"Children of Trump" in America: ugly racist attitudes showing

On the 30th of December, my very pleasant one-semester sojourn teaching in the Czech Republic, which had afforded me many wonderful opportunities to travel to other places in Europe from Stockholm to Zagreb, Vilnius to Istanbul, Kraków to Kiev, came to an end. I returned to my homeland, the United States of America, just in time to observe the Donald Trump phenomenon in full swing. I had already been somewhat aware of this while in Europe, while continually hoping that the bubble would burst and the American people grow tired of this mean-spirited charade, but being back in America has made the Trump juggernaut all the more vivid and distressing.

To me, this seems nothing short of the rise of an American form of Fascism, with a charismatic leader who promises to "make America great again," blames foreigners, immigrants and the president, whose American citizenship Trump once questioned as a ringleader of the "birther" movement, for the currently less-than-great state of the nation, and rouses wildly enthusiastic crowds of supporters with promises to ban Muslim migrants and deport Mexican ones, restore Bush-era "waterboarding" of Muslims under suspicion of terrorism, the "enhanced interrogation" program that many condemned as torture, and erect a huge wall on the US-Mexican border to keep out the dirty, criminal foreigners who keep America from being "great." Trump has also displayed an immense capacity for vitriol and vindictiveness by insulting and attacking rivals, protesters and journalists in cruel, petty and personal terms that have generally been understood as "un-presidential" in past electoral cycles, a single incidence of which would have been enough to cripple past presidential campaigns. Sadly, this sadism has not damaged Trump's standing, but only enhanced it, by appealing to what seems a bottomless thirst for sheer aggression among his followers.

Trump's policy proposals are laughably vague, but this does not seem to matter. What appeals most to his devotees is not what he is for--obviously, his goal is to "make American great again"--but who he is against--Mexicans, Muslims, liberals, elites. Considering that he receives his most thunderous applause for his anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim statements, and that his audience is mostly comprised of white Americans, it seems to me that the not-so-very well hidden inner meaning of Trump's "make America great again" slogan is a racist call to "make America white again." The revelation that former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and other white supremacists have expressed their support for Trump bolsters this interpretation.

In this context, Trump's miscellaneous proposals for harsh actions from deportation to torture to mass bombing against racial, ethnic and religious Others become distressingly coherent, a politics of hate whose most skilled and successful past practitioner was none other than Adolf Hitler. It is not clear if Trump is fully conscious of the ugliness that he is tapping into and the dread spectres he is conjuring, or if he is simply an attention-craving opportunist eager to please his audiences with whatever they want to hear, but either way, the appeal of his message demonstrates how far America is from closing the door and healing the wounds of its history of violent racism. If the "Children of Odin" in Finland represent a right-wing response to the Muslim migration crisis in Europe, then surely the "Children of Trump" are the American counterpart.

Having recently finished an article on political viewpoints in Ásatrú, I am conscious of how the Trumpian call to "make America great [and white] again" has a certain echo in some ethnic-oriented forms of modern Paganism. To the extent that such Paganism may be fueled by a desire for ethnic validation among white Americans who feel threatened by the increasing acceptance of diversity in American society, the parallel is clear. AFA founder and prominent conservative Heathen Stephen McNalllen's past statements opposing Mexican immigration as a threat to white European social and political dominance would probably be very well-received at a Trump rally.

This raises the interesting question of how Pagans in America are responding to the political choices offered by the current presidential campaign in the USA. Are the more left-wing and universalist Pagans lining up behind the Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders, and are the more right-wing and ethnically-focused Pagans leaning toward Trump? If anyone has seen information on this, please send links or reports to this blog through the comments section.

Survey on Political Views of Pagans

Hello all. As part of a research project on the political views of Norse Pagans (=Heathens, Asatru members, Asatruar) in the USA. I have devised a poll on the topic for members of this Pagan community. However, after thinking more, I realized it would be useful to also ask members of non-Asatru, non-Norse Pagan groups, about their political perspectives. My hope is to be able to contrast the political profile of Asatru members with other Pagans. At this stage, I am only seeking responses from Pagans in the USA, but this could extend to other countries in the future. The survey is rather crude, only ten questions, but it is designed to at least highlight some broad-brush differences between right-wing and left-wing, conservative and liberal positions. I encourage you to participate either in the Asatru poll, if you are involved with Norse Paganism, or the non-Asatru poll, if you are Wiccan, Goddess-worshipping, Celtic, Hellenic, or other types of Pagan.

Note: these surveys are for USA citizens and residents only. I hope to develop versions for other countries in future, but at this point, USA only.

All responses are anonymous. Neither I nor anyone else will know who you are if you answer this survey. No such information is collected. The system is however designed to allow each person to respond to the survey only one time. You can change your answers up to the point where you exit, but once you do exit the survey, you cannot go back and change answers.

Here is the link for the Asatru survey:
Click here to take survey

Here is the link for the non-Asatru survey:
Click here to take survey

I will discuss results at a future date.

In Defense of Dan Halloran

The author of this blog would expect that many of his readers are aware that in the Queens area of New York City, there is a Heathen candidate for public office. Dan Halloran, a respected member of the Theodism variant of Heathenry/Asatru/Norse Paganism, is a Republican candidate for City Council in NYC. He recently got himself into some trouble with the media, with his chances for political victory, and his relations with fellow Pagans because of some newspaper stories about his Theodish affiliation.

The author had a mixed reaction to hearing about Halloran's candidacy. Though it is exciting that someone with a Pagan identity would run for such a position, Theodism is not the author's favorite flavor of Norse Paganism, as it is heavily involved with the idea of tribal identity that this writer has expressed discomfort with in the past. Furthermore, the Republican party in the USA is a political movement that the author finds extremely disagreeable, to put it mildly. For a liberal-progressive Pagan, there is not much to like about a right-wing political party that has often stood for racism and opposition to environmental protection efforts, to name just two items on what could be a very long list. So the author was struck with a dilemma: to cheer or to jeer at this Republican Heathen's run for office?

Certainly, Halloran's effort was groundbreaking, but the author would have much preferred that the first Norse Pagan to run for public office in the USA be a liberal Democratic candidate. That, however, is just a matter of personal taste, and it was mitigated by reading on various Asatru/Heathen forums about what a fine man and long-term supporter of Asatru and Theodism Halloran has been.

Something soon happened that caused the author to feel a rush of compassion for Halloran. Having been "outed" in a local newspaper about his involvement in Theodism, Halloran defended himself with an essay in which he spoke in very generic terms about being raised a Catholic and having belief in God. The author read this as a necessary political response, with a bit of understandable camouflage of religious identity, as the smartest possible way to deal with the political damage sure to follow from being associated with a religion that most Americans are likely to think badly of, out of ignorance, fear and the typical American distrust of non-Christian religiosity.

Then the author saw reactions from other Norse Pagans and Heathens on a variety of Heathen-related sites, and was quite shocked. Quite a few lashed out at Halloran in a brutal manner and condemned him for not making a more forthright public defense of his Heathenry. Several expressed pride in how they had been in tight spots themselves with job interviews and the like, and had openly proclaimed their Paganism despite the consequences. The author found this kind of reaction quite ironic, as it seemed as if what these critics really wanted was for Halloran to sacrifice his political aspirations and become a "martyr" for Heathenry, despite martyrdom being a rather Christian concept! The author feels that some expression of disappointment over Halloran's statements might have been fair game, but that this went over the line.

Worse, it suggested a very shortsighted and self-destructive view of how Heathens and Pagans should function in American society. There are few professions or lines of work where a person in America can really get away with being openly Pagan without paying some kind of cost in terms of lost respect, increased animosity, and decreased prospects for personal advancement, if not a quick loss of employment altogether. The insistence on Pagans or Heathens or Theodsmen proudly displaying their religious affiliation in very public ways even when in high-profile positions would, the author believes, probably confine Pagans to very low-level and marginal occupations. The author does not think that any Pagan should be forced to proclaim his or her religious identity when this might mean an end to their professional aspirations or a one-way road to public humiliation or persecution.

America is just not that tolerant, not yet. Let's be compassionate to those who need to cloak and conceal their Pagan identity at this point in time. After all, Odin, Thor and Loki all shifted shapes, lied and traveled in disguise when this was necessary to achieve their aims.

The author would be very curious to hear from readers in other countries about any similar or parallel situations of Pagans in politics in other lands.