Donald Trump, Christian nationalist?

By his fruits shall ye know him

This is part of a series on the concrete policy stakes of a second Trump presidency. Previous articles covered immigration and trade. Upgrading to a paid subscription means you never miss one of these posts, and helps provide access to America Explained for readers who can’t afford to pay.

Donald Trump, whatever you might think of him, is not particularly ideologically consistent. He practices a form of identity politics which is much more about defining and destroying perceived enemies than it is about concrete policy outcomes. This is probably why Trumpism evolved over the course of his presidency - and also since 2020 - to be actually mostly about the person of Donald Trump himself. The deep state, the stolen election, the conspiracy to put him in prison - these are all ideas through which Trump’s supporters have been convinced that defending Trump himself somehow amounts to defending themselves. Trump frequently expresses this idea directly, telling audiences that the attempts to destroy him are actually an attempt to destroy them.

The self-referential nature of Trumpism means that it’s never been entirely clear what its concrete aspirations for the country are. Any attempt to define them quickly devolves into wishy-washy identity politics. MAGA means protecting America from foreigners who rip it off, but in terms of a positive program it has little to offer but nostalgia for the 1950s. The ideal citizen of MAGA-land is a white, middle-class man with a steady job, supporting a family and embracing right-wing cultural politics. He perhaps works in or adjacent to the manufacturing industry, which is understood in the MAGA worldview to involve the sort of labor-intensive industrial work which has mostly not existed in the West for decades.

If you try to point to what Trump actually did - or proposes today to do - to concretely bring this type of society into existence, you come up blank. He has a “let them eat tweets” mentality - he tries to ride the politics of grievance to triumph, not to concretely transform the nation.

As a result, Trump has always been surrounded by people who do have very strong and consistent ideological agendas, and hope to use him as a vehicle for accomplishing them. By all accounts, Trump is extremely uninformed about public policy and also has zero interest in being informed about it. This has led many people to think he could be used for their own ends. Steve Bannon is one such example, but he’s not alone. In their own way, the Federalist Society, the Club for Growth, Wall Street guys, defense hawks, and many others tried - and are trying - to get close to Trump in order to sway his impressionable mind. Some of them - like the Federalist Society - succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, while others like Steve Bannon left the administration embittered by Trump’s refusal to listen to them and now carp from the outside.

Christian nationalism

A few days ago, Politico brought news of another group which is stepping up to try to secure a big role in any second Trump administration: Christian nationalists. I’ll quote extensively from the report because it’s worth taking it in:

Spearheading the effort is Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget during his first term and has remained close to him. Vought, who is frequently cited as a potential chief of staff in a second Trump White House, is president of The Center for Renewing America think tank, a leading group in a conservative consortium preparing for a second Trump term.

Christian nationalists in America believe that the country was founded as a Christian nation and that Christian values should be prioritized throughout government and public life. As the country has become less religious and more diverse, Vought has embraced the idea that Christians are under assault and has spoken of policies he might pursue in response.

One document drafted by CRA staff and fellows includes a list of top priorities for CRA in a second Trump term. “Christian nationalism” is one of the bullet points. Others include invoking the Insurrection Act on Day One to quash protests and refusing to spend authorized congressional funds on unwanted projects, a practice banned by lawmakers in the Nixon era.

[…]

[In a related effort], in 2019, Trump’s then-secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, set up a federal commission to define human rights based on the precepts Vought describes, specifically “natural law and natural rights.” Natural law is the belief that there are universal rules derived from God that can’t be superseded by government or judges. While it is a core pillar of Catholicism, in recent decades it’s been used to oppose abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and contraception.

[…]

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 offers more visibility into what policy agenda a future Trump administration might pursue. It says policies that support LGBTQ+ rights, subsidize “single-motherhood” and penalize marriage should be repealed because subjective notions of “gender identity” threaten “Americans’ fundamental liberties.”

To see this worldview in action, just look at Alabama, where the state Supreme Court has just ruled that someone who accidentally dropped and destroyed frozen embryos can be held criminally liable for their death because embryos are people. Fringe elements of the religious right have sought a ruling like this for decades because it opens the way for recognizing a fetus or embryo as a person under constitutional law, meaning that abortion and even certain forms of contraception could be classified as murder. And right on cue, there’s currently a state bill under consideration in Oklahoma, based on the same principle, which proposes to create a database to track women who have abortions and limit the use of both the “morning-after pill” and intrauterine devices which prevent the implantation of a fertilized embryo.

Further legislation and court rulings will now follow, and if the Alabama decision is upheld, it could turn American constitutional law - and the rights of every citizen - on their head.

Trump the believer?

What’s happening in Alabama is terrifying. But could Trump actually become a vehicle for implementing this worldview on a national scale?