Popular Medievalism, Sacred Hierarchy, and the "Crusader Persona" in Twenty-First-Century Christian Nationalism

In the twenty-first century, online media help U.S. Christian nationalists to divorce eye-catching, quasi-medieval imagery from its historical narrative. The internet’s relative anonymity encourages U.S. Christian nationalists to remake themselves in the (fictionalized) image of the crusader. By portraying themselves and their political ideals as the direct descendants of the Western ordo militaris (e.g., Knights Templar), Christian nationalist crusaders imbue their cause with a sense of historical authenticity, and themselves with the chivalric splendor of the martial aristocracy. This paper observes alternative “free speech” social media platforms (e.g., Gab, Truth Social) to analyze the role of medieval ethos in U.S. Christian nationalism. In conclusion, the paper suggests that popular misconceptions about the Middle Ages, combined with the plasticity of social media identity formation, foster an environment in which U.S. Christian nationalists construe themselves as continuing a cultural struggle that dates back to medieval Europe.