ABSTRACT
Right-wing politics in the United States has taken many forms since the end of the Cold War. The contradictions within right-wing populism point to tensions and complexities in the larger social order. Right-wing populist movements are a subset of repressive populist movements. A right-wing populist movement, as we use the term, is a repressive populist movement motivated or defined centrally by a backlash against liberation movements, social reform, or revolution. One of the staples of repressive and right-wing populist ideology has been producerism, a doctrine that champions the so-called producers in society against both “unproductive” elites and subordinate groups defined as lazy or immoral. Producerism, with its baggage of prejudice, remains today the most common populist narrative on the right, and it facilitates the use of demonization and scapegoating as political tools. Early Christian settlers saw America as a battlefield for a prophetic struggle between good and evil.
