Though white Christian nationalism was only weakly related with white Americans’ views toward violence in general, here it is not only associated with support for “righteous violence,” but it is far and away the strongest predictor in each of our models. The more that white Americans seek to institutionalize “Christian values” or the nation’s Christian identity, the more strongly they support gun-toting good guys taking on (real or imagined) gun-toting bad guys, the more frequent use of the death penalty, any-means-necessary policing, and even torture as an interrogation technique.
