“If I perish, I perish.” — the chant Katie Gaddini heard from Esther’s Army at the National Mall, weeks before the 2024 election
Back in 2021, at the height of the pandemic, Margaret Atwood came on the show to talk about The Handmaid’s Tale — her warning of how trad wives, to borrow a contemporary phrase, could be exploited by an evangelical patriarchy. Five years later, the Stanford fellow Katie Gaddini offers a strikingly different vision. Her new book, Esther’s Army: The Christian Women Who Power the American Right (out today), is the product of nine years of research and over 100 interviews with conservative Christian women across 28 states.
These women, this army of Esthers, are not handmaidens, Gaddini concludes. “They are very much in charge. They are politically engaged. They, in many cases, hold political positions of power.”
Gaddini grew up as an evangelical — her father a pastor, with four more pastors in her extended family. She voted for George Bush “naturally,” before discovering she could be a Christian and not a Republican. But she is less a rebel against her upbringing as much as a sociologist with a Cambridge doctorate.
She was living in London when Trump won the 2016 nomination and wondered how it was that Christian women were planning to vote for this most imperfect of men? Nine years and 100 interviews later, the answer turns out to be more complicated than the standard liberal media exploitation tale about handmaids.
The book’s title comes from the women themselves. At a 250,000-person rally on the National Mall weeks before the 2024 election, Gaddini saw women wearing gold-plated Esther necklaces, chanting “If I perish, I perish” from the Book of Esther. Gaddini interprets this as a striking theological shift — away from the forgiveness of the New Testament toward the Manichaean Old Testament narrative of violence, destruction, and an imperfect male figure designed by God to redeem the rest of us. Donald Trump, in this telling, is King David. Or Jehu.
Margaret Atwood better watch out. This Army of Esthers are warriors, not handmaidens, and they are preparing for an apocalyptical war. If you perish, you perish. Another Old Testament-style pandemic.
Five Takeaways
• Not Handmaids: Trad Wives Are a Tiny, Overhyped Fringe: Gaddini went into nine years of research expecting to find Atwood-style oppression. Instead: only one of her hundred-plus interviewees follows a trad wife on social media. Trad wives are overpopulated in media attention but represent a much smaller political force than coverage suggests. The women Gaddini actually studied span homeschool moms involved in local politics to Heritage Foundation lawyers to women working at the top echelons of power in Washington DC. They are diehard MAGA supporters and politically engaged — the opposite of passive.
• The Hidden History: Women Built the Conservative Movement Since the 1970s: Gaddini’s archival research into the Reagan administration found women — never household names — who drafted legislation that still shapes policy today, including the squashing of federal child care. Phyllis Schlafly was not an aberration but part of coordinated networks of women who strategised together at national conventions, even as Schlafly took the spotlight while others worked behind the scenes. Books about the Christian right’s formation in the 1980s have largely written women out of the story. Gaddini is writing them back in.
• Conservative Feminism: A More Complicated Relationship Than Expected: Gaddini expected uniform hostility to feminism, the classic Schlafly-era position. Instead she found a more nuanced split: some women reject feminism as toxic; others embrace a self-styled “conservative feminism,” remapping their politics onto a new understanding of women’s empowerment. They reframe issues the left claims as women’s issues — reproductive rights, birth control — as harmful to women, and argue that capitalism itself benefits women by letting families thrive on a single strong salary. A repackaging of feminist language for a conservative, highly gendered worldview.
• If I Perish, I Perish: The Old Testament Shift and the Esther Necklaces: At a 250,000-person rally on the National Mall weeks before the 2024 election, Gaddini saw international attendees — women from South Korea, Brazil, nuns from Nantucket — wearing gold Esther necklaces and chanting the book of Esther’s key line. The theological shift she’s tracking: away from the New Testament and Jesus, toward Old Testament violence, destruction, and imperfect male figures redeemed for God’s purposes — the allegories comparing Trump to King David or Jehu. These women see themselves as warriors, not handmaidens. There is, in their minds, an absolute war going on.
• The Fracture Lines: Iran, MAHA, and the Jesus Selfie: Gaddini’s research captures real fault lines opening in 2026: the Iran strikes alienated Trump voters who wanted America out of foreign wars; MAHA women — anti-vax homeschool moms alongside liberal Bay Area “crunchy” mothers, an unlikely ideological alliance forged through RFK Jr.’s endorsement — are furious about pesticide regulation rollbacks; and Trump’s social media image styled as Jesus (he said it was meant to be a doctor) did not land well even with his base. Nobody Gaddini interviewed thinks Trump is a good Christian. They believe his policies align with their vision of America. That, for them, is what matters.
About the Guest
Katie Gaddini is a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, Associate Professor of Sociology at the Social Research Institute, University College London, and a UKRI Research Fellow at Stanford and UCL (2022–2026). She is the author of Esther’s Army: The Christian Women Who Power the American Right (W.W. Norton, June 30, 2026) and The Struggle to Stay: Why Single Evangelical Women Are Leaving the Church. Her writing has appeared in TIME, The Huffington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Hill. She hosts the Podium and the Pulpit podcast and Substack.
References:
• Esther’s Army: The Christian Women Who Power the American Right by Katie Gaddini (W.W. Norton, June 30, 2026).
• Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale — referenced at the opening; Atwood previously appeared on KOA.
• Phyllis Schlafly — the 1970s conservative organiser; previously covered on KOA.
• Delano Squires, The Vanishing Black Family — referenced; Heritage Foundation fellow, recent KOA guest.
• Arlie Russell Hochschild, Stolen Pride — referenced as a sociological influence and fellow Bay Area scholar; ...
