Chuck Darwin<p>To Understand JD Vance, You Need to Meet the “Theo-Bros”</p><p>These extremely online young Christian men want to end the 19th Amendment, restore public flogging, and make America white again.</p><p>On July 15, when former President Donald Trump first appeared at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, he brought along two new accessories. </p><p>One was a large bandage covering his ear, which had been nicked by a would-be assassin’s bullet. </p><p>The other was Ohio’s first-term senator and Hillbilly Elegyauthor JD Vance, who was about to debut as the GOP vice presidential hopeful.</p><p>Two days later, after paying tribute to his wife, Usha—the child of immigrants from India—and their three biracial kids, Vance portrayed a vision of America that resonated deeply with Trump voters. </p><p>“America is not just an idea,” he said solemnly. “It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation.”</p><p>To many viewers at home, this seemed like the stuff of a boilerplate, patriotic stump speech. </p><p>But the words “<a href="https://c.im/tags/shared" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>shared</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/history" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>history</span></a>” lit up a far-right evangelical corner of social media. </p><p>“America is a particular place with a particular people,” Joel Webbon, a Texas pastor and podcaster, wrote on X. </p><p>“This is one of the most important political questions facing America right now,” posted former Trump administration official William Wolfe. </p><p>“Answer it wrong, we will go the way of Europe, where the native-born populations are being utterly displaced by third world migrants and Muslims. <br>Answer it right, and we can renew America once more.”</p><p>♦️Vance was embracing one of their most cherished beliefs: <br>🔥America should belong to Christians, and, more specifically, white ones. </p><p>“The American nation is an actual historical people,” says Stephen Wolfe (no relation to William), the author of the 2022 book "The Case for Christian Nationalism",<br>-- “not just a hodgepodge of various ethnicities, but actually a place of settlement and rootedness.” </p><p>For this group of evangelical leaders, Vance, a 40-year-old former Marine who waxes rapturous about masculinity and women’s revered role as mothers, was the perfect tribune to spread their gospel of <a href="https://c.im/tags/patriarchal" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>patriarchal</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Christian" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Christian</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/nationalism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>nationalism</span></a>.</p><p>For years, graying, khaki-clad evangelists have faithfully made the rounds at conservative events. </p><p>However, as Wolfe, a 41-year-old former Princeton postdoc, writes in his book, <br>these “men in wrinkled, short-sleeve golf shirts, sitting plump in their seats” are yesterday’s Christians. </p><p>Among younger activists, they inspire the rolling of eyes<br>—they are the embodiment of an ❌ineffective boomer approach to taking over the United States for Jesus.</p><p>🆘 In their place, a group of <a href="https://c.im/tags/young" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>young</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/pastors" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>pastors</span></a> hope to spearhead a Christian nationalist glow-up as they eagerly await a “<a href="https://c.im/tags/Christian" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Christian</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/prince" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>prince</span></a>” to rule America. </p><p>These often bearded thirty- and fortysomethings have suits that actually fit. </p><p>They are extremely online, constantly posting on myriad platforms, broadcasting their YouTube shows from mancaves, <br>and convening an endless stream of conferences for likeminded followers. </p><p>Let’s call them, as one scholar I spoke with did, the <br>👉Theo-Bros.👈</p><p>For all their youthful modishness, this group is actually more conservative than their older counterparts. </p><p>Many TheoBros, for example, don’t think <a href="https://c.im/tags/women" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>women</span></a> belong in the pulpit or the voting booth<br>—and even want to ⚠️repeal the 19th Amendment. </p><p>For some, prison reform would involve replacing incarceration with public <a href="https://c.im/tags/flogging" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>flogging</span></a>. </p><p>Unlike more mainstream Christian nationalists, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, who are obsessed with the US Constitution, <br>many TheoBros believe that the Constitution is dead and that 💥we should be governed by the Ten Commandments.</p><p>In "American Reformer", their unofficial magazine, hagiographies of Spanish dictator Francisco <a href="https://c.im/tags/Franco" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Franco</span></a> appear alongside full-throated defenses of countries that <br>🧨execute gay people. </p><p>On podcasts, the TheoBros unpack “the perils of <a href="https://c.im/tags/multiculturalism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>multiculturalism</span></a>,” expose “Burning Man’s wicked agenda,” and peel back the nefarious feminist plot of <a href="https://c.im/tags/Taylor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Taylor</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Swift" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Swift</span></a>. </p><p>In Wolfe’s "The Case for Christian Nationalism", one of their seminal texts, he writes that in an ideal Christian nation, ❗️heretics could be executed.❗️</p><p>The rise of the TheoBros worries more mainstream religious conservatives. </p><p>Janet Mefferd, a former Christian radio host and journalist who tracks their ascendancy, says her community is alarmed to see an extremist movement gaining traction. </p><p>“I’m not sure what the endgame is, other than they want to advance Christian nationalism,” she says. <br>“But a lot of us find that terrifying.”</p><p><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/09/theobros-jd-vance-christian-nationalism/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">motherjones.com/politics/2024/</span><span class="invisible">09/theobros-jd-vance-christian-nationalism/</span></a></p>