Years before she became a homeschool influencer in western Arkansas, Taylor Moran was a liberal Dallas mom who voted for Bernie Sanders. But when the pandemic hit, Moran, now 34, was struck by the government’s inability to provide for her family. “It was a lot of rules, a lot of hysteria, a lot of things that didn’t make sense,” Moran told RNS.
In early 2021, after what she described as an “overnight spiritual experience,” Moran embraced Christianity and moved her family to rural Arkansas. As her faith grew, so did her skepticism of the pharmaceutical industry, rigid school curriculums and gender as a construct. Today, while her social media content isn’t overtly political or religious, her convictions surface in posts about organic whole foods, her family’s nature school and how to raise sons.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many American mothers like Moran began to question the institutions they had once trusted to uphold their lives. Into that vacuum stepped conservative Christian women influencers — like political commentator Allie Beth Stuckey, Make America Healthy Again pioneer Alex Clark, and anti-trans activist Riley Gaines Barker — who blend religion, polished aesthetics and personal stories to build trust on issues from food dyes and vaccines to transgender athletes and immigration.
Stuckey, for one, is clear that she believes demonic forces are at play in battles over abortion and “gender ideology.” Since 2018, Stuckey, 33, has offered Scripture-fused conservative commentary on her “Relatable” podcast. “Post-COVID, a lot of people felt isolated. And post all of the events of 2020, a lot of Christian women felt like, oh my goodness, I’m alone,” Stuckey told RNS.
For many women during the pandemic, vaccine mandates were the inflection point. That was the case for Clark, a 32-year-old Scottsdale, Arizona-based wellness influencer. “I just started slowly questioning more and more about the advice we were being given,” she told RNS. Suspicion about the COVID vaccine and learning about the FDA’s role in the Purdue Pharma opioid scandal left Clark distrusting the government and medical establishments.
Sociologist Katie Gaddini, author of the forthcoming book “Esther’s Army: The Christian Women Who Power the American Right,” said that in 2020, pandemic skepticism, pushback to the Black Lives Matter protests and disbelief over Trump’s election loss culminated in widespread conservative disillusionment. “That shift has elevated the trust and the importance that is given to these forms of Christian conservative media figures,” she said.
