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"Based on exclusive elite-interviews with 116 religious and political leaders in three countries, "The Godless Crusade" not only makes a considerable theoretical contribution to the academic literature across different disciplines, but also represents a major intellectual intervention in contemporary social and political debates about how multi-cultural societies can confront the challenges of right-wing populism, white identity politics and religious activism"--

Abstract
This article investigates how the Populist Radical Right (PRR) in the United States has, under the leadership of Donald Trump, reshaped the Republican party and American Politics more broadly. With a platform built on anti-immigrant nativism ("Build the wall"), anti-elite populism ("Drain the swamp") and authoritarian rhetoric ("The election was stolen"), "Trumpism" neatly matches the definition of the PRR, observed in Europe. Based on evidence gathered from survey data and over a dozen elite interviews with American political and civil society leaders, this article explores common features between Trumpism and Europe's PRR as well as breaks and continuities with America's own traditions of populism, nativism, and authoritarianism. Overall, rather than an Americanisation of global politics, this article finds evidence for a Europeanisation of American politics as faith-based culture wars are replaced by a new brand of nativist right-wing identity politics.

This article investigates Western European right-wing populists' ambiguous relationship with religion and secularism using the example of the French Rassemblement National (RN). Drawing on social cleavage theory, survey data and elite interviews with RN leaders, French mainstream politicians and Church authorities, it finds that the RN employs Catholicism and laïcité as cultural identity markers against Islam to mobilise voters around a new identity cleavage between liberal-cosmopolitans and populist-communitarians. However, instead of a rapprochement with Christian policy positions, ethics and institutions, this article finds that the RN is becoming increasingly secularist in its policies, personnel and electorate. This finding is of significant relevance for the broader populism and religion literature not only because it suggests the centrality of right-wing identity politics for populist parties, but also because it challenges traditional assumptions about the relationship between right-wing populism and religion by providing evidence that in Western Europe the former is increasingly dominated by its 'post-religious' wing.

AbstractRight-wing populists across Western democracies have markedly increased references to Christianity in recent years. While there is much debate about how and why they have done so, less attention has been paid to how Christian communities react to this development. The present study addresses this gap through a comparative analysis of Christian responses to right-wing populist politics in Germany, France and the US. It relies on quantitative studies, survey data and the qualitative analysis of 39 in-depth interviews with right-wing populist leaders, mainstream party politicians and church officials. The findings of this analysis suggest a potential 'religious vaccination effect' among Christian voters against right-wing populism but underline its connection to elite actor behaviour. Specifically, the availability of a 'Christian alternative' in the party system, as well as religious leaders' willingness and ability to create a social taboo around the populist right seem critically to impact religious immunity to populism.

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Why We Write -- One Facing Liberal Democracy's Challenge: Why We Highlight the Role of Religious Identity in Populist Nationalist Movements -- Two How to Understand the Populism of Europe -- Three The Nationalist Assault on Liberal Democracy in the United States -- Four A Catholic Response to the Errors of Catholic Nationalism -- Five The Post-Holocaust Protestant Church as the Defender of Pluralistic Democracy -- Six Each Human Being as an Image of God: A Jewish Response to Religious Nationalism -- Epilogue: Religious Leadership, Civil Discourse, and Democracy -- Notes -- Bibliography -- About the Authors -- Index.