Faith, Fear, and Fascism: America’s Dangerous New Religion
The White House isn’t a government anymore, it’s a pulpit, and the sermon is extremist. Trump’s evangelicals don’t want democracy; they want theocracy, and they’re winning.
In the dimly lit corridors of power, where democracy was once enshrined in the principles of secular governance, a new kind of authority has taken root. The White House, an institution that once prided itself on the separation of church and state, has been transformed into a pulpit for religious extremism. With the establishment of the White House Faith Office and the appointment of Paula White, an unabashed prosperity gospel televangelist, American democracy has taken a perilous turn towards theocracy.
Paula White is no ordinary preacher. She is not just another voice in the cacophony of American evangelicalism. She is a zealot who believes that Donald Trump’s presidency is divinely ordained.
“To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God, and I won’t do that,” she once proclaimed.
Her worldview is steeped in the idea that Trump is a messianic figure, a chosen one, ordained to rule by the hand of God1. This isn’t merely about faith, it’s about power, and it’s about control.
Trump’s new Faith Office is not a benign attempt to foster interfaith dialogue or ensure religious liberty. It is the culmination of years of evangelical infiltration into the corridors of government, a project designed to systematically erode the secular foundations upon which America was built. The evangelicals who propelled Trump to power, both in 2016 and again in 2024, are not content with political victories alone. They seek a deeper transformation: a nation governed not by law, but by scripture; a democracy that bends to the will of religious fundamentalism.
It is worth remembering that evangelicals have played this role before in history, and their fingerprints are all over some of the darkest chapters of human governance. The parallels between Trump’s evangelical backing and the religious movements that buttressed Hitler’s rise to power are too glaring to ignore. In Nazi Germany, the Deutsche Christen, a movement within German Protestantism, aligned itself with Hitler, seeing his ascension as part of God’s divine plan. They rewrote religious doctrine to fit the Führer’s ideology, bending the gospel to serve state power. Much like Trump’s evangelicals, they saw themselves as warriors in a spiritual battle, defenders of a divinely ordained ruler.
The same script is being played out in America today. Evangelicals, led by figures like Paula White, have turned Trump into an object of worship. They have abandoned any pretence of spiritual integrity in favour of raw, unbridled power. Their influence has manifested in policies that prioritise religious dogma over constitutional rights. Women’s reproductive freedoms, LGBTQ+ rights, and scientific research are all under siege, sacrificed at the altar of religious extremism.
Religious extremism, regardless of its denomination, follows a predictable path. It starts with a charismatic leader who claims divine authority. It then infiltrates political institutions, embedding itself within the structures of governance. From there, it imposes its doctrine through legislation, criminalising dissent, stifling opposition, and ensuring that faith, not democracy, dictates law. We have seen it in Iran, where clerical rule has obliterated individual freedoms. We have seen it in Afghanistan, where the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam has turned the country into a theocratic prison. And now, we are seeing it in America, where Trump’s White House Faith Office has become a breeding ground for Christian nationalism.
Evangelicals, Hitler, and the Jewish Trap
What is extremely worrying is that extremists like Netanyahu have revelled in Trump’s victory2, seeing it as a green light for their own hardline agendas. If figures like Paula White and her evangelical allies get their way, their ultimate theological vision is chilling: they do not seek to elevate Jews but to usher them toward a fate they believe is divinely mandated, eternal damnation3. Evangelicals like White support Israel not out of genuine solidarity with the Jewish people, but because they see it as a necessary step in their apocalyptic prophecy, where Jews must either convert or be condemned to hell.
The hypocrisy of such alliances finds disturbing historical parallels in the religious movements that supported Hitler’s genocidal policies. The Deutsche Christen, the pro-Nazi faction of the German Protestant Church, actively promoted the idea that Hitler was fulfilling God’s will, and their role in justifying the Holocaust cannot be ignored. The movement worked to “de-Judaize” Christianity, erasing its Jewish roots and aligning religious doctrine with Nazi racial ideology.
As historian Doris L. Bergen explains4,
“The Deutsche Christen saw Hitler as an agent of divine redemption, a leader chosen by God to cleanse Germany of its Jewish ‘taint’” (Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich).
This ideological manipulation bears a striking resemblance to the way evangelicals today twist their faith to justify Trump’s policies and their own extreme vision of Christian supremacy. Just as Nazi-aligned clergy blessed Hitler’s antisemitic laws and gave moral cover to the Holocaust, today’s evangelicals push a theocratic agenda that, while not advocating physical genocide, seeks the ultimate erasure of Jewish identity through forced conversion or damnation. In both cases, religious zealots see themselves as foot soldiers in a cosmic battle, justifying oppression in the name of divine providence.
As theologian Susannah Heschel notes5,
“The Protestant Church was not a victim of Nazi persecution, it was a perpetrator, complicit in the machinery of genocide” (The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany).
Likewise, American evangelicals are not neutral observers in geopolitical affairs. Their unwavering support for Israel is not about protecting Jewish lives, but about hastening what they believe to be the Second Coming of Christ, at which point Jews must convert or perish. This is why figures like John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, can openly declare6, “God sent Hitler to drive the Jews back to the land of Israel” and still maintain a platform within evangelical circles. Such a worldview is no less insidious than that of the Deutsche Christen: both exploit Judaism for their own ends, reducing Jewish people to mere instruments in a theological narrative that ultimately seeks their destruction.
From Democracy to Theocracy: Trump’s Evangelical Coup
Paula White’s rhetoric leaves no room for doubt. She speaks of “demonic networks” that must be “broken” in the name of Trump’s presidency. She calls for “angels” to descend upon the White House, for the forces of heaven to protect Trump from his enemies. This is not the language of a democracy. It is the language of a crusade. It is the rhetoric of religious warfare, designed to mobilise believers into seeing Trump’s political adversaries as enemies of God.
And what happens when a government starts to believe it is acting on behalf of divine authority? History tells us that the consequences are catastrophic. When religious ideology takes the place of governance, rational policy-making is thrown out the window. Laws are no longer based on evidence, but on doctrine. Science becomes subservient to scripture. Rights become conditional upon faith. The result is a nation that no longer serves its people, but instead serves a religious elite.
The erosion of democratic principles under Trump’s religious right is not happening in isolation, it is part of a broader, systematic effort to reshape America’s institutions to serve an extremist agenda. The recent purge7 of Pentagon websites, which included the removal of articles about Holocaust remembrance, sexual assault awareness, and suicide prevention under the guise of scrubbing “diversity” content, signals just how far this administration is willing to go to rewrite history and silence inconvenient truths. These erasures are not simply bureaucratic oversights; they are ideological manoeuvres aimed at controlling the narrative, much like authoritarian regimes of the past. By eliminating these critical historical and social issues from public discourse, Trump’s theocratic allies are laying the groundwork for a nation where uncomfortable realities are erased, and only their doctrine remains.
The very foundation of American democracy rests upon the principle that government should not be dictated by religious dogma. The First Amendment was designed to ensure that no single faith could dominate the state. The Founding Fathers, despite their varied religious beliefs, understood that a theocratic government would be the death knell of liberty. But Trump, in his second term, has made it clear that he sees these principles as outdated, obstacles to be swept aside in his quest to reshape America in his own image.
This is not a theoretical concern. The signs are already here. The push to overturn reproductive rights. The legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ communities. The rewriting of history in school curriculums to fit a Christian nationalist agenda. The demonisation of secularism as an existential threat. These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a broader strategy to reshape America into a country where religious conformity is enforced through state power.
The White House is no longer a seat of democratic governance. It is a pulpit. And the sermon being delivered is one of exclusion, control, and fanaticism. For those who believe in the separation of church and state, who believe that America’s strength lies in its pluralism and diversity, this moment is a dire warning. Theocratic rule does not arrive overnight. It creeps in, cloaked in the language of faith and morality, until one day, the rights we took for granted are gone.
America is at a crossroads. The rise of Trump’s religious right is not just an assault on democracy, it is an existential threat to the principles that define the nation. If history has taught us anything, it is that when religious extremism gains control of government, it does not stop. It expands. It legislates. It persecutes. And it does so in the name of righteousness.
The question now is whether Americans will allow this to happen. Whether they will stand by as their democracy is hijacked by those who see governance not as a duty to all citizens, but as a divine mandate to impose their faith. If they do, history will not be kind. It never is to those who allow theocracy to take hold.
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The Threat to Democracy in Trump’s Words
In the high-octane spectacle that is the American presidential campaign, there’s always been a fair share of grandstanding, bizarre promises, and jaw-dropping statements. But what’s happening now in the Trump campaign is beyond the usual political theatre—it’s something far more sinister, something that threatens the very bedrock of democracy. And it’s time we all take notice.
In Trump, Netanyahu Sees a More Favorable U.S. President — The New York Times.
How anti-Semitic beliefs have taken hold among some evangelical Christians — The Washington Post.
The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich — The University of North Carolina.
The Aryan Jesus — PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.
He Claimed God Sent Hitler to Create Israel. Now He’s Speaking at the Pro-Israel Rally. What? — Mother Jones.