« Settler ideologies and their psychological reverberations: Jaiden Herkimer, Becky Choma, Leen Nasser, ‘Non-Indigenous Canadians’ Post-Colonial Ideologies, Allyship and Collective Guilt Predict Support for Reconciliation, Collective Action and Political Tolerance’, Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 2025
The pandemic of settler colonialism: Alexandra Curran, Disaster Capitalism, Settler Colonialism, and Indigenous Environmental Justice in the COVID-19 Pandemic, MA dissertation, University of Manitoba, 2025 »

The stories that underpin settler reaction: Trent Tetterton, ‘”God’s country” in crisis: critical race theory, ontological (in)security, and white Christian nationalism in the USA’, International Politics, 2025

18Jan25

Abstract: The USA has witnessed an ongoing war against ‘critical race theory’ (CRT) alongside more virulent expressions of white Christian nationalism (WCN). Opponents maintain the narrative: CRT is an evil ploy by the Marxist Left posing a mortal threat to America. Building on ontological security scholarship and Lacanian theory on affect, discourse, and subjectivity, the article explores why this narrative has ‘succeeded’ and how WCN is related. It argues that WCN provides the ontologically insecure subject with an internal narrative-of-self. CRT threatens this self-narrative while the external anti-CRT narrative supports it. To the extent that it has influenced policy and transformed common language, the latter has ‘succeeded’ through its use of ‘affective sticking points’: valued signifiers, fantasies, and biographical narratives. An analysis of City Journal and Fox News articles published in 2020 and 2021 reveals that their use has crafted a fantasy portending the death of (white Christian) America.


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