Eric Lane ends his powerful essay posted below, “The Christian Nationalist Government Is Here,” with the question that matters most: What are we going to do about it?
Let's not grow fearful here, my friends. The answer, ultimately, is democracy.
If Americans are concerned about the growing fusion of religious ideology and governmental power, the most consequential response available to them is to vote—and to vote en masse.
Christian nationalism did not acquire political influence overnight. It built organizations, cultivated candidates, developed legal strategies, created networks of donors and activists, and, crucially, turned people out to vote.
Those who believe in religious pluralism, public education, academic freedom, civil rights, constitutional government, and the separation of church and state must understand the importance of electoral participation with equal seriousness.
That does not mean everyone must vote the same way. It means citizens must pay attention to what candidates actually stand for, examine their records, and vote for those who genuinely represent their interests and their understanding of democracy.
And voting cannot be treated as something that happens only during presidential elections. Governors appoint officials. Legislatures write laws. State boards determine educational policy. Judges interpret constitutional rights. Members of Congress decide what becomes federal law. And all of this is happening while school boards, city councils, and county governments exercise enormous power over everyday life.
The lesson of Lane’s essay is therefore larger than Christian nationalism. Organized political minorities can exercise extraordinary political power even when the broader public disengages.
Democracy has always depended upon participation.
So, what are we going to do about it?
Register. Organize. Learn where candidates stand. Help others participate. Vote in primaries, local elections, midterms, and presidential elections.
And above all, vote in numbers large enough that government once again reflects the will and interests of the people it is supposed to serve.
-Angela Valenzuela
The Christian Nationalist Government Is Here
The Christian nationalist capture of the United States government has entered its most dangerous stage.
Aug 11, 2026
With his confirmation as attorney general, Todd Blanche—a man who wants to put “God front and center again” and make Christianity “actually a benefit”—now commands the Department of Justice and the vast machinery of federal law enforcement.
He is not alone. Pete Hegseth, openly aligned with Christian nationalism and its patriarchal vision of biblical authority, runs the Department of War. Russell Vought, a chief architect of Project 2025, is turning the Christian right’s blueprint into the daily machinery of government.
Christian nationalists no longer stand outside the gates demanding power. They are inside, pulling the levers.
Blanche’s confirmation gives them something indispensable to every authoritarian movement: the power to decide whom government protects, whom it prosecutes, and whose rights count.
And Blanche has already told us what he believes government should do. During a July 30 call organized by the White House Faith Office, he said his goal was to ensure that “God is front and center again” and that being a Christian in America is “actually a benefit.”
A benefit. That word gives the game away. Under the Constitution, Christianity is not supposed to be a benefit. Neither is Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, atheism, or any other religious identity. Government may neither punish nor reward you because of your beliefs. That is religious liberty. What Blanche described is religious privilege. There is a name for that: Christian nationalism. And when government enforces that privilege, there is another name for it: tyranny.
Agency by Agency
Blanche chairs Trump’s Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. Notice what Trump did not call it. It is not a task force against religious discrimination generally. The administration singled out Christians, constructed a persecution narrative around them, then handed the man who runs federal law enforcement the job of acting on it.
Blanche also served as an ex officio member of Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, chaired by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and populated with Franklin Graham, Ben Carson, Paula White-Cain, Eric Metaxas, and Kelly Shackelford. The seat belongs to the attorney general, making the point sharper: whoever runs Justice receives a place on a commission whose report compared church-state separation to a “Berlin wall” and whose chairman declared there is “no such thing as ‘separation of church and state’ in the Constitution.”
The campaign extends far beyond Justice.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has repeatedly used official communications to preach Christianity to more than 100,000 employees. Her Easter message told the entire workforce that “we celebrate” the Resurrection, invoked “our faith,” and proclaimed Jesus “our risen Lord.” Seven USDA employees and a federal workers’ union have sued, arguing that Rollins used the authority of her office to proselytize a captive workforce. She has continued sending the messages since the lawsuit began.
At Veterans Affairs, Secretary Doug Collins, a Baptist minister and Air Force Reserve chaplain, created his own anti-Christian-bias task force. He instructed employees to report colleagues for “informal policies, procedures, or unofficial understandings hostile to Christian views,” and asked for names, dates, and locations. Imagine the atmosphere that creates: federal employees wondering whether a colleague will report them for an opinion deemed insufficiently friendly to Christianity.
At Housing and Urban Development, Secretary Scott Turner has erased any remaining ambiguity. Turner, an associate pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church, has said Washington is “a mission field” and that “HUD is a great vehicle, but the Kingdom is the mission.” At the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference, he told the crowd, “The Biden administration worshiped the government as their God, but we in the Trump administration, we will worship God Almighty.”
At the Department of Education, Linda McMahon has partnered the federal government with Turning Point USA, Hillsdale College, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Heritage Foundation, and dozens of other conservative organizations through the America 250 Civics Education Coalition. The department calls it civics programming. The Freedom From Religion Foundation calls it an attempt to rewrite history through a Christian nationalist lens. Look at the partners and decide which description fits.
This is not a series of officials occasionally mentioning God. Agency by agency, Christian nationalists are replacing religious neutrality with Christian preference, turning public offices into pulpits and federal power into an instrument of religious restoration.
The Capture of the Other Branches
The project does not stop with the executive branch.
House Speaker Mike Johnson worked as an attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the most powerful legal organizations in the Christian right. He has called the Bible his worldview and the “ultimate source of all truth.” He has dismissed church-state separation as a “misnomer” and argued that the Founders intended America to be a Christian nation. He now occupies the highest position in the House of Representatives.
The same movement built the Supreme Court’s religious-right supermajority. Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society spent decades constructing the judicial pipeline. Leo advised Trump and helped shepherd Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh through confirmation. Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment completed the six-member conservative majority. That Court overturned Roe v. Wade. It has redirected public money toward religious education, expanded religious exemptions, protected public prayer by government employees, and steadily dismantled the wall separating church and state.
These justices did not emerge from a constitutional mist. They came through an ideological assembly line built by Leo, financed by secretive conservative money, and designed to remake American law. The operation worked.
The President Chosen by God
None of this could happen without the millions of white evangelical Protestants who supply the movement with votes, money, and divine permission. A PRRI survey conducted after the 2024 election found that 60 percent of white evangelical Protestants agreed that “God ordained Donald Trump to be the winner.”
Think about what that belief does to democracy. If voters elect a president, they may criticize him, restrain him, remove him. If God chooses the president, political opposition starts to look like rebellion against divine authority. Investigations become persecution. Court decisions become attacks on God’s servant. Elections matter only when they ratify what believers have already declared to be God’s will.
Trump’s personal conduct poses no obstacle to this theology. His evangelical defenders compare him to Cyrus, the pagan king God supposedly used for a purpose Cyrus never understood. It is a useful miracle. Every moral failure becomes evidence of a mysterious plan. Trump need not be honest, faithful, or particularly religious. He is the imperfect vessel chosen to destroy their enemies.
Trump understands the transaction. He gives the Christian right judges, abortion restrictions, public money for religious schools, and federal power. In return, its leaders place a halo over his head and tell their followers his authority comes from somewhere higher than the ballot box.
Leonard Leo supplied the judges. Russell Vought supplied the blueprint. Project 2025 supplied the personnel and policies. White evangelical Protestant supremacy supplied the army, and its religious leaders assured that army that God had chosen its commander.
Todd Blanche now holds the prosecutorial sword. The question is no longer whether Christian nationalists seek control of the United States government. Todd Blanche now holds the prosecutorial sword. Christian nationalists have captured enormous power across all three branches of the United States government. The question is no longer what they intend to do with it. They have already told us.
The question is: What are we going to do about it?
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