BigTent was pleased to host investigative journalist Kathryn Joyce and author Jeff Sharlet. Both are long-time observers and experts on the American right-wing and conservative movement. They write on the central role of the Christian right in the rise of Trumpism and neofascism, and the types of institutions that the right-wing has built to create and sustain their movement to end democracy.
Currently the christian movement is explicitly arguing that there is one acceptable culture in the United States—a Christian, conservative culture—which should be supported by the law and assumed to be the norm across all areas of public life here. And with the Speaker of the House, a self-defined Christian Nationalist, unmasking christian nationalism will be key to preserving American democracy.
KATHRYN JOYCE is investigative editor at In These Times and author, most recently, of The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption.
JEFF SHARLET’S most recent book is The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. He is the Frederick Sessions Beebe ’35 Professor in the Art of Writing at Dartmouth College. He also wrote The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power which became a 5-part Netflix documentary with the same name.
