by Rodney Kennedy

Rodney Kennedy has his M.Div from New Orleans Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Louisiana State University. He pastored the First Baptist Church of Dayton (OH) – which is an American Baptist Church – for 13 years, after which he served as interim pastor of ABC USA churches in Illinois, Kansas, New York, and Pennsylvania. He is now a full-time writer, and lives in Louisiana. His eighth book, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit, is the focus of this interview. And there are more books to come!

Thanks to Donald Trump and his MAGA cult, nativism is having one of its extended moments in our nation’s history. Nativism is the political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of native-born over those of immigrants, and it often includes the support of extreme anti-immigration laws. 

Nativism as a movement opposes immigration on the basis of fear. Immigrants are “poisoning the blood,” “distorting or spoiling” American values.  Of course, and as seen in social media memes, the irony of white people claiming to be natives isn’t lost on Native Americans. 

• “You have to walk to school fifteen miles in the snow, uphill both ways? Try walking to Oklahoma.” 
• “Immigrants threatening your way of life? That must be tough.” 
• “Feed a man corn, he eats for a day. Teach a man to plant corn, he steals your land and kills you.” 

Of course, nativism has a long history in the USA. 

• In the 1830s President Andrew Jackson’s nationalism, populism, and commitment to democracy was deeply charged with racial hatred and the defense of white supremacy. 
• In the 1850’s white evangelical fear of Catholic influence led many evangelicals to find a home in the American, or “Know Nothing,” Party. The Know-Nothing Party was built on the belief that American was a Protestant nation. The Know-Nothing Party, like MAGA, had a flag banner with the words: “Native Americans: Beware of Foreign Influence.” 
• WWI saw a deep fear of German immigrants, to the point that speaking in German was banned in some states. 
• In the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan – which had 4-5 million members across the nation – was virulently anti-immigrant, and (with the help of Klansmen in Congress) pushed through the Immigration Act of 1924, which eliminated immigration from Asia and drastically limited immigration from southern and eastern (i.e., Catholic and Jewish) Europe. 
• WWII stoked both anti-German and anti-Japanese fears, and resulted in internment camps. 

All movements share the ebb and flow of popularity and slump. When it comes to politics, there are flashes of populism and nativism. Something disturbs the usual hospitality of Americans and turns it  into something quite ugly. A frightened, aggrieved and angry people are woven into a collective. 

The current mixture of populism and nativism, a real devil’s brew, is enjoying a longer shelf life than usual. The natives are restless. Even in towns and villages with no immigrants, Americans have been aroused by images of immigrants as rapists and murderers. The whole movement takes on an religious apocalyptic tone. The protections of the “people” from hordes of immigrants pouring across our borders have broken down. The illegal immigrants are taking “our jobs,” killing our children, and destroying America. In biblical terminology, they are like a plague of locusts.

The current outburst of nativism feeds off a MAGA evangelical faith “grounded in a highly problematic interpretation of the relationship between Christianity and the American founding,” according to historian John Fea. “It is a playbook that too often gravitates toward nativism, xenophobia, racism, intolerance, and an unbiblical view of American exceptionalism. It is a playbook that divides rather than unites.” 

A major nativist theme has been saving America from destruction. This fits the evangelical fear of losing the country to immorality. And this evangelical fear is old. 

For example, see fundamentalist Baptist preacher, J. Frank Norris. In the 1920s and 1930s Norris worked overtime to stoke nativist fears. In keeping with the Second Ku Klux Klan, Catholics were his focus: “They would behead every Protestant preacher and disembowel every Protestant mother. They would burn to ashes every Protestant Church and dynamite every Protestant school. They would destroy the public schools and annihilate every one of our institutions.” But in places like El Paso and Birmingham, “the American people, the real white folks, the Protestant population rose up and put the Catholic machine out of business, and a Roman Catholic is not even allowed to clean spittoons in the Court House of City Hall in Birmingham.” 

According to Norris, Catholics could not be real Americans. He called the Catholic faith “anti-American and unconstitutional.” Anti-Catholicism, American nativism, and white supremacy mixed together as one. Norris saw Russian Jews, Mexicans, and others as “low-browed foreigners.” “Let other do as they may,” he said. “As far as we are concerned …. we stand for 100 per cent Americanism; for the Bible, for the home, and against every evil and against every foreign influence that seeks to corrupt and undermine our cherished and Christian institutions.” 

Norris and his nativism faded from the public eye. With the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, Catholicism became more acceptable in mainstream America. This positive development is now undermined by MAGA’s anti-immigrant outrage. 

At stake here is the public rise of nativism in tandem with the rise of Trump authoritarianism. Kenneth Burke named this experience consubstantiality. The magic of consubstantiality is its ability to merge people together in language that is also material. Burke says it is about being “both joined and separate, at once a distinct substance and consubstantial with another.” The various entities “stick” to one another. 

For example, at Trump rallies, red Trump hats bob alongside American flags and Hitlerian emblems. Patriotism, nationalism, white nationalism, and antisemitism meld. The #MAGA hashtag of Trump’s campaign sloganeering accompanied Sieg Heil salutes in person and Twitter celebrations of the violence by “Proud Boys” identifying as “western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.” 

All the fears and hatred of various interest groups have merged into MAGA. Journalist Natasha Lennard noted, “This is not to say that each, or even the majority, of the hundreds of pro-Trump attendees sympathize with the Venn Diagram of white supremacist, alt-right, antisemitic, and neo-Nazi groups which intersect with the president’s broader support base.” Rather, “the point is that the constellation of hate gets interwoven at all levels irrespective of varying individual attitudes.”

Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, misogyny, nativism, Christian nationalism, anti-science and anti-history ideologies, Nazism, white supremacy – all the demons of American political hell are now consubstantial, of one substance, with the Evil One.

We now face a legion of J. Frank Norris disciples, as fear gives rise to demons. 

(Editor’s note: For an excellent biography of J. Frank Norris, see Barry Hankins, God’s Rascal: J. Frank Norris and the Beginnings of Southern Fundamentalism.)