A Horrifying Update

Last Sunday, I wrote about Stephen Wolfe and his book, The Case for Christian Nationalism. 

Wolfe wants to take the vote from women. I am what he calls an “affluent, white, female liberal (AWFL).” He thinks my anti-racism and multiculturalism is a result of my naturally irrational mind being manipulated by “members of the Regime.” An antisemitic dogwhistle, obviously. 

He does not think multicultural harmony should exist. This tweet about “the Christian political tradition” is an example of some of his rhetoric about multiculturalism.

Wolfe wants to impose “constraints” on Black people. In an essay, published while he was a postdoctoral fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University, he wrote,

“For complex reasons, blacks in America, considered as a group, are reliable sources for criminality, and their criminality increases when constraints diminish.” 

The constraints he’s in favor of aren’t difficult to imagine. His book is published by a Canon Press. Canon Press was founded by Doug Wilson, a slavery apologist. As I noted in my article,

“Canon Press published [Wilson’s] slavery apologetic, Southern Slavery, As It Was. 

The enslavement of people wasn’t a moral problem for Wilson, but he did have some operations critiques. Wilson and his co-author wrote that, “Southern slavery is open to criticism because it did not follow the biblical pattern at every point.” They write that enslaved people should have been allowed to read and write, for example. Later, they insist Christian men supported slavery because it “produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed in any nation before the War or since.” 

Wilson blurbed Wolfe’s book, saying, 

“Wolfe is to be thanked for having the courage and learning to show us our way back.”  

Wilson’s book, Rules for Reformers, is recommended by Canon Press alongside The Case for Christian Nationalism as part of a “tool kit for the reformation.” They’re planning for violence. According to its own press materials, Rules for Reformers is a “combat manual and cultural manifesto….mixed together with a bunch of advanced knife-fighting techniques.” 

Wolfe and Wilson are both deeply influenced by White Nationalist Samuel Francis. (Wolfe cites Samuel Francis extensively in his writing.) Francis was forced from polite conservative society before his death in 2005. Just like Douglas Wilson, he believed, 

“neither ‘slavery’ nor ‘racism’ as an institution is a sin.” 

Francis drew the roadmap for Trumpism decades before Trump won the presidency. 

"If whites wanted to do so, they could dictate a solution to the racial problem tomorrow — by curtailing immigration and sealing the border, by imposing adequate fertility controls on nonwhites and encouraging a higher white birth rate, by refusing to be bullied into enduring "multiculturalism," affirmative action, civil rights laws and policies; and by refusing to submit to cultural dissolution, inter-racial violence and insults, and the guilt that multiracialists inculcate."

— "Prospects for Racial and Cultural Survival," American Renaissance, 1995

Stephen Wolfe is a blustering fool waving his PhD around like it is evidence of a superior brain built by superior semen. (Read my article to understand that last sentence.) But he’s not on the fringe of the conservative movement. Francis’s words have been shepherded back into mainstream conservatism. 

Republican Blake Masters continues to gain ground in the Arizona Senate race. Vanity Fair reported earlier this month that, 

Masters has been promoting Francis’s ideas throughout his Senate campaign, going so far as to recommend his book of essays, Beautiful Losers, which Masters has cited as an influence on his style of conservatism, in an Instagram Story that was pinned at the top of his account.

Arizona’s Libertarian candidate, Marc Victor, withdrew from the race last week. He threw his support behind Masters. He said, 

“We found ourselves in general agreement about how to improve America and to advance the cause of freedom and peace.” 

It’s not just flagrant Christian ethno-nationalists interested in “the reformation.” 

Masters campaign is heavily funded by venture capitalist, Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and all-around bad guy. His support is no surprise. While he’s the most outspoken of the bunch, many venture capitalists are all in on the Right’s push to reinforce the domestic sphere. They need to exploit care work in the American Home™ to keep scaling.

Wolfe’s book came out this week. On Thursday, I checked its Amazon ranking. My stomach twisted. It was #84 out of all books on the site, nestled right between Polar Express, Percy Jackson, CatKid and a James Patterson mystery. 

Amazon sales rankings are not NYT bestseller lists. Sometimes, you can break into top rankings just by selling dozens of books a day. And, unlike the New York Times bestseller list, mass purchases of books from a few sources count toward an Amazon book ranking. Still, Amazon is a key part of Canon Press’s strategy. On their website, Canon Press tell people to buy from The Case for Nationalism Amazon because they know it is a bestseller list they can game. 

If The Case for Christian Nationalism can sit next to Polar Express and CatKid for even just a day, a sense of normalcy has been achieved for the book. Wolfe’s book dropped to #159 out of all books sold on Amazon today. That is still an incredibly high number. 

Christian Nationalism has nothing to do with Christ’s teachings, of course. Christ spent his ministry preaching against the power of the State.

Christian Nationalism has nothing to do with Christ’s teachings, of course. He spent his ministry preaching against the power of the State. But Christian Nationalism has everything to do with the way people have always used religion to shore up state power and oppress people. They’ve always done it, because it often works. So we cannot turn away from this, we must confront it. To confront it, we must comprehend it.

I’ll be writing more about Christian Nationalism over the course of this year, but my first essay is a great place to start reading about it, Christian Nationalism and Semen Supremacy.

I’ve heard from several readers that they’ve used this essay to start family conversations about the dangers of Christian Nationalism. Many others said it helped them understand how vital Tuesday’s vote is. After you listen to it, or read it, please consider sharing it.