Show Me Hate: Decoding Missouri’s history of white nationalism and extreme misogyny
Art by Teddy Rosen
“Show Me Hate” is a running series from columnist Michael McGrady Jr. exploring the widespread harm and vast cultural/political/personal pain stemming from leaders and ideologies—along with how to turn this toxic tide for the betterment of all.
Political fear is a very strong force, but it can also be a catalyst for change; However, the urgency of the moment demands that this fear take a backseat to the truth. The truth is that Christian nationalism is ravaging Missouri. And there is no denying that truth, given our state’s extreme, far-right political elite.
One of the most significant reservations about reporting this investigation for The Pitch was that it would harm my personal life.
I live a reasonably quiet life in Springfield, barring my professional endeavors in local and national journalism. However, the events following the general U.S. election result in November 2024 have stirred feelings of trepidation among thousands of Missourians, including myself, and millions of Americans. Much of that fear falls squarely on President Donald Trump’s embrace of Christian nationalism and far-right authoritarianism. In a matter of months, the Trump White House has committed irreparable harm to the federal government and has sewn further distrust in public institutions. Trumpian warpaths aren’t just reserved for America’s national politics.
In Missouri, the Republican supermajority and senior elected leaders have been consumed by their peculiar brand of white Christian nationalism, which is also particularly nasty. Though a process decades in the making, the Show-Me State has a dark and sordid past of organized hatred toward groups of individuals who a powerful political minority has historically marginalized. Such a claim isn’t farfetched, considering. Just think about it, dear reader. In August 2017, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) issued a travel advisory for Missouri highlighting legislative reforms that would harm the state’s communities of color in our large urban centers, especially as it relates to housing access rights and equality. The travel warning remains active today.
Further, civil rights watchdog the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has identified 27 hate and antigovernment groups active in Missouri. That’s more hate groups present in Missouri compared to the total numbers of the neighboring U.S. states, including Arkansas (15), Iowa (10), Kansas (10), Kentucky (17), Nebraska (13), and Oklahoma (17). Erin in the Morning considers Missouri one of the most dangerous states for transgender and non-binary people. Additionally, the nonprofit Movement Advancement Project (MAP) classifies the state of Missouri as having a “negative overall policy tally,” meaning the state is one of the most dangerous places for all LGBTQ+ people in the United States.
Fourteen other states have this classification, according to MAP.
National rankings, classifications, and human rights indices only capture a small glimpse of reality. Considering all of this information, I proceeded to investigate why Missouri is a place that appears so hateful to certain communities. As a bisexual man, this investigation carries a personal stake, too. The personal stake I disclose is relatively minimal compared to the harm done to people who have actively fled the state because of policies adopted by Missouri’s GOP politicians.
Individuals like Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt have turned Missouri into a laughing stock in Washington, D.C.—even among moderate Republicans. Gov. Mike Kehoe and Attorney General Andrew Bailey, and many current and former Republican state lawmakers openly praise the cultural genocide of immigrant communities and the ouster of queer people, women, and non-Christians from public life in this state.
Life for some has proven Orwellian.
A State Built on Hate and Division
Missouri is a haven of this white male dominance. And this isn’t an improper claim to make. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that at least 4,740,335 people are identified as white out of a total population of 6,154,913 people. While the population is almost 51 percent female and 49 percent male, the role of the Missouri white man in the state’s culture and politics is prominent.
For example, most statewide elected executive officials are white: Gov. Kehoe, Lt. Gov. David Wasinger, Attorney General Bailey, Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, and State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick. State Treasurer Vivek Malek is the only elected state executive official who isn’t white. To add another dimension, many of these same elected officials have campaigned against several at-risk communities and women’s reproductive rights.
Bailey, whom I have covered extensively for The Pitch, has been characterized by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) as a harbinger of “anti-LGBTQ+ hate” responsible for “endangering the lives of Missourians.” Kehoe’s anti-DEI policies and his far-right party-line-towing have been called racist. A true believer in the MAGA movement, Wasinger is simply a state-level ‘yes man’ for the U.S. president. Hoskins pulls his weight by further restricting Missourians’ access to books in libraries that he claims are “harmful to minors,” but are simply young adult novels written for teenagers. Fitzpatrick—a proud state auditor backed by extreme anti-abortion groups—is outwardly xenophobic and anti-immigrant.
The state legislature isn’t any better. Missouri is under the boot of a supermajority built on extreme variations of conservative and far-right political thought. And those who kiss the boot are just as guilty. To build this case out further, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) has long-tracked views on Christian nationalism in the United States. Much of the data collected by PRRI is quite revealing.
The institute interviewed about 22,000 adults in 2024 as a large sample that represents the population of the country as a whole. Reportedly, there is a 35 percent support for Christian nationalism in Missouri. A breakdown of those numbers, considering the national samplings, classifies those PRRI surveyed as simply skeptics, rejecters, sympathizers, or adherents of Christian nationalistic ideologies. A national tabulation places about 29 percent of respondents were rejecters and 37 percent were skeptics. 10 percent were avowed adherents to Christian nationalistic ideals, while 20 percent were sympathizers.
Zooming back into Missouri, again, 35 percent of all white Missourians are regarded as sympathizers or adherents of Christian nationalism. White Christian nationalists in Missouri were more likely to vote for Donald Trump during the 2024 election, and are regarded to be more aggressive than non-white Christian nationalists. There is also significant overlap between Christian nationalism and beliefs that are espoused by the QAnon movement. Christian nationalism is widely accepted by men in power, too.
“One core of the socially conservative agenda is building (or rebuilding) American society around an antiquated view of the family unit and gendered structures more broadly,” said Adam Stanaland in an email to The Pitch. Stanaland is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Richmond, in Virginia, who has studied masculinity and politics. I spoke to Stanaland because he is one of the most visible experts on why young white men, in particular, voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2024. He goes on to explain in an email exchange that lasted several days that masculinity is key in these groups.
“The hard-right leaders you mention believe that the U.S. would be best off with (straight, cisgender, usually White) men in powerful positions over others, including their wives, where they have [the] economic, political, and social control over their families,” notes Stanaland, referring to The Pitch’s initial inquiry about hard-right Missouri leaders who represent the state on the national level. Of course, we were alluding to the likes of Sen. Josh Hawley.
Hawley authored Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs, published in 2023 to rave reviews in conservative circles.
However, the book, which I read in preparation for this investigation, promotes a vision of man that is not only antiquated but also harmful to society. Stanaland condemned Sen. Hawley, saying, “I believe what’s happening with Josh Hawley and similar figures is that they’re responding to a perceived psychological threat. In our research, we have shown that when men experience very basic threats to their masculinity (e.g., telling them something like, ‘you’re less masculine than the average man’, they can become aggressive, particularly men who act masculine because they feel pressured to do so.”
In the conclusion of our email exchange, Stanaland attributed such issues over masculinity to a likely adoption of Christian nationalistic viewpoints. And the man isn’t far off, either. Josh Hawley has openly called himself a Christian nationalist, positing to his constituents and the national media that it is something that “we need.”
But do we really “need” this, especially given this perversion of faith in the name of some variation of God and traditional values?
Daniel Ponder, a professor of political science at Drury University, a religiously affiliated higher educational institution tied to the United Church of Christ that’s based in Springfield, Missouri, explained to me that this “need” figures like Hawley claim covers citizens of the state is built within a political belief in fear of losing what they view as traditional values. It’s a scarcity of rights and freedoms, in the views of white Christian nationalists and far-right circles.
Homegrown Mysognistic Christian Extremism
Ponder explained, “I think one of the biggest threats, generally, is the conflation of not just religion with government but the tendency for Christian nationalists to work to equate participation in the public sphere not just with religion, but a specific religion (Christianity), and, further, a type of Christianity (Christian nationalism).” Ponder was interviewed in a feature about Christian nationalism for Ozarks Public Radio KSMU in November 2022. In that report, Ozarks Public Radio reporter Josh Conaway probed a so-called “Patriot Academy” hosted at Patriot Assembly church, located in north Springfield, at the time.
Patriot Academy is a far-right nonprofit educational campaign preaching a concept they say is “biblical citizenship.” The academy is sponsored by two entities viewed as anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center and GLAAD: Alliance Defending Freedom and WallBuilders.
At the Patriot Academy event at Praise Assembly in Springfield, WallBuilders founder David Barton spoke to attendees about this so-called biblical citizenship, but some experts, including Ponder, regarded it as nothing more than Christian nationalistic belief. (As a side note, Barton is also classified by the same groups as an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist for his work and activism. He has pushed revisionist historical viewpoints on Christianity and has compared LGBTQ+ people to Nazis, citing questionable sources.)
While this did take place in 2022, the scope of which Christian nationalism has gripped Missouri, such as in the Ozarks, has led to state-sanctioned validation of this nomenclature for a set of hateful ideologies that are ultimately decentralized and, at times, contradictory.
But what is Christian nationalism exactly, and why is it different in Missouri? All experts and faith leaders that I have spoken to on behalf of The Pitch all agree that Christian nationalism is an issue that must be addressed, but they all offer varying definitions of what it is as an ideology.
One definition that resonated with me throughout the research phase for this investigation was one offered by Drew J. Strait—associate professor of New Testament and Christian Origins for the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. Dr. Strait defines Christian nationalism as “a worldview where one’s theological imagination is co-opted by state power.” He also authored Strange Worship: Six Steps for Challenging Christian Nationalism, published in July 2024, where he called Christian nationalism “strange worship, in both biblical and theological perspectives.”
This translates to Christian nationalism being a political belief over a spiritual one, positing the theory of the “founding myth,” which claims the United States of America is and has always been a Christian nation. And by being a Christian nation, per the rhetor’s definition of Christianity, nationalists must work to mold and form the country to save it from the powers of Satan and secular humanists. While it is evident that I am a secular humanist based on my rhetoric for this investigation, Strait’s definition is a characterization of an extremist political ideology that denies pluralism and a respect for the sacrosanct separation of church and state. Ponder offered a similar view in our conversations, noting that “[the] Constitution’s protections for religion imply a coexistence of religion and government, and certainly, policies will be influenced by religion… But the Constitution, read plainly and historically, implies religious pluralism, not the wholesale takeover of government by religion of any particular brand.”
That is made evident in the First Amendment, which protects all forms of expression, including the professing of religious and spiritual beliefs. Despite the separation of church and state defined by the intent demonstrated by the framers of the U.S. Constitution, adherents and sympathizers of far-right Christian nationalism, especially among white men in power, drift in the opposite direction.
As a result of this, white Christian nationalism in Missouri and across the country is associated with hard right and bigoted ideologies that cleanly overlap with neo-Nazism, fascism, incels, white nationalism, and practitioners of some variation of hegemonic masculinity in the structure of a white-dominated kyriarchy. In feminist theory, kyriarchy is a form of political governance that outwardly perpetuates a social system or systems that are built around domination, oppression, and submission.
Historically, all Christian nationalist movements have pushed for kyriarchical governance that preaches the dominance of a small but powerful minority of people, almost always men and/or their wives. Currently, Christian nationalists in the U.S. preside over well-funded campaigns against bodily autonomy, equal rights for women and LGBTQ+ people, support for communities of color, and the freedom of expression from queer and feminine assemblage, and the prohibition of what they call “pornography” and “obscene.”
John Schmalzbauer—professor of religious studies and the Blanche Gorman Strong chair in Protestant studies at Missouri State University (MSU)—shared his concerns with Christian nationalism.
Having also been interviewed for the same KSMU report on Christian nationalism in the Ozarks region, Schmalzbauer offered a far more nuanced perspective as a scholar of religious studies in the state. Disclosing that he lives in the state’s seventh congressional district, Schmalzbauer is represented by yet another problematic lawmaker, U.S. Rep. Eric Burlison, who is a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus. I am in the same congressional district. Prof. Schmalzbauer observed, “I think there’s been a shift that I’ve seen since I’ve lived in Missouri, and since I have been watching religion and politics.”
Schmalzbauer said, “Shortly after I arrived in the state, the big issue was gay marriage, and it was before Obergefell v. Hodges.” Obergefell was the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision issued in 2015 that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, including in Missouri, by affirming that same-sex couples have the right to marry under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
“I live in Christian County, Missouri, and, I think just by virtue of my zip code, I get campaign mail targeted to Republican voters, which do very well in Christian County Republican candidates. And the postcards that used to arrive in the mail were, you know, ‘marriage is one man and one woman.’ That’s not the wedge issue it once was in Missouri—and actually, I see…[political communications]…highlighting [their] anxiety about androgyny, about non-binary identities, or about transgender identities.” And he isn’t wrong. Using Rep. Burlison as an example again, Christian nationalist elected officials at the state and federal levels are more likely to circulate epithets and tropes that are outwardly antagonizing to LGBTQ+ people.
In the Spring of 2023, Rep. Burlison was criticized for reposting a tweet by the far-right commentator Matt Walsh on X (formerly Twitter). Walsh wrote in the reposted tweet that he sees “the collapse of western civilization” after another user posted a pride progress flag asking “What does this flag represent to you?”
Walsh is a known anti-LGBTQ+ and transphobic commentator aligned with white Christian nationalist groups. Not only did Burlison not apologize, he was criticized by a local leader of the LGBTQ+ family rights advocacy group PFLAG. Aaron Schekorra, former president of PFLAG Southwest Missouri, called out Burlison, saying “Representatives who are elected to represent all of us, amplify those [hateful] messages. That is harmful—not only harmful to the community they are targeting, but that’s harmful to our entire society. That’s the thing that is a threat to our civilization.”
“My question would be, you know, ‘Why is this mobilization going on now?’ And I think the answer a lot of people give is that there’s a sort of, I don’t know, perhaps a reaction, a kind of anxiety about a shift in society on the part of folks that, you know, maybe because of things like Obergefell, because there has actually been a massive shift in public opinion on some of these issues,” said Schmalzbauer.
“There’s a sense that, oh, perhaps people in some of these faith communities are afraid that they’re sort of losing the culture.” The culture that I defined from this conversation was a “masculine culture” that society has lost—a masculine culture based around Jesus Christ, Trump, and guns. Missouri is home to a strong Second Amendment culture, which is unsurprising. This is especially the case when Missouri’s state legislature adopted the Second Amendment Preservation Act trying to invalidate certain federal gun ownership rules.
During our call, Schmalzbauer referred to the “militarization” of Christianity in the name of “masculine” morals. He referred to how an Assemblies of God megachurch in Springfield, James River Church, hosted its annual men’s conference with a display of someone who is supposed to be the actor Chuck Norris driving a tank over cars at Great Southern Bank Arena on the MSU campus.
Certainty in Uncertain Times
For context, Missouri is one of the deadliest states for gun deaths in the United States.
The Johns Hopkins University Center for Gun Violence Solutions under the Bloomberg School of Public Health indicates that, out of all 50 states, Missouri is fifth, with 1,489 gun deaths (homicide and suicide) reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2022. On top of that, there is ample research indicating that societal gun fetishism in the state is built on misogynistic beliefs and extremist depictions of being a man. To add further context, Christian nationalists have been empirically linked to supporting legal initiatives to deregulate and expand accessibility to guns, including handguns and user-modified rifles.
I perceived these findings to suggest responses to uncertainty in society—turbulence perceived by those who are ideologically aligned with Christian nationalism as a feminization of society as a whole.
A case can be made that Christian nationalism is an ideology that is an answer to this uncertainty.
For Rev. Michelle Scott-Huffman, Christian nationalism is an ideology of certainty.
She serves as the lead minister for the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Springfield and as a campus minister for the Ekklesia interfaith group on the Missouri State University campus. A proudly married queer woman and ordained minister, Scott-Huffman happily spoke to me in the office at her church on a rainy Friday morning where she characterized Christian nationalism as an ideology of certainty.
“These people don’t trust human development,” said Scott-Huffman during the interview. “People don’t trust education. All of those things feel like an affront to the thing that those people feel like they can be sure of. And I think so many people, as things become more and more uncertain in their lives.”
She painted a scenario where people in these hyper-religious environments get into adulthood. They are focused on getting a job, working it for thirty years, and living a life that is both basic and repetitive. If anything tries to upend that certainty, then they react to nearly militant and extreme levels of outrage.
“Out of all of those things, such as the uncertainty, it kind of mounts around us, like for some people, and absolute certainty is the most comfortable thing they can find,” she said, explaining that these folks believe the feeling of certainty “has to be protected at all costs against any kind of difference or doubt, or questions, or ideas of complexity, or any of those kind of things” that challenge nationalistic beliefs.
“The reality is that education liberates people. Period,” she said. “So, as long as there are institutions of higher education, right people will become liberal and they’ll deconstruct their views and they’ll come to understand the world in different ways. And that just feels dangerous to people who believe in the concepts of Christian nationalism.
She also pointed to how the state’s university systems, such as the Missouri State University system she ministers to, essentially “rolled over” on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bans ordered by Gov. Kehoe. Scott-Huffman also added that she found, flippantly, that Missouri’s move here is a “way to indoctrinate people the ‘proper way.’” “This state is a place where people in marginalized communities are just sort of resigned to the fact that they will always have to fight for any right, for any, you know, ability to experience equity in their daily lives,” she concluded. “There’s sort of an enduring kind of hopelessness that lives here.” She considers Christian nationalism “the order of the day” and how some believe we as a state are headed toward theocratic governance.
Deon K. Johnson feels the same way. Johnson is the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, based out of the Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis. On March 10, Bishop Johnson issued a pastoral letter to the faithful he leads condemning what he characterizes as the “crisis of Christian nationalism.” I was drawn to the bishop due to this pastoral letter, considering the powerful nature of the deeper message.
“Christian nationalism is fringe and weakness masquerading as strength,” said Johnson in his interview with The Pitch in late March. “It appropriates Christian language and Christian ideals without actually looking at the core tenets of Christian faith. It is bending Christian ideals and Christian sentiment and Christian scripture to suit its [white] supremacist ideals.”
He adds, “Christian nationalism is reductionist. It reduces complex things into simple soundbites that sound really good to people who are looking for some kind of anchor in a sea that is storming. At the core of Christian nationalism, I think, is a deep-seated fear.”
In fact, it is a deep-seated fear of far-right pansies masquerading as masculine, righteous, and devout.
Michael McGrady Jr., a contributing writer for The Kansas City Pitch, spent months learning how Christian nationalism in Missouri impacts state and national politics. McGrady conducted over 40 interviews with everyday people, political and psychological experts, and religious leaders, paired with deep research. His findings are in a three-part series titled “‘Show Me’ Hate.” Part two is coming soon, where he discusses the impacts of Missouri’s Christian nationalist policies on LGBTQ+ people and BIPOC individuals.
