up.”  It’s not.  “Religious nationalism works from the top down.”  Stewart, in this book, points out the real leaders and the real followers and the fact that they are going to be around a lot longer than Trump.

“This is,” she says “a political movement not just a cultural movement.”  “It’s about power.”