There is an ideological shift taking place among the alt-right, or “dissident right,” away from paganism toward the adoption of “already existing religious and specifically Christian symbols,” writes Tamara Berens in the Jewish magazine Mosaic (June). She writes that while this shift may be more politically effective in a majority Christian society, the move “to a Christian-inflected presentation has also lent a language and structure to the far right’s instinctive anti-Semitism. Many of the most anti-Semitic among the new far right are, at the same time, eager to speak about their Christian faith.” The alt-right or new far right emerged during the Trump presidency and was marked by its criticism of mainstream conservatives and its adoption of anti-immigrant and nationalist ideas. Along with its ideological shifts, its most prominent figures have shifted, as from Steve Bannon, the occult-influenced Trump mastermind, to Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who became notorious for espousing QAnon and anti-Semitic sentiments, mostly couched in terms of anti-Zionism. Greene more recently espouses such slogans as “stand against the Godless Left” and “Proud Christian Nationalist.” Berens adds that the “Christianity being offered here is closer to a symbolic totem of identity than to a deeply lived and guiding moral code. Many observers tend to gloss over the new-old Christian valence to the far right precisely because the tenor of it is so absurd and lightweight. Nonetheless, it’s a real and canny shift. The far right may be post-Christian still. But they’re now post-Christian in a Christian way.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene in December 2021 (Wikimedia Commons | Gage Skidmore).
She cites the examples of Kanye West, who has “spent years cooking up a form of celebrity-imbued Christianity,” and Nick Fuentes, who “styles himself a devout Catholic and talks of the papacy as his highest authority.” Fuentes is one of the figures most responsible for the far right’s shift away from paganism, though he tends to use the term Christian as a political tool to denounce non-Christians. Nearly every one of Fuentes’s video streams contains barbs aimed at Jews, with his hatred of Jews extending to a hatred of the Jewish state. Berens writes that along with the shift from paganism to Christianity among the new far right, there has been a turn from concrete social issues to “anti-woke taboo-shattering,” a stance associated with “long-standing anti-Semitic tropes that go deeper than fears about Jews and immigration, tropes that left-wing radicals and anti-Semites enjoy playing with as well…In other words, there exists a deep-seated resentment in these quarters toward some amorphous entity that controls ‘what you are allowed to talk about.’” Berens points to Candace Owens, a friend of West’s who has been described as the new face of black conservatism, as also trading in sentiments that suggest that support for Israel is foreign to American conservatism and to American values at large. Berens concludes that while the “far right heightens tensions with and increases pressure on the mainstream right,” it is unlikely that it will take it over anytime soon.
(Mosaic, https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/politics-current-affairs/2023/06/from-coy-to-goy/)
