Jess Piper lives in rural Missouri. She is a fearless progressive and a fighter. She has repeatedly called on the Democratic Party to contest every seat, even in rural areas, where voters usually have no choice. She will be a featured speaker at the next convening of the Network for Public Education in April 2025 in Columbus, Ohio.

She wrote recently:

“You don’t like it? Move.” 

This sort of advice is often given to me in online spaces when I say something truthful about Missouri that irritates folks on the right. When I talk about abortion bans, I should move to California. When I talk about funding schools, I should move to New York. When I speak out against harmful policies, I’m just an out of place, out of touch, liberal.

I’ve been told to move to California or New York many times, and while I have visited both states, and appreciate the CA beaches and the NY atmosphere, I wouldn’t move to either state for two very important reasons: 1) This is where my children and grandchildren live. 2) This is my state too.

Here’s something that may interest you; I hear the same rhetoric, although presented in a much more caring way, from progressives in states with better representation. My blue state friends have given me the “just move” advice on several occasions. They fear that I am in danger or that specific policies will hurt my family. They are justified in thinking I should move, but what they don’t realize is that moving will eventually harm them. If all of the like-minded congregate in progressive states, we will all eventually be overwhelmed by the regressive states. 

If we don’t contest and protest in every GOP-dominated state, the bad policies will leach into all the states.

I will preface this essay by saying that I understand that not all folks have the privilege I have to stay and fight. Those with trans children, those impacted by our state healthcare failings and childcare issues, those dealing with things I can’t even begin to understand have every reason to flee states like Missouri. I make absolutely no judgment on those who choose to leave. I am in solidarity with them.

If you’ve done the reading, you know that our country is slowly being swallowed up by right-wing billionaire rhetoric and policies. You likely know the long-game for this takeover was hashed out decades ago, and the way the extremists were able to do this was by taking over state legislatures and positions like the Secretary of State and the Attorney General. They have bankrolled the campaigns of State Reps and Senators, and even dip their toes into school board races.

In my state, the evolution is complete. Missouri went from a bellwether state to a radical state bent on stripping the rights of over 1/2 of the population and passing policies meant only for the wealthy. But, my leaving this state would be detrimental to other states and here’s how: GOP-dominated states create the policies that would overcome the country if left unchecked and uncontested.

None of us is safe so long as there are folks living in states that are unsafe. They will roll over us first, and you next.

The billionaires are using my state AG and other regressive state AGs to file suit to dismantle public schools. They sue to ban abortion and the medicine for self-managed abortions. They sue to stop college loan forgiveness. They sue to overturn civil rights and anti-discrimination policies. My former AG, Eric Schmitt, even sued Missouri public schools to make them stop masking procedures during a global pandemic. The worst part? He was then elected as our Senator. 

If we can’t stop these extremists in our states, they often go on to win higher office and harm the entire country.

The billionaires are also using GOP-dominated states to appoint Secretaries of States who will throw voting rights into the toilet. These SOSs have the ability to impact the nation and create the chaos we saw in the 2020 Presidential election with some states allowing fake electors that would have given the office to Trump. 

And there’s this: On January 2, 2021, during an hour-long conference call, then-President Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to change the state’s election results from the 2020 presidential election. The country is lucky the GA Republican Secretary of State did not fold, but we may not always be so lucky.

Progressives fighting back in regressive states are fighting for all of us. They represent the tipping point for the nation. They contest seats, they protest human rights violations, and they show up to keep the red from leaching into the blue. 

The real fight for democracy is at the state level. Activists in GOP-dominated states can’t just move…there is nowhere to go. 

If we can’t stop the slow churn toward fascism in our states, there is little hope we can stop it nationwide. So, we stay. We stand up and talk back. We link arms and fight the local corrupt policies to stop national corrupt policies.

Just move? No. I can’t. I won’t. 

This is my state too.

~Jess

Jan Resseger provides a thoughtful analysis of what seems to be a new phenomenon called “white Christian nationalism.” Others say it’s nothing new, that it is just another manifestation of racism, as in the KKK, the White Citizens Councils, and other hate groups. She reviews a new book, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy that provides a historical perspective.

She writes:

Our politics and our national ethos seem to have gone awry, and a lot of people blame it on something called Christian nationalism or white Christian nationalism. And yet, the book bans, the efforts to prohibit honest teaching about slavery, and the attempts to quash equity and inclusion seem to have nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus, embodied, for example, in the Great Commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22: 39) If, like me, you have been confused by the seeming contradictions, I recommend a book that begins: “This book is a primer on white Christian nationalism, what it is, when it emerged, how it works, and where it’s headed. White Christian nationalism is one of the oldest and most powerful currents in American politics.” (The Flag and The Cross, p. 1)

The book is The Flag and The Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy, by two professors of the sociology of religion, Philip S. Gorski at Yale University and Samuel L. Perry at the University of Oklahoma. The book is short, readable, and extremely relevant to the political maelstrom in today’s United States.

The authors trace the existence of white Christian nationalism back to the introduction of slavery to Virginia; the subjugation of American Indians beginning in Massachusetts and then westward through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the Civil War and subsequent collapse of Reconstruction followed by Jim Crow; the Mexican American War; and the Spanish American War with the establishment of an American empire including the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico.

So… what is white Christian nationalism? “White Christian nationalism is a ‘deep story’ about America’s past and a vision of its future. It includes cherished assumptions about what America was and is, but also what it it should be…  America was founded as a Christian nation by (white) men who were ‘traditional’ Christians, who based the nation’s founding documents on ‘Christian principles.’ The United States is blessed by God, which is why it has been so successful; and the nation has a special role to play in God’s plan for humanity. But these blessings are threatened by cultural degradation from ‘un-American’ influences both inside and outside our borders.” (The Flag and The Cross, pp. 3-4)

Gorski and Perry continue: “Like any story, this one has its heroes: white conservative Christians, usually native-born men. It also has its villains: racial, religious, and cultural outsiders. The plot revolves around conflicts between the noble and worthy ‘us,’ the rightful heirs of wealth and power, and the undeserving ‘them’ who conspire to take what is ours. Sometimes the conflicts culminate in violence—violence that restores white Christians to what they believe is their rightful place atop America’s racial and religious hierarchy… But this story is a myth… At this point, the skeptical reader might wonder what’s ‘Christian’ about this deep story.  It is ‘Christian’ because the vast majority of those who believe this story identify as such.” (The Flag and The Cross, pp. 4-5)

Why has white Christian nationalism exploded in recent years? “The source of the growing pressure is a set of slow-moving changes in American society.  The United States has slowly become less white, less Christian, and less powerful; more diverse, secular, and cosmopolitan. And this collided with a certain conception of America as a white Christian nation favored by God and ruled by white Christian men ready to defend freedom and order with violence.” (The Flag and The Cross, p. 103) Gorski and Perry describe the January 6th insurrection as a symbol of the conflict.

After defining “white Christian nationalism,” Gorski and Perry explain what it is not: “(W)hite Christian nationalism is not ‘Christian patriotism’; white Christian nationalism…. is rooted in white supremacist assumptions and empowered by anger and fear. This is nationalism, not patriotism… Second, white Christian nationalism is not synonymous with white evangelicalism per se, even if there is considerable overlap… Third and finally, white Christian nationalism is not just a problem among white American Christians. There are secular versions of white Christian nationalism that claim to defend ‘Western Culture’ or ‘Judeo-Christian civilization.’ And there are secular white Americans who know how to leverage white Christian nationalist language. For such Americans, the ‘Christian’ label simply signals shared tribal identity or veils political values that would otherwise be socially unacceptable. That is certainly how Trump himself used the label—as a rallying cry and a fig leaf—and one reason why so many white Christians have been attracted to him: not because he himself is an exemplar of Christian piety, but because he waved the Christian flag and announced his willingness to ‘fight’ for it.” (The Flag and The Cross, pp. 8-10)

The book is not principally about the institution of public education, but it says a lot about today’s assault on inclusive public schools. The authors name some of what’s been happening in recent years and in addition create a theoretical scaffolding to help us understand attacks on public education as part of a scheme to use public schools to protect the dominant culture.  Here are four threats to public education that reflect white Christian nationalism:

• opposition to teaching about racism in American history, and the passage of state laws to ban multicultural education, and ‘diversity, equity and inclusion;’ (The Flag and The Cross, p. 14);
•  efforts to permit religious education at public expense—promotimg the beliefs of specific faith traditions and undermining the protection of religious liberty (The Flag and The Cross, p. 16);
• efforts to block school integration after Brown v. Board of Education (The Flag and The Cross, p. 69); and
• the recent proposal by the Heritage Foundation of a strategy to overturn Plyler v. Doe to exclude from public schools undocumented students who cannot afford to pay tuition.

All  of these attacks exemplify pushback against inclusion and welcome for ‘the other’: “The first and most fundamental way in which white Christian nationalism threatens American liberal democracy is that it defines ‘the people’ in a way that excludes many Americans. White Christian nationalism is a form of what is often called ‘ethno-nationalism.’ Liberal democracy rests on what is usually called ‘civic nationalism’ It defines the nation in terms of values, laws, and institutions.’” (The Flag and The Cross, p. 114)