‘Haunting’ the Nation: MAGA Political Theology, Fanonian Decolonization, and a Pan-Africanist Pneumatology of Liberation

This paper examines the MAGA movement as a theological and temporal struggle over the meanings of history, progress, and national belonging in the United States. By invoking a nostalgic vision of a mythic American past, MAGA political discourse often frames movements for racial justice, immigration reform, gender equality, and LGBTQ rights as evidence of national decline rather than democratic progress. Drawing on Frantz Fanon’s theory of decolonization alongside the liberationist theologies of Gustavo Gutiérrez and James H. Cone, the paper interprets these conflicts as struggles over colonial memory and the haunting presence of unresolved histories of slavery, racial violence, and exclusion. Engaging the theme of “Haunting Future/s,” the paper develops a Pan-Africanist Fanonian pneumatology of liberation in which ancestral memory and diasporic spiritual practices challenge Christian nationalist narratives and reimagine the ethical promise of the Kingdom of God.