White Christian Nationalism Defines Donald Trump’s America

The followers of this creed misuse theology to justify the sexism and racism they defend, which poses a real threat to a democratic and pluralist society.

Christian nationalism, the belief that the United States is exclusively defined by a white Christianity, has become quite a creed for Donald Trump’s fanatic supporters.

It is no coincidence that inside the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to forcefully keep its defeated president in the White House, you could find many T-shirts bearing crosses and Christian slogans and symbols. CNN recently reported that Christian nationalists misuse theology in order to justify the sexism and racism they defend, which poses a real threat to a democratic and pluralist society.

One of the rising stars of Trumpism, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, did not mince words at a young Republicans’ summit recently in Tampa, Florida: “We should be Christian nationalists.” And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — who is rumored to have presidential ambitions — in turn urged the young people there to “put on the full armor of God, take a stand against the left’s schemes.” Trump himself said something similar at the same place: “(W)e are Americans, and Americans kneel to God, and God alone.”

Those who defend Christian nationalism believe that only those chosen by God, all of them white, of course, must control the political process of the “indispensable nation,” as Madeleine Albright once described it. Hence there are the attempts by Republicans in different states — under the pretense of preventing voter fraud, as they claim happened last time — to drastically limit voting rights and obstruct the vote of racial minorities.

Twenty percent of white Americans — that is, some 30 million citizens — embrace that heavily discriminatory and anti-democratic Christianity. Meanwhile, there are growing indications that Trump is determined to get revenge on Democrat Joe Biden, certain as he is that the Democrats stole the White House from him last time around.

And in the event he succeeds, he is preparing, among other things, a bloodbath in the public sector, reinstating an executive order he signed just a few days before losing the White House and that was rescinded by Biden. It is the order known as Schedule F, which would allow him to arbitrarily fire tens of thousands of federal employees, many more than the usual number who lose their jobs every time there is a change of government, in order to replace them with people he trusts completely.

Trump intends to make those changes across all departments, but above all, in the most important ones, such as the State Department, Justice Department, Defense Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service.

If the God of all Christians — but not the one Trump and his supporters are always invoking — does not fix things, the country and the world may as well get ready.