Public figures can reverse their critique and embrace a stigmatized label in defiance

Evidence

Mohler’s journey doesn’t end here. Just seven months after calling Christian nationalism idolatrous and obscuring the role it played in the insurrection, Mohler embraced the label “Christian nationalist” during a July 2022 interview with a conservative philosopher. He declared, “We have the Left routinely speaking of me and of others as ‘Christian nationalists’ as if we’re supposed to be running from that. And, you know, I’m not about to run from that. I’m not about to join their one world order.” Mohler now seems to think that if “the Left”—which he never clearly identifies—dislikes Christian nationalism, then it’s an identity worth embracing. Other national religious and political leaders have joined Mohler in explicitly adopting the label. This is a regrettable and serious development. — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 138

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader pattern in the Islamophobia literature where groups reclaim stigmatizing labels, and to Complaints About Immodesty’s theme of labels cycling through accusation and embrace. — connects to: Visible celebrity claimsmakers can shift public frames and weaken opposition to a marginalized group — Emily Greene-Colozzi, Amy Adamczyk, and Senahan Kiyal Keles, Differences in Religious Framing of…, 23; Reclaiming a slur as a defiant identity label emerges from colonized shame — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 333; Public figurehood under brand logic forbids change, ambiguity, and contradiction (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Adopting a derogatory label as one’s own identity can transform oppression. #expands (0.90) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 694
• Political reclamation rearticulates a stigmatized term rather than replacing it #expands (0.88) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 233
• Oppressed groups reclaim power by rearticulating their own stigmatized signifiers. #expands (0.85)
• Public figurehood under brand logic forbids change, ambiguity, and contradiction #complicates (0.82)
• Reclaiming a slur as a defiant identity label emerges from colonized shame #expands (0.80) — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 333
• Visible celebrity claimsmakers can shift public frames and weaken opposition to a marginalized group #responds-to (0.75) — Emily Greene-Colozzi, Amy Adamczyk, and Senahan Kiyal Keles, Differences in Religious Framing of…, 23