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Trump 2020 with the Bible: "I'm afraid the belief in the automatism of progress is a mistake"
Photo: Patrick Semansky / AP
SPIEGEL:
Ms. Brockschmidt, what exactly were the people who stormed the Capitol in Washington a year ago?
Annika Brockschmidt:
It was a mixture: Among them were right-wing militias who had been prepared and armed with firearms and cable ties, but also people who had previously been at the event at which Trump spoke, who got carried away.
And there were elements that can be assigned to the religious right and that not only fueled the mood beforehand on the Internet and on marches, but also explicitly charged January 6th with meaning.
SPIEGEL:
Because on that day Joe Biden's election victory was supposed to be certified?
Brockschmidt:
An election victory that the religious right has not accepted to this day.
She also started the "Stop The Steal" movement to contest the result.
SPIEGEL:
Would you describe January 6 as a coup?
Or was that just a riot?
Brockschmidt:
In the run-up, as has just come to light during the process of coming to light, there were concrete scenarios and plans by Christian nationalists and intellectuals of the extreme right.
It also failed because of the sloppy planning.
But even an attempted coup d'état that is badly planned must be described as such.
At the state level, preparations for a "legal" coup in 2024 are under way.
SPIEGEL:
What were the scenarios?
Brockschmidt:
In the simulation games, the expectation emerges that left-wing demonstrators would take action and that Trump would then use the National Guard to "protect" his supporters from the Antifa.
He should use this situation to declare a national emergency and stop the certification entirely.
SPIEGEL:
But there weren't any specific people behind the scenes, right?
Brockschmidt:
There is seldom one character in such cases.
But there are names or organizations that keep coming up.
Steve Bannon or Roger Stone, the "Tea Party Patriots," who are also part of the religious right.
SPIEGEL:
Had it not been for white "Christian patriots" but rather "Black Lives Matter" activists attacked the Capitol on January 6 - would we have seen other images?
Brockschmidt: Definitely
.
We see across the country that the police are systematically cracking down, especially when the demonstrators are people of color.
I don't think they would have come anywhere near the Capitol - although the BLM protests cannot be compared to a violent attack on Congress anyway.
"Even in the southern states, theologians biblically justified slavery"
SPIEGEL:
But racism, as can be observed in the religious right, doesn't fit into a Christian worldview, does it?
Brockschmidt:
I would disagree.
As a society, we tend to automatically equate "Christian" with "good".
American Protestantism in particular has been closely linked to white supremacy from the start.
Even in the southern states, theologians had biblically established slavery.
The red thread goes back to Trump's Minister of Justice, who justified his president's migration policy with such a passage from the Bible.
SPIEGEL:
Does Christian nationalism reside exclusively among the Republicans?
Brockschmidt:
No, it also exists on the democratic side.
But we only find the militant variety among the Republicans.
There are also Christians, including evangelicals, who distance themselves from this radicalism and call for the history of their religion to be dealt with in this country at last.
The imperial and colonial history of Christianity, not only in the USA, is often forgotten.
SPIEGEL:
But what if it says: "Love your neighbor ..."?
Brockschmidt:
It always depends on how I define my neighbor.
Is that my neighbor, no matter where he's from?
Or is it just the member of my
race
?
SPIEGEL:
I'm a 50-year-old Texan who goes to church regularly, tells her daughters not to have sex before marriage, and especially not to have abortions.
I would describe my morals as high.
Why isn't it repulsive to me when a man boasts of being able to touch women "by the pussy"?
Brockschmidt:
Right-wing Christians substantiate their views with the Bible, as do those who consider democracy to be a good cause.
The gender understanding of the religious right is important here: women are seen as instinctless and "pure" beings whose job it is to protect men from their instinct-driven behavior.
Conversely, a direct line is drawn between a man's sex drive and national security.
SPIEGEL:
I beg your pardon?
Brockschmidt:
That might sound bizarre.
But only a potent, militant masculine type who can also be violent, according to this thinking, is able to protect Christian white America.
SPIEGEL:
The evangelicals used to support a Jimmy Carter, the Democratic president.
Brockschmidt:
And we were deeply disappointed in him because he did not represent their militant Christian nationalism, even though he was a Southern Baptist.
Today it is the case that the political and the religious right find themselves with their backs to the wall against the background of the demographic development of the country.
The US has never been this close to being the multi-ethnic, pluralistic society it promised to be.
In the long run, the religious right will no longer win majorities with their positions - and they know that.
So they made a decision.
"I'm afraid that the belief in the automatism of progress is a mistake."
SPIEGEL:
Which ones?
Brockschmidt:
We're dropping the bourgeois facade and looking for an aggressive candidate, one who no longer even pretends to be interested in democracy.
Even for the architects of the religious right in the 1960s it was clear: if we have to choose between democracy and our retention of power - then democracy has to go.
That's not my interpretation, it's in the lyrics.
SPIEGEL:
That's nothing new.
Brockschmidt:
What is new is that it appears so openly and aggressively.
Because they aggressively "defend themselves" against the alleged downfall of the USA.
SPIEGEL:
Aren't these just retreat battles?
LGBTQ, migration, turning away from religions - not only right-wing extremists, also conservatives, not only in the USA, also in Europe, but have been rushing from defeat to defeat for decades.
Brockschmidt:
I'm afraid that the belief in the automatism of progress is a mistake.
It's not something you can sit out.
Especially since the religious right does not think in terms of legislative periods, but in terms of decades, centuries, even millennia.
SPIEGEL:
It's a minority.
Brockschmidt:
Yes.
But it is not a small minority that, thanks to the peculiarities of the political system, does not need majorities.
We are experiencing a massive radicalization of the Republicans: Those who express violent fantasies against their political opponents have meanwhile become mainstream of the party.
The more they become aware that they are getting fewer, the more radically they will try to destroy these democracies.
SPIEGEL:
There are also Christians in the United States who distance themselves from it.
Brockschmidt:
There are, but they are not recognized by the religious right as "real" Christians.
The game goes both ways.
A theologian I spoke to for my book put it this way: "Christians are what Christians do," and that also applies to authoritarian Christians.
It is not about freedom of religion, as is often claimed.
It is about the dominance of their form of Christianity, to which society has to bow.
SPIEGEL:
Is a pontifical or presidential bridge building between the camps even conceivable?
Brockschmidt:
Joe Biden tried, but he will fail.
Here we are again on January 6th.
Reconciliation implies that a side that has been guilty of something is also repentant.
We see the exact opposite on the Republican side.
SPIEGEL:
On an iconic level, January 6th also seemed as if people just wanted to see the world burn.
Armageddon.
Brockschmidt:
That's the way it is.
Supporters of the "Spiritual Warfare" believe that not only humans can be possessed by demons, but also institutions.
Then I can't argue with Democrats about social reform, and after that it's all good again.
Then there are evil forces possessed by the devil that must be driven out of Parliament;
with the whip, as Jesus did with the traders in the temple, or even killed.
There are apocalyptic fantasies of violence at work, interpretations according to which fire is needed, from which a new world can emerge.
For the time being, it's enough to let the old world go up in flames.
SPIEGEL:
We also had a "storm on the Reichstag" in Germany.
Are we threatened with conditions similar to those in the USA?
Brockschmidt:
Opposition to vaccinations, denial of climate change, anti-Semitism, rejection of LGBTQ or migrants, that is now a solid package.
Anyone who takes one point signs the other more and more often.
Fundamentalist Christians also take part in right-wing anti-corona demonstrations.
Nevertheless, I would warn against an undifferentiated equation: When the attack on the Capitol, the violence that was used was much more massive.
But there is the feeling: We are taking back what is rightfully ours by force.