Decoding Masculinity (6-11-24)

01:00 What is masculine?
14:00 Matter of Opinion: Trump and masculinity, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ2h3PX43iE
32:00 Politico: Evangelicals Hate Stormy Daniels But Love Trump. Here’s Why., https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/07/stormy-daniels-donald-trump-evangelical-appeal-00156488
48:00 Sociologist Samuel L. Perry on White Christian Nationalism
1:23:00 Samuel L. Perry Lecture: “A House Dividing: Why White Christian Nationalism is Everyone’s Problem”
1:29:00 Niche construction, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niche_construction
1:36:40 Niche Construction | How Humans Influence Our Own Evolution
1:39:30 Niche Construction, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO9gAtTplsE

From the Podnotes transcript: I wanted to talk about masculinity and Here’s our bottom line it. Right? Your test, the masculinity if you’re an adult man. Is how much money can you bring home to take care of your family? Right?

Simple, direct, right, being a man means providing for your family. Right. Providing for your wife, providing for your kids and how well you do that is a pretty good measure of your masculinity. Providing that you do it in a legal and ethical way. So if you are at ease with telling people what you do for a living, Right?

That likely means that you operate in a legal and ethical way, then measure your of masculinity is how successful you are at making money and providing for your family. And my my proof is the example of those who do that. Right? The The most masculine men are the most successful men that I know. Right?

They they have the most kids, and they have the most flourishing lives, and they seem to be the healthiest. Right, physically, right, Men need exert. Right? And and thinking is hard work, right? Using your brain is hard work, and the the best, the best endeavor for men, Overall just from my life experience, what I see what has the most uplifting effect on men is to go out there and to make as much money as possible.

So long as they’re doing it in in a illegal and ethical way. I remember, I was emerging out of 6 years of chronic fatigue syndrome, in the fall of 19 93. So I’ve been largely bedridden for almost 6 years and I’ve found a great psychiatrist. The late great Daniel Go in Orlando, Florida. And he got me on a medication called Na, which enabled me to resume at least 2 thirds of a normal life, and after being bedridden, like, 20 hours a day, and then being off to go about life again, I was so excited, and There’s something he said to me that I’ve never gotten.

He said, go it there and show me how much money you can make. I did not follow the advice. Right? Instead, I indulge my fantasies for greatness. And so I maxed out my credit cards to write my first book.

Then I divided myself to blogging, and then I divided myself to the Alexander technique, and then I divided myself to all sorts of things until about 20 15 when I realized, okay. I need to really take seriously making money. And after that, I was able to start earning around the the 6 figure mark, which is a decent wage in Los Angeles. But that has the most opening effect particularly on a man. Right?

It forces you to go out into the world, which is good for you. Right? Men seem to be why to have a need to conquer. It forces you to get along with other people, because you don’t wanna give away your money because you’re getting sued. So you take care of other people’s rights.

You don’t needlessly offend and hurt other people so that you accelerate their their desires to take revenge against you and your family. Right? Taking care of your family, it means that you don’t go out there and exacerbate people’s anger towards you and and if retaliation against the the home that you’re working so hard to create. And effectively, you become successful in earning to the degree that you meet other people’s needs. And so putting a focus on earning as much money as possible in a legal and ethical way either It means that you gotta focus on meeting other people’s needs.

So it takes you outside of yourself. Outside of your own natural tendencies towards Sloth, towards indulge towards selfish ness, and it forces you to focus on meeting other people’s needs, and it just seems to be the most pursuit Right. So you give me 100 men. Alright? And 50 of them make religion, their primary pursuit.

And 50 of them make making money their primary pursuit. I am more impressed by the people I’ve met to put a higher priority on making money, than absorbing their religion. Now, obviously, there are plenty of people who are gonna be more impressive when they made religion number 1, but the impressive religious man that I know in orthodox judaism put a very high priority on making money because living a Jewish life is very expensive. Right Sending children to Jewish day school means putting tuition bills between 15000 and and 50000 dollars a year per child. Right so to lead a a Jewish life with with a family and kids, alright?

As a man, you have to make a lot of money. And you usually will be working 6 days a week, 50 plus hours a week, and that just seems to have a good effect on men? It keeps them out of trouble. Right? It minimizes their tendencies towards indulge and pleasure seeking.

And it engages their animal spirits. Right? Men a while. Right? Men men want to fight, men want to fa Men want to Chase, men wanna conquer, men have all sorts of wild impulses and the pursuit of money.

It in my life experience is the single most enabling, effective, most masculine way, most productive way most healthy way for men. To go out and charge at life. But, now, there are people who have extraordinary talents And so for a tiny minority of men putting a higher emphasis on composing Sin or diverting themselves to the study of religious text. Or to writing books or to taking photographs or painting. Alright.

If you got extraordinary talents, alright, then then that there there may be, you know, were you’re end endeavors for you the making your highest priority making money. But is a general task right, making money, is the primary measure of masculinity. And men who don’t make money, it doesn’t usually seem to work out well for them. They don’t have social status and prestige. They don’t usually feel good about themselves.

They’re unable to maintain a wife and kids Their wives and their kids don’t look up to them if, the father of the house is unable to provide for them. And they just shrink and get smaller and smaller and smaller until they’re essentially living in a cave their own creation as opposed to men, who put highest priority on making money, they expand into life. Right? They go out and conquer more and more of life They have more opportunities in life, they create more connections in life, they build something more in life. So in the book of Genesis.

Alright, God, says, after Adam and Eve have left the the garden of Eden, which was like a kindergarten garden. Right? Now they’re in the real world, and god says to the woman right, by pain, you will bear kids. And God is touching, I think on the essence of femininity, and that is having children and looking after your children. And the essence of masculinity god says to man, by the sweat of your brow, you’ll earn bread, you’ll have to work.

Right? You will have to use all your talents and your resources, and it will be challenging. It will be difficult, and that should keep you occupied. If you work hard, right, you’re more likely to sleep well at night, you’re can have meaning and purpose in life, and you’re gonna be connected to other people. And you’re gonna have challenge.

Right? You’re gonna have worthy things to occupy your mind. You’re gonna have worthy tasks to go after, and it just seems to have an enabling effect. Can you comment about the decline of male spaces? It’s not good.

Right? Men really need time around other men. Alright. Masculinity is different from femininity. As women are soft, men should be tough and strong and hot, men should be strong.

Physically strong, emotionally strong. We we don’t wanna see a man just being incapacitated by the sweep of his emotions. That that feels un masculine. Right? We want a man who has a certain degree of stoic.

So he’s in able to endure the the tough blows of life and to power through obstacles and to charge after his goal, which should be looking after a wife and kids. And if men around women, they’re gonna think about having sex with the women. Right? When men and women are friends, usually, 1 party wants to have sex with the other, and that that frequently becomes disruptive. But in male only spaces.

Right? That’s most conducive to male thriving. It’s funny. Men want to be around men, and women want to be around men. But men need their male only spaces and it’s hotter and harder to find that.

Thanks to the civil rights revolution and the liberal world view, which essentially begins with this egalitarian fantasy that that were all basically the same and that any kind of restriction or lack of inclusion should be illegal if not frowned upon But civilization depends upon wars and barriers and exclusion. And masculinity depends upon exclusion. Right? Heterosexual men by and large do not want to be around homosexual men. By and large, they don’t wanna be around women, excessively.

Right? They need masculine male only spaces, and you just notice the difference in in the health of men. Who have those male only spaces. And think think about women. Right?

Femininity entity is sucking a lot of cock a lot of different guys, does that make a feminine woman know. In my life experience, right? The more sexual partners a woman has, the less likely she is to be A wife who sticks around and to be a good mother and to be mentally sane. Right? The most sex partner a woman has, the more likely she is to be mentally ill.

On the other hand, it’s not true for men. A man may have 1 sex partner or a hundred sex partners. It’s as long as those sex partners are women. Right? He has to extend himself and face up to the challenge of relating to someone who’s very different from himself, someone who’s female, and and that has its has its own benefits.

I don’t recommend a life of prom security, but it certainly doesn’t do the damage to men that it does to women. So sexual prom security seems to roll women and male prom for male homosexual also tends to deteriorate men. Right? What once men start, you know, riding on that dick or when start riding writing on that dick. Right?

It doesn’t seem to be a no. Now, the New York Times as you might imagine has very different perspectives on this, and in the latest edition of matter of opinion where they get a bunch of New York Times up at columnist together. They talk about the empty suit of Trump’s masculinity. I heard there might be possible discussion of professional wrestling and so nothing could keep me away from that conversation. Okay.

So it’s not… Exactly wrestling. But we are gonna have to start with U. That’s because Trump’s first public outing last weekend as a convicted felon wasn’t a rally, It was a Usc championship match. Carlos, you wanna tell us how this went down?

So last Saturday night, he showed up at an ultimate fighting championship match at the prudential. Center in Newark, new Jersey. He walked in with Kid rock, American Badass, bla India arena. Donald Trump. Isn’t in building the poor president and standing ovation from the of masses here went to 03:02.

Our times colleague Sean Mc wrote about this event. And said to the crowd was, quote, diverse every way, ethnicity city age nationality, except gender. It was fathers and sons, men on their own, men and suits men shorts. Now, that is not a surprise. Right.

So these New York Times Up had columnist kind of. Have have disdain for professional wrestling. It’s not something that interests me in the leads, but it is an entertaining spectacle that is a substitute for the male war like impulse. And so men resonate with sports, because it’s a substitute for war, with our testosterone and our strength. And the difficult nature of life which which means sometimes you you have to fight.

Right, to survive and our ancestors who weren’t willing to fight Right? They they’re very lucky that they had the opportunity to re reproduce their genes because generally speaking, male ancestors had to fight, and many of them were were rap. Many of them were killers and we are the descendants of rape or killers. Otherwise, we we wouldn’t be here. And I’m absolutely not endorsing rape and killing.

But conquering is inherent to the makeup of the man. Right? We’re we’re filled with testosterone and and and with we’re filled with desires to take on the world. And you look at the man who get out of the house and create something versus the man who stay in a play video games, And obviously, 1 course of action is far more adaptive than the other. Guys guys are the quintessential u seen demo, but Trump’s choice to make his first post trial.

Public appearance there. I think speaks to his appeal among, let’s say a certain kind of man and speaks to the kind of tough guy persona that he he loves to project. 1 of the women that was there, Sean Spoke to her and she said that Biden not man enough to run the country. It certainly is true that Trump is trying to sell an image of not just, like, masculinity, but sort of, like, a a patriarch masculinity, 1 that sort of a masculinity of dominance. And so something like u c where the the aim of the peep…

There’s no masculinity without dominance. Right? There’s no masculinity without patriarchy. Right? Patriarchy accepts that men have have a duty to rule.

And that men are more suited for the holy bur of contest contested in the wider world and for competition then women. Every man must learn to conquer himself without defeating himself. That’s good. But we also have to learn to be effective in the wider world. Bull the arena is to dominate the other person is very fitting.

But, I mean, the U c is specifically, like, a pretty right… So this is like Jam jamal Billy. Who’s not exactly a masculine man. Right? New York Times left wing columnist.

Wing cultural space. That’s been the case for a while. This is good politics. Right? You go to a place where you’re gonna be welcomed.

But it’s sort of, like, yeah. Bite bite over her to go to, like, an end of Acp National mead. I’m sure he’d find an enthusiastic crowd there as well. So, David simply by showing up at this event. It seems like he’s making a very explicit, aggressive appeal to…

Men in a very particular hyper masculine way, which has not just been seen, like, watching him on the trail. You see him do this at regular rallies. Well, this is of a piece with what he’s done for a long time. I mean, going back to pre president race where he was at Wrestle with Wwe e, and, you know, he had this moment where he actually quote unquote wrestled at Wrestle, which So, Wrestle, it it’s like junk food or sports, Donald Trump likes junk food, like Donald Trump, is is, like, the the it out base desires without a whole lot of sub and serial realization and transformation. Right?

He’s he’s a living breathing opposition to be dominant left liberal consensus of of what we should do, which is to completely transcend our, basic impulses and constantly reworked them in line with, you know, the latest in court morality. So we’re constantly weighing the effect of our words on all sorts of different diverse groups, and we don’t wanna cause psychological harm and hurt anybody self esteem. Oh, man. I just missing and he is absolutely not. Well just let me let me complicate that a little bit, which especially with comes professor wrestling, which is if you wanna use 1 adjective to describe Professional Wrestling.

And I would say even from an extent, you seen it’s camp. Person I think is camp for straight men. There’s an advertising line. Ed Donald Trump is a can’t be figure. Right?

The multiple wives, the many children. Their the bragging about sexual assault. That’s all sort of like, a performance of, like, a aggressive and and camp and dominance oriented Masculinity. And so this is the very popular type of mainstream critique, which is that where men get together they secretly wanna be having sex with other the men. Right.

This is this this bogus gay mainstream critique of male only spaces or… Dominant male spaces. Well, these guys are just really dying to be sucking each other off. And it’s it’s not true. Right?

It’s absolutely disgusting. Right, this constant pushing of a of a homosexual critique on heterosexual men who went nothing to do with this sweetness. It really fits quite well in to the environment of Professor Wrestling, and that is what people I think are responding to. To the extent that they are, Like, Trump as this avatar. See of a…

It’s not like traditional masculinity, but just for, like, an… Like, I’ll use the words aggressive and dominance oriented, again. It’s something that is designed There there’s no masculinity that not is not aggressive and dominance oriented. Right. This guy is talking and what he longs for is is the gateway of life.

I to appeal to the insecurities of men. Who believe and feel that they don’t measure up to what men… Yeah. Men men are insecure, and that’s the insecurity that drives the healthy man out into the world to achieve. Right, Men can’t just lie back on on a couch and watch Tv.

Alright? And send their their spouse and the their kids out the door and then c out with some bond bonds and a novel. That’s not what it means to be masculine. Right? The the the ethos of the man is not receiving.

Right? The ethos of of feminine woman is receiving. And and the ethos of a man is getting out there and conquering. Quote unquote supposed to be. Which is dom and sexually aggressive.

Sort of performance art masculinity. Right? There’s talk of toxic masculinity. This is more of performative masculinity. Not that the.

I mean, I’m sure there’s an interesting venn diagram there, but David mentioned the the wrestle stuff. And and so they they’re talking about, like, a camp performance sort element to Trump’s bragging about sexual assault. It’s such a a gateway of phrasing things. It’s at Donald Trump was not bragging about sexual assault. He was making the realistic note.

On how the world works that when you’re a star, and there are women who want to have sex with you, you have tremendous power over them, and you can leap over normal getting to know you procedures and just go right for the pussy. Right? When you’re a star and when we wanna sleep with you, you can go right for the pussy. And he was talking realistically with another man. It wasn’t a performance, and it wasn’t bragging about sexual assault.

Right, is talking about the nature of reality, which so many people on the left find offensive and problematic. I mean, he was hosting Wrestle Romania events in, like Citi, like in the eighties, and the the Vince Mc thing was, I think in 2007. But you… You see how it… Evolves when he moves from that arena to the political arena.

It’s the… Y’all pay your legal fees if you rough up some protesters. I like guys who weren’t captured. Right? And then you get to So the more modern and left liberal dominant approach is that we should outsource violence to the state.

But that’s not the American way. The the American way is that, yeah, appropriately, a lot of violence should be outsourced to the state, but a man should have the right to protect himself and his family and to own weapons and and to carry weapons. But the more you’re on the left, the more you believe that violence should be reserved only for the state. Well, considerable parts of of right wing thought and traditional thought, recognize that to be a man means to You ready to take out violence if necessary to protect those you love. And the looting starts, the shooting starts.

And finally, you know, you’ll never take our country back with weakness. You gotta fight. Right? So there’s there’s an evolution there, but it’s… You’re not gonna take the country back with weakness.

You all gotta have to fight. So much of it feels, you know, in in part for for the reasons that David alluded to at first that hasn’t really, you know, fit the part, but it it it’s… Yeah. A lot of good comments in the chat. Angus says it my lifetime the only president who embodied man in a positive way was ronald Reagan he had class and follow through in care when he was accused of being stubborn.

American way is that the ability and the courage of good men to stand up. Prevents greater violence. Remember the rooftop Koreans during the La riots to took a stand and ended their shops. Alright? They were masculine.

And h w bush was a good man. He had a gift for friendship and and he was a he was a fundamentally good man. It’s performative in many ways, even if it has real life consequences. So now I wanna zoom out here to the general public and the voting public specifically. And here, that they’re saying performative as a put down.

Right? We’re constantly signaling public Right. Plant signal, animal signal. Right Throughout all different forms of life signaling is going on, and so human beings should be signaling too. So what Trump is talking about is it’s its own trade America first version of vi signaling.

And it’s reasonably effective, and it’s necessary. Like, what would be the opposite? Of what that they’re talking about. So Trump doesn’t talk about how we have to fight to take back the country that we should just ac to mara bands of black lives matter and and antifa. Right, That is not a masculine perspective.

So they accused Donald Trump being performative as in false. No. Donald Trump is signaling and signaling. Is not false. Right?

Signaling is a vital part of how we should live our lives. Right? I take a little care with usually, how I dress on this show. I I wear a colored shirt. I I dress up a little bit for this show in line with the type.

Of topics that I wanna cover on this show. Right. I I take a little bit of care with with my appearance when when I go out into the wider world I, you know, want to dress professionally in professional situations because I wanna signal something. I I wear a Yam in part because I’m… Signaling something I’m signaling an allegiance to Orthodox Judaism of the the to tradition and to a particular people.

Signaling is absolutely essential, and we want to signal accurately, and Donald Trump is doing that. Trump does seem to have a message that’s resonating with a t section of men. At the same time, you hear a lot of complaints that culture and the Democratic party are too fe. So, David, you find yourself in a lot of conservative spaces. Why do you think Trump is resonating with so many in?

1 of the things the dynamics right now that’s happening on the right is they’re very good at finding extremist left expression. So something that’s very, very negative on quote unquote traditional masculine navy. So you take something that’s pretty extreme on the left. And then what Right wing media is just really really good at is then saying, take that extreme point of view and push that forward as this is what they all think about you. And so a narrative has spread that essentially manhood itself is under attack that anything that you think Well, it is.

Right? There’s the decline of mail early spaces. Right? There… There’s the full force of civil rights legislation with its inc centralization of lawsuits.

Against men who wanna have male only spaces. Right? You have all these service clubs that offer men only. Right? Once you start bringing women into the men drop out.

Men need to have male only spaces or they’re gonna drop out. Right? Religions that don’t reserve certain rituals just for men, men drop out of those religions. So we have a war on difference. We have a war on our natural understanding of different hi.

It wasn’t that men were on top. But men were on top in some things. Right? Men were on top as far as being called to war. Right?

Being willing to lay their lives on the on the ground that women and children got certain privileges and men were accord first to to keep women and children safe. And we used to understand that you speak differently to manage you speak to women, you speak differently to children, as men, you speak differently to aristocrats and and professors as as opposed to butcher and garbage man, Alright. Different people obviously have have different gifts, different groups that have different gifts. And now we’ve got this massive civil rights complex. That is at war with difference and distinction.

And part of that war is against masculinity Right part of that war is against certain forms of identity. So if black people want to create black only spaces, that’s glorified and ex. En praised in this society. And if Chinese Americans wanna have Chinese American spaces or Jewish Americans wanna have Jewish only spaces, that’s generally receives agitation. Right?

But if white people want that or Christian people or white Christian, heterosexual people want that then there’s a massive civil rights industry that was to destroy that. And so a large part of that war is against masculinity. Gov as traditional masculinity is under attack. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t find somebody in, like, a women’s cities… Yeah.

Traditional masculinity is under attack. Used to be a normal job provided enough income for a man to support a wife and kids and to buy a home. Then we had the mass influx of women into the workplace and all sorts of laws, which aimed to limit, alright, traditional masculine duties and responsibilities and privileges, And so now your average man does… Is going to struggle to earn enough money to own a home and to support a wife and kids. So his traditional role as the provider for a family has been ema by the civil rights assault.

Not only the civil rights assault. Right? There are other factors in play. Right? Women tend to color between the lines.

Right? Women are more law abiding So women have certain advantages in our new, you know, high higher tech economy as opposed to an economy that dependent upon brute force. Department at Ob overland or something like that, he’s gonna have written something pretty radical, but the extent to which in right wing culture it has imprinted at a very deep level. That the left doesn’t like men. The left doesn’t like masculinity.

It’s really good. Well, you see this most clearly in mainstream religion. Right? Mainstream, reform and conservative Judaism that no longer reserves any rituals just for men and men have left reform and conservative Judaism. Mainstream protestant in Christianity doesn’t reserve special rituals just for men.

Men have dropped out at Mainstream Christianity. The types of religions that are growing such as orthodox judaism and Pent Christianity, and evangelical Christianity much more likely to reserve special rituals and special spaces for men only. So 1 approach works and 1 doesn’t. Right? 1 approach is conducive, to the development of healthy masculinity and 1 approach isn’t.

Hard to overstate that has become almost an article of faith and right wing America And so, I mean, trump’s not a man fear influencer. But we’re seeing this in a number of people like the Tate, the Jordan Peterson sends, the Joe Rogan where… They’re saying I’m standing up for men. So if you take a worldview where everyone to your left doesn’t like men or doesn’t like masculinity. And men are struggling in many ways which they are, then you take a look at somebody who’s gonna just stand up and say, men great, men are awesome, being a manly man is fantastic.

There’s nothing wrong with it, and a lot of people are gonna gravitate a. So the whole schooling system seems to be leaning against what’s best for men. You don’t get classes in war strategy, For example, Alright? That would keep men interested in class in school. You have this constant trying tam down of male desire for competition, and for, you know, fighting and and contests and challenge.

Right, women females are much more meek Right? They’re much more willing to just color between the lines. Right, if I told you that a student did a vast amount of work outside of class, just because he loved it and not out of consideration for a grade. Right, the odds would be 10 to 1 that we’re talking about a man a male, rather than a female. And the odds are, we’re talking about someone of European heritage rather than someone of Asian heritage whose primary question for teacher seems to be, will it be on the test.

And Asians seem to have a much more pragmatic approach to education. While those who get obsessed with their education and don’t really care so much about the grade but they just want to learn for learning sake. Alright? They tend to be a European heritage. Ate to that.

And that’s part of the dynamic that’s happening. Jam, do you think this goes beyond conservative traditional voters? Yes. I mean, it’s important to remember right Like, most most voters aren’t particularly id ideological whatsoever. Right?

Like, they have… Dispositions, they have tendencies are whatnot, but there’s no particular like Ideological c coherent. And that even someone of is popular to Rogan or Jordan Peterson. Is I wouldn’t say nice, but like, these are not, you know, they don’t reach. So J Billy is just a slightly more intelligent version of tata easy cuts.

The broad swath of voters. But what of the changes happening in terms of voting behavior is that, young men color, black and Latino, in particular, are moving to the right. And there many efforts to try to explain what’s happening here. My own sense is that part of this is trump related part of it is not… Part of it that’s not Trump related relates to a finding in analysis of the gender gap that’s been around for, like, about a decade now.

And that’s finding is that perceptions of who a party represents by way of who a party puts forward as representatives really does shape how people understand each party’s relationship to gender. And so the fact, for example, that Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton President 20 16, really did communicate to a number of voters that this is a party that is geared towards appealing to women, which for some number of male voters like turns them off. The other 1 is that I think we have to think specifically about what Trump has represented in popular culture. So much of the key to Trump to me is recognizing him as a figure. Whose pre political persona in some sense still overs shadows his political persona.

Then in some people still do not understand him as a guy who was literally the president of the United States, understand him as a guy who was a celebrity in a celebrity businessman for a long time. And part of what Trump represented as a celebrity businessman, he wasn’t just a, a senator him for great wealth. I was literally at gym I was listening, listening to Nellie, and, like, Nellie, like, references Trump in the same breath as bill Gates. Like too many represent great wealth. This is, like a long in like, hip hop culture jim Alright.

So there’s a soc that gets interviewed in political and it’s an extraordinary interview. Right. This is political. Here’s the headline. Evangelical hate stormy daniels but love Trump.

Here’s why Trump may a sin, but evangelical. Still admire his masculinity and power. Adopted family with we’re growing up with 2 African American sisters and so, like we I was fascinated, and I have been fascinated, and I’ve always been fascinated. But I think growing up to an inter evangelical family, gave me something of a pro soc physiological eye, I’ll always asking questions about Race. I asking questions about, the role of faith and the construction of families, my parents, were largely political, but they had a lot of comment on, the role of the church within kind of cultural and political debates or my dad was always talking about.

And my dad who’s who’s, and even evangelical in the best sense of that of that word would always talk about, why he felt like James Doe was, going crazy because of some statements that he would make about, you know, about how how Christians must vote this this way and how this this these these kinds of, like, overt what we would call Christian Nationalist statements right now. So, I grew up always just fascinated with evangelical culture, especially as it related to issues of race and family, And so, I think coming into a graduate program in soc sociology. I was and coming out of a seminary coming community to a graduate program in soc sociology. I was really interested Okay. Back to this political magazine Here are some of the highlights.

Donald trump’s found liable for committing sexual abuse. He’s brag about. Grabbing women by the pussy in the middle of a court case of paying hush money to a porn, with whom he cheated on his wife, the third woman is married, and Donald Trump is the d factor facto leader of American evangelical. So how could Christians embrace leader who is seemingly treated half the Thou shalt knocks in the bible is a challenge. The typical answer is that it’s a matter of political convenience.

Quoting to Samuel Perry, Right? Soc of religion who’s written several books on conservative of Christianity, including addicted to lust. Pornography in the lives of conservative protestants. Trump’s sinful behavior may reinforce his support among some evangelical. That Trump’s sexual mis may break religious doctrine, but they affirm his masculinity.

They demonstrate that Trump is a real man afflicted. By god like all real man with lust, not just lust for sex, but for power. And like biblical call warriors who themselves struggled with sexual temptation, Trump can wield that power to lead the faithful to glory. And I think he’s right. Being a long answer is that we we often study things that are relevant to us personally and that led us that led me into this fascination with white even evangelical culture and its intersection with.

Family sexuality, race and politics. Yep. So I’m I’m I’m really intrigued with your work as a soc that are you talking your first book about? Having a certain street credit in terms of your own background. But there’s also kind of way in which you question whether or not you take certain things for granted.

And I’m just curious what does that like for you in terms of having these extensive conversation with even evangelical like? Some of the channel. A lot of my friends, a of my relationships my family still in that white even evangelical space. And in many ways, I’m still connected to that. I think that gives me us a sense in which I I am I’m often going back and forth between 2 groups.

I understand 1 another very well and trying to trying to look past the… Devices 1 group has about the other group and in misunderstanding complicates the narrative of both. Right? Like I know academics you do not feel the academic stereotype of even evangelical, even evangelical so many evangelical So do not stereotype the. Of that group.

And so I think that that benefits me from being, that allows me to to look at evangelical in a way that human them that it that understands them not as Kind of, backwards of cultural dupes or people who are just make… Or just in pawns and some kind of a political game. Even though I think they do fall into that at times. But also in a way that I think is sympathetic to a lot of the things that they acknowledge that they they really do feel. They feel per persecuted that they feel targeted.

They feel they’re running out of options in terms of having their own influence. They feel, like, they’re always painted as bad guys for just… In many ways, what they feel like is it’s voting their values. That is… Now every group has a victim.

Alright? The more intent you’re in group identity. More intense your sense of biology. It is not to, like, let them off the hook for a lot of explicitly, racist and homophobic and trans and and and… God whether not ideologies that they that they happen to internalize in many ways un winning.

But at the very, Think coming from that so course allows me to look at them I. Partly of because they think of it in terms of a political source identity or in some instances is that it indicates that they are a member of the republican party maybe. Right. So we we are actually witnessing this very transition. In survey date.

So I’ll just give you a couple of examples of that. So within the last… Between Trump’s presidency, and 2016 and 20 20 P pew research center, they did an analysis of large scale survey data where they were interested in in whether more or less, why do why white Americans were subscribing to that identity. We’re saying on Surveys that So Chris christianity in our increasingly secular world is increasingly an identity rather than an affirmation of… Faith.

Right. Is saying, I’m not Jewish. I’m not gay. I… I’m not black.

I’m not woke. And so what identities that left for me. Alright. I I feel most comfortable with people who identify as Christian. They would consider themselves even evangelical or born again Christians.

Now, like most people, I I probably would be like most of from that after truck surely I expected. People will be running from that label, evangelical, like it was radioactive. Right like that surely nobody would want to. I, pew research should’ve found that a higher percentage of White Americans actually called themselves evangelical before than later. Right?

And that’s pretty shocking considering that, like, the the number of people that can consider themselves even christian has been declining pretty quickly, but more White Americans we’re we’re calling themselves evangelical in 20. Than they were in 20 16, what was going on. Well, greg Smith who works at Pew research centers are pretty savvy. Political scientist trained as a data analyst. He looked at who it was that was that was calling themselves even evangelical that hadn’t done that before.

And they found that it it wasn’t people who are going to church more. It wasn’t people who had some kind of religious experience. It was just trump supporters. It was people who previously had supported Trump, but now we’re just calling themselves. So where would you go for a community where you can create mail only spaces.

That’s not left wing, that’s not woke that’s not gay. Right. You’re most likely to find that in some traditional expression of Christianity o judaism. Both evangelical indicating, and this was like, a 16 percent increase. And so, like, what what they what he showed essentially was that…

The term evangelical was was being emptied of any kind of theological or religious import or implications, but it just meant, white pro christian traditional culture trump supporter. That is… Right. So you can’t come out socially and say, hey. I primarily identify as white.

Right. You have to find a group that you can hang your hat with. I think indicative of the shift that we are seeing. Not just in the United States, but but even around the world, and I call it, the the European nation of Christian Nationalism. So, So for example, in Europe, they’ve they’ve had AAAA long sense in which are a long history of people not necessarily going to church, people necessarily feeling religious praying a lot or identifying with with religion as an important thing.

But they still consider themselves Christian, and they still hold Christianity to be an indicator of your really belonging in our. So yeah your typical secular person thinks that a religious person is diluted in our likelihood and not really in touch with reality, but many of these traditional Christian conception of masculinity and femininity, I think I’m more in touch with reality than the elite academic approaches. So in the old testament, You have all these flawed, but wild and effective warriors for god, who are also woman organizers. Right? You got King David, leader of Israel who has an affair with Bat Chevy.

You got Solomon who has 1000 con beans. You have Samson, and, Samson is the best metaphor for Trump, This but this is by perry. Like Samson is just a full time ass kicker. He’s his ramp wild man. He’s like the John Wick of killing Philistines.

And his other favorite thing to do is to visit prostitutes and his downfall ends up being this prostitute. But Samson in evangelical Christianity, he has talked about as a hero because God used him to fight the enemies of his people and he did it fearless and happily. So there are many evangelical Christian readings of the Hebrew Bible that celebrate flawed, but effective leaders who fail sexually. Fact god still uses them. It’s Samson, it’s Uber Masculine hero, he’s big.

He’s strong. He’s hyper masculine, and he’s huge and has enormous sexual appetite. Alright? He was physically superior, and he was sexually superior, And he’s a hero to evangelical Christian country. Right?

Like, our country is a Christian nation. No, they don’t mean that because they’re very religious, but they mean that because it’s a it’s an eth cultural and political category. It means not muslim. It means I’m born here, it means the right kind of people. And I think there’s a ascension which, our religious labels are being emptied of any kind of, religious or even theological content, and they’re just taking on markers of eth cultural and political identity.

I think it’s what we found in the computing. I think, my guess is that will tend to happen more and. It’s actually happened in… I think the best example of this is what’s happened in, former economist, Q. Again, I think as has put out some really remarkable data.

This is a published report that they did. They showed that… And countries like Ukraine and Bulgaria and Russia actually had an increase in the number of people that called themselves orthodox Christians, a tremendous increase. It’s gone up a lot in the past 20 years. If you look at say church attendance and prayer frequency, nobody.

Nobody’s participating in that kind of thing. Those saying people who have increasingly said, I’m Christian and I’m orthodox. Are the same kind of people that believe orthodox central to, like Russian identity or bulgarian identity or Ukrainian identity. So it is not about the religious content it’s about the religious label, as a marker of eth culture a nationalist. Right.

So Sam Perry interviewed here in Political, and he knows evangelical, see sexual temptation is just a normal part of being a christian man. Well, there’s is a normal part of being a man. Right? God gave men, tremendous sexual appetite. That’s true.

That’s more realistic than the more liberal left perspectives that wanna diminish the difference in sexual appetite between men and women. You see how many male leaders. Right? Lose big get publicly humiliated for giving into their sexual impulses compared to virtually no female leaders. Suffer from this.

Right? God gave man tremendous sexual appetite because he wanted them to be leaders, and people who are leaders Right, they don’t tend to be wimp. Right? This isn’t just about Sexist about every area of life. Right?

The ultimate male goal is to lead. Lead in politics, lead immoral authority and lead in initiating sex, and there comes a risk with these appetite. So you’ve got Trump who has committed sexual sins. He’s got a history of being a woman, but he’s also hyper masculine and he’s a man to man. Right?

This guy initiates things. He goes after what he wants. And he doesn’t take no for an answer. Right? And he’s not Mike Pence.

He’s not an asexual ned fl is kind crushing who is feet and ineffective. So Trump is power personified. He is a warrior. And with that comes all the temptation of the warrior. Culture.

And I I think there’s a sense of which… The evangelical label is is is taking on that kind of implication. Not as fast as we’ve seen another and say, like Russia. But but I think that’s it’s trending that way. Does that also mean then there’s a certain pride attached to the label that people are proud to identify themselves out that way compared to I don’t know, Say 5 or 10 years ago, where a person might have been a little bit more hesitant because of the concern.

Yeah. That that no longer is cow. In their identity. And no longer winning to apologize for being white and male and heterosexual in Christian and putting America first. Stern was that even evangelical is stigma ties in the broader culture.

Right. I think you have you have AAA… Because the term itself has become polarized. Because because of what it means and implies politically and and culturally. I think you have people abandoning, that that space because we’ll talk about that in a moment.

But you also have people embracing that space because that… What it means it means. I am conservative traditional Republican. And that kind. But 1 of the 1 of the fascinating developments over the last few years is especially among young Americans who who have any kind of left leaning or democratic thing affiliation as young people often do.

They are seeing what the what the term evangelical even Christian implies now. And they’re saying, it is the connection but with right wing politics. That is actually leading a lot of young people to to dis affiliate. We we can see this within experimental data. We can actually see this in, longitudinal data that follows people over time at young people.

When it becomes clear that this is what Christianity implies. That it means right wing politics means traditional isn’t it means anti anti Lgbt Well, the kind of sexual indulge that is typical in the male homosexual lifestyle is clearly incompatible with a religious lifestyle. So if you’re not down with the whole gay thing, it would make sense that you’d want to identify with a traditional way of life. Such as evangelical Christianity. And if you are down with the whole gay thing, then you’re not gonna feel at ease in a traditional perspective on life, It means anti woken and anti Crt and all of the things that implies, then they say, no facts and they disability.

Even if they go to church still and even if they price still and even if they might have any kind of theological commitments, they are avoiding that label. So I think the term itself has become polarized. Well, mainstream religion is plenty work. Alright? Mainstream religion.

Mainstream protestantism. Mainstream catholicism. Mainstream Judaism a reform Cassandra Judaism is dominated by the left. And if you’re down with that left wing approach to life, then you should feel it is there. To where people either dis affiliate because of it or people run to it because of what that signifies, like, the kind of people that you support.

Really interesting. So I wanna turn to some… I’d be curious to hear more in terms of, like, how do you define Christian White national Lisbon? It it means that they’re not gay and that they’re not woke and they are tired of living in a society that gl certain groups. Celebrating their identity, that stigma signifies white heterosexual Christians celebrating their identity.

How significant has that become for your own research in light of just… So many conversations about white nationalism in our current. Because we actually see white even… White Christian Nationalism among, white Catholics and white mainline protestants and some white even evangelical. A lot of other groups you also voted for Trump.

So it works across those. We have tried to dis this 1 sub culture that happens to be pretty prominently represented among Christian National Cardiology ideology, white and evangelical are there… The Venn diagram is not a perfect circle, but it’s pretty close. Right? Yeah, it’s different enough to where, like, we can…

We we should actually talk about kind of the underlying ideology or motivation. So, why Christian National is as we understand it So Christian National some Say Broadly isn’t is an ideology that ideal as an advocates a fusion of American Civic like, the very particular So she… Not supreme court justice, Sam Ali got into trouble in in the mainstream secular media. For secret tape recording where he says he wants ga returning to America. Alright.

As opposed to what, celebration of homosexuality, celebration Sodomy. Alright. We we’re in the middle of a whole month of a pride for sodomy. And other sexual deviations from a heterosexual perspective and Sam Wife says that she’s repelled by gay pride black. Yeah.

If you’re straight, and you have a hero system that believes that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman, you are going to be repelled by celebrations of sodomy. And celebrations of lesbian. Kind of christianity. And when I say when I say Christianity, I always wanna put an asterisk by that or in quote marks. Because I don’t mean, somebody who has made Jesus, the lord and savior of their lives, and I don’t mean somebody who who wants to big christ like or follow jesus and disciples.

I I mean Christian as an eth culture. So it’s a it it is an ideology that ideal and advocates a fusion of American Civic life with a with a white Christian eth culture. The reason we call it white Christian Nationalism, and this is important. We always try to emphasize. We didn’t do this and white evangelical go take off Right?

Like, it is it is a linear trend between affirming Christian Nationalism and I’m believing that White Americans are persecuted that they get discriminating against. Black Americans, the more increase Christian nationals and it… Right. So the more strongly you identify with your group, the more strongly you’re gonna believe that your group is… Being disadvantaged and persecuted and taken advantage of and in short victim.

And these 2 things reinforce each other. Right? The more you believe that your group is being victim, the stronger you’re gonna be in that identity, stronger you grow that identity. The more you believe your group is being victim. Does not change.

Other their view. They’re not more likely to believe that White Americans are persecuted. I’ll give you another really important. This is 1 that we don’t actually talk about in the flag in the cross, so we’re taking america back. But I’m writing a few papers on this idea.

Polarization. So after what we call affected polarization and negative polarization is a huge problem. And and you can get at this by basically, we measure this in political science and sociology by by looking at how much you prefer your own party and how much you don’t like the other party? And you can construct a measure and basically the higher you score on… And Chad says…

Masculinity means taking responsibility for other people. Yeah. They’re providing for for a spouse and for children, and doing your bit for your community for your people for your religion for your tribe. Right? So if you’re on the left, You think that people are primarily individuals who come into the world with certainly ina rights.

You’re on the right. You believe that people come into the world as part of a group. And they have obligations. And so a life of obligation receives a lot more emphasis in a traditional conception. Of life.

Right wing in conception of life than the left wing views. Effective polarization, the more you like your own party more you like you you just like your own. So when we ask that same question, we ask Americans the christian… Out and We we we look at them across the Christian National was a measure. We find that the more white Americans affirm Christian Nationalism was there extremely polarized.

They’re more likely to love republicans and d test Democrats. Right? And what happens when we ask, Black Americans that same, that same effective polarization measure. Flat. Christian National does not make them dislike 1 party, or another, It doesn’t engage them in politics, the way it does for for white Americans because for White Americans Christian nationalist language.

The idea of Christian Heritage, Christian Values Christian Nation, means our country, it means our way of life, people like us. It it it it is evo of a time that they felt like the right people were in charge. Our kind of People have always been more comfortable with people like themselves, and people have always been wary among strangers. And why is this because it’s proved to be evolution adaptive If you did not employ some skepticism and awareness of people you don’t know and who are very different from you. Right?

You are much more vulnerable to get wiped out by disease or by murder? People that we held political power that we held Swag. From Black Americans when they are from Christian Nationalist language do not har back to a time where the right people were in power are they… Or their of cultural values, we’re we’re holding away. If anything, we find that black it’s about White Christian Nationalism.

It is about white Americans who believe Christian is a stand in for people like us. And that the country should belong to people like us. Another distinction you make is we control for religious characteristics the how often and somebody goes to church app praise, will also control for things like political ideology or partisan. So larger of reason people get a church who get a Synagogue is to see their friends to be with people like themselves. To strengthen their in group identity and to help out people like themselves and to seek help from people like themselves.

So 1 of the things that we consistently find, we talk about this in in the and taking America back God a lot is that once we account for Christian Nationals. Once we include that in our model something interesting happens. What we find is that the more religious somebody is More often they go to church, pray, read their sacred texts. We often find that Christian nationalism and religious… In religious commitments, behaving in completely opposite ways, in in terms of what they predict.

So, for example, that, and Chris just brought this up, We find that, the more somebody affirm Christian Nationalism, the more likely they are to hold xenophobic butte. Fearful of immigrants wanting to build a border wall, or those kinds of things. But we find that once we account Christian Nationals, the more religious somebody is more often go to church Pray, the less likely they are, to to wanna build a border wall to have xenophobic attitudes or Islam. Or even be fearful of Atheists. We find that they they do not, religious commitment does not cause people to circle the cultural wagon the way or that Christian National ideology does.

We find this across a variety. Another important 1 is like guns. So we find the more somebody affirm Christian National ideology, the more likely they are to to believe that the best way to stop a bad guy with the gun is a good guy with a gun, or that they they they completely reject the idea of the federal government, enforcing stricter gun laws, which are, you know, common sense gun legislation. That kind of thing. But once we account for Christian Nationalism, we actually find that the more religious people are the more likely they…

The the more in favor they are, common sense gun legislation, the more they disagree with statements like the best way to stop bad guys with guns is good luck good guys with guys. So what does that mean? It means that oftentimes of We find this… We find this unfortunate association between how religious somebody is, and they’re holding what we consider reactionary area or authoritarian views. I think what we’re finding is that often what’s masked and that connection is is the Christian Nationals.

And once we actually remove statistically, the Christian Nationalist impulse, the idea that, like, I’m culturally fearful the nation belongs to me. I wanna take it back. Once we remove that from the analysis, Being more religious, mike might just make you a better neighbor. Right, I get it. It might make you the kind of person that people wanna want wanna live by Right, like somebody who is not intolerant in Xenophobic, a reactionary kind of, like Mag.

Patriot, who who feels like this is my country, and I wanna take it. Now, it may in some ways, Curtis made a point that we… In the book, we talked about this in the in in taking America back, we find that regarding Lgbtq issues, still behaves in the exact same way as Christian Nationalism Right. Is not down with sexual prom, sexual experimentation, deviations from Sex being reserved for for marriage between 1 man and 1 woman. It does.

It’s still it’s still is associated with taller in store gains in Lesbian and trans persons. That seems… So what what secular people call intolerance. Right can also be simply described as… They’re standing for up for the traditional definition of marriage.

Suggest to us that maybe maybe ideas about human sexuality are related to… American re in ways that are a little bit more fundamental than our ideas about… Say, like ethnic intolerance, or theories or constructs that are often referenced in social psychology, Christian nationalism is highly correlated with something called a social dominance orientation. So social dominance orientation you’ve ever heard reference to that is is the idea that that relationship should be characterized by hi and positions of dominance and Christian. Right.

So more traditional conception of life, you’re more at ease with hierarchy, the mall left wing you are The more you believe that the world should operate on egalitarian and democratic lines. Nationalism is very much in in the in the frame of mind that… There are winners and there are losers and there in groups and out groups and we wanna be on the side, and we ought to be, divine. Speaking we ought to be on the side of, those who are on the top and the end group. Right?

Like, in those 2 things go together and because for white Americans in particular. Christian Identity, Christian heritage the idea of Christian Heritage Christian values. So in str associated with whiteness, and in presumption of white supremacy in white superiority. We we find that that Yes. These these things absolutely correspond to issues of white supremacy and hierarchy, also not just white supremacy, but also patriarchy.

In many ways, and this is something that I. Right. So what it calls… When supremacy is some kind of pushing back against the dominant narrative from our major institutions. That, you know, white people are responsible for much of the evil in the world and that there’s something highly suspicious about people who are at ease with being white and Christian and heterosexual.

I wanna highlight patriarchy in and in the sense that it is constant… It is compensating for something that… White males in particular field that they lack. I saw a study recently, as matter of fact, I was a reviewer on a recent study that that looked at how Christian Nationalism was associated with ideas of violence, and how that differed by gender… Gender performance or gender expression in this study found.

The study showed that the the the Americans who are most likely to affirm Christian National ideology and not only Christian Nationals, but also violence and political violence were males, who who felt like they embodied more feminine characteristic that they did not embody more masculine characteristics. And what these authors concluded is that Christian National, and the the the the inclination towards violence and authoritarian control so is is a evo by white males who who feel that they are, marginalized in some way. Yeah. So marginalized people, join marginalized movements. Right?

If you’re losing at the game of life. Right The more passive you are in your real life, the more likely you are to be attracted to grand narratives of the, you know, tremendous commotion and violence. Right. Right? Imma ema that they they do not have the kind of dignity that they they deserve culturally, and in social and…

Right. People who feel ema and marginalized are losing at life. And so these people… Find it a lot easier to live in a fantasy world of grand violent narratives redeeming them. Then to take concrete actions to improve, they’re standing in the social peck order.

Right? That would require real hard work and sacrifice. And gender kind of relationships. And so… I I think there is there is there are 2 sides of the same coin that, in Christian nationalism, it is assumed that that we deserve, freedom and Liberty and control, to order society as we see fit and that requires us to control marginalized populations who want to you serve that power from below.

And, of course, that that requires a certain kind of rhetoric and a certain kind of speech, a great book that I would I would I would reference that I think Christian Nationalism is a is a good example of the Christian Nash rhetoric and political discourse. Is a book called Let meet tweets by, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pearson, who are political scientist who wanna at Yale 1 at Berkeley, most and what they argue is that they argue that conservatives in the United States must also all always. Must always. And always have. Wrestled with what Daniel Z led, Harvard political Scientist called the conservative dilemma.

And what that is is the situation in which, as a conservative, you you are constantly and forever, representing Well, Donald trump does not primarily represent conservatism he represents pop. Alright. Taking back, America from the elites and it’s kenny alliances with various divided subgroups in in America. So pop depends upon the nation developing an identity. Right Only if the people develop an identity where they feel a great deal in common with their fellow citizens, do they then develop the power to overthrow the ruling elites, The elites can only operate by making alliances, with a divided America.

If America is not divided, if there is a populist uprising in America or anywhere, then the elite a sunk Right? The elite maintained their elite dominant status by making kenny alliances with a divided state. But the less the state is divided Alright. The more danger there is to the ruling elite. And so elites like, Diversity because diversity means a divided country, and then they can pick off various groups such as the very poor, or African Americans or the Lgbtq movement and they can ally with those groups and they can reign over a divided country.

But a country that cease to be divided and says, I’m going to team up with my fellow citizens and remake this country so that we no longer glorify our divisions and diversity instead, we take glory in what unites us Alright, then the elites are gonna be overthrown and you’re going to get a new elite that will be allied with this… More more populous cohesive corporate nation. Right? A nation that’s come together, and is tired of being divided up and ruled against itself. So living in America, you often feel like your institutions are controlled by a hostile elite.

But if enough Americans joined together in something like a Trump populist revolution, then the people once they are United, Alright, They can overthrow the elite. Right? The elite depend upon a divided cut up nation where people feel completely separate and alienate from their fellow citizens, the elite. And mostly the economic elite, the those who have the power and the economic power and class power. But in the United States, you find yourself in this difficult situation where you also must get votes, and you you actually must appeal to enough of the population to where they will actually be willing to vote for you.

Well, that creates a creates a conservative dilemma? How do you get past that situation where you want to protect the prestige and control of the elites and people who have always control power, but you also have to… To generate enough popular support to to get enough votes in majority. So the 1 exception for center left or left wing dominance of our institutions is in large parts of the business world and in parts of the military world. Right?

The elite in the military tend to be woke, but the rank and file tend to be nationalist. And they would argue. Packer and pearson argue that they argue for what’s called pluto bureaucratic pop. That is the wealthy, Those who at the top of the economic class must engage in the kind of political behavior where they they must engage in they must get white working class individuals to constantly vote against their own economic interests and they do that. By s cultural outrage and fear.

Yeah. So it’s really against working class interest to want to limit immigration. Alright. That that… That’s nonsense.

Alright. Limiting immigration is the best thing you can do to raise the salaries the income of people in the working class. It’s the higher Iq have the easiest time surfing an increasingly divided and fractured America. Right. The working class by large and have the saint Mike iq as the elite.

Therefore, they’re more difficulty dealing with people who don’t speak English. Right? People who are completely different from them in religion in manners, in interest in capabilities. You do that by appealing to in group and out group and… Telling those white working class individuals, aren’t you sick of those immigrants, Aren’t you sick of those muslims coming in Well, the left wing elite also, the p to an in group in our group, only, their in group is those who are enlightened.

In the the buffer… Well identity where they learn to be reflex and measured and pursue that their rationality towards these ethereum know, left wing ends of egalitarian and ever increasing civil rights, and making you fearful. Aren’t you sick of those people, those leftist us and socialists and woke people, changing our culture, and transforming what used to be ours and taking it? Wouldn’t you like to get that back and you get them to forget the fact that they are being exploited that they’re being… They’re voting for policies and politicians that will continue to serve the ultra rich.

Well, the ultra rich. And the elite tend to be allied with a democratic party. They they don’t tend to be Republicans. By getting them to kinda think in terms of culture. Right?

And so Christian National rhetoric and christian National Ideology is really an example. I think an example of of of how elites and upper class individuals are able to constantly distract. Why even evangelical… This is absurd thesis. The idea that elites are primarily conservative.

Right? How insane you have to be, but you’ve got 2 yale scholars here are arguing that our dominant elites a right wing. I mean, what kind of world do they live in? To think that America’s elites dominant right wing and conservative. Holds another white working class Americans with the narrative.

That the culture is being taken that we’re oppressed that we’re being persecuted that we’re losing America as we know it or our way of life, and we’re losing control. And so it is it is something that becomes extremely motivating. When politicians who are savvy and communication are able to kind of use and leverage that rhetoric to stoke that fear. Does that make sense? Mh.

Yeah, you and make much of this concept of Like we’re looking at this kind of like data now, we’re kinda developing a theory of, like, how things develop that way. That we completely ignore contingency? And we had these kind of J story that we say, course. It if it should have always. Contingency means depending on, And this is…

An academic word that is actually incredibly useful. Right, who we feel we are in large part depends upon the situation. There are situations where you feel powerful dominant. There are other situations where you feel weak and vulnerable. There are some situations where you’ll be inclined to be truthful and rigorous.

There are other situations where you’ll be inclined to be sloppy and the nefarious and pulse. Of course, it turned out this way because Our theory explains all of these data that we, you know, just happened to have. And I think historians are right to nail on that because they see contingency and they acknowledge that this is not just kind of this March. To this, eventual obituary. This is this had to turn out this way.

1 of the things that we try to do acknowledge in the flag in the cross and phil was so good about making sure that we we emphasize this is acknowledging that it didn’t have to turn out this way, but the decisions were made. Right? Like that. And instead of a instead of a multicultural So we have an astronomical amount of our population that is foreign born. Right?

The the highest percentage of our population that is is foreign born in at least a century. And so Americans feel increasingly uncomfortable. They feel less in common with each other less social cohesion and social trust. And they are outraged. Right?

And that’s not a message that’s coming from the elite. Right? By large the elite like, a fractured America because then they can rule over it and make wise deals with various subs sections of America, America that was built on… Right. More immigrants good for the elite.

It holds down wages. It keeps their servants quite inexpensive to hire. On, say, religious freedom in the Roger Williams kind of Williams kind of conception of what America could have been that allowed early on this saudi of really. This is not a story of some kind of March what we ended up being. But there was decisions that have been made along the way to to merge national ethnic and religious identity toward Well, in a religious age, your religious identity will come to the fore.

If it’s socially unacceptable to place your national or ethnic or racial identity first, then you’ll be incentivized to create some kind of substitute for that. And so even in a secular age, you may put forward publicly that your primary identity is religious, But nationalism is being the most powerful political force in the world for the past 200 years, So we no longer live primarily in a religious world. We live primarily in a nationalist world. The resulting in the kinds of things that we see today. Why Christian Nationalism has this long story.

It’s also the story of decisions that were made. Now, when we look at white Christian Nationalism and in the deep story that that represents. I would argue soc physiological, we have this kind of concept, of of of, epi apologies of ignorance. Okay. Epi is a fancy word of how do we know what we know?

So this is something that the soc are now talking about and kind of with regard to racial theory. There’s… And epi of ignorance, and an epi, oh, a way of seeing the world that consistently allows white Americans to overlook their own comp complexity of white supremacist to over still This is absolutely absurd. Every… Strongly identifying in group overlook its own role in bad things.

Right? You don’t need some fancy terms such as the epi of ignorance. Right. Name a strongly identifying group that does not tend to gloss over the bad parts of the things that it’s… Group does.

But does not tend to gloss over the damage that it group. Its group does. That does not tend to gloss over the the bad behavior and the embarrassing behavior of this group. Right? So ties bind and blind.

Right? You have a strong in group identity whether you’re black or Chinese American or gay or Japanese, right? The stronger you’re in group identity, the more blind you will be. To the negative sides of your group. Overlook white supremacy at all, but I can completely ignore that that’s has been a part of our history and a part of our current, a moment.

I believe, And I would I would argue that white Christian Nationalism serves as an epi of ignorance. So this is just a fancy way of saying that white Christian nationalism serves to increase in group identity. And as with all in group identities, you tend to overlook the negative parts of your group in its history. In its capacity as a deep story. Right?

Like, definition has been good, founded on biblical principles that we have this noble past. That is characterized by good Christian men, who have fought for justice and it stood up for… And there are plenty of good Christian men who are fought for justice. And fought for freedom. Right?

But when do you wanna focus on, Right? If you wanna help people to be happy and successful and effective in life Right? You tell them and you focus their thinking on the great things that have come out of their tradition. Right? You don’t focus them.

On some, you know, dirty, bleeding, bleeding monkey parks infested, you know, anus, you know, lying there in a bath house, freedom and liberty, and all of the things that we valued that that it made us the great nation that we are today. And if we if we were to somehow deviate from that. We would say it cease to be a great nation We would be something else. Well, the United States has been the most economically powerful nation in the world since the 18 eighties, and we’ve been… Most powerful nation in the world since 19 45.

This is great nation. And this is a nation that was overwhelmingly the created by anglo, right the dominant structures in this society, the legal system, the political system or as a creation of Anglo. So we would become what we don’t like in Europe, we would become kind of so totalitarian and communist state. The deep story of White Christian Nationalism allows us to overlook racial injustice in the past by saying, sure Every strong in group identity overlook. The injustices that this particular group has done in the past.

Do you think those with a strong gay identity, spent a great deal of time, thinking about the amount of disease and dysfunction and damage that, widespread open reckless Expressions of their in group identity has inflicted on white society of course they don’t think about that. No. Strongly me identifying in group likes to think about the bad things that it’s done. But this guy wants to talk as though, this is something unique and per among white Christians. Lily, Surely, we surely racism was not.

This this this great part of our history like the left wants to think it Like, the 16 19 project wants us to think it was that it wasn’t characterizing our characters or there wasn’t characterizing us as a nation, that it is an institutional and baked into all of our systems and laws and and policies in every substantial political decision we’ve ever made is steep in, like white supremacist interest, so I think the deep story allows us to kind of maintain that epi ignorance in the past and in the presence, and, in a way that preserves wide interest today. And at the end of that, you sort of make a plea. So I wonder if he talk about black supremacy. Right people strongly identify as black. Focus on the great things about being black.

Or Jewish supremacy, people are strongly identify as Jewish. Right? They focus on the great things of being Jewish. Those is primary identify as as gay. They focus on the great things of of gay.

People who primarily identify as Japanese. Right? They focus on the great parts of Japanese culture. The flag in the cross… The flag in the cross was written post January 6.

And it has definitely got a, an empire strikes back vibe to to to what needs to happen in the future to make sure that this kind of authoritarian and populist, eth no traditional movement did not gain, more power… Alright. Sorry. He obviously has a left wing agenda. There are plenty of circumstances in life where a populous eth traditional hierarchy court movement is the most effective.

Type of political and and popular cultural system for a particular people at a particular time of place. And in other situations, Right? An an elite driven system will be more effective. Right? Sometimes you’re better off emphasizing your religious identity, sometimes you’re you’re better off emphasizing your professional identity or your education identity or your geographic identity than other situations, Right?

It’ll will be simply be more adaptive to emphasize your eth identity. It really depends on the situation. This something inherently, superior or inferior of making your primary identity, your sexual orientation or your race or your religion, or your ethnicity or your geography or your profession? Than it already has. And and so what we advocate for is is…

And hopefully, we don’t come across this. I mean, we’re not advocating for, say, progressive who wanna stand against Christian Nationalism to compromise in areas with people that they feel like are are fundamentally at odds with everything that they are stand for, but we wanted to acknowledge that White Christian Nationalism is such a threat. Yeah. It’s a threat to a dominant secular perspective. And It’s a threat to a gay propaganda saturated society.

It’s a threat to a left wing. Orientation on life. It’s a threat to the dominant liberal perspective that rules most of our institutions. So when these people talk, oh, this is a threat or that’s a threat is a threat to who. And for whom is at a boo.

So for everything that we’re taught is a threat. Usually, there’s there’s another side. There’s another group, for whom this threatening thing would actually be wonderful. It is such a problem that it that it requires a willingness to bracket a lot of the disagreements that we have in order to unite forces against what we feel like is this greater threat. So I think example of this, and we we we use this earlier on Jonathan Height, who is, famous author of, the righteous mind, why good people are divided by politics and Religion.

Which was such a pressure book. He wrote that published in 20 12, and the idea polarization of what we see now and effective polarization. So obvious, It just seems like… It’s even more relevant. Right.

There are times of circumstances where polarization is the healthiest response. Right? There are times and circumstances where you just wanna be making… Common cause with the the people around you, and there are other times in circumstances where you wanna be very careful about whom you’re making common cause with. There’s nothing inherently wrong about polarization.

Alright. If there’s some awful disease going around and you take steps to avoid. Contracting that disease. Right? That will mean you’re going to exclude a lot of people, and you’re gonna throw out barriers, and that may be the healthiest way to go.

Now. But subsequently to that book, he did a Youtube video. He did a dead time. Called the asteroid club, and and what he argues using that in that talk is he… It’s premise on the idea that if we all heard that there was an asteroid headed towards Earth, and and and it was happening in like 5 years from now.

We would we would all… And it was gonna kill us all. Like, we we would we would do the the rational thing, which is which is set us up Petty arguments for the sake of Yu united. Right. And and what are the odds that we’re gonna have an asteroid heading towards earth.

Right. For… Hide Hundreds of years the most adaptive strategy for people to employ is a nationalist 1, not a global 1. Now elites alright, they tend to feel much more common with other elites just like 600 years ago, Monarchy and and royalty felt more in common with other members of the Monarchy in different nations than they did with their own citizens. Coming together and developing a strategy for overcoming this asteroid that was headed to kill us all.

And and it turns out he was… He was far too sang in that analysis, like, because Covid was that asteroid and and and a damn your you’re killed us something right like, it was Covid ended up being that asteroid that really should have united us and it just polarized this further. And a lot of that should be hung around Well, Covid came from a particular country. And if we’d had stronger barriers up against reckless travel. Alright, countries we would have been in much better shape.

Australia rode out Covid much more effectively than other nations because there was an island, he was able to cut off travel from the rest of the world. Donald Trump’s knocking and that is that is very much a a consequence of his rhetoric and and the way he decided to handle that situation. But we would argue that why white Christian asked. Okay. There’s no evidence that the way Donald Trump handled Covid was just decidedly inferior.

To what every other nation did. Right? The United States led the way in developing vaccines. Our response overall was mediocre middle of the pack with regard to Covid. Is 1 of those asteroids as well.

And so 1 of the things we wanted to argue in in the book is that. If we really do believe it… This is as grave threat. That kind of rhetoric that kind of ideology that kind of perspective is something that could realistically be used to divide enough to wear authoritarian, this autograph end up, basically capturing the judiciary. Well, we’ve already got the center left, capturing academia, we’ve got the left capturing much of the military elite.

We’ve got the the left capturing much of the Fortune 500. Who are madly donating to black lives matter. Right? This murderous court that’s responsible for the deaths of approximately 100000 additional deaths we’ve had since the summer of George when our elite, including the corporate, you know, fortune 500 joined in and subs this death quote. And incentivizing police to back off from doing their job.

So we’ve got an extra hundred thousand debt Americans Right? Because the left and the center left, you know, joined together, captured our institutions and supported a murderous death code. The terra haute, black lives matter. Changing the rules of the game and in z, And Z kinda turns how democracies die. They talk about like how democracies are in up captured.

Authoritarian leaders, if we do really do believe that it’s that much. So the type of Covid response that this man would admire would be incredibly authoritarian. Right? He doesn’t see a problem with authoritarianism when it’s employed in a left wing direction. Right?

So whenever there’s an emergency, you start losing a whole bunch of rights because political leaders say, hey, we have to suspend your rights to freedom of travel freedom of assembly. Freedom of Worship because we’ve got this emergency. We’ve got this Covid pandemic. Right? I would wage you that he loves an authoritarian government when it is taking action in a direction that he supports.

To the threat we wanted to argue that, Mike, it’s it’s gonna take some coalition building. It’s gonna take some compromise, hopefully not on core values, but it’s gonna take some compromise in some areas so that we can overcome this. It’s kind of marketing, campaign, the commercial that he did about God needed a So talk about Ron Des. Warrior, this kind of and it it is very evo of this kind of like, strong man. Like, god needed a tough guy to, like, come in and take control, and that is definitely the way he’s handled his governors partnership in florida.

So I think we may have to do the same kind of rally and. Yeah. So it takes a different type of politics when the opposition controls almost all of America’s institutions. So the type of collaborative, good nature, high minded, reaching across the aisle politics. Is fine when the opposition doesn’t control almost all of society’s institutions.

But in current America, that left and the center left control almost all of our institutions. So this kind of high minded compromising reach across the aisle Politics may not get the job done as much as a no type of politics. Right? There’s a time and a place in life to be nice. And there’s a time in a place life to step up and be nasty, And buildings to overcome that kind of agenda.

This might be a good point to kind of book. Okay. Let me play a little bit more here from the New York Times. Talking about the empty suit of Trump’s masculinity. So not just as well.

But of kind of like an aspirational patriarch identity. I’m gonna use that word again. I think it’s really important. Trump has a bunch of wives and a bunch of kids, and he can provide for them. He can tell anyone who wants to tell him something to to f off.

All these things. They’re part of I think like American culture, but they are represented in a celebrity Gon formed by Trump, and that is appealing to think a lot of young men. Who look at that implicitly or otherwise and say, that’s the kind of authority I would like to wield. Trump has aspiration I think is so interesting, Jam jamal. It reminds me right away when when Barack obama was in law school.

He in a class made of his come authored a manuscript that was ever published about… And public policy in American politics. And he talks, you know, briefly about Trump as this aspirational figure in American culture. You know, he’s like, people say well, well, you know, maybe, I’m not donald Trump yet, but my kids will be. This is, like, in the nineties?

It shows you, like, you know, the length of time during which Trump has performed this aspirational service for us. Now, I would say about a year ago on this podcast we talked about this notion of the crisis of of men and boys, looking at the deteriorating outcomes in men’s health and education, even male friendships. And if this crisis of men involves a declining sense of purpose, I would pos that the the toxic masculinity discourse maybe extends a little bit further than. Alright. Let let’s get more here from Samuel Perry.

What is Christian National National was. How do we define that? Well on our first book, taking America back for God. My c author Andrew White head and… I’d define Christian Nationalism an ideology listen that ideal ideological as an advocates fusion of American Civic life with a very particular kind of Christianity.

Let’s define. Let’s break that definition down a little bit. First, I mean in ideology. What I mean by this is a system of ideas and ideals that form the basis of one’s political theory. So when societies are becoming increasingly secular.

And when your dominant institutions are allied against you, then to achieve the type of s that you had in a different environment you may need to be much more extreme. You may need to push in a much, you know, nas and completely unprecedented way. And I think this is what many evangelical Christians experience. Alright? They they feel a world that is slipping away from them that is increasingly repel to them, and to try to regain some sense of, like, healthy normality, they have to go in a Christian nationalist direction.

For a practice. You could call it a theology, but it doesn’t have to be something that is necessarily from God or from the bible, but it’s an ideology, A theory that uni identifies one’s… Basis of political theory and practice. That ideal ideological an advocates. Here we break 2 parts of this definition down.

So ideal ideological is an in our new book, the flag across Talk about Christian nationalism as, both a deep story and vision. And as an understanding it imagine this fusion. With America and in Christianity as a sacred myth, something that has always been since it’s founding, You’ve heard cliche statements that we are founded on biblical principles that we are founded on Christian values. And that story is complex. Anybody who tells you about the history of America and its relationship with Christianity and and does not acknowledge that is a complex story that they are either completely secular.

Or completely Christian. I believe is trying to sell you something because it is quite a complex story with certain founders believing some things. Arguing with other founders, who believed other things and citing different documents in their instead. So that is a complex story. But Christian Nationals and would like to argue that is a simple story.

In which we have a sacred and mythic, past 1 with a… A tightly bound relationship with the Christian God, but also it fights to institutional that vision in the future. And to realize that now. So we have a deep story and a vision of what could be, and it’s a very particular kind of Christianity. When I talk about Christianity mixed with nation Christian nationalism.

I don’t mean orthodox. I don’t mean somebody who made Jesus, the lord and savior of their life, I don’t mean somebody who wants to live out Christ mandate to love God and love people. What I’m really referring to is an eth cultural order. When Christianity becomes code language for people like us. So how we measure Christian nationalism?

As a social science? So it it revolt the left that people prefer people like themselves. Right? Because people on the left are much more open to new experiences, and so when when I encounter someone who’s strange and different. My immediate concern is concern.

Alright. Is is Worry. It is this person a threat to my my natural instinct when I encounter someone completely different from me. It’s the sense that that difference is a threat. Now, depending on the situation and depending on what’s going on with me, I may transcend the that initial beer, of the different and reach out to the person and welcome them and start up a conversation.

But I recognize this impulse that the more different someone is from me, the more likely I am to see them as a threat. And I think this is an evolution adaptive impulse that most people have. And in certain times and places, this is an adaptive impulse And in other times and places, a more welcoming perspective will be more useful. Scientist is what we always try to do is we try it. Do something called operational commercialization.

We try to operationalize this definition. How do we measure it And how do we indicate how pervasive it is? And how do we, isolate its association with various kinds of outcomes and attitudes and behaviors. So the way we do this in our new book the flag in the across. We we draw upon research on Christian Nationals and that has gone on before we utilize a scale what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to capture both this deep story and vision of what Christian National is is.

So 2 2 measures that we we use 7 7 items in the scale. And so we ask Americans in all of our national surveys to indicate their level of agreement from 0 equals completely disagree all the way to 4 equals strongly agree. We ask them their level of agreement with 7 statements. The first 2, help us to isolate that deep story. I consider the founding documents like the declaration of independence in the Us constitution to be divine inspired.

That’d be a pretty good indicator of Christian Nationals and. If you think the founding documents are literally inspired by God’s, similar to our bible. The success of the United States is part of God’s plan. Now, you might say that you affirm that in a calvin way. Right?

Like that everything isn’t and everything. In God’s plan, generally no. Usually, people who affirm this have in mind that that we have a special relationship with god. That God likes us. The best.

That America is where God pays attention. Alright right? So we have a deep story of… So almost everyone with a strong in group identity believes that their group. Has a special relationship with the transcend with God.

Right? Whether it’s Japanese or the Hindu or various native American tribes Right? Every proud group believes that they play a special role in the universe. The special connection, but for the the left and the center left, This is a base impulse that we should try to transcend with the the power of our reason. With the Christian God.

We also try to isolate this idea of a vision. What America should be, not just ideas about America’s past, but what America could and should be in the future. The federal government should declare the United States to Christian Nation. Again, pretty explicit statement. Somebody who scores higher on that variable, pretty clear wants us to be christian Well, this is in the context of an America where our institutions are dominated by people with a hostile attitude towards Christians.

So Christian National will be a good definite… A good a good des description of what that person believes. The Federal government should advocate Christian Values. The federal government should enforce a strict separation of Church Every type of life tries to create an environment around it, which is most conducive to its thriving. Right?

This isn’t just something that evangelical christians do. Right you can research this as niche construction theory. Right? It’s processed by which an organism alters its own another species environment, that this can be a physical change to the environment. Or when you move from 1 habit to habitat to another to experience a different environment.

But however you call it, niche construction or just trying to optimize the world around you, so it’s most conducive for your prosperity and thriving. It’s something that is throughout the animal world and throughout the human world, it’s not just something that’s restricted to das right winger. To say we reverse code that. So the people who disagree with that. So score higher.

In other words, they don’t want a separation of churchill state. They want those 2 things to be tightly fused. The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces. The federal government should allow prayer in public schools. Now might look at some of those questions and say, I kind of agree with that.

Right? Like, that idea of prayer public schools or related religious symbols and public spaces. I confess. I would be ambivalent about that. Maybe depending on what you mean by that.

Like I want my child to be able to wear across around her neck in a public space And I I want my kid to be able to… Right A little bit more on niche construction. So examples of niche. Right construction include the building of ness and burrows by animals. Way do animals do this.

They’re trying to create an environment most conducive to their health and welfare and prosperity and thriving, just like Cr do. A creation of shade, the influencing of wind speed, the culmination of nutrient cycling by plants. Right? These alterations are often beneficial to the construct. Right.

For niche, construction to affect evolution must satisfy. 3 criteria, the organism must significantly modify the environment. These modified efficacious must influence 1 or more selection pressures, and there must be an evolutionary response. So many biologists argue that niche construction is an evolutionary process that works in conjunction. With natural selection.

So earth forms physically and chemically modify the soil in which they live. Christian nationalists are trying to physically and spiritually and socially and culturally, modify the soil in which they live. Only by changing the soil can these primarily aquatic organisms live on land. Perhaps only by changing the culture and the politics and the law, can evangelical Christians continue to thrive in this country. Earth soil processing benefits certain plant species Right?

And Christian, social culture and political changes will benefit some people and disadvantage other groups. Lemon ants. Right? They employ a specialized method of suppression that regulates the growth of certain trees. Alright.

They live in the trunks of some trees. They use form acid as a herbicide They eliminate trees un suitable for lemon ant colonies. Alright? So they create distinctive habitats known as devils gardens. Christians wanna create Christian gardens.

Beaver is build dams. Christians build churches and communities and societies. Builders build devs and they create lakes that drastically shape and alter ecosystems. Christians want to create communities and politics, and culture that dramatically shape and order their ecosystem. Right?

Beaver, modify nutrient cycling and d deposition, and Right? They influence the water and materials transported downstream, and they influence plant and community composition and diversity. American Christian Nationalists want to influence their society as well, and they wanna influence who gets to be a part of it and who gets to rise to to power in it. Right. You’ve got chap and pines that increase the frequency of forest fire through the disposal of needles, cone seeds and oils.

They lit the forest floor. Right? This activity benefits some forms of life, and devastate demonstrates other forms of life. Christian nationalism benefits, some forms of life, damages other forms of life. Right?

You have animal life that, ferment fruit, which in turn attracts fruit flies that then used for transportation, micro bio represent ancient niches constructed by bacteria. So as creatures create new niches, they have a significant effect on the world around them. Right? It changes. Natural selection.

Right? Look at the comment, c. Right? It para ties other birds by laying its eggs in their nest. Christian Nationalism want to stop the c coding of Christian America.

Now this has led to adaptations among the cookies. They have a shorter incubation time for their eggs Their eggs need to hatch first or the chick can push the host eggs out of the nest ensuring that it has no competition for the parents attention. The check mimics the cause of multiple young checks so that parents are bringing in food, not just for 1 us offspring, but a whole brood. A Christian nationalists want to adapt and change our politics and our culture and our immigration policies and our law enforcement. So that they stop getting cock So ecological inheritance that refers to the inherited resources and conditions and selection pressures that ancestral organisms be.

To their descendants is a direct result of their niche construction. 1 example of ecological inheritance is the constitution of United States of America, which said we’re we’re doing all these things. We’re setting out these laws for the benefit of ourselves and our Pro, not just any loser who can make it across the border. So niche construction has important implications for understanding managing and conserving ecosystems. So why would Christian Want not want to understand to manage and conserve their ecosystem to create a country most conducive to their thriving.

Pray. In a public school. Usually people who, strongly affirm these statements that what we see in the scale that we use We see AAA good level of consistency In other words, people tend to know what we’re asking about and there’s something they know we’re asking about kind culture war issues of whether school or prayer should be, like mandated in public school. And we can have teacher led prayer public school or whether religious symbols of public spaces isn’t just kind of whether somebody could wear a hitch job. But usually, people understand that to me something like the 10 commandments on the courthouse or crosses on state seals, something that indicates more of a a connection between the state and the church.

And so what we do is we add all of these scores up together. Into a scale, ranging from 0 all the way to 28. And so people who score higher on this scale, score higher on Christian Nationals. And people who score lower on this scale usually reject, Christian So I wonder if this guy is outraged by niche construction. Now there was a developmental biologist, Conrad Watt.

And he drew attention the many ways animals modify their environments throughout their lives by choosing and changing their environment, a phenomenon he caught the exploit system. Okay. Muslims do this Jews do this, blacks do this. White people do this. Germans do this, Japanese do this and even American Christians.

Alright? Richard Lo, a man of the left that he pointed out, that organisms do not just passively adapt through selection to preexisting existing conditions, but they actively construct important components of their niches. Why it would American Christians not do the same. Right? It was an oxford biologist?

John bottling, Sm, who was the first person to coin the term niche construction. He was the first to make the argument that Niche construction, ecological inheritance should be recognized as evolutionary processes. This is just exactly what Christian are doing in America. Nationalism. Something I wanna be clear about though, As I’m talking about what Christian nationalism is.

You’ll notice that I I very rarely and I I don’t at all if I avoid it if I remember to a avoid. I rarely ever refer to people as Christian nationalists. I don’t like calling people that. I like saying white Christian Nationalists do this, think this. You’re 1 of them.

That kind of language I find is unhelpful. That’s about as helpful as calling somebody. Okay. So do humans employ this. My name is Brendan Grimes, and today, we’re gonna be diving into the world of niche construction?

So what is niche construction you might ask? These construction is any way in which an organism changes its own environment in order to cause natural selection. These changes create an advantage. For organisms with certain traits within their own population. Oh, let me give you an example.

If you live in America, you probably know a few people that are lactose intolerant This means that at some point during infancy, their bodies stopped transcribing the lac enzyme, which is the main enzyme responsible for breaking down the main ship. Sugar and milk, lactose. While it might not seem like it, people who are lactose tolerant are actually in the minority worldwide, According to the Us national library of medicine, all mammals, including humans are supposed to stop producing the lac enzyme shortly after infancy. This means that somewhere along the way, there must have been a mutation that occurred that is allowing humans to continue digesting milk well into adulthood. This mutation meant, the body never stopped transcribing the lac case enzyme and the adults could digest milk.

However, for a mutation to survive and become ramen within a species? It must provide some sort of advantage over organisms without that mutation. So what gets? Why was milk so important? If you remember from history class, areas like Northern Europe, frequently utilized cow milk and their daily lives.

And they became a key part of their society. In times of famine, these societies greatly leaned on milk to give them the essential nutrients and protein that they needed to survive. If people were lactose intolerant, they were less likely to survive because the milk actually harmed them. Being lactose intolerant made you more likely to survive to and the more likely you are to survive, the more likely you are to reproduce, which means the mutation is going to be passed on from generation to generation. If you examine a map of lactose intolerant worldwide, you will see that America and Northern Europe had the lowest proportion of people that are still lactose intolerant.

On the contrary, areas like North Africa and Asia are almost exclusively lactose intolerant because their early societies did not lean on milk quite so heavily, and they were never forced to develop lactose tolerance. So humans in certain areas created a cause for natural selection within their own environments they constructed their own niche. This is essentially driving our own evolution. And while it may seem like a small development, just imagine how our actions today are affecting our dna tomorrow out. Hey, friends.

Hey some of you are willing to listen to me talk about Niche construction. So I’m gotta do that. But first, I wanna get 1 thing clear, and that is that there has… Had there have been some very nice comments saying that so that we don’t get into this trial and some small number of scientists want to claim. They, no.

This is this is the grounds for… A stunning revolution and we’re going to overthrow the ins… The established order of evolutionary biology. And once again, no, it’s not. It’s cool, but let’s let’s keep it real alright.

It’s sort of the same thing for niche construction. It’s cool. It’s exciting. I think it’s a great new perspective a away to look at common phenomena with new eyes. But, again, it’s gonna fit very nicely into standard evolutionary theory.

It doesn’t… It’s not gonna cause an evolutionary biologist just any Qualms to accept the idea of Niche construction. And as as an aside, why is there so much enthusiasm for this idea of revolution evolutionary biology? It’s a very strange sort of thing that’s been going, but it sweep through quite frequently that people announced that there’s going to be some new discovery that’s gonna change everything and then, of course, it doesn’t. I think it’s because there’s kind of a personal human dissatisfaction with the theory, that what’s going on is that evolutionary biology removes many aspects of your life from your control.

You know, for instance, you can feel like, hey, I can go down to the gym, and I can exercise and I can improve my body. Or I can go down to the library or I can take some classes, and I can improve my brain. There is nothing analogous to improve your Dna, Your Dna is what you’ve got. It’s what you’re going to live with. And there might be some flow changes over the course of your lifetime, But there’s nothing you can do short of real revolution and biotechnology to actually change your Dna.

So we’re constantly looking for these ideas that lead to some kind of personal involvement with changing our genetic structure. Okay. Let’s talk about niche construction more another time.