The Myth of White Christian Nationalism

“White Christian nationalism” entered the political lexicon around 2015 as part of an effort to explain why white evangelical Protestants were drawn to Donald Trump, a thrice-married womanizer who is ignorant of the Bible and says he has no reason to ask God’s forgiveness. Since then, hunter-gatherers in the polling industry have sought to identify and quantify white Christian nationalists through surveys. Beltway journalists have ventured into the wilds of small-town America to profile—and often revile—living, breathing WCNs. And a number of academics, some of them raised in fundamentalist homes, have labored to locate white Christian nationalism within the wellsprings of the American character.