Colin Bossen – författare

An excavation of populist movements in the US and their associated religious tropes.In this work, author Colin Bossen argues that for over a century, American populist movements—even explicitly secular ones—have drawn on religious ideas and practices to infuse their politics and bring people together. Bossen explores Pan-African populism, white supremacist populism, and early twentieth-century pluralistic populism in the United States that coalesced into well-known, vastly different groups with a lasting presence in the American imagination: the Universal Negro Improvement Association (also known as the Garveyites), the Ku Klux Klan, and the Industrial Workers of the World (also known as the Wobblies). This book employs both historical analysis and political theory to unpack the trajectory of these groups and to illustrate how their respective search for belonging showcases as similar principles, despite their extremely different beliefs. This is a finding that, Bossen argues, exemplifies the mechanisms behind twenty-first-century politics, including the rise of Trumpism. This groundbreaking comparative analysis challenges readers to consider the repetition of history in today's political landscape and shows them how to rise to the challenges of our current political moment.

An excavation of populist movements in the US and their associated religious tropes.In this work, author Colin Bossen argues that for over a century, American populist movements—even explicitly secular ones—have drawn on religious ideas and practices to infuse their politics and bring people together. Bossen explores Pan-African populism, white supremacist populism, and early twentieth-century pluralistic populism in the United States that coalesced into well-known, vastly different groups with a lasting presence in the American imagination: the Universal Negro Improvement Association (also known as the Garveyites), the Ku Klux Klan, and the Industrial Workers of the World (also known as the Wobblies). This book employs both historical analysis and political theory to unpack the trajectory of these groups and to illustrate how their respective search for belonging showcases as similar principles, despite their extremely different beliefs. This is a finding that, Bossen argues, exemplifies the mechanisms behind twenty-first-century politics, including the rise of Trumpism. This groundbreaking comparative analysis challenges readers to consider the repetition of history in today's political landscape and shows them how to rise to the challenges of our current political moment.

Tracing the arc of white supremacist populism in the United States from Indian Removal under Andrew Jackson through the administration of Donald Trump, this book is organized around the question: How should Unitarian Universalists respond to populism? The book points out the inefficacies that progressives, with their focus on state centered reform, use as a means of combating white supremacist populism. And argues that religious liberals, particularly Unitarian Universalists, can more effectively engage in the struggle against white supremacist populism by turning away from progressivism and turning towards the prefigurative traditions of anarchism and antifascism. This book is a must for scholars interested in Religion and Power.