Christian Nationalists and their Urges
Hint: They want to control YOU to control themselves (Scroll to the end if you prefer listening over reading.)
Project 2025 is very much a Christian Nationalist document. It teems with both overt and covert religious language mainstream reporters miss. Which makes it important for liberals to understand what motivates them.
We cannot defeat an enemy we refuse to understand.
When liberal friends find out I grew up in Christian Nationalism, one of the first questions they ask is, “Why are they so intolerant? Why do they want to outlaw everything?”
Christian Nationalists’ authoritarian behavior stems from how they are indoctrinated to view their own urges.
They spend a lot of time in churches listening to pastors outline the many ways their urges conflict with the Bible. In that world, they call their urges words like sin. Temptation. Even demonic and satanic.
They spend much of their time denying their urges, suppressing their urges, controlling their urges, condemning their urges. This leads them to form what psychologists call extrinsic values.
According to George Monibot’s excellent article in The Guardian, psychologists divide people into those with intrinsic and extrinsic values. His article is about why Americans vote for 45, but it applies here.
From the article:
Some psychologists believe our values tend to cluster around certain poles, described as “intrinsic” and “extrinsic”. People with a strong set of intrinsic values are inclined towards empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance. They tend to be open to challenge and change, interested in universal rights and equality, and protective of other people and the living world.
People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likely to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. They have little interest in cooperation or community. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour.
Of course Christian Nationalists would form a profound set of extrinsic values. They are repeatedly told to deny their urges, to avoid internal reflection and analysis, for crowns and mansions in the afterlife. Many live their whole lives for the promise of a pearly-gated eternity.
But every time they venture beyond their church bubbles, they are confronted with their urges. Let’s examine what that may look like for a man named Steve.
Steve is married to his Christian college sweetheart. They have four strapping boys scattered throughout their church’s Christian school. His wife is the only woman he’s ever been intimate with, though that doesn’t happen a lot these days.
His whole life, Steve has struggled with the urge to be gay. His pastor insists this urge is the worst perversion, the filthiest sin, and Steve believes it with his whole heart. He knows giving into this urge will send him to hell.
Increasingly though, he’s confronted with situations that remind him of his nasty urge. Two men holding hands at the mall. A hot naked dude coming out of the shower at the gym. Wedding announcements for besotted-looking men.
He masturbates to the memory of the shower guy and immediately falls to his knees and begs God to forgive him. He swears he won’t do it again. But everywhere he looks, his urge is tickled and teased and tested. He can’t stop his hands from working himself over and over again.
A person who isn’t indoctrinated to hate their own urges might burst from the closet, be honest with his wife and children, and grasp the life he was meant to live. But Steve can’t allow himself to make that choice because eternity matters.
After several years of living this cycle of ecstasy and shame, he becomes enraged. Why should all these gays get to live out and proud when he has to hide his urges? How dare they live productive, content, even remarkable lives when his is so miserable? How dare they?
So he decides to put his weight behind the march of bills to roll back gay rights. Because if he can’t live his truth, by his god nobody will.
Emotion sometimes wins over writing. I’ve recorded a few more stories by video.
I hope this post explains why Christian Nationalists are desperate to impose their definition of morality upon society. They are terrified of their own urges, of what they might mean for their afterlives, and they are willing to become fascists to protect themselves.
I don’t know how liberals resolve this behavior. It doesn’t help to call them hypocrites, because we’re all hypocrites. Ditto accusing them of projection. They don’t want to be lectured or shamed. We don’t serve anyone well when we make them feel like we’re attacking their faith.
Perhaps a better approach would be for Democrat strategists to hire a few psychiatrists/psychologists. With their expertise and insight, we might craft messaging that highlights the humanity behind their reactions. We could use that messaging to pro-actively exploit this weakness and perhaps convert more voters to the cause of freedom and democracy. In the process, we might learn how to give them empathy without making them feel attacked or shamed.
In tomorrow’s post, a brief history of Project 2025.
If you believe this content will convert a vote from red to blue or convince someone to vote blue for the first time, please consider a gift subscription. And as always, thank you for caring about freedom and democracy.
GREAT video.... it's nice to see your face and hear you talk. Poor Steve and his wife.. ..( sarcasm). I don't really have empathy for them, but maybe that's just my personality or that I did not grow up anywhere near this type of people or church....so it's so hard for me to relate..... I want to tell them to just run away and live your own life, but they have been groomed..... for the same reason women stay with domestic, intimate partner abusers...... none of these are linear problems to solve, they are very complex and dynamic. It seems to boil down to jealousy (in a sick way) and lack of freedom, so they boomerang against the rest of us, it's like they double down. Your insights are very thought-provoking, and I do think it will help me take a different approach as I talk to various people, I can always refine my own approach with people and soften my rough edges, my mom tells me that all the time.... 😂
I suspect that what's largely missing in the discourse is a good understanding of what the levers of power are and who holds them. I don't think most voters see what's coming.
I was thinking, imagine if Democrats had a firm grip on the federal judiciary, and were poised to win the presidency and both houses of Congress, and perhaps by not particularly close margins. Even if maybe they would only finish just ahead in the popular vote. They also have stronger support among law enforcement and possibly the military than among the population at large.
Of course this would never happen because our system gives conservatives so many legs up, but it's a thought experiment. And now imagine the Democratic candidate for president is Bernie Sanders. And there's an elaborate Marxist manifesto out there, talking about seizing corporations and wealth to either be part of the state or to distribute fairly as the state sees fit.
Most Americans could probably believe that Bernie Sanders and his most enthusiastic followers would like to do such a thing. But I also think the reaction would be, "Yeah, right, how is he going to do THAT?" Now in this scenario if the wealthiest were really threatened, they'd of course do something about it. But the idea is what would the average voter think.
This is America, right? Freedom. Checks and balances. And most of the time our government can barely do simple things. We're used to the dysfunction. How could they possibly restructure the whole society, everything?
So you lay out the how, but the reaction is, "Well, people aren't going to just let that happen. Somebody will do something." It's still not quite believable.
If we look closer, I think the basis for that confidence is really that the people who would change everything wouldn't be able to hold together and get it done in the face of massive unpopularity. I mean, just because the judges are Democrats doesn't mean they'll allow massive property seizures, right? Congress is going to get cold feet; they're not all crazy zealots, are they? Some people who have jobs to do in carrying this out might even question following orders if it really gets extreme. And a lot of people are just not going to obey these new laws and edicts. They can't arrest or shoot everyone, can they?
🤷
People think they're safe. They think the system is foolproof. They think a second Trump term can't really be much different or worse than the first one. They're underappreciating that one party would have more power than anyone has had since at least 1965, and that was a long time ago. They're not considering that when these people talk about destroying enemies, it's not just rhetoric.
How do you make them see the danger that's coming right at them, that's hidden in plain sight? This has to happen BEFORE November if there's going to be a chance.
Ok, maybe I have one more comment to do :)