Russian President Vladimir Putin has found support in an unlikely place: the US
In particular, Christian nationalists, a subset of America's religious right, have flocked to the country's authoritarian leader, according to new research by a group of social scientists, among them Sarah Riccardi-Swartzassistant professor of religion and anthropology at Northeastern University.
Riccardi-Swartz says this level of support for Putin among Christian nationalists is particularly notable given their simultaneous opposition to, or indifference to, Russia itself.
“Even if Christian nationalists are ambivalent about Russia as a geopolitical construct or see it as a threat, they are still favorable toward Putin as a political figure,” says Riccardi-Swartz. “This seems to suggest that Americans who subscribe to Christian nationalist ideology are drawn to Putin as a strongman and ethno-nationalist leader, just as they were to Trump.”
Christian nationalism is an ideology that in recent years has spread throughout Christianity in the US, says Riccardi-Swartz. It is not isolated to a single doctrine and is defined by the belief that the US is a Christian nation with specific values that must be protected from “some kind of moral decay because of the diversity of democracy and the diversity of society in general,” Riccardi – says Swartz .
As a result, it has become inseparable from the “gods, guns, countries” mentality that defines parts of the Republican party and US conservatism, Riccardi-Swartz says.
To measure how favorable Christian nationalists were toward Putin and Russia, Riccardi-Swartz and her colleagues used data from the Public Religion Research Institute's 2018 American Values Survey, the Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel through 2021 and the 2022 National Survey of Addiction and Social Attitudes. The data captures Christian nationalist sentiment during the presidency of Donald Trump, after Trump, and after the invasion of Ukraine based on responses to a series of survey questions.
The study found that in 2018, respondents who said America was or still is a Christian nation tended to score higher on Putin's favorability. Meanwhile, those who still believe the U.S. is a Christian nation, the most extreme category on the study's Christian nationalist scale, were also more likely to be favorable toward Russia.
In 2021, the results were largely the same: As respondents scored higher on the Christian nationalist measures, they were more likely to be favorable to Putin.
Specifically, in 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, people who scored very high or very low on the study's Christian nationalism measures were both less favorable to Russia. However, the one thing that remained consistent was that the higher people placed on the Christian nationalist scale, the more they supported Putin as leader. Russia's authoritarian leader is, at least for the American religious right, somehow divorced from the country he leads.
“Even if the state's actions are somehow violent and commit violence against another country, the man himself seems to exemplify what Christian nationalists desire, which is an unmistakably white ethnostate,” Riccardi-Swartz says. .
The shift from Red Scare concerns about the spread of Russian influence to Christian nationalists embracing Putin as an aspirant can seem like a radical change. But for Riccardi-Swartz, it's not so surprising, given the history of religious conservatism in the US and Russia. The country, particularly during the Soviet era when the state worked to reduce the role of religion, has historically been the target of evangelical efforts by American religious conservatives.
“American conservatives have always been in love with the idea of either saving Russia from itself or, now, using Russia to save itself,” says Riccardi-Swartz.
Riccardi-Swartz says that Putin's attempt to cast himself as a patron of “traditional values” and of the Russian Christians, resulting in the revival of Russian Orthodox Church, also helped make Russia a symbol for Christian nationalists. For them, it is no longer an atheistic communist country. it is a place where Christians have religious freedom, according to Riccardi-Swartz.
“This seems very attractive to conservative Christians in the United States who believe that our liberal democracy violates their religious beliefs,” says Riccardi-Swartz.
Among Putin and Christian nationalists, the ideal is a “purity” — cultural, religious, racial or sexual — that contrasts with perceived social immoralities.
“LGBTQ+ rights, trans rights, abortion access, reproductive equality — that's a threat to them because they perceive it as somehow altering the purity of their social culture,” says Riccardi-Swartz. “So the goal is to create a world in which social values reflect those of their Christian values.”
Riccardi-Swartz is adamant that this research is not just a data-driven theory of social scientists. Christian nationalism is reshaping the US state of affairs Trump rode a wave popularity among Christian nationalists in the White House, leading to key Supreme Court picks. The conservative majority on the nation's highest court has since used that power to reexamine everything from reproductive rights to the separation of church and state.
At the same time, anti-trans rhetoric, framed in response to perceived attacks on “traditional values,” has become a mainstay Republican politicsresulting in a plenty of legislation targeting trans people and the LGBTQ community in general.
Riccardi-Swartz says that if Putin is an inspiration to Christian nationalists, who have gained enormous political power in recent years, this is only the beginning.
“If they look abroad to places like [Viktor] Orban's Hungary or Putin's Russia, these are places where he didn't just start. it's active,” says Riccardi-Swartz. “That's attractive because they say, 'Hey, look, here's a plan for what we can do here.'
Cody Mello-Klein is a reporter for Northeastern Global News. Email him at c.mello-klein@northeastern.edu. Follow him on Twitter @Proelectioneer.
