The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy

by Philip S. Gorski

While most journalists and scholars were quickly able to point out the combination of distrust and ignorance behind these patterns, few recognized the role of white Christian nationalism among the evangelical population. As we show in Figure 1.7, even after we account for other relevant factors in statistical models, in February 2021 only roughly 5% of white Americans who score the lowest on our full Christian nationalism scale indicated that they wouldn’t get vaccinated. That percentage steadily climbs to 50% at the highest levels of Christian nationalism. By contrast, over 85% of white Americans who largely reject Christian nationalism indicated they’d either already been vaccinated by February 2021 or would do so as soon as possible. That percentage declined in a linear fashion to less than 30% among the most ardent supporters of Christian nationalist ideology.15