“Christian nationalism” is the bad penny that keeps turning up in media propaganda. Over and over and over again. It’s an obvious trope that often conflates fascism with a very natural love of homeland.
Nationalism is very connected with a sense of identity and the hardwired human need for a sense of belonging. If Americans (as well as other peoples) have more consciously embraced it, I think that’s because many have felt like displaced persons adrift in a sea of wokeness.
As I’ll explain below, Americans are merely homesick for the America we once knew as a place where we agreed to strive for liberty and justice for all.
Interestingly, there are signals that the propaganda tropes on nationalism are not an easy sell. For example, socialist writer Harold Meyerson recently made the case that the left should reclaim nationalism as something it actually stands for. He wrote that nationalism is connected with a labor-friendly sense of national identity that appeals to the left’s old constituency, the working class.
And President Donald Trump’s America First agenda is actually provoking unexpected nationalist fervor in Canada, where the indignant class is boycotting American products based on Trump’s tariff policies.
Media Fearmongering about Nationalism Ramped Up with November Election
Nevertheless, accusations persist that Trump and his supporters are promoting “Christian nationalism” supposedly similar to the caricature of a Nazi or “white supremacist” form.
For example, there have been warnings about the supposed “Christian nationalist” plans of Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget. And how Trump’s “takeover” of the Kennedy Center “has Christian nationalism written all over it.” Several books have been published to regale us of the evils of “white” Christian nationalism, including a recent one that summons activists to harangue family and friends to reject it in favor of woke ideologies.
Clearly, this scaremongering was re-triggered by the 2024 election that sent Trump back to the White House. But American voters were merely reacting to some really bad stuff from the past several years. They only longed to return to the spirit of a God-blessed America. They felt dispossessed and betrayed by those they once trusted to do us no harm.
The lawlessness, pre-dawn armed raids on peaceful protesters, the attacks on free speech, the forced injections, the transing and sexualization of schoolchildren, the insistence that we lie down and take it — all of this was too much to bear. Americans wish to reclaim an identity that is rooted in our national identity and Judeo-Christian values. So they voted to put a stop to the madness.
The Trope of Christian Nationalism Accelerated into Absurdity
Yet a great many pundits scratched their heads that people didn’t vote for more insanity. The propaganda press continues to enlist academics to parse the meaning of “nationalism” and to tell us to trash our heritage and traditions. They enlist woke pastors, who were long ago hijacked by the left, to define “Christian” for every American Christian, and to tell them they’re racist and ignorant. Talking heads like Politico’s Heidi Przybyla displayed deep ignorance of our founding documents by telling Americans that our rights don’t come from our creator, but from the government.
The propaganda press kept pointing to absurd “dog whistles” for Christian nationalism. A short list of these supposed symbols of “white Christian nationalism” include the pine tree flag; Little House on the Prairie; the Jerusalem cross; Hawaiian shirts; physical fitness; classic children’s literature; landscape paintings of the countryside; the entire countryside itself; America’s national parks; and Tiki torches. (Sadly, Tiki Brand Products felt forced to issue a disclaimer.)
Enough! Americans Are Homesick for their Country
Homesickness is at the heart of what Americans have been feeling. If there is a resurgence of nationalism along with Judeo-Christian values, I believe it means that for a while Americans became lost and forgot who they were and now wish to return home.
As the late Sir Roger Scruton explained, a sense of nationalism is like the feeling of belonging in a family — where people might have different ideas but are bound together like neighbors with common bonds of loyalty.
So, enough with the propaganda stereotype of Trump voters as skinheads with Hitlerian dreams about “white Christian nationalism” supposedly being installed with his election. Trump voters are generally normal people who simply want to live normal lives in what was once a country that valued common sense.
As our national songs proclaim, America is our “home sweet home,” a beautiful land blessed by God with goodness and brotherhood. Our national anthem declares America the home of the free and the land of the brave. We pray by song that God would guide her “through the night with the light from above.” We pledge to strive for justice and liberty for all in one nation under God.
Christian nationalism, properly interpreted, is about a renewed ache for the profound sense of belonging Americans once had in America, including the longing for Christian values of forgiveness and redemption and real love — all of which are woven into America’s heritage and founding.
We Just Want Our Country Back
This homesickness, by the way, is not the same as nostalgia, which some might call a desire to turn back the clock to the “good old days.” Americans are all about innovation and moving forward and upward, improving and growing, not going backward. The slogan “Make America Great Again” in this light is the aspiration by the dispossessed to return home and rebuild.
There is a growing awareness that we have been, in many ways, a nation in captivity. As Martin Luther King wrote, “the yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.” People yearn for freedom because we know in our hearts that it is our birthright, and that right is inalienable.
And the American heart yearns for freedom and a return to that shining city on a hill.
Jesus Christ is King
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