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

by Philip S. Gorski

Unsurprisingly, white Americans who scored higher on white Christian nationalism thought conservative Christians were just fine, and they were more likely to hold prejudicial attitudes toward atheists, Muslims, and socialists. But here’s what surprised us: the strongest association wasn’t between white Christian nationalism and antipathy or distrust toward atheists or Muslims. You might think that these groups pose the biggest threat to Americans who want a “Christian nation.” Instead, the strongest connection was between white Christian nationalism and antipathy toward socialists. It is that group, not atheists or Muslims, that white Christian nationalism finds the most threatening. Given this connection, it was unsurprising that when we ran regression models to assess which factors predicted higher scores on our anti-socialism scale, Christian nationalism was the biggest factor by a mile, even above conservative political ideology or partisan identification. It’s what we call a “monster” in the model. This would immediately suggest that “socialists” appear to be most threatening, not necessarily for Republicans or those who are politically conservative per se, but principally for Americans who have merged the idea of Christian national identity with free-market capitalism.