Morning Briefing: Authoritarian Views are More Prevalent Among Republicans
Morning Briefing: Authoritarian Views are More Prevalent Among Republicans
Authoritarian views are 'more prevalent among Republicans, particularly those who hold favorable views of Trump, white evangelical Protestants, and weekly churchgoers,' according to a new survey.
Morning Briefing: Right-wing authoritarian views are “more prevalent among Republicans, particularly those who hold favorable views of Trump, white evangelical Protestants, and weekly churchgoers,” according to a survey published by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
The survey also found that “three in ten Americans identify as either Christian nationalism” adherents or sympathizers, and Christian nationalists and Trump supporter Republicans agree that “patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
Federal law enforcement agencies will reportedly “dramatically increase security protections for the joint session of Congress where lawmakers count states’ electoral votes, an escalation of government-wide efforts to prevent a repeat of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.”
Libs of TikTok, the far right social media account operated by the anti-LGBTIQ conspiracy theorist Chaya Raichik, published a post that targeted the Akron Public Schools board, and there have reportedly been “dozens of replies called Akron school board members ‘pedophiles’ and ‘groomers’ and encouraged people to keep their kids out of public schools.”
Gabe Evans, GOP candidate for Colorado's 8th Congressional District, reportedly “fired Jessica Spindle over a series of posts that appear to endorse antisemitic ideology, the QAnon movement and violence against the government,” and Rabbi Joseph Black, of Denver’s Temple Emanuel, told the Colorado Times Reporter that “while it appears that these posts are not recent, it is disturbing to see Ms. Spindle disseminating vile antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes.”
Who’s Behind Project 2025?
A four part series that takes a deep dive into the networks of right-wing activists and D.C. insiders behind the GOP’s authoritarian playbook. Part 1: The Heritage Foundation — Join the discussion in Spaces on Thursday, September 12 at 4:00pm EDT.
Must Reads
Melissa Gira Grant writes that “all night, Trump returned to his themes of immigrants as criminals. And while it may have looked like Trump was veering wildly from the border to election integrity (the way he veers wildly and free associates from practically every topic), the pairing of these two subjects was no accident. It was more than just his refuge from questions he didn’t want to answer. It’s part of a growing narrative through which Trump and his acolytes appear to be lining up a cover story for another attempt to steal an election: Blame immigrants, blame Democrats, blame the border… Republicans have long used the idea of immigrants voting illegally to justify voter suppression efforts, like requiring voters to provide state-issued identification at polling places. But the more recent twist now is to construct a scheme they say is led by Democrats to use migrants who have recently arrived to commit (nonexistent) voter fraud, sometimes seizing on the work of groups aiding recently arrived migrants, and capitalizing on social media’s power to make a lie louder than the truth.” [The New Republic]
Brandy Zadrozny writes that “Lauren Chen brings people together. When the Russians were on the hunt for American influencers to produce propaganda, they hired a conservative YouTuber to scout for stars, according to the Department of Justice. And Chen, unnamed by the DOJ but identified by NBC News from business records, delivered. She connected employees of the Russian state media operation RT with unwitting right-wing content creators and their millions of followers, according to a federal indictment unsealed last week. Chen, co-owner with her husband, producer Liam Donovan, of Tenet Media, an online collective of pro-Trump creators, negotiated a series of lucrative deals with the high-profile influencers to pump out online videos — in what turned out to be a nearly $10 million covert Russian propaganda campaign, the DOJ alleged. The DOJ did not name Tenet Media but NBC News identified the company based on its description in the indictment.” [NBC News]
Kathryn Joyce writes that “by 2024, the neat overlay of US Church and electoral politics was becoming harder to maintain, even with the same candidates initially on the ballot. There were multiple reasons why: partly the subtle but clear differences between Biden and Pope Francis on issues from immigration to Israel; partly the pope’s refusal to increase women’s leadership in the Church; partly Trump’s strategic equivocation on abortion; and partly, said Faggioli, because some bishops were becoming anxious about the Church’s association with Trumpism’s cultish third wave… There was also Trump’s drumbeat message that the Biden administration was persecuting Catholics—a claim centered on a 2023 regional FBI office memo discussing ties between ‘rad trad’ Catholics and white nationalist extremists. The memo was written after a young, self-described ‘radical traditional Catholic Clerical Fascist’ in Virginia was caught amassing an arsenal of homemade bombs while writing detailed threats to kill Jews.” [Vanity Fair]
What to expect from Radical Reports: Morning Briefing provides a daily round-up of reporting on the Radical Right; Extremist Links offers a weekly round-up of extremists activities including the white supremacist and militia movements; Narratives of the Right delivers weekly analysis of the current narratives in far right online spaces and promoted by right-wing media; and Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right.
Christian Nationalist’s promoting violence is interesting as that goes against the teachings of Jesus Christ, but then again they have a minimal attachment of Christian other than using the name
You needed a SURVEY to tell you this? Can we stop fiddling while Rome burns?