Vigilante Nation

A vivid account of the Right’s subversive campaign to impose Christian nationalist rule.Time and again, when confronted with serious challenges to their power and privilege, white Christian nationalists seek solace—and satisfaction—in state-supported forms of vigilantism. This was true at the dawn of the American republic, when Northern abolitionists threatened the Southern slavocracy. It was also true in the aftermath of the Civil War, when emancipated Black Americans and their Northern allies sought to fulfill the promises of Reconstruction. And though this pattern was seemingly broken after the Civil Rights revolution of the 1950s and ’60s—and abandoned once and for all—legalvigilantism has made a surprising, roaring comeback in the months and years following the failed coup of January 6, 2021. Committed to never again losing power, let alone experiencing the humiliation that followed on the heels of the heavy-handed insurrection, overlapping networks of right-wing lawyers, politici