Populist Christianism and the Far Right
How a far-right defence of traditional values runs the risk of betraying them
"Turn right" by nahlinse is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
The far right is finding a rhythm in the West. Giorgia Meloni began her political journey as a teenage activist for a fringe neo-fascist group in Italy in the 1990s; but won the recent Italian elections on a conservative platform, albeit without a majority. She will be the first far-right leader of a major country in the European Union (EU). It is worth mentioning that both Brexit and Catalan independence were based on nationalistic themes that used to be confined to the extremist fringes, so her victory isn’t unprecedented.
Meanwhile, EU member Hungary has been ruled by Viktor Orbán since 2010, having previously held office between 1998 and 2002. Across the Atlantic, the Republican Party is struggling with the dark legacy of Donald Trump. Should conservatves embrace the former president’s far-right insurrectionist rhetoric or double down on institutionalism? Is it better to win the primary but lose the election; or to present a platform that might win an election at the risk of losing the primary?
It can be quite difficult for commentators to describe Meloni, Brexit, Catalan independence, Orbán or Trump, not to mention Vladimir Putin’s dark regime in Russia. To what extent are they fascistic? All fascists belong on the far right of the spectrum, but perhaps not all people on the far right are fascists in the true sense of the word. For example, scholars of fascism have been doubtful that the late Spanish dictator Francisco Franco - a Catholic traditionalist who later embraced the liberalization of the economy - should be described as a fascist in a straightforward way.
Robert Paxton, an academic who has studied fascism for many decades, captured this uncertainty recently. In 2021, he said that he had hesitated to call Trump a fascist throughout his strange political career. Although he did “display some telltale signs,” the circumstances in the 21st century were very different from the 1920s and 1930s. Trump was also more business-friendly than classical fascists.
However, Paxton said that Trump’s incitement of a mob to invade the Capitol on 6th January 2020 removed his objection to the label. “His open encouragement of civic violence to overturn an election crosses a red line. The label now seems not just acceptable but necessary.”
Paxton’s talk of a “red line” - respect for the insititutions of liberal democracy - to separate non-fascistic members of the far right from true fascists brings a little clarity to the debate. Meloni has pledged allegiance to democratic institutions and the Brexit campaigners have stayed on the right side of the line too. Catalan nationalists crossed it by becoming open insurrectionists. Orbán is a little more complicated as his attempt to build “illiberal democracy” subverts institutions rather than overthrowing them violently. Putin is clearly on the wrong side of the line and has also tried to promote the seeds of discord in the West.
On the other hand, all the movements we have mentioned share common characteristics, whether they fall on one side of the line or the other: We can see narcissistic leaders promoting tribal politics, tempered by distrust of immigrants and alternative lifestyles. A strong defence of traditional values is never far from the surface.
In order to come to a better understanding of the contemporary far right, I propose we take a detour and look at the defence of traditional values in a modern context in the Islamic world. The word Islamism was originally used to refer to the religion, but it fell into disuse in the early 20th Century as the Arabic word Islam became favoured. French scholars revived the word in the late 1970s and 1980s to refer to Islamic fundamentalists, who base a modern political project on their interpretation of traditional values.
There is often a contrast between Islamic scripture and Islamism. Surah 32 of the Quran says that killing an innocent person is like killing the whole of humanity, while saving a single life is like saving the whole of humanity. On the other hand, violetn Islamist groups like al Qaeda often appeared untroubled by the deaths of innocent people.
We can see something similar on the far right of the spectrum. The death toll in Ukraine is tens of thousands of people, including thousands of civilians. Putin’s invasion clearly wasn’t inspired by Galatians 5:14. And yet, the Russian dictator has many defenders in the Orthodox church. Some commentators have noted that they sound just like Islamists when they protest the erosion of traditional values.
We can see something similar with Meloni, who campaigned as a Catholic mother without hiding her differences from Pope Francis. Orbán also sees himself as a defender of Christianity, while evangelical voters in the US formed Trump’s base, despite his very secular lifestyle. Brexit and Catalan nationalism are exceptions to this trend, as the defence of traditional values in both cases tends to be much less religious. Brexiteers wanted to return to Britain’s pre-EU status as a great power; while separatists in Catalonia were concerned by migrants from the rest of Spain and Latin America who had never learnt the Catalan language well.
I would suggest that we could use the word Christianism to talk about Meloni, Orbán, Trump and Putin. Some Christians feel that their values are under siege in a fast-moving world; and their defence of these values runs the risk of betraying them. We could also talk about populist Christianism to discuss how people who go down this road can subvert democratic institutions that are meant to protect adherents of all religions, as well as non-believers. Some commentators have begun to talk about Christian nationalism, which works equally as well.
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3437020
Bringing this all together, we can see the far right as a Venn diagram of populist Christianists and nationalists. Not all nationalists are Christianists, but most Christianists are nationalists. Paxton’s red line runs horizontally through the middle of the Venn diagram, separating neo-fascists from democrats.
As usual, when I mention Catalonia, the comments are closed for the week. Getting a Putin-backed bot army to annoy anyone who fact-checked nationalist views might have seemed like a great idea in 2017, but it means those who managed to survive the barrage of nonsense are very reluctant to give the separatists another go. If you want to tell people how progressive your anti-migration and nativist views really are, you’re going to have to find another platform, See you next Saturday!
Further Reading
The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong
National Populism by Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin
The Far Right Today by Cas Mudde
What Is Populism? by Jan-Werner Müller
The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert Paxton
How the Right Lost Its Mind by Charles Sykes
The Tribalization of Europe by Marlene Wind
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