Growing influence of the Christian right in US

Nick Fuentes, a Catholic integralist and white nationalist, met with Donald Trump and Ye in November 2022. The meeting received significant domestic and international attention.

During the Trump era, a far-right, illiberal movement among members of the Christian right surged, gaining a degree of mainstream acceptance.[40] Its lead thinkers are predominately traditionalist Catholics, though a subset of Mormons (through the Deseret Nation/DezNat movement) and other Christian denominations consider themselves supportive as well.[41]

On November 22, 2022, former President Donald Trump hosted Catholic integralist and white nationalist Nick Fuentes,[42] along with Ye, at dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. The meeting was at Ye's request. Ye said that Trump was "really impressed with Nick Fuentes".[43] The meeting received significant attention and comment from domestic and international political figures.[44][45][46] The nature of the event — in which a former President hosted guests with open antisemitic beliefs — was considered "unprecedented" in the modern era and garnered intense criticism of Trump.

Several Republican politicians have increasingly argued for closer ties between religion and state, including Doug Mastriano, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert. Andrew Torba, the CEO of the alt-tech platform Gab, supported Mastriano's failed 2022 bid for office,[48] in order to "take back" government power for "the glory of God"; he has argued that "unapologetic Christian Nationalism is what will save the United States of America".[49][50] Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has referred to herself as a Christian nationalist. Fellow congresswomen Lauren Boebert and Mary Miller have also expressed support for Christian nationalism.[51][52] Politician Doug Mastriano is a prominent figure in the fundamentalist Christian nationalist movement, and has called the separation of church and state a myth. .

Intellectual support for integralism, a form of modern legal and political thought originating in historically Catholic-dominant societies and opposed to the Founding Fathers' ideal of division between church and state, has become increasingly mainstream within Catholic legal thought. Adrian Vermeule has called for a new form of juridispence known as common good constitutionalism.[55] Integralism in practice gives rise to a state order (identifiable as theocratic) opposed to individual autonomy, a value traditionally prioritized by American democracy. Rather than electoral politics, the path to confessional political order in integralist theory is “strategic ralliement,” or transformation within institutions and bureaucracies, that lays the groundwork for a realized integralist regime. The new state would "exercise coercion over baptized citizens in a manner different from non-baptized citizens".

According to Vermeule:

The goal of Common Good Constitutionism] is certainly not to maximize individual autonomy or to minimize the abuse of power (an incoherent goal in any event), but instead to ensure that the ruler has the power needed to rule well ... Just authority in rulers can be exercised for the good of subjects, if necessary even against the subjects’ own perceptions of what is best for them — perceptions that may change over time anyway, as the law teaches, habituates, and re-forms them. Subjects will come to thank the ruler whose legal strictures, possibly experienced at first as coercive, encourage subjects to form more authentic desires for the individual and common goods, better habits, and beliefs that better track and promote communal well-being.

Former White House Counsel under Ronald Reagan Peter Wallison attacked Vermeule for failing to define "the common good." Wallison also stated that the political order formulated by common good constitutionalism "is highly authoritarian, perhaps even totalitarian" citing Vermeule's assertion that: "Constitutional concepts such as liberty and equality need not be given libertarian or originalist readings."
#Politics #US #ChristianTaliban #election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election