In the rest of this piece I explore how this distinctive variant of American Christian culture has historically provided a shield of innocence behind which a Schmittian, anti-democratic culture of justified political violence has hidden and readied itself for action. What follows is a non-systematic tour through some key moments in the history of the US right in Oregon where we can see this conspiracy-saturated mixture of down home, "Christian Patriot" innocence and righteous vengeful violence coursing through and erupting out from under the surface of American "conservative" political culture.
In the spring of 2022, Mike Flynn's Reawaken America tour celebrating the January 6, 2021 insurrection and promoting Donald Trump’s seemingly outlandish aspirations to become President again came to the Salem area. When someone inquired on Nextdoor about rumored disruptions at the event, the Republican chair of the Salem-Keizer school board responded with a revealing, awkwardly-phrased explanation.
According to Christian Nationalist school board chair Marty Heyen, the thousands of red-hat-wearing MAGA fans who paid about $250 to attend the Reawaken America tour (headlined by Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Eric Trump) were just your boring old neighbors doing innocuous "church type stuff." The only problem she noted involved a handful of Antifa troublemakers supposedly harassing these godly, peaceable, pro-insurrectionists. [BTW, Heyen's claim about punctured tires is almost certainly false. I’ve seen no evidence that this happened, let alone that it was perpetrated by the handful of people who peacefully protested the event.]
Heyen’s minimizing phrase, “basically church type stuff,” has rung in my ears over the past 3 years. The Reawaken America tour was pure extremist politics, revolving entirely around baseless Covid conspiracy theories, the lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from Donald Trump, and the apocalyptic, Christian Nationalist idea that America as we've known it would soon perish if God's MAGA agents on earth didn't do something drastic to save it from the demonic wrath of...a devout Catholic and moderate Democrat named Joe Biden for whom 81 million Americans voted. [You can watch day 1 of the event here, and day 2 here if you want to confirm my description of it. For the US History nerds in the audience, I particularly recommend Overstock dot com's CEO Patrick Byrne's history lecture at the 7 hour mark of day 2 where he explains to his almost entirely white audience how the real racists and fascists in US history have always been Democrats, like Andrew Jackson, someone for whom Donald Trump has expressed great admiration, for what it's worth.]