section_path: Twenty-first century/Religious and white nationalism
section_name: Religious and white nationalism
paragraph_text: Religious and white nationalism
  
  During the Trump era, a far-right, populist movement based on Christian nationalism surged, gaining a significant degree of mainstream acceptance, typified by the once-fringe New Apostolic Reformation. The ideology of Trumpism broadly adheres to a deeply-held belief that America was founded as a Christian nation. Philip Gorski, a Yale professor of the sociology of religion, calls this "a mythological version of American history." Movement adherents believe their Christian dominance has been usurped by other races and faiths, which Gorski characterizes as a form of racial tribalism: "a 'we don't like people who are trying to change or people who are different' form of nationalism." Multiple studies have found that support for democracy among white Americans is negatively correlated with their level of racial prejudice, resentment, and desire to maintain white power and status.
  
  Researchers have observed that many in the movement seek to reduce or eliminate the separation of church and state found in the Constitution. Some Christian nationalists also believe Trump was divinely chosen to save white Christian America. In their 2022 book, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy, Gorski and co-author Samuel Perry, a professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma, wrote that white Christian nationalists share a set of common anti-democratic beliefs and principles that "add up to a political vision that privileges the tribe. And they seek to put other tribes in their proper place." Some believe in a "Warrior Christ" they will follow with the use of righteous violence.
  
  During a September 2020 presidential debate, Trump was asked if he would condemn white supremacists and militia groups that had appeared at some protests that year. After his opponent Joe Biden mentioned Proud Boys, Trump stated, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by," adding "somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem." After Trump and his allies exhausted legal avenues to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, several leaders of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were indicted and convicted on federal seditious conspiracy charges for their roles in the January 6 United States Capitol attack as Congress assembled to certify Biden's election. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated in October 2020 that white supremacists posed the top domestic terrorism threat, which FBI director Christopher Wray confirmed in March 2021, noting that the bureau had elevated the threat to the same level as ISIS. The release of the DHS findings had been delayed for months, which a whistleblower, the department's acting intelligence chief Brian Murphy, attributed to reluctance of DHS leaders to release information that would reflect poorly on the president in an election year.
  
  Every Republican voted against a July 2022 House measure requiring Homeland Security, the FBI and the Defense Department to "publish a report that analyzes and sets out strategies to combat white supremacist and neo-Nazi activity" in their ranks. A 2019 survey of active service members found that about one third had "personally witnessed examples of white nationalism or ideological-driven racism within the ranks in recent months." About one fifth of those who were charged for participating in the January 6 attack were veterans, with some on active service.
  
  Rachel Kleinfeld, a scholar of global political violence and democracy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, found in July 2022 that Trump's affinity for far-right militia groups dated to his 2016 campaign and such groups had since become increasingly mainstreamed in the Republican Party. She argued the militia influence had spread since the January 6 attack among Republican leaders at the national, state, and local level. Political scientist Barbara Walter, who has studied political violence leading to civil war, commented in March 2022 that "There are definitely lots of groups on the far right who want war. They are preparing for war... We know the warning signs. And we know that if we strengthen our democracy, and if the Republican Party decides it's no longer going to be an ethnic faction that's trying to exclude everybody else, then our risk of civil war will disappear."