Glossary
PRA’s Glossary is a hybrid tool bridging the gap between definitions and contextual explanations of key ideas, movements, and political phenomena. It is not intended as a substitute for a good contemporary dictionary or usage guide. Rather, the purpose of the glossary is to identify and explain terms that are often used in widely varying ways by media, academia, and social movements of the Right. In each case we have attempted to provide both a sense of how a particular term might be used in various contexts, and how PRA uses the term in the context of explaining right-wing social movement activity. In some cases we do include terms of self-reference used by the Right, but identify these as such. In other cases we provide alternative or critical explanations of terms that are often used in journalistic and/or academic sources, but that we consider to be seriously misleading or outdated. Definitions and usage change over time even if it is probably impossible to completely divorce new meanings from older connotations. In any case, PRA intends this glossary to be a living document and we will revisit our definitions and explanations, bandwidth permitting, on a regular basis.
Updated: Summer 2023.
A
Abstinence-only: An education policy promoted by the Right that discourages students from engaging in any sexual activity until marriage. Abstinence-only programs often receive significant backing by state and federal governments and contradict comprehensive sex education programs.
Abolitionism: A complex term used across the political spectrum, as well as historically, to mean a number of different things. In all cases it refers to the complete elimination of the legal, policy, and enforcement mechanisms for a particular institution. Politically, it is often counterposed to efforts directed to reforming an institution. In the U.S., the most important historical reference is to the movement to abolish legal slavery in the pre-Civil War period. Among contemporary racial justice organizers and progressives, abolitionism refers to prison, jail, probation, and parole systems and to police/policing. For neoliberal centrists and some liberals, abolition also refer to abolition of sex trafficking, typically via punitive laws and enforcement techniques targeting sex work. [See: Modern slavery]. Finally, it is a term used by elements of the anti-abortion movement and the Christian Right to rally for an end to legal abortion in the U.S.
Alt-Light (also Alt-Lite): Like the Alt-Right, the Alt-Light rejected mainstream conservatism, but also rejected, or at least failed to embrace, explicit racial nationalism, favoring a kind of traditional cultural/civic nationalism, characterized by misogyny, anti-Muslim bigotry, anti-immigrant positions, and particularly its opposition to Left and progressive politics, described by them as political correctness, woke culture, and most recently cancel culture. The Proud Boys, for example, refer to themselves as “Western chauvinists,” exclude women from membership, and are best known for violent street confrontations with anti-racist, anti-fascist, and LGBTQ liberation activists. Many of the organizations referred to as Alt-Light in the mid-2010s continue to exist in the 2020s, but the label has for the most part gone out of fashion. Many of the ideas of the Alt-Light have been incorporated into the MAGA movement.
Alt-Right: A self-descriptive term popularized in the mid-2010s to describe mostly younger far-right activists and organizations broadly rooted in paleoconservatism but with the more explicit racism and xenophobia characteristic of the European New Right. As of the 2020s, Alt-Right has faded out of fashion as an active term of self-description by far-right activists and thought leaders. Arguably the Groypers/America First faction of the late 2010s and early 2020s is the most successful grouping that carried Alt-Right-style politics into the latter years of the Trump administration and beyond.
Anti-abortion: Also anti-choice (among feminists, progressives, and others in favor of preserving or expanding access to reproductive health care) and pro-life (by anti-abortion advocates and more broadly on the Christian Right). The anti-abortion movement as it exists in the early 2020s emerged in the aftermath of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court which found sufficient protection in the Constitution to prevent U.S. States from outlawing abortion under most circumstances. The Christian Right, which had its earliest origins fighting against school desegregation, eventually adopted an anti-abortion platform as one of its primary policy issues, using it to build a broad coalition between evangelical conservatives and Catholic traditionalists.
Antichrist: A world leader in the end times who attempts to forge a one world government and global religion but is revealed as a treacherous Satanic agent who wages war at Armageddon against the faithful Christians. Many conservative evangelicals who believe we are living in the end times are on the lookout for this figure. He has been variously thought to be the secretary general of the UN, the pope, and American presidents of whom they disapprove. This is sometimes an animating element of political conspiracism.
Anti-Blackness: In common usage, anti-Blackness refers to the particular ways in which racism—particularly structural racism and White supremacy in the U.S. context—impacts Black people. More specifically, anti-Blackness is used to reintroduce elements of oppression faced by Black people in the United States that can be obscured in framings such as “people of color.” Anti-Blackness is also used to emphasize the foundational character of anti-Black racism in the U.S., and to indicate that it is a feature not just of the historically White majority, but among people of color and in the Black community, often manifesting as colorism.
Anti-immigrant: A term used to describe organizations, movements, ideas, and policies that oppose immigrants and immigration, particularly immigrants claimed by this movement to be too different, or unassimilable. Also sometimes described as nativism—an unfortunate term that erases indigenous experience and confuses those who don’t realize it refers to earlier generations of White settlers—anti-immigrant sentiments and movements go back to the earliest days of the United States. The twenty-first century anti-immigrant movement arose in response to the successes of the Civil Rights Movement, including passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (INA). The INA reformed racist immigrant quotas passed by Congress in the 1920s which were influenced by the eugenics movement and the second Ku Klux Klan. The major institutions of the policy-oriented anti-immigrant movement—the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), and NumbersUSA—have always been in a partially covert dialogue with White nationalism, flowing both from the beliefs of their founder/principal instigator John Tanton and by the thought leadership of White nationalists in decrying non-White immigration.
Antisemitism: A form of oppression that targets Jews and those perceived to be Jewish. It can take many forms including bigoted speech and dog whistles, violent acts, and discriminatory state policy, and can target individuals or communities, property and/or institutions. Antisemitic ideology mobilizes religious prejudice, racist pseudoscience, cultural stereotyping, political scapegoating, or some combination of these. Often, it manifests as an anti-democratic political project that uses conspiracy theories to purport to explain the world through an appeal to supposed Jewish wickedness, subversion and control. Contemporary White nationalists often define Jews as the “real enemy,” ultimately responsible for a worldwide conspiracy to undermine White supremacy, particularly in the United States. In the White nationalist imagination, Jews are using Black and Brown people as agents to replace White people in the social hierarchy and ultimately to do away with them completely. [See: Great Replacement, White Genocide.]
Apocalypticism: The belief in an approaching or imminent confrontation, cataclysmic event, or transformation of epochal proportion, about which a select few have forewarning so they can make appropriate preparations. From a Greek root word suggesting unveiling hidden information or revealing secret knowledge about unfolding human events. The dualist or demonized version involves a final show-down struggle between absolute good and absolute evil. In Christianity there are competing apocalyptic prophetic traditions based on demonization or liberation. Central to Christianity, the tradition also exists in Judaism, Islam, and other religions and secular belief structures. Believers can be passive or active in anticipation and optimistic or pessimistic about the outcome. Sometimes used similarly to the term millenarianism. This idea becomes important when various religious or political groups are demonized, sometimes because they are seen as literally demon infested, and subject to elimination.
Apostle: In contemporary use, the leading office of the modern apostolic prayer networks that compose the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), which is a dynamic theological and organizational revamping of much of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity. Apostles are believed to be divinely appointed and are not, as is typically the case in other Protestant churches, accountable to boards of directors, elders, or deacons. These prayer networks are led by what is commonly known as the “five-fold ministry” as mentioned in the biblical book of Ephesians: Apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. Notable apostles have included NAR founder C. Peter Wagner, his successors Joseph Mattera and Chuck Pierce, and politically oriented figures Dutch Sheets, Cindy Jacobs, Ché Ahn, Paula White, and Abby Abildness. The NAR is a leading element of the Christian Right, whose leaders have played significant roles in the anti-abortion movement, Donald Trump’s campaigns for president and his administration, as well as the January 6th insurrection. Apostles and prophets do not often flaunt their offices—to the point that most do not routinely even use the title in public. Unlike Catholic and Orthodox leaders, they have no special dress. They nevertheless exert great power and influence with their respective networks, and beyond. [See: Dominionism; New Apostolic Reformation]
Armageddon: The place where a final battle will be fought between the forces of good and evil, according to the New Testament (Rev 16:16) and a generalized term signifying the End-Times scenario in various strands of Christian thought. In the context of the contemporary politics of the U.S. Christian Right—particularly among Christian Zionists—Armageddon has regularly been interpreted as imminent, with various geopolitical rivalries and conflicts seen as prefigured in prophecy, particularly with respect to the contemporary state of Israel, its boundaries, and ongoing conflict with the Palestinian people and place in the wider Middle East. [See: Christian Zionism, Premillennialism]
Authoritarianism: A form of top-down political system that concentrates state power in the hands of a single leader and/or a small group of close allies. Authoritarian governments, also referred to as autocracies, are often justified by their proponents as being both more efficient than democratic governments and more “representative” of the spirit or culture of "the people.” Typical characteristics of authoritarian governments include restricted political pluralism, disregard for civil rights and civil liberties, disregard for science and independent journalism, increasingly open condemnation of and attacks on minority populations, militarization and securitization, and demands for unquestioning loyalty to the leader, the regime, and the regime-aligned political party. In PRA’s analysis, key drivers of authoritarianism include racial/ethnic nationalism and religious nationalism, as well as increasing wealth disparities. A variety of studies (e.g., Varieties of Democracy, Democracy Index 2020) have shown that in the 2010s and early 2020s there has been a significant net increase away from democracy and toward authoritarianism, with the portion of the world’s population living in autocracies increasing from 49 percent in 2011 to 70 percent in 2021. In the current U.S. context, authoritarian social movements that have garnered significant support in recent decades include White and ethnic nationalism and Christian nationalism, which have supported culture war politics that seek to limit the rights and participation of those they consider outsiders.
B
Bigotry: A culturally shaped attitude toward social identities that can be mobilized to justify discrimination, interpersonal animosity, vigilante violence (e.g. lynching, pogroms), systemic exploitation (e.g. slavery, economic segregation), and targeted forms of state violence (e.g. genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, over-policing, mass incarceration).
Biphobia: Negative and/or bigoted attitudes or actions directed towards bisexual people. Biphobia often takes the form of erasure or minimization. Biphobia can be structural, institutional, interpersonal, and/or internalized.
Birthright citizenship: A policy granting any child born in the territory of a nation-state citizenship, also known as jus soli. This is the current policy within the United States and has been so since the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868. The policy has long been targeted by the contemporary anti-immigrant and White nationalist movements in the U.S., which advocate for federal legislation or a Constitutional amendment placing restrictions on conferring citizenship to those born on U.S. territory who are not the children of U.S. citizens.
[Abortion as] Black genocide: A conspiracist scare tactic designed to promote skepticism of reproductive autonomy within Black communities. Proponents of this message regularly co-opt civil rights rhetoric to disingenuously present abortion and contraception as part of an eugenicist project, rather than voluntary reproductive choices.
Blood citizenship: A law or policy that limits citizenship to those who are the children of at least one citizen-parent. That is, citizenship is considered heritable to biological children of citizen-parents and, in some cases, to adopted children. Also referred to as jus sanguinis, it should be noted that typically countries that grant citizenship to those born within the national territory regardless of the citizenship of their parents (jus soli), also recognize the citizenship rights of the children of citizen-parents who are born on foreign territory. The contemporary anti-immigrant and White nationalist movements in the United States tend to strongly prefer blood citizenship laws and want to end or place strict limits on birthright citizenship.
C
Centrist/extremist theory: An outdated political science theory and political model stating that democratic systems are inherently centrist and stable, and therefore outliers on either side of the political spectrum are “extremists.” According to Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons, centrism/extremism insulates a supposedly democratic political system from criticism since all actors who are not at the center are considered illegitimate. Because this theory treats all actors and parties outside the established democratic political system as “illegitimate,” “radical,” or “extremist,” the “radical right” and the “radical left” are considered to both be an existential threat to the political system.
Centrist/extremist theory portrays the U.S. political system as a vital center of pragmatism, rationality, and tolerance threatened by lunatic fringe—paranoid extremists on both the Left and the Right. Centrist/extremist theory falsely lumps together movements for greater equality and democracy with movements that reinforce oppression. It also lends itself to false equivalences between the Left and Right. The theory also hides the fact that right-wing bigotry and scapegoating are firmly rooted in the mainstream social and political order, and it obscures the rational choices and partially legitimate grievances that help to fuel right-wing populist movements. Centrist/extremist theory is the dominant model used by government agencies, mass media, and major human rights groups to portray right-wing movements, and was first developed by anticommunist liberals in the 1950s. The centrist/extremist model favors labels such as “extremist groups,” “radical right,” “lunatic fringe,” “religious political extremists,” or “wing nuts.”
Charismatic renewal: A major evangelical revival movement beginning in the 1960s that incorporated many traditional Pentecostal practices, but occurred outside established Pentecostal denominations such as the Assemblies of God. It seeks to unite across denominational and ideological groups within evangelicalism in particular, but also Christianity at large. There are charismatic elements within mainline Protestantism and Catholicism. Charismatics tend to relate more with one another than they do their own denominations. This tendency has led many to abandon traditional mainline Protestant and evangelical denominations in favor of the churches and apostolic prayer networks of the New Apostolic Reformation.
Charismatic renewal strongly influences the evangelical men’s movement, Promise Keepers, one of whose foundational “7 Promises,” includes the idea that denominations are as sinful as racism because they are said to create division in Christianity. The New Apostolic Reformation is composed primarily of Charismatics and Pentecostals. [See: Pentecostalism, New Apostolic Reformation]
Christian Identity: An explicitly White supremacist and antisemitic form of Christianity that believes that White Europeans are the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, and that people of color are inferior, separate creations. In the most virulent form of Christian Identity, Jews are seen as agents of Satan, and people of color are considered “pre-Adamic,” thus pre-human. Christian Identity was a popular strand of belief among U.S. White nationalists such as the Aryan Nations in the latter decades of the twentieth century.
Christian nationalism: The contemporary idea that America was founded as—and was intended by God to be—a Christian nation. This idea is an important premise of much of the Christian Right, which claims it is seeking to restore or reclaim this mandate. This claim on the intent of God, the mission of the colonial settlers, and the Founders of the United States some 250 years later is used to justify contemporary political and policy views. The Christian nationalist vision has been used, for example, by theologian Francis Schaeffer to justify the anti-abortion movement, and by the advocates of Dominionism to advance a theocratic society.
Christian Reconstructionism: A theocratic movement founded by the late American theologian Rousas John Rushdoony, whose three volume Institutes of Biblical Law seeks to provide a guide to what a Biblically based society should look like. It is rooted in Calvinist theonomy and the idea that America is, or should be, a Christian nation. Renstructionism’s vision includes but goes far beyond wistful notions of Christian nationalism. It provides a blueprint for the reconstruction of society after secular government and all other religions, including what they deem heretical and apostate Christian sects, fail. Christian Reconstructionists often take a militantly postmillennial view urging Christian intervention in secular society since faithful men must reign and rule for a thousand years before Christ returns. The significance of this movement is that it provides a reason for political action in a way that the various forms of premillennialism that predominated evangelicalism did not. Thus, most of evangelicalism did not believe that the world could be much changed until Jesus returned, requiring Christians to seek to build a biblically based society in order for Jesus to return. The influence of Christian Reconstructionism has catalyzed a great eschatological shift over the past half century, which continues to this day, and made the political movement we call the Christian Right, possible.
Unlike the New Apostolic Reformation, Christian Reconstructionists do not include the politics of the modern state of Israel in their theology. They see the Church as the metaphorical Israel, and hold a covenant with God. Thus they are not Christian Zionists. This movement has no relation to Jewish Reconstructionism, despite the similarity in the name. [See: Dominionism]
Christian Right: A broad religious and political movement that emerged in the 1970s, primarily in the United States. The movement encompasses a wide swath of conservative Catholicism and Protestant evangelicalism. The movement today is one of the most dynamic and influential segments of the Right, and one of the most powerful social and political movements in American history. It plays a decisive role in the Republican Party, and is sometimes influential in the Democratic Party as well. It played an important role in the election of Donald Trump and was influential in his administration.
Christian Zionism: A significant strand of Christian end times thought which holds that the State of Israel is crucial to the fulfillment of certain prophecies regarding the triumphant return of Jesus, the conversion of a portion of the Jewish population to Christianity, the Rapture of the sufficiently faithful (in some versions), and other consummations of some versions of Christian theology. The largest Christian Zionist organization is Christians United for Israel (CUFI), founded by megachurch televangelist John Hagee. Both broadly dispensationalist Evangelicals and churches linked with the often more overtly Dominionist New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement have Christian Zionist beliefs. It is sometimes misrepresented as a philosemitic movement because of its support for Israel, the aggressive conversion agenda, the pressure for Jews in the diaspora to relocate to Israel, and adoption of Jewish rituals, ceremonial dress, and blowing of the shofar. There are tens of millions of Christians who hold broadly Christian Zionist beliefs, and millions who support its major lobbying organization. There are many more Christian Zionists in the United States than there are Jews.
Cisgender: A term that describes someone whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth. For example, a cisgender woman was assigned female at birth and is a woman. [See: transgender, nonbinary]
Conspiracism: A mode of political explanation that assumes a vast insidious plot against the common good. Conspiracism assigns tiny cabals of evildoers a superhuman power to control events, frames social conflict as part of a transcendent struggle between good and evil by whatever terms (God and Satan, natural and artificial, democracy and communism, and so on). Conspiracists often rely on common fallacies of logic in analyzing factual evidence to assert connections, causality, and intent that are nonexistent. A distinct narrative form of scapegoating, conspiracism uses demonization to justify constructing opponents as enemies and enemies as wholly evil.
Complementarianism: A conservative Christian theological principle holding that men and women were created to complement one another, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Complementarianism is a reaction to the gender justice movement from evangelicals seeking to reinforce notions of traditional gender roles. Complementarians cite biblical interpretation to assert that the complementary distinctions between masculine and feminine roles are ordained by God.
Creationism: A religious belief that the universe and life is the product of specific acts of divine creation rather than via natural processes. There has been a persistent effort to include creationism in school curricula after the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 1968 that banning the teaching of evolution was unconstitutional. It was subsequently rebranded as “intelligent design” but teaching this was also struck down by the federal courts. Creationism nevertheless remains a foundational and animating part of evangelical theologies. That it cannot be taught in public schools as a valid approach to science, remains one of the sources of tension between evangelicals and public education, and one of the reasons for the creation of private Christian schools where it can be taught as part of teaching a Christian, or Biblical “worldview.”
D
Demonization: A way of portraying a person or group as malevolent, sinful, or evil—perhaps even in league with Satan. A precursor to scapegoating and conspiracism which encourages discrimination and violence against demonized opponents; acts as a form of dehumanization or objectification. Demonization involves marginalization (using propaganda and prejudice to set people outside the circle of mainstream society) and dehumanization (negatively labeling the targeted persons so they become perceived more as objects than as people).
Discrimination: The act of favoring/disfavoring members of one community or social identity over another, particularly with respect to areas of public life that impact health, prosperity, and political participation. Under federal law regarding employment in the United States, “protected classes” are the following: race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, or genetic information. It is, with many exceptions, illegal to discriminate on the basis of these categories in the United States, though it can be difficult to prove as legal rulings have limited what can be considered as evidence. Outside of legal applications, discrimination is used to describe any form of disadvantage that results from individual or institutional prejudice or structural arrangement that disfavors members of relevant social identities. In the case of individual prejudices, discrimination happens through active decision making. It can also be institutional, where laws, policies, and traditional practices favor one group over others. Finally, discrimination can occur at a structural level, where historic cycles of discrimination and oppression lead to the disadvantage of a group in the present—for example as expressed in shorter average lifespans or lower median income—without the need for anyone in the present to consciously decide this should be so, and even when laws and policies have been changed to prohibit discrimination.
Dispensationalism: A Christian theological scheme developed by nineteenth-century theologian John Nelson Darby that outlined specific historical epochs or dispensations that are pre-ordained by God. This premillennialist view often encourages the Christian faithful to await salvation while remaining aloof from sinful secular society since they will be raptured before the Tribulations. This view is no longer predominant as other eschatologies that allow for greater political engagement have gained traction over the past 50 years.
Dominionism: The theocratic idea that regardless of theological view or eschatological timetable, Christians are called by God to exercise dominion over society by taking control of political and cultural institutions. Some use Dominionism interchangeably with Christian Reconstructionism, however Dominionism (unlike Reconstructionism) also applies to the theocratic vision of the neo-Charismatic New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). Dominionism has historically provided a theological rationale for conservative Christian politics that made the contemporary Christian Right possible. For more background on Dominionism, see PRA’s Dominionism 101. [See: Seven Mountains Mandate; Christian Reconstructionism]
Dominion theology: The ongoing exploration of the ideas of conservative Christian dominion in all aspects of society. Dominionism is the ideology of taking actual dominion in society, while dominion theology is the religious thought behind it.
Dualism: A form of binary thinking, often found in but certainly not limited to conspiracism, that divides people, ideas, and policies into good and evil, leaving no room for political compromise, intellectual nuance, or principled debate. In the context of conspiracism, the division between good and evil tends toward the absolute. Dualistic thinking is often used to justify even the most extreme forms of violence against those classified as enemies. Far-right social movements often engage in dualistic thinking, treating their opponents as traitors, enemies, and existential threats.
E
Eschatology: The end times scenarios of different religious groups is called eschatology. Uses include beliefs about the end of an age or even the end of the world. A number of religions and doomsday cults focus a great deal on eschatology. Most relevant to American politics and culture are the end times scenarios of evangelical Biblical prophecy. [See: Millennialism]
Extremist: A generic category for anyone who holds beliefs or acts in ways outside of those approved by mainstream, status quo, or broadly centrist preferences. While still in common use in media and government, the use of “extremist" (and its cognates extremists, extremism) as a descriptive term often functions as a meaningless epithet. It both assumes a stable and virtuous “center” of social and political life and denies that status quo practices and ideas might be ethically questionable. Thus under the legal and constitutionally protected practice of enslavement, nineteenth century slave-holders were part of the mainstream and abolitionists, particularly those who broke the law, were extremists. It also suggests that those outside of the mainstream consensus are somehow equivalent to each other, denying the fundamental differences between fascists and anti-fascists, racists and anti-racists, misogynists and feminists. [See: Centrist/extremist theory].
European New Right: A style of politics associated with ethnic nationalism, anti-immigrant and especially anti-Muslim bigotry, along with antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ campaigns, and calls for national renewal. A loose categorization of parties with similar positions with roots going back to the late 1960s and the writings of French political philosopher Alain de Benoist. In the early years the New Right was mostly a movement among intellectuals. It did not start to have a significant reflection in politics until the 1990s when European political parties such as Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Rally (formerly National Front) began to have some electoral success. In the early twenty-first century, New Right parties made significant gains in countries across Europe. Notable parties of the European New Right include the Confederation Liberty and Independence Party in Poland, and Golden Dawn in Greece. While not every far right party in Europe is decended from the New Right tradition, its anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-reproductive justice politics is echoed in parties such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, as well as parties and movements as far flung as Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA), the nationalist populism of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Narendra Modi’s Hindutva Bharatiya Janata Party in India.
F
Far-right: Generically used to describe factions of right-wing politics that are outside of and often critical of traditional conservatism. More specifically, far-right is descriptive of movements, organizations, actions, and ideas that are characterized by particularly virulent forms of racism, ethnic exclusion, religious exclusivity, or a desire for authoritarian rule, and see the status quo as not racist, sexist, and authoritarian enough. That is, far-right forces seek not just to maintain existing institutional arrangements, but to use a range of tactics to push society to embrace nationalistic, traditional, and often ethnically exclusionary ideals. While some far-right actors see status quo systems as so corrupted by Left and progressive ideas about justice that the only path forward is civil war, others seek to capture status quo institutions using the Republican Party as their preferred vehicle. Both explicitly bigoted actors and those who cloak their bigotry in code phrases should be considered part of the Far Right if they are attempting to make the current system even less democratic and inclusive. Note that the line between the Far Right and traditional small-government conservatives is not stable. Note: PRA uses Far Right as a noun, and far-right as an adjective.
Fascism: An especially virulent form of far-right populist ultra-nationalism that celebrates the nation or the race as an organic community transcending all other loyalties. It emphasizes a myth of national or racial rebirth after a period of decline or destruction. To this end, fascism calls for a “spiritual revolution” against signs of moral decay such as individualism and materialism and seeks to purge “alien” forces and groups that threaten the organic community. Fascism tends to celebrate masculinity, youth, mystical unity, and the regenerative power of violence. Often, but not always, it promotes racial superiority doctrines, ethnic persecution, imperialist expansion, and genocide. Fascism first crystallized in Europe in response to the Bolshevik Revolution and the devastation of World War I, and then began to show up in other parts of the world. If it is a post-WWII occurrence it should be called neofascist or neofascism unless it solely involves participants in older movements. For more background on Facism, see “What is Fascism?” by Matthew Lyons.
Fourth Generation Warfare: A concept in modern military and counter-insurgency strategy that has been adopted and applied by the Christian Right (the three prior “generations” were massed manpower, massed firepower, and use of technologically enhanced mobility). William S. Lind of the Christian Right, Free Congress Foundation (now renamed American Opportunity), coined the term in 1989. Lind theorizes that 4GW requires a change of military mindset from more recent state vs. state models of warfare in which armies clash on battlefields to a focus on non-state actors. In 4GW, warfare expands beyond the physical to include the mental and moral dimensions. The goal is to undermine the legitimacy of one’s opponent and induce a population to transfer their loyalty from their government or other institutions, to the insurgent or vice versa. For more PRA analysis on Fourth Generation Warfare, see “Battle without Bullets: The Christian Right and Fourth Generation Warfare” by James Scaminaci III. [See: Dominionism].
G
Gamergate: A 2014-2015 online harassment campaign conducted under the hashtag #gamergate. The campaign included violently misogynistic memes, invective, and threats targeting game designers bringing less blatantly sexist, anti-LGBTQ, and gratuitously violent themes to video game products as well as cultural commentators who found fault with online gaming culture, particularly its rampant misogyny, racism, and ubiquitous sexual harassment that made online gaming a hostile environment for many women, girls, and LGBTQ gamers. Politically, gamergate is credited with mobilizing many previously apolitical young, mostly White, men, some of whom were drawn into the then-growing Alt-Right, into misogynist ideology, and into open White nationalism.
Gender ideology (also Transgender ideology): A conspiracy theory coined by the Vatican in the 1990s that misrepresents feminist, queer, and gender theory in order to justify discrimination against women and LGBTQ people by asserting that gender is antithetical to science and dangerous to children, families, and society. The term has since been adopted by a broad range of religious and secular-right actors across the world to galvanize their base against anything or anyone who may challenge the idea of the “traditional family,” including LGBTQ advocacy, reproductive health, abortion care, sex education, HIV/AIDS advocacy, non-Christian religions, immigration advocacy, and feminism.
Globalist: A pejorative term, used primarily by the Right, to a) demonize Jews as disloyal and/or a primary threat to national sovereignty, and/or b) to describe a broad conspiracy of elites bent, in the imagination of the Right, upon pursuing an international “New World Order” characterized by liberalism, open borders, and the dissolution of national sovereignty. Used in the latter way by the Right, the term mobilizes antisemitism while carrying an air of plausible deniability. The term gained prominence as a bigoted dog whistle during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but has been in use for decades. In this sense, the usage of the term by the Far Right should be distinguished from more nuanced and analytical critiques of globalization as an international economic development.
Great Replacement: A far-right conspiracy claim that Jews—or Left and progressive politicians and thought leaders, in less explicitly racist and antisemitic versions—are using immigration policy and non-enforcement of existing laws to encourage non-White immigration and eventually replace a given country's majority-White population with non-Whites and in many cases non-Christians. For the White nationalist movement, the demographic replacement of White people is the most urgent political issue, considered tantamount to White genocide. In less openly White nationalist settings, it is sometimes referred to as “Replacement,” and focuses on the leadership of the Democratic Party attempting to replace “legacy voters” (as some far-right pundits code their language) to ensure a permanent Democratic majority. In whatever version, Great Replacement claims draw on the fears of many White voters of being eclipsed to argue for the need for a less democratic society. For open White nationalists, the solution is ethnic cleansing and massive disenfranchisement. For the broader MAGA movement and its key constituents, the solution is to seize the powers of government and use them to rewrite voting and representation rules to ensure permanent rule by a White minority and its allies.
H
Hate crime: A legal term that describes criminal acts where the victim was targeted due to their actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, as defined by the federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and similar state-level laws. Because this usage can reinforce notions of bigoted political violence as an isolated product of individual psychology, rather than the result of systems and cultures of discrimination and oppression, the term hate crime is discouraged unless discussing particular laws and policies.
Hate frame: A way of describing, thinking about, and responding to bigoted and authoritarian social movements and political violence that foregrounds individual motivations and actions as “hate” rather than cultural and political strategies. Excessive focus on individual emotional justifications for acts of political violence can obscure the systemic nature of far-right social movements and ideology, making them less comprehensible. There are certainly times when the legal category “hate crime” is useful, and when particular actions, policies, or ideas should be called “hateful.” However, an excessive focus on “hate” leads to individually focused interventions, such as therapy, or surveillance and incarceration as the primary methods to counter political violence. Neither strategy has proven sufficient to effectively counter exclusionary, oppressive, and authoritarian movements, the goals of which include cultural change and institutional capture. Exclusive focus on hate as a motivation makes it far more difficult to recognize the ways in which laws, policies, and institutional practices can themselves inflict harm on communities and can be complicit with non-state political violence.
Hate group: The term hate group is commonly used to describe organizations that aggressively demonize, dehumanize, or threaten to enact violence upon members of a marginalized group. Except in quotation marks, PRA refrains from using the term because it can obscure the relationship of such violent acts to their systemic underpinnings. This places the blame for political violence solely on the specifically named group and does not challenge the unspoken public consensus that permits broader cultures and structures of violence and discrimination to exist. The descriptor “hate group” is also imprecise and subsumes many different histories into a single template. It gives the false impression that hate is extreme rather than structurally baked into U.S. culture, politics, and civic life. PRA recommends instead being specific and naming the group by its ideology (i.e. White nationalist, neonazi, anti-immigrant, etc.) and specific tactics.
Heterosexism: An ideology that assumes a hierarchy of human worth based on the social construction of what is considered a “normal” sexual identity. Heterosexism is a form of heterosexual supremacy developed to claim that monogamous sexual relations between men and women are “natural,” while other forms of sexual expression are unnatural, abnormal, inferior, or sinful. Sometimes the term heterosexism is used to describe the entire system of oppression based on sexual identity. In this larger context, heterosexism can refer to forms that are internalized, interpersonal, institutional, or systemic.
Homophobia: A form of heterosexism that devalues and scapegoats gay, lesbian, and bisexual people and people in same-gender relationships. Homophobia frequently leads to homophobic violence. Homophobia can be structural, institutional, interpersonal, and/or internalized. Note that although homophobia is in common usage, the -phobia suffix tends to suggest individual bigotry to the exclusion of systemic and structural forces. The form anti-LGBTQ is generally preferred.
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Incel: A term coined in the late 1990s, incel is a shortened form of “involuntary celibate," referring to a person of any gender who feel they have difficulty finding companionship. Women, men, and non-binary people can identify as incels while holding worldviews that are not rooted in deep misogyny. Note: This definition was modified from the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism. [For the right-wing movement, see: Misogynist Incel Ideology/Movement]
Islamophobia: A form of religious bigotry, with strong racial components, that scapegoats and demonizes Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim. Since the War on Terror era, Islamophobia has intensified as a central narrative and policy agenda for the Right in the U.S. and Europe, and often dove-tails with anti-immigrant xenophobia, Christian nationalism, and a broader conspiratorial worldview. Islamophobia frequently leads to Islamophobic violence. Islamophobia can be structural, institutional, interpersonal, and/or internalized. Note that although Islamophobia is in common usage, the -phobia suffix tends to suggest individual bigotry to the exclusion of systemic and structural forces. The form anti-Muslim is generally preferred.
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K
Ku Klux Klan: A U.S.-based White supremacist, Christian paramilitary group formed during the Reconstruction era that has also seen other waves of significant participation beginning in the mid-1910s and in reaction to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Most notoriously known for campaigns of racist terror against Black communities, various iterations of the Klan have also targeted Jews, immigrants, LGBTQ people, and leftists. In its contemporary form, often just the “Klan.”
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Latter Rain Movement: A millennialist Pentecostal movement of the post World War II era, that became an important part of the widespread evangelical awakening. This politically animated movement provides one of the roots of contemporary Pentecostal and Charismatic Dominionism. New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) founder C. Peter Wagner, and others of his generation were influenced by the Latter Rain Movement, and its tenets remain within the NAR. They see themselves as fulfilling a prophecy in the Biblical book of Joel, of a coming "latter rain." The movement sees itself as the spiritual counterpart of Israel, meaning that when what they term spiritual restorations occur in Israel, they also occur in the church. It is this linkage that is part of what animates the Christian Zionism of the NAR and why they display the Israeli flag in their churches. The Latter Rain Movement also explicitly promoted the theology of the Manifest Sons of God [See: Manifest Sons of God; Christian Zionism; New Apostolic Reformation].
Leaderless resistance: An insurgent military strategy promoted by elements of the White nationalist movement in the early 1980s and variously adopted and referenced in the decades since. The main difference between leaderless resistance and more conventional forms of insurrectionary activity, is that the former has no central organization or hierarchy. In order to evade both high-tech surveillance and modern counterinsurgency techniques, leaderless resistance calls for individuals or isolated cells to act independently, motivated by a shared ideology and sense of political urgency to commit spectacular acts of political violence. This violence, in turn, is intended to attract new recruits, animate those already aligned, and compel existing institutions to react with (or call for) oppressive state violence. Twenty-first century social media has made insurgent positions and justifications for spectacular political violence—particularly White nationalist, misogynist, antisemitic and anti-trans violence—far easier to disseminate. Such media also foments a culture of celebrity and spectacle by creating opportunities for the mass distribution of both “manifestos” connected to acts of violence as well as audiovisual feeds of the violence itself, turning the perpetrators into role models and heroes for others.
LGBTQ: An umbrella acronym, used by advocates and the general public, standing for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning. LGBTQ and its related acronyms (LGBT, LGBTQ+, LGBTQIA+, etc) are used widely in the United States to describe the full community of sexual and gender minorities. When possible, PRA prefers to be specific rather than using an umbrella term. For example, referring to “anti-trans legislation” rather than “anti-LGBTQ legislation” if the legislation only references trans people. [See: cisgender, nonbinary, transgender].
Lone wolf: Often used to describe individual perpetrators of political violence who are not connected to any organization, “lone wolf” often overstates the disconnection of such perpetrators from coherent ideological motivations. Many such perpetrators are consciously avoiding connection to groups for fear of infiltration and monitoring—that is, they are adopting a strategy of leaderless resistance. Multiple perpetrators of White nationalist and other forms of bigoted political violence have left behind manifestos and long records of social media posts indicating their consumption of and general alignment with far-right ideas. In the age of ever-multiplying forms of niche social media, far more people are becoming politicized and are absorbing far right ideas than are joining particular organizations. This is sometimes referred to as the rise of non-organizational movement politics.
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MAGA: Short for Make America Great Again, the slogan of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The coalition of right-wing and far-right political forces that formed around the MAGA banner has become one of the most powerful to emerge in the U.S. in the twenty-first century. Though Donald Trump played a role in bringing the various strands of the MAGA coalition together, the individual factions—the Christian Right, the anti-immigrant/ethno-nationalist right, economic libertarians, and economic nationalists—had existed for decades before Trump, often working together on specific goals and policies. The MAGA movement is bigger than Trump and shows every indication of continuing to be a major force in U.S. politics when the former president is no longer a significant actor.
Male supremacy: An ideology that draws from and contributes to religious and secular misogynist movements and authoritarian politics. While male supremacy has a long history, the origins of its recent manifestation as an increasingly organized and growing social movement lies partially in response to the real, though insufficient, political gains achieved through feminism and partially in response to increasingly nuanced understandings of gender and sexuality. Male supremacy’s recent manifestations have been bolstered by the proliferation of mostly unmoderated online fora and the mainstreaming of male supremacist language by political and media spokespeople. Note: This definition was modified from the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism.
Manifest Sons of God: A belief that a new kind of Christian elite will rise and wield supernatural powers while conquering the earth and combatting supernatural evil in the end times. A core doctrine within the Latter Rain movement, which in turn, has influenced the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) is the idea that the righteous will attain supernatural powers in order to combat supernatural evil in the end times. This idea is lent support by the belief that God speaks directly to and through the Apostles and Prophets of NAR and imbues his chosen leaders with powers to do battle with demonic spirits lends support to this belief.
Messianism: Belief in a chosen one who signals salvation. A herald, prophet, or avatar who announces access to secret or hidden knowledge or metaphysical revelation; claims to act on behalf of a greater spiritual power or public good; confronts leaders with accusations of tyranny, betrayal, or corruption; and seeks to liberate the oppressed through the significant transformative renewal of the society or the arrival of a new metaphysical epoch. The leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation are messianic in this sense. So were the late Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, and his successors.
Messianic Jews: Originally, a movement of Jews who consider themselves to be “completed” by accepting Jesus Christ as their savior. Today, some Messianic Jews have Jewish heritage and self-identify as Jewish believers in Jesus. The Jewish community generally does not accept their claimed Jewish identity. Messianic Jews are generally seen as evangelical Christians who are seeking to exploit Jewish identity in an effort to convert Jews. As the movement has grown, most messianics today have no Jewish heritage, but rather are philosemitic, charismatic Christians. Many are part of the New Apostolic Reformation. They may call their leader both rabbi and pastor and refer to their congregations as churches. There are charismatics all over the world wearing tallitot, blowing shofars, dancing to Messianic music, and celebrating Jewish holidays that have been rewritten as milestones in a Christian Zionist end times narrative. One prominent messianic is Jay Sekulow, an attorney who has represented Donald Trump.
Millennialism: A sense of expectation that a significant epochal transformation is imminent, marking either the end of a thousand-year period (hence the millennium) or signaling its beginning, or both. Two major forms of millennialist response are passive waiting versus activist intervention. Can involve varying degrees of apocalypticism. In Christianity, the idea that the Second Coming of Christ marks a thousand-year period. Millennialist variations in Christianity include:
- Premillennialism – While there are many variations, most simply it is the idea, broadly believed across evangelicalism during the 20th century, that Jesus will physically return to earth before the Millennium, ushering in a literal thousand-year age of peace. This view was seen as an obstacle to significant political engagement because of the related belief that little could be done to improve the world until Jesus returns. A long series of theological discussions in the 1980s between the Pre and Post millennialists led to a theological accommodation that said that the Bible does not say exactly when Jesus will return; and that one should be involved in public life, but one cannot say how much can be accomplished until Jesus returns. These agreements opened the door to profound political engagement and collaborations that made the Christian Right possible.
- Postmillennialism – The idea that the prophecies of the biblical Book of Revelation are being steadily fulfilled in the present era and paving the way for the return of Jesus, whose reign will last a thousand years, before the end of time. Postmillennialism is most associated with Reformed Protestantism, and it is of central importance in Christian Reconstructionism. Some postmillennialists see this millennium as coming soon, and approach life and politics with the attendant sense of urgency. Others think it could take thousands or tens of thousands of years. Nevertheless, it became influential, modifying or displacing premillennialism to allow for the kind of political action that made the Christian Right possible. The main difference is that premillennialists generally believe that the world cannot be changed much for the better (made more Christian), until Jesus returns. The postmillennialists on the other hand believe that it is necessary for political engagement as part of the effort to make the world perfectly Christian so that Jesus can return. In the past half century, premillennialism has faded in favor of more postmillennial views, of fusion positions such as those advanced by NAR.
- Amillennialism – Belief that Christ’s eventual return cannot be anticipated, thus de-emphasizing it as a practical immediate consideration. Most amillennialists believe that Christ’s return ends history.
- Preterism – Belief that most or all of the millennium mentioned in Revelation and other books of the Bible already has occurred.
Misogynist Incel Ideology/Movement: Separate from incel identity [See: Incel], there is a misogynist incel men’s movement, rooted in misogynist incel ideology and violence. Not all incels subscribe to misogynist incel ideology, and the misogynist incel movement includes people who are not "involuntarily celibate," but who endorse the ideology of the movement. The misogynist incel men’s movement has taken the term “incel” and used it as a term of self reference for cisgender, heterosexual men who blame women for their lack of sexual and romantic experiences. The misogynist incel movement includes a loose network of explicitly misogynist and male supremacist internet fora. Online incel spaces often dehumanize women and glorify violence against them. Following a series of misogyny-fueled violent attacks in the twenty-teens by misogynist incels, at times accompanied by written screeds referencing explicitly misogynistic motivations, incel has become a term of description by media and critics, as well as a term of self-reference. Following guidance from the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism, PRA recommends distinguishing between incel identity and misogynist incel ideology. Note: Please see the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism’s Recommendations for Media Reporting on Incels.
Misogyny: An aggravated form of sexism. Misogyny is a primary motivation for the Right, both as a vehicle for recruitment and justification for its agenda that seeks to maintain traditional gender roles, limit reproductive and bodily autonomy, and situate marginalized genders as lesser than men.
Modern slavery: A rhetorical frame describing “human trafficking” often utilized by the Right to marginalize sex work and sex workers.
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Nationalism: The belief in the primacy of “the nation” as the most important political allegiance, that every nation should have its own state, and that it is the primary responsibility of the state and its leaders to preserve the nation. (Here following Benedict Anderson’s definition of the nation as “an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.”) As an ideology, specific nationalisms tend to downplay the importance of other forms of human solidarity, understand the relationship between nation-states as a zero-sum competition, and overestimate and fetishize the homogeneity of nations to justify state violence against groups perceived as threats.
Nativism: A term widely used in both academia and media to indicate beliefs, movements, and policies that limit or discourage immigration, particularly from racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse countries of origin. Historically in the United States, self-declared Nativists have advocated strident anti-immigrant policies and willfully and problematically present themselves as native inhabitants at the expense of indigenous people. Because of this, the term should be avoided when possible and anti-immigrant used instead. [See: Anti-immigrant].
Natural family: A concept of family, used by the Christian Right, defined by traditional gender roles frequently used to advance an anti-LGBTQ, anti-feminist, “family values” agenda. Used by the Christian Right, the “natural family” typically comprises a mother, father, and their natal children.
Nazism: A form of fascism developed by Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and the state it controlled in Germany and other parts of occupied Europe from 1933 to 1945. Nazism was defined by a doctrine of Aryan racial supremacy, antisemitic demonization of the so-called Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy, authoritarian social control, a program of hyper-nationalism and aggressive military conquest, and various forms of systematic genocide, mass murder and repression against Jews, left-wing activists, LGBTQ, disabled, and Roma communities, and others demonized as racial, political, and societal enemies.
Neonazism: A term that describes various post-WWII political doctrines, organizations and movements that portray themselves as successors to or inspired by German Nazism, including Christian Identity, Third Positionism, the National Socialist Movement, and others. Neonazi groups now exist around the world, including in Latin America and Asia.
Neocolonialism: The use of economic, political, cultural, or other pressures to control or influence other countries—maintaining or even expanding the legacies and detrimental effects of Western colonialism. While not as overtly violent as military imperialism, neocolonial attitudes are still deeply harmful, such as the Christian Right’s anti-LGBTQ efforts in the Global South.
Neoconfederate: A term that describes various groups and individuals that use nostalgia for the secessionist Confederate States of America as a tool for political organizing. Such groups, sometimes also called Southern nationalists, seek to popularize and teach historically revisionist accounts of the old South, particularly involving slavery. They also seek to revive and restore Confederate ideas and seek to preserve the culture of flying Confederate flags and preserving monuments to Confederate political and military figures. The best-known neoconfederate group is the League of the South.
Neoconservatism: A variant of ideological conservatism combining features of traditional conservatism with political individualism and a qualified endorsement of free markets. Neoconservatism arose in the United States in the 1960s over shared right-wing disdain for communism and the counterculture of the 1960s. Neoconservatism remains particularly influential with regards to U.S. foreign policy, encouraging substantial military spending and foreign intervention. Allan Bloom and Leo Strauss are among the intellectual ancestors of this ideology. Many of the most influential neocons were former Democrats or leftists, such as Irving Kristol, who ended up backing Ronald Reagan for president. Some such as William Bennett and Jeane Kirkpatrick, joined his administration. Some played foreign policy roles in subsequent administrations of both parties. A key tier of advisors in the George H. W. Bush administration, including Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, Paul Wofowitz, and Lewis Libby were considered foreign policy neoconservatives, characterized by a willingness to act unilaterally on military adventures such as the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Neoliberalism: The economic, social, and political position that centers individual freedom, undergirded by a weak government and unfettered, free-market capitalism. Neoliberalism encourages economic and social reforms/transformations that favor free markets, privatization, and other practices of economic liberalization. The role of the state under neoliberalism is to establish and enforce institutional power for such practices in the form of policy. The economic policies that emerge under neoliberalism have been labeled austerity—that is, the roll back or elimination of welfare state benefits—for the many. A key example is the Clinton-era Welfare Reform. In foreign policy terms, this has often translated into forming multilateral alliances in order to secure markets and manage regional conflicts in a way that is minimally disruptive to commerce. For more PRA analysis on neoliberalism, see “From the New Right to Neoliberalism” by Jean Hardisty.
New Apostolic Reformation: A movement originally identified and named in the 1990s by evangelical theologian C. Peter Wagner of Fuller Theological Seminary. He subsequently helped to organize apostolic leadership groups to give some coherence to the global movement. The NAR has since become the leading political and cultural vision of the Pentecostal and Charismatic wing of evangelical Christianity. The NAR is Dominionist, and it seeks to influence and ultimately control seven spheres or “mountains” of society: government, business, education, religion, arts & entertainment, family, and media. The movement comprises both churches and loosely organized “prayer networks” which exist outside of traditional denominations, although they are arguably a form of denomination themselves. For several decades the NAR has led the abandonment of traditional evangelical and mainline Protestant denominations in favor of prayer networks. [See: Apostle].
Nonbinary: An umbrella term for genders other than man and woman. This is also a term for a specific gender. While nonbinary is considered a trans identity, not everyone who is nonbinary considers themselves trans. [See: cisgender, transgender]. Note: This definition is from the Trans Journalists Association.
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Orphan theology: A strain of evangelical thought urging Christians to view adoption and “orphan care,” particularly of children born in the Global South, as an integral part of their faith and means with which to spread the gospel in the U.S. This has led to abuses, since orphan theology was less about helping children, who may have living biological parents, but to raise members of an army of evangelists. Note: For more information on Orphan theology, see Kathryn Joyce’s The Child Catchers.
Oppression: The use of violence, intimidation, surveillance, and discrimination, particularly by the state and/or its civilian allies, to control populations or particular sections of a population. More specifically, oppression is the active use of force and manipulation to prevent people from organizing to improve their economic status, increase their influence on the political system, and/or transform cultural systems that stigmatize and stereotype their community.
Overton Window: The Overton Window is a model for understanding how ideas in society change over time and influence politics. The core concept is that politicians or movements generally only pursue policies or demands that are widely accepted throughout society as legitimate. These policies/demands lie inside the Overton Window. But the Overton Window can both shift and expand, either increasing or shrinking the number of ideas and demands politicians or movements can support without unduly risking their support. Examples include women’s suffrage, the abolition of chattel slavery, and same-sex marriage.
The concept was introduced in the 1990s by Joseph Overton, a staffer at the Mackinac Center, a pro-free market and small government think tank. It was, however, right-wing media personality and provocateur Glenn Beck who popularized the term in his 2010 novel The Overton Window, seven years after Overton’s death. Strictly speaking, the Overton Window does not define thinkable thought—movement activists and thought leaders may well think about, talk about, and plan to accomplish things outside the Overton Window. But to make their plans real—which means avoiding derision from friendly media, rejection by voters, and shunning by funders—making fundamental shifts in what is considered acceptable policy is usually a prerequisite.
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Paleoconservatism: A far-right variant of ideological conservatism emphasizing traditionalism, nationalism, and isolationism. Antisemitism and xenophobia are also prominent features of paleoconservative ideology. Paleoconservative thought emerged out of opposition to more prominent neoconservative thought and influenced the Alt-Right as well as its primary successor organization, the Groypers/America First faction. Paleoconservatism shares with White nationalism the idea that social problems in the United States are caused by groups not considered “real Americans,” but unlike White nationalists, paleoconservatives tend to identify these groups by culture and religion, rather than biology and race. Both factions tend to see gender as binary and biologically determined.
Patriarchy: A system of social control characterized by rigid enforcement of binary sex and gender roles. Patriarchy preferentially allocates positions of public leadership and dominance to men, based on the underlying beliefs in both the natural and/or God-given suitability of men for such positions. As a system, patriarchy intersects with racism, classism, ableism, and other systems to reinforce systems of power and privilege. Gender essentialism under patriarchy both devalues marginalized genders as insufficiently masculine and punishes gender deviance (which is also raced and classed). Patriarchy is also used to devalue modes of politics and social organization not grounded in competitive and authoritarian values.
Pentecostalism: A major subset of modern evangelical Christianity characterized by a strong belief in “gifts of the spirit,” such as speaking in tongues, prophesy, the discernment of spirits ,and faith healing. Traditionally, it fell in the premillennialist eschatological camp and was relatively apolitical until joining in conversation with the theologians of Christian Reconstructionism in the 1980s. Pentecostalism has been generally organized into traditional denominations, such as the Assemblies of God, in contrast with the Charismatic movement, which has similar beliefs but is transdenominational and ecumenical, as is evident in the rise of the New Apostolic Reformation.
Philosemitism: A pejorative term first used by antisemites in Germany to describe an exaggerated fixation on and praise of Jews and Judaism. Today, the term is used to refer to the exaggerated or grandiose “love” displayed by Christian Zionists and other Christian Rightists towards Jews. Despite profuse statements of support for Jews and Israel, Christian Zionist philosemitism coexists with conspiratorial antisemitism and with a stated goal to instrumentalize Jews and Israel for an exclusionary, messianic agenda.
Populism: A style of politics that involves an effort to mobilize “the people” into a social or political movement around some form of anti-elitism. Such movements can be egalitarian or authoritarian, inclusive or exclusionary, forward-looking or fixated on a romanticized image of the past. They can either challenge or reinforce systems of oppression.
- Repressive populist movement: A broader category that includes right-wing populism. Repressive populism combines distorted or fake anti-elitism with efforts to reinforce systems of oppression, but not all repressive populism involves an anti-leftist backlash. The term repressive populism helps describe some movements before the 20th century, such as the Jacksonians, that share major features with right-wing populism but cannot be clearly classified as rightist.
- Right-wing populist movement: A populist movement that targets superficial or false symbols of elite power, reinforces systems of social privilege and oppression, and is built around a backlash against liberation movements, social reform, or revolution. Right-wing populist movements feed partly on people’s grievances against their own oppression but deflect that anger away from positive social change. Right-wing populism is a form of repressive populism.
Prejudice: Individual beliefs that favor one group over others, or disfavor a particular group, and/or laws, policies and traditions that inscribe such beliefs in institutions. Prejudice refers to beliefs rather than actions, but can be the source of discrimination and/or oppression. Prejudice can spread through intentional activity; for example the circulation of White nationalist propaganda or anti-LGBTQ sermons from Christian nationalist pastors. It can also be absorbed from popular culture, such as film, television, and jokes, that depict some groups with negative stereotypes. Discriminatory and oppressive actions can also reinforce prejudiced beliefs, making them seem normal and condoned by the powers that be.
Producerism: A populist doctrine that champions the so-called producers in society against both “unproductive” elites (notably bankers) deemed “above” them on societal hierarchies, and subordinate groups defined as “lazy” or “immoral” deemed “below” them. Producerism blurs actual class divisions and embraces some elite groups while scapegoating others. For example, producerists often counterpose “productive” industrial capital against “parasitic” finance capital, a phony distinction closely related to antisemitic attacks on supposedly parasitic Jews. Today, right-wing leaders frequently use producerist narratives when championing some version of “real” Americans over and against “globalists,” the “deep state,” immigrants, “antifa” and other named enemies, real or imaginary.
Prosperity gospel: Emphasizes the power of a motivated spiritual life to gain wealth and influence. Often this is done through donating to a ministry that promotes the idea of the prosperity gospel. Critics charge that prosperity ministers encourage this and are thereby exploiting their members. Some prosperity preachers have become ostentatiously wealthy in this way and been the subject of congressional investigations. The movement also goes by the popular terms “Word of Faith,” “Name it and Claim It,” and “Health and Wealth.” It is associated with such prominent American evangelists as Rod Parsley, John Hagee, Ken Copeland, and Paula White (spiritual advisor to former president Donald Trump.) Many prosperity gospel preachers are also affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation.
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Quiverfull movement: A Christian patriarchal movement that encourages having large numbers of children and opposes limiting family size, especially via birth control. Quiverfull adherents view children as arrows in God’s quiver in the war for Christian dominion and often practice homeschooling. Adherents' beliefs are often rooted in Christian Reconstructionism.
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Racism: An ideology that assumes a hierarchy of human worth based on the social construction of racial difference. Racism as an ideology claims superiority of the socially constructed category, White, over other racialized categories based on the false idea that race is a fixed and immutable reality. The overwhelming reality of racism in the U.S. is White supremacy, which uses racism to rationalize the oppression of Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color. Racism manifests differently in different national contexts, and racial categories (and who is in them) can vary across national contexts. Sometimes the term racism is used to describe the entire system of racial oppression or aspects of that system. In this larger context, racism can refer to forms that are internal, interpersonal, institutional, or systemic. [See: Oppression].
Rapture: In some evangelical Christian apocalyptic narratives, the collective salvation of the remaining remnant of the Christian faithful occurs through an event called the rapture. This is an ascension into heaven while earth is purged of evil during the Tribulations through great punishment of those who rejected Christ in favor of sin. Whether or not Christians then return to an earth purged of evil, or even participate in the purge itself, is in contention. This event, once part of premillennial narratives, has been downplayed in recent decades.
Religious bigotry: A culturally shaped attitude based on the otherization of any religion, religious idea, or religious individual. It often, though certainly not always, has racial and/or ethnic components It can be used to justify discrimination, interpersonal animosity, vigilante violence, systemic exploitation, and targeted forms of state violence. Religious bigotry can be structural, institutional, interpersonal, and/or internalized, but is most destructive when a particular religion is associated with the most powerful institutions, such as the state, and uses that association to favor one religion at the expense of others.
Religious exemptions: A concept used by conservative evangelicals and Roman Catholic bishops to justify exempting private individuals, organizations, and institutions from the rule of law, frequently around laws that prohibit discrimination, require recognition of LGBTQ people, or support reproductive healthcare, but often also laws governing labor and pension rights. Terms often used interchangeably, but holding slightly different emphases, include religious refusals and religious impositions.
Religious freedom (also Religious liberty): The idea that people’s religious views should be neither an advantage or a disadvantage under the law. Historically, it has also meant that people should be able to make up their own mind, free from the undue influence of powerful governmental and religious institutions. It is in this sense that the constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state is intended to protect religious freedom. Freedom of religion is the first of three freedoms listed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and it is recognized as a universal human right by the United Nations. The Christian Right and the Roman Catholic bishops have sought to redefine the term as it applied to both institutions and individuals to include broad exemptions from civil rights laws protecting LGBTQ and reproductive rights.
Religious Right: Often used interchangeably with Christian Right, but also can describe broader conservative religious coalitions that are not limited to Christians. Can include right-wing Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, and members of the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. These groups also often play significant roles in public life as individual groups and in coalition.
Religious supremacism: An idea that is far from exclusive to Christianity, but in the contemporary U.S., it is a primary characteristic of Christian Dominionism. This means that the equality of other religions—and even other forms of Christianity—in culture and law is rejected, opposed, and seen as an obstacle to dominion itself. [See: Dominionism].
Remnant: In some Christian apocalyptic narratives, the idea that in the end times a righteous remnant of faithful Christians will remain. Groups of Christians across a wide spectrum, will often think of themselves as “God’s remnant” when beleaguered, oppressed, or when facing seemingly insurmountable odds. They believe that, as sometimes occurs in stories from the Old Testament, if they remain faithful, God will intervene. [See: New Apostolic Reformation]
Repression: A subset of oppression, repression occurs when public or private institutions—such as law enforcement agencies or vigilante groups—use arrest, physical coercion, or violence to subjugate a specific group.
S
Scapegoating: Blaming a person or group wrongfully for some problem, especially for other people’s misdeeds. Scapegoating deflects people’s anger and grievances away from the real causes of a social problem onto a target group demonized as malevolent wrongdoers. The problem may be real or imaginary, the grievances legitimate or illegitimate, and members of the targeted group may be wholly innocent or partly culpable. The scapegoats (often a group, or a single person representing a group) are wrongfully stereotyped as all sharing the same negative trait or are singled out for blame while other major culprits are let off the hook.
- Anti-elite scapegoating (also anti-elite conspiracism): A form of conspiracism that targets groups seen as sinister elites abusing their power from above. While it sometimes attacks some actual members of the elite, anti-elite scapegoating fails to analyze the underlying systems of power and oppression. Instead, it blames social problems on the subjective actions of small groups who are seen as an alien force distorting the normal workings of society. In the U.S., anti-elite scapegoating is often antisemitic and directed toward Jews.
- Counter-subversive scapegoating: A form of conspiracism that targets groups portrayed as subversives trying to overturn the established order from below or from within. Countersubversive scapegoating often demonizes anti-oppression struggles and plays on people’s fears of disorder, violence, invasion, and moral collapse. In recent years, the Right has targeted a number of groups, real or imagined, with counter-subversive scapegoating, ranging from Black Lives Matter protestors and “antifa” to shadowy enemies such as “Cultural Marxists” or “groomers” (a derogatory term directed at LGBTQ people), portraying these named enemies as threats to the imagined integrity of the social order.
Scripted Violence: A tactic through which a leader indirectly calls for violence against a specific community through implication and disinformation. A leader employing this rhetoric is engaged in base-building with those who share an understanding of the implied violence within the leader’s rhetoric. Contemporary scripted violence includes broad disinformation campaigns against transgender people, Muslim people and people assumed to be Muslim, and Asian people and people assumed to be Asian. Scripted violence is sometimes also referred to as stochastic terrorism—terrorism that foments violence against a particular community without directly calling for it. However, PRA cautions against the use of this term, due to the strong anti-Muslim connotations of the word “terrorism.” “Scripted violence” has long been the preferred term by scholars in this field.
Secular: A neutral term used to describe someone or something, such as in law, as non-religious in character. As used by the Religious Right and the Roman Catholic bishops, it is a pejorative of non-religious acts, initiatives, and individuals. These, in turn, are cast as a threat and contributing to a greater cultural hostility to religious belief and practice. What is termed secularism is then seen as not only oppressive, but perhaps the principal obstacle, respectively, to building the Kingdom of God on earth in the case of evangelicals, and furthering the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
Seven Mountains Mandate: A campaign being waged by leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) as a way of popularizing and making practical the work of taking Dominion. The campaign—popularized by activist leaders Lance Wallnau and Johnny Enlow, but embraced by C. Peter Wagner and other NAR leaders—divides the work of Dominionism into a metaphorical seven mountains that need to be conquered and demonic influences driven off. These include the mountains (sometimes also called gates or spheres) of religion, education, government, family, media, arts & entertainment, and business. [See: Dominionism; New Apostolic Reformation]
Sexism: An ideology that assumes a hierarchy of human worth based on the social construction of gender difference. It claims the superiority of men over women, based on the idea that “natural” gender norms are a fixed and immutable reality. The overwhelming reality of sexism in the U.S. is male supremacy, which uses sexism to rationalize the oppression of women. Sometimes the term sexism is used to describe the entire system of gender oppression, beyond oppression of women. Sexism can refer to forms that are internal, interpersonal, institutional, or systemic. [See: Oppression].
Social movement: A mass movement that seeks to transform society and challenge existing power relationships by means other than (but often including) the political electoral process. Many social movements are ideologically and/or strategically reformist (i.e., changing practices within a system while keeping the system intact), some are insurgent (i.e., seeking to destroy or overthrow a system), or even revolutionary (i.e., seeking to transform or replace a system with an alternative one). Dissident groups are generally reformist, even when their anti-institutional reforms are drastic.
Supremacy: A power orientation that functions to maintain the relative power of some of the population, generally organized around race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or wealth. The practice is generally undergirded by an ideology that justifies supremacist political and social arrangements, for example White supremacy. Supremacist ideas often assume the intrinsic superiority of a particular category of people over others, sometimes grounded in biological explanations. Supremacy as a system, however, can endure even when supremacist ideas have been culturally called into question or even when they have been legally banned from being considered as criteria for the exercise of citizenship rights, hiring and promotion, or distribution of public goods. For example, systemic White supremacy continues to exist in the United States as a matter of fact, leading to the statistical disadvantage of Black and Brown people on crucial indicators of health, wealth, and power, even when race-neutral policies have been officially adopted.
Survivalism: Often accompanies apocalyptic views of both Christian and secular elements who gather and store large supplies of food, water, medical supplies, and usually weapons and sometimes precious metals, in anticipation of an impending economic collapse, social unrest, nuclear or world war, or the Tribulations. Sometimes survivalists withdraw to remote locations or form small communities for mutual self-defense. Survivalism is practiced by a wide swath or the religious and political far-right, particularly those who seek to be less reliant on or completely off of the grid. Some survivalists (also sometimes known as “preppers”) are part of organized far-right factions who see the collapse of the United States, and perhaps civil war, as likely.
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TERF: An acronym for "Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists," referring to anti-transgender activists who root their rhetoric in principles of feminism. “TERF” is typically used by critics, and it is rarely a term of self-identification. “Gender critical” is a more common term used for self-identification; however, PRA cautions against using the term, unless directly quoting a source, due to its euphemistic nature. PRA suggests instead anti-transgender activist or advocate. [See: Transphobia].
Theocracy: In the classical definition, a system in which governmental leaders are clergy. But these lines are often blurry. Governmental officials in any given country may not be clergy, but if it is necessary to be a member in good standing in certain churches to hold office, or be backed by certain religious political organizations, you have a de facto theocracy. [See: Theonomy; Dominionism]
Theonomy: A system where the civil government is ruled under religious law. Theonomy is another term for the way that Christian Reconstructionists understand their application of God’s law in governing three areas: civil government, the Church, and the family. Historically, the academic definition of theocracy would be government by the clergy, which is rare in practice. Reconstructionists will sometimes claim that theonomy is not the same thing as theocracy, but critics rejoin that it is a distinction without a difference. The vision of the New Apostolic Reformation, rooted in Christian Reconstructionism, is theonomic. But at least for now, they seek to elect people to office who share their views, whether they are religious leaders or not.
Third Position: A form of neofascism that is opposed to both capitalism and communism. Advocates of Third Position politics typically present themselves as "beyond left and right," although they usually share reactionary right-wing cultural views and left-wing economic views. The groups adopting these politics emerged toward the end of the 20th century during the Cold War, but they have roots in European movements that emerged in the 1920s-1940s. Third position politics claims to be a way to bypass ordinary electoral and legislative processes altogether, for example through calls for popular uprisings or insurrection. Contemporary examples include the now defunct Traditionalist Workers Party.
Traditionalist Catholicism: An anti-modernist element in the Roman Catholic Church that holds to beliefs and practices that were customary before the reformist Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) under Pope John XXIII. They have been particularly disturbed by the use of native languages in worship services instead of Latin used in the Traditional Latin or Tridentine Mass. The most prominent traditionalist faction is the Society of St Pius X, which also has a history of antisemitism. Traditionalists have also sought to undermine the efforts of Pope Francis to continue the reforms of Vatican II that have made the global church leadership less White, less European, and marginally more inclusive of women.
Transgender: A term used for someone whose gender is not (exclusively) the one they were assigned at birth. Transgender is an adjective and should not be used as a noun. Be aware that Indigenous communities and communities of color have other words to describe gender variance. Sometimes these terms can be included in the transgender umbrella and sometimes they cannot. [See: cisgender, nonbinary]. Note: This definition is modified from the Trans Journalists Association.
Transphobia: Negative and/or bigoted attitudes or actions directed towards trans people. Transphobia frequently leads to transphobic violence. Transphobia can be structural, institutional, interpersonal, and/or internalized. Note that although transphobia is in common usage, the -phobia suffix tends to suggest individual bigotry to the exclusion of systemic and structural forces. The form anti-trans is generally preferred.
U
Unification Church: The global religious empire founded after the Korean War by the late Sun Myung Moon. Unification theology states that Jesus failed in his mission, and so God called Moon to be the “Messiah of the Second Advent.” The church became controversial in the United States, and eventually globally, for its totalist indoctrination practices. It was also notorious for its role in the “Koreagate” espionage, bribery, and political influence scandal of the 1970s. Moon and his movement also became, and remain, a central part of the conservative movement. In the 1980s, for example, the Moon organization was involved in supporting military dictatorships in the Southern Cone, as well as fascistic movements and governments in Central America, ostensibly unified in their anti-Communism. In France, the church was closely involved in the National Front party, headed by the late Jean-Marie Le Pen. The church fragmented following the death of Moon. The main body is led by his second wife, Hak Ja Han Moon, and has changed its name to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. In recent years, they have hosted or been affiliated with conferences that have featured top American political leaders including former president Donald Trump and former vice president Mike Pence.
One of Moon's sons, Sean Moon, has a church that worships assault rifles known as Rod of Iron Ministries, which participated in the January 6th uprising. Another son, Justin Moon, operates a nearby weapons manufacturing business in Pennsylvania.
The church is perhaps best known for its news organizations, The Washington Times and United Press International which are currently owned by separate, Moonist media companies.
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White genocide: A conspiracist belief used by White nationalists and those influenced by their ideas to describe a plot to eliminate White people as such, usually through the spread of “politically correct” ideas like feminist promotion of reproductive choice, delayed childbirth, low birth rates, and encouragement of non-White immigration [See: Great Replacement].
White separatism: A tendency which emerged from the White supremacist movement in the 1980s, originally seeking a separate White country within current U.S. boundaries (often located in the Pacific Northwest), rather than a revival of Jim Crow-style segregation. A once-common term of self-reference for White supremacists, the term “separatist” has been used as a way to deflect attention from the racist beliefs of those claiming it.
White supremacy: Both a system of beliefs that holds that White people are intrinsically superior, usually in claims of biologically determined intelligence, morality, and creativity; and a system of institutional arrangements that favors White people as a group. The Jim Crow system in the U.S. South and Apartheid South Africa are examples of explicitly White supremacist systems—meaning systems that used the idea of White superiority to support racist institutional arrangements. The United States since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is an example of a society in which White supremacy has been legally excluded as a justification for policies and many practices, but where actual patterns of racist outcomes in health, wealth, and power continue. This second sense of White supremacy is also referred to as systemic, structural, or institutional racism.
White nationalism: A social movement based on a belief in biologically determined racial hierarchies, often with the ultimate goal of establishing an all-White nation state. For example, White nationalist movements in the U.S. increased in response to the end of legal segregation. Core to contemporary White nationalist ideology is the “Great Replacement” conspiracy, which alleges that a global cabal of (usually Jewish) liberal elites are deliberately fostering non-White immigration in order to erode White demographic majorities and ultimately, to cause “White genocide”—the cultural and biological destruction of the White race. The White nationalist movement is at least implicitly violent, as its goals can only be realized through removals, extermination, and death. While the most expansive goals of White nationalism remain unrealized, it has directly and indirectly influenced policies ranging from immigration enforcement, to voter disenfranchisement/suppression, and state disinvestments that continue to marginalize and repress communities of color.
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Xenophobia: Fear of or distaste for people, ideas, or customs thought to be strange or foreign. Often fomented to build support for anti-immigrant and other exclusionary measures. Xenophobia can be structural, institutional, interpersonal, and/or internalized. Note that although “xenophobia” is in common usage, the -phobia suffix tends to suggest individual bigotry to the exclusion of systemic and structural forces. The form anti-immigrant is generally preferred.
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