I think politicized religion in the developed world today is far more of a synthetic construct more than a living tradition with much if any historical relevance; Nemets on X made that point recently. x.com/Peter_Nimitz/stat…

One can have different views on Roman Catholicism, but Internet tradcaths have little to do with it in any substantive sense. It's amusing to me that someone like Fuentes fantasizes about bring back witch-burnings in his monologues while IRL the Inquisition protected women from this in Early Modern Europe.

I would instead posit there is a kind of Rightoid "general factor" at play which expresses itself in some common beliefs and behaviors (anti-vaxxerism/COVID denial, anti-abortion, diverse conspiracism) which they project on religions and ideologues with "trad" and "based" aesthetics - so, not just Catholicism, though it has probably become the most powerful Schelling point for American rightoids, but also Orthodoxy and Islam. (The Orthodox larpers have more of a tankie and Third Worldist tilt, while the Islam people are manospherians like Tate and Bilzerian).

This obviously has analogues in foreign countries (given US Culture Victory in the Civilization game). One of my favorite examples is late Russian Orthodox priest/schizo Vsevolod Chaplin who praised FGM as a noble tradition, amongst other powerful takes.