Interview
America
Culture
Politics
S&U interviews
15 min read

America's mood check: Matt McDonald interview

Dilemma, apathy, and what we get wrong about politics and religion.

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

The White House illuminated against the night sky.
The White House, Washington DC.
Tabrez Syed on Unsplash.

Continuing our series trying to take the mood of the USA, and in particular the role of religion in its public life, Graham Tomlin recently spoke to Matt McDonald, based in Washington DC who is Managing Editor of the US edition of The Spectator. 

Graham: Thank you for giving us your time. You are someone who comes from Britain, lives in the US, is conversant with American politics and straddles these two worlds. You can help us understand and interpret what's going on in America, both for those who are listening from the UK context but also in America as well. So, how do you describe the political mood in the USA at the moment? You've got the elections on the horizon. It looks like Trump vs Biden all over again. What is the mood that you pick up right now? 

Matt: In some respects, you could say it's fraught, if you compare it to previous election cycles. It's strange the extent to which both sets of primaries were a foregone conclusion. The big question was whether or not Joe Biden would run again, given his advanced years and questions about senility.  

But then on the Republican side, Trump cleared the field by getting into the race so early. Now there's speculation as to why he did that. Obviously being President comes with certain legal protections, which can be useful for someone who's facing, I think, 91 potential criminal charges, but also I think there's a sense that Trump wanted to be back in the White House because I don't think he takes defeat very well. In fact, he has yet to accept defeat in the previous election and so wants to use the platform of a presidential campaign as a means of trying to address the rest of the country and maintain his hold on the American right,  

We've just come through this period where you had a fairly lacklustre attempt to challenge Joe Biden. None of those candidates really got much traction. He won in New Hampshire, which was the first Democratic race.  

And then on the Republican side, we had this strange sort of like ‘Ghost Ship’ primary, where there were various other candidates in the race, presenting alternatives and competing ideas to Trump, and arguments about the fact that he probably can't win in swing states because he can't build a broad enough coalition. Ultimately, if you've got the presidency, the House and the Senate, you're much more able to act and shape the country to your policies, yet there was scepticism about whether or not he could do that. I think those concerns remain, but ultimately, he cleaned up in every primary. The only thing that would keep Trump off the ballot on November 5th is an unforeseen health issue or one of these criminal trials actually preventing him from doing so. At the moment, on the current timeline, it's a case of delay, delay, delay. His lawyers have been doing a fairly good job filing various different appeals, which means that he may face only one of these four trials before the Election Day or before the convention in July, which is when he would be officially named nominee. 

Do you think Trump is going to win? 

The polls are very favourable towards him now. I try not to make predictions, but I think the main thing which is going to shift as you get closer to Election Day is that people will ask themselves, “Do I want to repeat the Trump presidency?” And I think I think a number of Americans will decide they don't want to. I don't think Biden does a particularly good job at articulating the good things that he's done - and they do exist - but ultimately his messaging is most effectively done effectively by his surrogates – the younger faces who are better at television than Biden is. And Biden, historically, over his long career, has been gaffe-prone, and can sometimes botch his communication. That's obviously even more the case now that he's, you know, the wrong side of 80. 

And if Trump does get in, do you think the Presidency this time would be different from last time? 

Yes it will. When Trump got in last time, his transition team was overseen by much more mainstream Republicans than would be the case this time around. A number of the first-generation Trump appointees probably would have been appointed by any incoming Republican President. The fear among a lot of people is that that's not what's going to happen this time. So what we're probably going to end up with is more yes-men, more loyalists. It sounds stupid to say, but you'll you end up with a more in-tune and marching-in-step idea of enforcing the MAGA agenda. But then again, the MAGA agenda fundamentally is just going to be defined by what Trump feels that day. 

So what strikes you as different between American and British political culture?  

If we are doing a comparison between the two elections this year, I think that the British election is a foregone conclusion in a different way. Everyone knows what's going to happen. It's just a case of when it happens. Whereas at least for this American one, I think it's still very much the case that it could go either way. The fact that America also elects judges is an interesting thing. British politics seem generally quite parochial in comparison to America. 

I guess the UK doesn't play quite the same sort of global role as the US does, and maybe that matters? In the past, America has always felt like a kind of global policeman intervening in conflicts around the world where the UK has a diminished status. 

Yes, I think I think that's true. Yet I don't think that's something American voters think about. Since the Iraq invasion, in fact through its history, there have been periods since the country's founding, where it has leant in a more isolationist direction. We’re in one of those waves currently when it comes to swing voters and average Americans, where Democratic voters in cities and moderate Republican voters in cities and suburbs, would be more aware of the global dimension, whereas in rural America, they ask ‘why would we spend my money on that? Why would we send my son there to die?’ 

When you think of angry nations, America and Britain are on the podium - both of us are. 

One of the differences we sometimes perceive in the UK is that the political discourse in the US seems that much more polarised, that much more angry, that much more distinct between progressives and conservatives. Is that true, and if so, why is it more polarised in the US than it seems to be here? 

I think British people are way more angry! I think since the populist wave of 2016, Britain is at a point where its sliding towards a major transformative political shift in a way that hasn't happened since the 2010 election. And I think that some of that is still motivated by anger.  

Whereas, in America, let's say you're Republican. How you think towards Democrats and your attitude towards President Biden or Nancy Pelosi or Kamala Harris or like whoever is your hate figure of the day is different from people you see and interact with.  

Every Republican knows a Democrat, and every Democrat knows a Republican and I think that that generally speaking, Americans tend to be pretty good and civil with getting along with other people. There is the stereotypical argument over the Thanksgiving dinner about the political issue of the day. But then, there is this zooming out and many people have this wider question about how the country's going. Republicans will think - gas is $5 a gallon, inflation is rising and so on. Things seem so much worse than they were under Trump. And many of those factors will be related to immigration and the economy. So, they will blame Biden. I think with economics it’s slightly more complicated as to who you blame for the existing economic situation. It's usually more the previous president than the current one just by the virtue of way economic cycles work.  

When you think of angry nations, America and Britain are on the podium - both of us are. 

Are there particular mistakes you think British people make in reading American political culture? Maybe that's one of them to kind of assume that we're different. We're more different than we are? 

Yes, I think both countries are more similar than either will let on or admit. I'm thinking obviously just about my youngish British friends, who assume that every single US election or vote has to be about guns and abortion. Now they're only half right in that I think abortion is going to be a big factor in this election, particularly given President Trump's recent statement. He basically said he wants abortion to be decided by the states, which is a more moderate position than many activist Republicans would like to see him articulate. The gun issue is a regularly occurring national tragedy, which ultimately, not much legislation never gets passed on it.  

And with abortion, I remember seeing various people I know in England thinking that Roe v. Wade falling meant that all abortion had become outlawed, or illegal in America, which was not the case. It’s just that the court ruling, that federally allowed it was gotten rid of, whereas in Britain, obviously abortion has been legal since 1967 because of David Steele’s Act of Parliament, which is usually the way that laws are decided as they're passed by elected representatives.  

Yes, we don't have that federal - state polarity in quite the same as in the US. 

Matt: Also – in the UK, I guess the High Court has been mentioned in conversation just once in the last 10 years with the Gina Miller Brexit thing? Whereas in the US the Supreme Court is one of three branches of government. 

The Trump events that I've been to have quite a megachurch vibe about some of them. 

Biden on the campaign trail.

Joe Biden holds a phone as two supporters crowd in for a selfie

I want to ask you about the place of religion in American life and politics, because it seems that religion, and Christian faith in particular, plays quite a role in in American politics in a way that it doesn't in the UK. American Presidents almost have to say that they are Christian in some way whereas in UK politics, faith is something kept in the background. How would you describe the role that religion plays in American politics and public life? 

I think it's interesting. I was trying to think about a UK election in the last 50 years, where religion was a deciding factor and couldn't really come up with one. Obviously, there are parts of Britain where religion matters massively, such as Northern Ireland and Scotland more than in England.  

In American politics, it's also interesting because you do have to seem loosely religious, but it's more giving the impression of seeming traditionally moral. Now obviously there are exceptions to this. And that of the political leaders of America in the last 50 years, I think Joe Biden technically is probably one of the most churchgoing. He's there every Saturday or Sunday, whether he's in Delaware or DC or elsewhere. But it doesn't actually count for that much. He's popular among Irish Americans. But Biden's issue with American Catholics is his support for abortion. Not that all religion and all Catholicism could be distilled just down to abortion. But there are a number of American Catholics who think that that is the number one issue. And because he changed his view on the Hyde Amendment, which is whether federal money can be go towards that – it basically made a number of Catholics feel like that he's betrayed that part of his faith, and so while he personally may be Christian and Catholic and churchgoing, he doesn't get political capital for that.  

Donald Trump's most famous incident at a church involved him going outside one. They sent in the National Guard, cleared out the protesters outside the White House in the immediate aftermath of the George Floyd protests. Trump walks to St. John's Church and holds up the Bible. He didn't even go inside. I think Trump thinks of himself as a Presbyterian, but then he's on the golf course on the weekends. He's at Mar-a-Lago, DJ-ing weddings on his iPad. And there is that huge crossover trend, between Evangelical churches and MAGA and the Trump movement. The Trump events that I've been to have quite a megachurch vibe about some of them. I think there’s a fair bit of crossover there in terms of the people who attend both of those things. If you're an evangelical right-wing Christian, you want a Conservative majority on the Supreme Court. He picked three conservative justices. And so they focus more on political actions rather than alleged personal indiscretions.  

Does that account for the evangelical support for Trump? There seems to be a sort of Faustian bargain here, that because he adopts conservative policies, which many evangelicals in the USA want to see happen in public life, they overlook his indiscretions, his affairs and his personal morality, which is probably not anywhere near  what evangelicals would expect, and treat him like a kind of king Cyrus in the Old Testament, a king who's not an Israelite, but who does the will of God. Is that how you read it? 

He once compared himself to David, didn't he? Or he was compared to David as a flawed king, but nonetheless like a vessel for God's for God's message.  

I think Donald Trump's a bit of a Rorschach test. If you like him, you see what you like in him and then and then are blind to the bad parts. And I think evangelicals see a strong leader, which they like. They see he's undeniably charismatic and a good speaker. He speaks well to large rooms of people, which they like, so the aesthetics are there and helpful for him. And then you can ignore the fact that he’s said to have had three or more affairs, etc.  

You're often successful in politics when you portray your opponent as extremist and you as the defender of normalcy. And that's basically how I think swing states are decided. 

One of the other factors that always strikes us from the UK, looking at American Civil religion is the very kind of close relationship between religion and the flag, the nation. So where does that come from, that kind of very, very strong connection between religion and the and the nation? 

I was speaking to one of my colleagues about this, who is much more churchgoing than I am. I asked what do you think the biggest misconceptions are? And she said the separation of church and state often is brought up as if the purpose of that was to stop religion and the church from influencing government, whereas actually the founding fathers put that into the Constitution because they were way more concerned about government influence in the church. 

I think because America is a founded country, it's a country that split off and said we're going to do things differently. These are the ideals upon which our country exist. So, the flag and the US flag has always been a fairly central part of that. It is a default introductory part of the American way. 

Britain is a country that seems to have always existed. And therefore, we don't have the same kind of loyalty to the Union Jack unless you are a loyalist in in Glasgow or Northern Ireland. In Britain, you value it only if you think that that part of you is under threat. In America that's just the default setting. 

Trump does well when he's able to point at the left, at the Democrats and say they are victimising you because of who you are. So like Hillary Clinton referring to his supporters as a ‘basket of deplorables’ - he runs on that. Trump can basically present that and say if you're a Christian and you like America, then the Democrats are coming after you. You're often successful in politics when you portray your opponent as extremist and you as the defender of normalcy. And that's basically how I think swing states are decided. So, Trump will point to whether the FBI has been tracking and targeting Christian national groups, Catholics, things like that. On LGBT stuff, Trump is a bit more of a New Yorker than I think most Republicans are, however where you've got an Episcopalian church, for example, which is wielding a stars and stripes alongside a pride flag – Trump will point to that and using that as a wedge issue, and ask: is this the America you want to live in?

Trump speaks at the Pray Stand Vote summit in 2023.

Donld Trump speaks against a US flag backdrop while the audience hold up phones.

So many Christians that I know of in the US tell me that they're caught between the two sides when they come to an election like this. They feel uncomfortable voting for Biden because some of his policies don't seem to be aligning with the kind of values that they have. Yet at the same time, they feel repelled by Trump, his character, and his fitness to hold the office of President. They're really wondering what to do. Do you see a lot of people in that category? And if so, do you have any advice for them as to what they, what they should do when you're caught between that dilemma? 

Yeah, I think that there's way more apathy now than at any point in any previous presidential election since I've lived here, I think that most people aren't happy with that. The vast majority of America is in that situation. They aren’t particularly happy with either candidate. I can see a depressing turn out. Both Democrats and Republicans, Trump and Biden, are trying to make this election seem existential, but ultimately, I mean, this probably isn't going to be the end of America either way.  

And it's comforting in a way that our political systems and structures can survive these the tests and the waves that come at them, whether it's Brexit, or the polarisation of the culture wars or whatever it might be. 

I guess for those people who can’t decide, I'd recommend prayer could be helpful? 

 Exactly. That's good advice.  

One of the questions I often get in the in the UK is, of all the number of people that who live in the USA, could they not find two other candidates who are younger and a little less polarised? They wonder why these two particular candidates seem to have been thrown up by the system, both of whom are in or near their 80s? 

I think Biden is hamstrung because he didn't make a particularly savvy vice-presidential choice. Kamala Harris is even less popular than he is. I don't think Kamala Harris massively helped him win the 2020 election that much. But Biden, as a white five-eighths Irish, three-eighths English, Catholic male, felt that he needed to pick an African American woman. He basically pledged that in his one of his final debates with Bernie Sanders before COVID started. And he went for Harris as a kind of young Gen X candidate, but her public speaking and oratory skills are sometimes even worse than Biden's, which is incredible.  

One of the things that Biden said when he was running last time, was that he wanted to be a bridge to a future generation of candidates. One way to do that would be for him to have said in 2023 “I'm not running, we're going to have an open competitive Democratic primary.” Harris would have competed alongside any number of Democratic governors and you therefore you could have ended up with a different option.  

Given the age of the candidates – you were talking about prayer a little while ago - maybe one of the prayers is to pray for good Vice-Presidential candidates as much as the actual President themselves? 

Yes. It’s going to seem to matter more this time.  

Matt – thanks so much for your time, it’s been really insightful.  

Explainer
Culture
Freedom of Belief
Migration
7 min read

From Nigeria’s killing fields to Europe’s shores, the data behind the domino effect

While Nigeria thrives, some left-behind are desperate to escape.

Chris Wadibia is an academic advising on faith-based challenges. His research includes political Pentecostalism, global Christianity, and development. 

A data map shows circles of varying size across a map of Nigeria
Fatal attacks map.
ORFA.

Just as every coin has two sides, every soul contains the equal capacity for good and evil. Just like affairs of the soul, migration has the ability to strengthen or weaken societies.  

Nigeria, the Giant of Africa, has one of the world’s largest and most professionally distinguished diasporas. Over 17 million Nigerians live in other countries. The most famous members of the Nigerian diaspora, figures like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Anthony Joshua, John Boyega, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Wally Adeyemo, have achieved stardom thanks to talents that impact or entertain millions of people globally.  

However, these famous figures merely represent the glorious one percent of the Nigerian diaspora. Their success can easily distract observers from the grim reality of why so many Nigerians desperately seek to leave a country known for producing world changers.  

Seeking data on violence 

In October 2019, researchers at the Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa started a project exploring the nature and impacts of of religious violence in Nigeria. The project spanned four years and generated many significant findings. Terror groups in Nigeria killed 31,000 civilians in 7,000 attacks in just four years, the Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) accounting for 39 per cent of these killings (a figure dwarfing the killings perpetrated by ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates),  So called “land-based community attacks,” a concept referring to instances when actors like FEM invade small Christian farming settlements to kill, rape, and abduct Christians and burn their homes, accounted for 82 per cent of civilian killings in the study, Christian death tolls far exceeding Muslim death tolls (2.7 Christians killed for every 1 Muslim killed) in the reporting period, and 6.5 times as many Christian murders compared to Muslim murders relative to average state populations.  

The methodology of the study set out to find data on all the people, regardless of their religion, negatively affected by terrorist violence. However, with every new batch of data collected, disturbing patterns emerged. Since the 2009 birth of the infamous Boko Haram insurgency, global media coverage of the terrorist violence has consistently argued Muslims rather than Christians disproportionately bear the brunt of this Islamist extremist violence. The findings of the study suggest otherwise.  

ORFA data map of fatal attacks across Nigeria.

A data map shows circles of varying size across a map of Nigeria
Source: ORFA.

Shouldn’t the government do something? 

Historically, Nigerian governments have been reticent, even reluctant, to condemn violence in the north associated with the Fulani ethnic group. Former presidents like Muhammadu Buhari, a member of the Fulani, have even gone as far as to dismiss the issue of Fulani ethnic violence as just “cattle rustling.” However, in Nigeria, mere “cattle rustling” to some is a seriously grave situation for others.  

Findings by the Observatory researchers suggest Nigerian security operatives, most of whom belong to the Fulani and Hausa ethnic groups, have a suspiciously selective way of engaging with terrorist violence in northern Nigeria, often leaving Christians distinctively vulnerable. Roman Catholics in Nigeria have even accused Nigeria's military of being a jihadist force. Churches in northern Nigeria live in a constant state of terror and acutely distressing fear.  

In Nigeria, the federal government alone, led by the president, has the final say on matters concerning security and the army. Incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has notably appointed far more Christians to senior government offices than his predecessor, Buhari. The Nigerian government is famously opaque. Despite its nominally democratic visage, family dynasties and networks continue to dominate political life and business affairs.  

Understanding the religious geography and reaction 

Religion in Nigeria is divided along geographical lines. The northern half is dominated by conservative Islam. Catholicism and Anglicanism reign supreme in the southeast. The southwest functions as a geographical melting pot of Islam (albeit a more secular variety compared to the north) and Christianity (especially Pentecostalism).  The north contains a surprisingly large number of Pentecostals. Many Pentecostal pastors and choirs in the north have been kidnapped by the mercilessly violent Islamist extremists.  

The overwhelming majority of Christians in Nigeria live in the southern half of the country. However, in a Nigeria which has suffered from one oppressive government after another for decades (most of these led by conservative Islamic military and civilian presidents), most Christians struggle to survive and lack the energy to speak up for their northern kin. Despite their weariness, the Southern Nigerian Church (the collective population of Christians living in the south) has a sacred responsibility to awaken and demand greater protections from the federal government and the military for Christians living in the north.   

Local causes, global effect 

Over the last two decades, commentators have routinely pointed to climate change as the primary factor facilitating violent encounters between Muslims and Christians. Fulani cattle herders, guided by the desire for better grazing lands for their livestock, have often encroached on land owned by Christian farmers in the north and middle regions. The findings by researchers at the Observatory suggest significantly more is going on to facilitate these violent clashes than just climate change. Ascribing the challenge of religious violence in Nigeria to just climate change provides a get-out-of-jail free card to the men of violence linked to the orchestrated killings of Christians. 

Ethno-religious violence has quietly become commonplace in northern Nigerian life. The single solution capable of curbing this violence is unprecedented, cross-party, interethnic, and interreligious security reform. Strength of security affects every person in Nigeria. From the richest to the poorest, no one is immune from a sudden kidnapping, suicide bomb, or violent act of banditry negatively changing their life forever.  

Nigeria's neighbours in Europe cannot afford to continue slumbering and must wake up. Readers in Europe feeling insulated from the violence the data records are just as susceptible to the shockwaves that a collapse of the Nigerian state as other West African neighbours. Such an event would imperil the security of citizens in countries like Italy, Spain, and Greece just as much as it would people living in Mali, Chad, and Cameroon.  

Nigeria has never been nearer to a civil war or state collapse since the Biafra War of the late 1960s. Ethno-religious violence disproportionately targeting northern Christians is one of the greatest and most overlooked factors contributing to Nigeria's dysfunctionality. In an unprecedentedly connected world, such a collapse would, in turn, trigger further collapses.  The European Union (EU) does not grasp the severity of how such a collapse would affect its own security and stability. At a time when every day brings news of small boats carrying migrants to European shores, Nigeria's collapse would trigger one of the greatest avalanches of mass migration in modern African history.  

A modern Middle Passage 

Nigeria has a population of over 235 million, the largest in Africa and sixth largest globally. If just 10 per cent of the population attempted to flee in the event of another civil war or a destabilising political event, that is 23 million Nigerians desperately fleeing into any country they reason might welcome them. Many of these millions would gamble by voyaging on the tempestuous Atlantic Ocean in small boats with the goal of beginning new lives in European countries. Some would inevitably perish in what might evolve into this century's Middle Passage. Nigeria’s collapse would destroy the EU by overwhelming its borders and social services. The average population of an EU country is just under 17 million, or the size of Nigeria's diaspora. The unprecedented connectedness of our world means catastrophic destabilisation in one country can have significant consequences for the stability of other countries globally. The EU has a geopolitical responsibility to invest in improving Nigeria's security situation. Abductions, killings, and displacements in Nigeria might trigger instability in Europe and beyond. 

However, the collapse of Nigeria would not only destabilise the EU. ISIS affiliates like ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province) have a strategic interest in Nigeria's collapse, because it would open the door for them to expand their control throughout West Africa.  

A team of researchers guided by the goal of better understanding terrorist violence in Nigeria simply followed the breadcrumbs of organically emergent data to show why the broader world should take seriously violence against Christians in the Giant of Africa. Living in an unprecedentedly connected world comes with new privileges and new responsibilities. To simply indulge in these new privileges without standing strong and shouldering these new responsibilities would be foolish, selfish, and nearsighted.  

English poet John Donne once famously wrote,

No man is an island,  
Entire of itself,  of the continent,  
A part of the main.  
If a clod be washed away by the sea,  
Europe is the less. 
Every man is a piece.

The “old self” understanding of global connectedness, ruled by selfishness and ignorance, must give way to the “new self” model of prosperity and security via proactive collaboration. For every one Okonjo-Iweala, Boyega, or Antetokounmpo, millions of Nigerians suffering from the effects of a rapidly destabilising state dream of emigrating abroad. Global Christianity and global security stakeholders each have an interest in a stable Nigeria. A stable Nigeria functions as a wellspring of human capital for the benefit of the entire world.  

Donne, in the same poem, wrote,  

Each man's death diminishes me, 
For I am involved in mankind. 
Therefore, send not to know 
For whom the bell tolls, 
It tolls for thee. 

The world is involved in Nigeria and Nigeria is involved in the world. The death of Nigeria would pave the way for the death of the EU. The bell tolls for the EU community to awaken from decades of neglectfully overlooking its interests in a stable and secure Nigeria.  

 

Further resources 

  • ORFA report summary.
  • ORFA full report.
  • 'No Road Home', a data study on those living in displaced persons camps. Download the study (PDF).