Watch: Is ‘Christianized fascism’ the biggest threat we face under Trump?

If this “Christianized fascism” continues to gain momentum, what would that look like?

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In a new episode of TeleSUR’s “The Empire Files,” host Abby Martin and Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges analyze the Christian right and its impact on American politics.

Hedges has a wealth of experience writing about the Christian right movement and its relationship to fascism, and he draws on this knowledge to explain the growing threat of “Christianized fascism.”

“The Christian right, like the alt-right, is endowed with all sorts of conspiracy theories, coupled with magical thinking, coupled with an utter disdain for historical fact,” Hedges says. “I think the Christian right are as bigoted as the alt-right.”

He argues that while President Trump’s “personal life makes a mockery of the very values” the Christian right claims to hold sacred, the Trump administration can be expected to further the ideals of political evangelists.

If this “Christianized fascism” continues to gain momentum, what would that look like? Hedges explains:

It’s going to be the fusion of the American flag with the Christian cross and the Pledge of Allegiance. We’ve already seen it. It’s going to be assaults on women [and] women’s rights. It’s going to be assaults against the educational system, where we’re teaching creationism and magical thinking. It’s going to be attacks against “those forces of secular humanism that are destroying the country.” It’s going to be a sanctification of law and order and imperial adventurism into kind of a crusade. And I think that as society unravels, they will stoke this demonization of “the other”: Muslims, undocumented workers, African Americans are on the list, feminists.

Martin and Hedges also delve into the history of political evangelists and examine religious populist movements in other countries. Watch the full interview above.

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Chris Hedges, whose column is published weekly on Truthdig, has written 11 books, including the New York Times best seller “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012), which he co-authored with the cartoonist Joe Sacco. Some of his other books include “Death of the Liberal Class” (2010), “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009), “I Don’t Believe in Atheists” (2008) and the best selling “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” (2008). His book “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” (2003) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.

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