The Useful Idiot and Christian Nationalism

Useful Idiot (Wikipedia): A pejorative description of a person, suggesting that the person thinks they are fighting for a cause without fully comprehending the consequences of their actions, and who does not realize they are being manipulated by the cause’s leaders or by other political players.

It is of course fitting that this is a Russian term coined to describe those who would unwittingly advance a Communist agenda in the US so many decades ago, given Putin’s complete dominance over Trump. The conclusion that the ex-KGB agent sees Trump in this light is easily arrived at. However, Trump as the Useful Idiot for Russian interests is the topic of another essay and today’s observation focuses on an example of Trump being a Useful Idiot for a different cause he doesn’t fully understand, nor likely care to – Christian Nationalism.

It is reasonable but increasingly unforgiveable to suspect that a large portion of Trump voters did not realize they moved the United States orders of magnitude closer to an autocratic Christian Nationalist country with their vote. The set of voters who cast their ballot for Trump based on a misguided belief that his policies would be good for the economy or who thought a policy of mass deportation would look any other way than it looked in Minneapolis should understand the following. This voter should now know that Trump is the implementation tool of the ugliest but also underpinning tenet of ‘movement conservatism’ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M….  They should now know that Project 2025 was not an obscure document penned by some random think tank. It is reasonable but as previously noted, unforgiveable, for someone who voted for Trump to be unaware of the Heritage Foundation or the Federalist Society and those organization’s role in American politics. It is no longer forgivable to be a low-information voter.

Because underneath the anti-social safety-net, anti-Communist, pro-traditional values, individualist Libertarian bent there has always lurked a nativist pro-white Christian philosophy that predates movement conservatism as we know it today. It is no longer forgivable to be unaware that this brand of nativism has been with us all along and rears its bucktoothed head every few decades. As only one example, consider that American nativism brutally targeted Catholics and Lutherans of Irish and German descent in the 1850’s as proof that this strain of backward thought has always trumped the teachings of Jesus.  And although Christian in their beliefs the Irish and German newcomers were not the right kind of Christian (the preceding sentence was penned in first draft of this essay in early Winter as an example of how ridiculous these prejudices are – yet here we go again).

However, rather than chronicling the endless ways in which a privileged group of Americans has sought to limit the advancement of others our jumping off point is the 1959 – 1969 coalescence of anti-New Deal, anti-Communist, pro-white Christian, unfettered free market sentiment that jumped into bed together to read  William F. Buckley and Milton Friedman bedtime stories under the covers.

At this point in our collective history, the American right, having shaken off the embarrassment but still pining for the cleansing of America that McCarthyism promised begins throughout the 1970s and 1980s to attach itself to - evangelicals. This reliable voting block proves itself easily moved to toe the line, navigating American life in constant reaction mode as they are bombarded with appeals to emotion and fear that their way of life and their faith are constantly under threat.  So giddy up, religious fundamentalists enter the political realm and as the funding springs to and ultimately from the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, our country is blessed with; Moral Majority, Save Our Children, Christian Voice, and Concerned Women of America to name but a few.  How would we have navigated the ‘Satanic Panic’ of the 1980’s and 1990’s without them?

All of this (and I’ve left out a ton) has left us with the New Right. This latest incarnation has taken its vision public with a perversion of Natural Law Theory.  Thomas Aquinas’ philosophical take of a Master Principle to pursue good and abhor evil has been twisted into what leadership of the New Right thinks are objective truths ordained by God regarding sexuality, marriage, and/or whatever else they’d like to prescribe to others regarding how to live their lives.  It is the pretzel twisting of a simple philosophy to eliminate what they view as a secular stamp on the American way of life.  They see this stamp in the law, education, business, politics, media, basically everywhere.  We are now well into the execution of a decades long maneuver to reshape America into an ethno- Christian nationalist, fascistic state. Remember the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy’? Seems quaint now.

Trump, for his part, and this is no surprise, nor even remotely insightful at this point, has no ideology.  The furthering and force-feeding of ultra-Christian viewpoints on American society and the possible consequences couldn’t be further from anything he thinks about. Ever.

Which brings us back to the term Useful Idiot.  Who exactly is using who here?  Makes me think of another Russian term.  Poshlost.  It’s one of those great words that aren’t easily translated due to having breadth of meaning in its native tongue.  One of those ‘you know it, when you see it’ kind of words.  A quick google will tell you it is a term denoting a unique blend of ‘cheap’ vulgarity, triviality, and sham.  Self-satisfied mediocrity.  A vulgar tackiness exemplified by petty, immoral characters posing as noble. 

Poshlost.  You know it, when you see it.