Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83954464503?pwd=S2s0ZHJaM2VsYVdTQit6WHkzS055dz09

It is common knowledge that a densely organized ecosystem of religious groups has been working to overturn Roe v. Wade almost since it was decided in 1973. What is much less known is the way in which the politics of race and of antisemitism have been woven into these efforts from the beginning. The Christian Right has its origins in the white supremacist fight against desegregation in the Jim Crow South, using first the fight against legal abortion and then LGBTQ rights to mobilize a wider and more geographically expansive movement.  In this presentation, Political Research Associates Research Director Steven Gardiner will introduce the ways in which the various strands of Culture War politics, from overturning Roe to political attacks on public education and public health, anti-immigrant anxiety, and attacks on voter and voting rights, are shot through with often antisemitic conspiracism and oriented toward changing the rules of democracy to enable white (and Christian) minority rule.

Steven Gardiner is PRA’s Research Director. He has been researching, explaining, and opposing social movements, policies, and practices grounded in resentment and anxiety that push us further away from democracy, inclusion, and justice since 1991. He has a Ph.D. in political and cultural anthropology and lives with his wife in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of a number articles and essays in both the scholarly and popular press, including “White Nationalism Revisited: Demographic Dystopia and White Identity Politics (Journal of Hate Studies, 2006), “End Times Antisemitism” (PRA, 2020), and “Capitol Offenses: January 6th 2021 & the Ongoing Insurrection” (PRA, 2021).

Organized by Temple B’nai Brith and co-sponsored by Congregation Dorshei Tzedek, Hillel B’nai Torah, and Boston Workers Circle