Sen. Tuberville told us something new about white nationalism: it's a religion (FUCK you, Cracker Scum, that shit won't fly even in Ala-fucking-BAMA, let alone in the country as a whole)
Sunday May 14, 2023 · 9:17 AM PDT
You may not believe it, but Sen. Tommy Tuberville told us something this week that we did not know.
At first, it’s easy to overlook, because along the way Tuberville said something completely boneheaded and wrong, and it’s tempting to get caught up in that. In fact, you should get incensed over it, because it’s one of the most plainly stated support of racism uttered by an American statesman in quite some time.
Tuberville, speaking in a radio interview with Richard Banks of WBHM, accused Democrats of “attacking” the military, implying that the armed forces lack combat readiness due to recruitment failures. He then goes on to state that a way to improve those numbers would be to rid ourselves of our policy of excluding white nationalists.
The interviewer, surprise evident in his voice, asked Tuberville to clarify his remarks.
That’s the line that got the most play in the ensuing controversy, probably the impetus that most drove Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to condemn Tuberville’s remarks.
And rightly so. Those comments belong to a bygone era, one in which such open support of racism was commonplace. We haven’t seen those days in many decades. They come from a time the rest of us had thought we’d put behind us, had put the nail in the coffin. Tuberville wants to exhume the corpse.
Now, keep in mind: that second part was a clarification. He put a double-underline and two exclamation points after that. There was no way for the rest of us to miss his emphasis.
And by virtue of his response, we can tell that his answer to the question of whether the government should allow white nationalists into the military is yes. Yes, he believes that!
There’s no other reason to valorize such persons by way of emphasizing their nationality (though that, of course, promotes nationalism in and of itself). Such embossing of that part of their character is meant to minimize the negative part of their identity.
Also note that by equating white nationalists with Americans, Tuberville is asking ordinary Americans to identify with white nationalists as well. Identity, as an equal sign, demands both sides of the equation balance. He’s inviting direct comparison.
But that’s not the comment on which I mean to train my focus. No, it’s what Tuberville said later. First off, in that same interview, he had this to say:
The next day, the senator was asked by yet another reporter (NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Julie Tsirkin) to place his remarks into further context. In so doing, he revealed something crucial about white nationalism (white supremacy by any other name):
Excuse for the moment that Tuberville recalled one character from The Blues Brothers, when asked what type of music usually graces her bar: “Oh, we got both kinds: we got country AND western!”
And never mind Tuberville’s mangled grammar. Take a second look at what the senator is saying:
He is clearly putting white supremacist beliefs in the same category as mainstream religion. He’s saying they’re on the same tier, of the same caliber.
Later he further digs the hole for himself as a senator: even after being given a definition of what ‘white nationalist’ is: a Nazi, or a racist, Tuberville exclaims, “I don’t look at it like that. I look at a white nationalist as a Trump Republican.” So, he goes back to inviting that comparison, not only asking white nationalists to see themselves as Trump Republicans but for Trump Republicans to see themselves as white nationalists.
But beyond that, he keeps circling back to this idea that white nationalism is as protected as a class of beliefs:
Again, I won’t bring in an Emo Philips routine. And only in passing will I point out that the senator believes that labeling a person a racist or white nationalist is merely “calling people names” rather than actually making a meaningful determination.
But Tuberville really is placing white supremacy as a class of beliefs that deserves shielding, even embracing. Whether that embrace is transactional (“Look at our recruiting”), or whether it’s because he shares similar beliefs, it’s clear that Tuberville is putting forth the tacit argument that white nationalism—white supremacy, plain old racist belief—should be a protected category.
This is instructive, because it gives us a glimpse into how religious structures (in the case of American nationalism, we’re talking Christian structures) supply the bolts and beams for this nascent fascist movement. White nationalists take their racist beliefs exactly how they take their religious beliefs: as though such were eternal truths.
This is why we must scrutinize Christianity so intently in this cultural moment: not to tear it down, but to examine how the structures work and interplay. It’s only that way that we can see how racism operates like religious ideology.
This is white Christian nationalism we’re talking about here. As I said before, we can’t talk about white Christian nationalism without talking about the Christianity part.
