The Christian Conservative Constitution : Narrating the Demise of Liberal Democracy in the Age of Trump

This book investigates Christian conservative constitutional narratives in the years between Obergefell v. Hodges and Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, the book describes how Christian conservatives turned their movement around during these years by replacing liberal democratic narratives with authoritarian narratives. The Christian Conservative Constitution uncovers how Christian conservatives revived previously fringe stories about America’s Christian identity, including its Constitution and its political system, and argues that these Christian constitutional stories inspired the movement to help elect Donald Trump and to participate in MAGA attacks on democracy. The book traces these stories back to an overarching illiberal master narrative and to undemocratic narrative habits. The book demonstrates that redemptive Christian counternarratives were available, but the movement instead chose stories that attempted to reconcile American constitutional law to the demands of Christian conservative political theology. The book concludes that this switch from liberal to illiberal constitutional narratives helped Christian conservatives capture a Supreme Court majority that delivered the movement’s biggest victory to date, by overturning abortion rights, but only at the price of endangering other constitutional rights and the long-term future of America’s liberal democratic constitutional system.