Robert P Jones has spent his career studying how religion shapes American politics. Now he has a new book, Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith and a Nation After the Christian Turn Against Democracy, and he opens it with a comparison few authors would dare: the rise of the Nazi party in Germany and the current state of American democracy.
Jones is president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). He writes that the US is currently experiencing a “backslide” — a weakening of democratic norms — aided by what he calls “apostate” white Christianity. The book’s epilogue draws a direct parallel between 2025-2028 and the period between 1933 and 1937 in Germany.
The Book’s Opening
Backslide begins with the rise of the Nazi party and Germany’s complicity. Jones quotes Martin Niemöller, the Lutheran pastor imprisoned for opposing Hitler, known for the poem “First They Came.” For the first four years of Hitler’s rule, Niemöller did not fully oppose the Nazis.
Jones writes, “This is our 1933.” The epilogue compares the current moment to the years leading up to World War II. He argues that Germans backing Hitler knew what they were joining, and he compares Christians backing Trump and the MAGA movement.
The comparison is not subtle. Jones is making a direct warning about where American democracy could be headed if current trends continue.
The Nazi Era Comparison
Jones draws on the work of Hannah Arendt. In her 1950 report Aftermath of Nazi Rule for Commentary magazine, Arendt noted how difficult it was for Germans to tell the truth about what had happened under Hitler. Jones cites this to warn against normalization.
He also points to the thuggish behavior of some law enforcement. “Thuggish police force that’s kidnapping people off the street in masks and killing US citizens in the streets,” he writes, describing what he sees as a pattern of abuse.
Trump himself has used racial purity language. He has called immigrants “vermin” and “poisoning the blood of our country.” He told a 2020 crowd in Minnesota: “You have good genes… A lot of it is about the genes… The racehorse theory, you think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”
These statements, Jones argues, are not isolated incidents. They are part of a broader pattern of rhetoric that echoes the language used by the Nazis.
The Religious Context
The term “democratic backsliding” is an established academic term for the erosion of democratic norms, judicial independence, and voting rights. In the evangelical world, “backslide” refers to falling away from the faith.
Jones grew up Southern Baptist in Jackson, Mississippi, went to church five times a week, and earned a master of divinity degree. His earlier books include The End of White Christian America (2016), White Too Long (2020), and The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy (2023).
The religious landscape has changed dramatically in recent decades. In 2008, white Christian Americans constituted 54% of the US population. By 2014, that figure dropped to 47%. Today, white Christians account for 41% of the country.
White evangelicals represented a quarter of all Americans at the turn of the 21st century. Today they make up barely 13%. The Southern Baptist Convention has lost more than 3 million members since its 2006 peak.
The Quid Pro Quo Deal
Jones calls the alliance between white evangelicals and Trump a “quid pro quo deal”: give me your votes and you won’t even have to vote again. He contrasts today’s movement with the Moral Majority and Values Voters summits of the George W Bush era.
He says the current movement is “overtly anti-democratic Christian nationalism.”
“This is our 1933.”
That line appears in the book. Jones is not saying the US is Nazi Germany. He is saying the conditions that allowed the Nazis to rise are present in America today.
The Warning
Jones is not calling for panic. He is calling for vigilance. He is warning that the normalization of authoritarian rhetoric and behavior can move faster than people realize.
The book’s title, Backslide, carries a double meaning. It refers to the religious sense of falling away from faith, but it also describes a political process: the slow erosion of democratic institutions.
Jones is making a practical argument. He wants readers to recognize the signs of democratic decline before they become permanent.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs medical cannabis access for patients and is against blocking it, while taking no side on recreational legalization or the commercial marijuana industry. That is the paper’s position, and it has nothing to do with the book Backslide or its author Robert P Jones. But the paper notes that Jones is doing his part to sound the alarm on a subject far removed from cannabis policy.
The book’s comparison of contemporary American politics to the rise of the Nazi party is a warning, not an argument for any particular policy. The paper leaves the reader to judge the warning for themselves.
What matters for the paper’s position is that individuals should be free to make their own choices about their bodies and minds, and that government should not stand in the way of patients seeking medical treatment. Jones’s warning about democracy is his own, and the paper treats it as such.
Key Facts Box
- Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith and a Nation After the Christian Turn Against Democracy is the new book by Robert P Jones
- Jones is president and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)
- The book opens with the rise of the Nazi party and Germany’s complicity
- Jones quotes Martin Niemöller, the Lutheran pastor imprisoned for opposing Hitler
- The epilogue compares 2025-2028 to the period between 1933 and 1937 in Germany
- Trump told a 2020 crowd in Minnesota: “You have good genes… A lot of it is about the genes… The racehorse theory, you think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota”
- In 2008, white Christian Americans constituted 54% of the US population
- By 2014, that figure dropped to 47%
- Today, white Christians account for 41% of the country
- White evangelicals represented a quarter of all Americans at the turn of the 21st century; today they make up barely 13%
- The Southern Baptist Convention has lost more than 3 million members since its 2006 peak
The warning is clear. Jones is saying that the United States is sliding toward a less democratic future, and that the religious forces driving that slide have a long history of complicity with authoritarianism.
The question is whether Americans will heed the warning before it is too late. Jones is doing his part to sound the alarm.
Source material: “When is the right time to compare US politics to the Nazi era? This expert on Christian nationalism says: now,” The Guardian.
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