The post, Theorizing Religion in the Age of Trump is slightly misleading in its title. I would have thought that this post would touch on the increased faith of religious individuals in an era that seems to resonate with hate, discrimination, and persecution. While Baldwin touches on these particular themes in his post, he also points out that, in its own right, intersectionality has now become a religion. (Baldwin, 2017) It is a concept which many liberal-minded youth have learned to embrace during the Obama era, one which seems to acknowledge- and even embrace-the unspoken separation of social, racial, ethnic, and religious individuals according to the groups that they identify with.
Since conservative speech has become more hate-filled and unwelcome at university campuses, the notion of identifying with conservative political ideologies has become something which many people have learned to frown upon. Many have learned to take pride in their distinctive identities, thus shutting out and socially alienating those whose ideals might contradict their own. The keyword in this sentence is “might”, meaning that individuals who simply identify with a group that might seem to contradict the best interests of an individual become their enemy by default.
In this regard, the embrace of intersectionality doesn’t seem to allow for much flexibility in terms of what individuals can believe, thus making it socially unacceptable for them to think for themselves if any of their personal ideations deviate from the perceived norm of the group that they identify with, whether it is political or religious. For example, those who identify as Republicans might be deemed as intolerant bigots by their liberal counterparts by default. Likewise, those who identify as Muslim may be automatically seen as terrorists and a burden to American civilization by some individuals that might have voted for Trump in this previous election.
- Baldwin, M. (2017, March 16). Theorizing Religion in the Age of Trump Series | Bulletin for the Study of Religion. Retrieved from http://bulletin.equinoxpub.com/2017/03/theorizing-religion-in-the-age-of-trump-series-matthew-baldwin/
