U.S. Representative Nancy Mace from South Carolina appeared on a podcast this week, and declared that flying drones in the air above New Jersey could be part of an invasion from Iran or China, or could be from outer space, or might even be from outside the universe. Outside the universe? What does that even mean? This babbling nonsense from U.S. Representative Nancy Mace fits perfectly into her worldview of Christian Nationalism, an ideology that holds as a matter of undeniable faith that the world is filled with magical monsters such demons, angels, witches, unicorns, dragons, and leviathans in the ocean. Nancy Mace’s Seacoast Church is an extremist evangelical organization that insists that the Christian Bible is without error, instructing people to believe in magical spells and the resurrection of the dead as things that are literally real. Once a person believes in the reality of such absurd things, why wouldn’t they also believe that flying drones are part of an invasion of New Jersey from outside the entire universe? Christian Nationalism leaves no space for careful, critical thinking. That’s why Christian Nationalist Nancy Mace is using her position in the US Congress to whip up fears into an outright panic.

The US federal government has looked into the weird claims by Christian Nationalists that New Jersey is being invaded from the skies, actually. The government explains that sightings of drones include law enforcement drones, authorized commercial drones, and the mistaken identification of standard manned aircraft, such as small planes and helicopters. The government has provided answers, but U.S. Representative Nancy Mace prefers for voters to be living in fear of exotic invaders. That’s because Christian Nationalism depends upon irrational fear of outsiders as a political tool for consolidating power. Such is the nonsense that the Republican Christian Nationalists are set to impose upon the entire United States one month from now when Donald Trump takes power on January 20, 2025.