The Reactionary Creed

It goes something like this:

  1. Hardworking white Christian men like me made America the greatest and most powerful country on the planet.
  2. As a result, we have established the right to rule this country in every possible way–economically, politically, and socially—-in perpetuity.
  3. Our primacy is under threat as a result of demographic change and an evolving economy which puts more value on education than our strength and skills.
  4. This development is promoted by an overeducated elite which includes the MSM, Hollywood, big business, and the judiciary. They use undeserving minorities as their electoral shock troops to win elections and keep us down.
  5. We are entitled to do whatever it takes to stay in power, because the alternative could be cultural or even physical annihilation. If that means using violence (or at least the threat of it), overthrowing the establishment, and changing the political system to perpetuate minority rule, so be it.

Parts of this are true. #3 definitely is. You can make a case for #4, even though it ignores the existence of a very large and undisturbed cultural safe space for reactionaries. It is also true that white Christian men played a disproportionately large role in the creation of America, as it exists today. However:

  1. White Christians were hardly viewed as a monolithic entity throughout our history, as the Italians and Irish would be happy to tell you. Concerns about alien cultures are old wine in new bottles.
  2. American culture has constantly evolved over time, and has been profoundly influenced by people of color. Today’s America would be unrecognizable but for their contributions.
  3. Even if you don’t accept everything the authors of the 1619 Project say, you have to admit that the record of white Christians in this country has been a mixed bag.
  4. Nothing in the past, or in the Constitution, provides an entitlement for white Christian men to maintain a perpetual right to primacy in this country.
  5. There is no plausible evidence which suggests that white Christians are heading for the gas chambers, or at least for irrelevance. This is pure projection on their part.
  6. The reactionary “solution” is illiberal democracy at best, and outright fascism at worst.