White Christian Nationalism has taken over the White House

As Trump proclaims, the separation of church and state is over ("forget the separation of church and state"), what takes its place in the White House? It appears it is White Christian Nationalism, if not in words, at least in deed.  Its actions that clearly target cleansing the US of as many brown people as they can are clearly racist as well as political.  Tactics used are not Christian, based upon hatred and fear of neighbors not like you, and treating people cruelly are not either.  Trump is not noted for his devotion to the teachings of Christ, but his history of racism is a theme throughout his public life.  The two, white Christian Nationalism and racism, have found a home in the White House.  The shaper of the inhumane treatment of migrants from south of the border, the person setting the the goals for the warehousing of brown people caught in the dragnet of ICE (put them all in concentration camps if they look brown and speak Spanish, then figure out which ones get deported while depriving the imprisoned of legal representation), is looking more and more like Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff.  His background also reeks of White Christian Nationalism. 

Update: 3/6/2026  Is the US being led into Iran war by a religious radical who sees this as a holy war?  In a scary vein is Pete Hegseth head of the Department of "War".  His view of Christianity is of the crusades and he sees life in terms of this. If he sees Iran as a holy war, we should be more than concerned.. Rationality is out the window.

 It's Pete Hegseth's theology that ought to concern us – Baptist News Global

What to know about the archconservative church Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends | PBS News

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric

From my prior posting on this blog:

The real shame is that so many Americans share or tolerate (Trump's)racism.

The other shame is that his racist whisperer is in his ear daily and given a permission slip to proceed. Stephen Miller, on his staff has a long history of white nationalism. If anything, Miller's contribution to the Trump regime is his anti-immigrant stance, including using the cruelty of family separation as a tool and in deporting immigrants without due process. He is viewed as an extremist in these sensitive matters. Given his anti-immigrant reputation, I doubt that the Bill of Rights and the civil rights-related amendments would be high on his required list of curriculum topics. The Southern Poverty Law Center tags him as an extremist.https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/stephen-miller/. Miller is in charge of this ICE project aimed at ridding the country of as many brown people as he can under the pretext that migrants are criminals when 70 percent of those they grab have no criminal record.. ..but are brown and are both American citizens and who only committed a misdemeanor of being undocumented. Miller's campaign involves eliminating the birthright citizenship of those born in the US and cleansing them from this country.

The irony is that not all Christians buy into this ideology of White Christian Nationalism, particularly the Catholic Church and the Council of Bishops. Almost all of those victims of ICE's dragnet and cruel warehousing are Catholics. In addition, a large array of Protestant churches that are not part of the "evangelical movement" have had members actively participating in opposing ICE actions, including Presbyterians, Methodists, Unitarians, and others. Their motivations are not legalistic, but moral, religious, and being humane to their neighbors. They have moved the more popular description of migrants promoted by Donald Trump himself from "murderers and rapists" to "neighbors" in the Biblical sense. Good Samaritans have taken the place of racists and nationalists in many minds.

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Moral indignation rises as a major imperative of anti-ICE protests

Trump said “forget about separation of church and state." He meant it.

Christian leaders denounce Trump actions, warn of 'crisis of faith'

“The Thought of Holding Thousands of Families in Massive Warehouses Should Challenge the Conscience of Every American,” Says Bishop Cahill | USCCB

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: I fear white supremacy has raised its ugly head again.

One of the most puzzling aspects about those who are completely devoted to Trump the leader is that some feel a religious zeal to see him as a second coming, or a Christ-like figure:  While none of us is free from sin, not all sins are the same. Some are worse than others, and the early Catholic church came up with a list we also call "the seven deadly sins". Dante wrote a classic about it.  It's as good today as it was then as a starting point to rate the personal relative morality of ourselves or others. There might be a better role model out there. Per our friend at AI google: here they are:"They are considered root sins that lead to other immoral actions, consisting of pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, lust, and gluttony. 

Here is the list of the seven deadly sins with their definitions:

• Pride (Hubris): Considered the original and most serious sin, it is an excessive belief in one's own abilities and a sense of superiority over others.
• Greed (Avarice): An excessive desire for material possessions, wealth, or gain.
• Lust: An intense, uncontrolled longing or craving, particularly for sexual pleasure.
• Envy: The desire to possess what someone else has, coupled with sadness or resentment at their good fortune.
• Gluttony: The overindulgence or excessive consumption of food, drink, or other items to the point of waste.
• Wrath (Anger): Uncontrolled feelings of hatred, rage, and animosity, often leading to a desire for vengeance.
• Sloth: Extreme laziness, apathy, or the failure to utilize one's talents and act upon103 duties. 

•  

I fear white supremacy has raised its ugly head again.

 I fear white supremacy has raised its ugly head again. From my Muftic Forum facebook posting today edited a bit. 

Some personal musings and hand-wringing in the marching orders to the Department of Justice, to focus instead on White rights instead of the civil rights of minorities. https://www.cbsnews.com/.../justice-department-reverse...

Except for eggs (the bird flu epidemic seems to be over), the price of groceries has either stayed the same since Trump promised to lower the prices or has risen dramatically in beef and pork. And, no, gas for my car is not under $2 per gal. AAA says it is averaging well over $2 per gal.

Now I am seeing some shifting in polls, with focus instead on groceries and gas is now on the cost of health care, housing, and retirement, which are big-ticket items that even the middle class is feeling the pain about. Other evaluators and opinion writers watch to see if the MAGA devotees are losing their love of TruImp. Still, his MAGA base, by any estimmates comprise 30 to 35% of the total vote, and the majority of the GOP are holding firm. Any shifts recently to blue have come mostly from independents and Hispanics.

I have always felt the cost of living was not the real concern for MAGA, but it was the stand-in issue for other issues still not politically correct to be so open about. Outweighing the cost of living and affordability of modern life is what I would most kindly identify as "cultural". This umbrella term includes racist attitudes. and that the "again" part of the MAGA slogan most likely refers to pre-civil rights legislation of the 1950's. Anti-DEI removal from every government standard in the past year is just fine for Trump's base, and now the DOJ, under Trump's direction, is to protect the rights of White people who have been so discriminated against, even though they are the majority.

The recent 'Monkey flap depicting the Obamas as monkeys' is revealing, given the silence coming from the right with a few exceptions. Trump blames it on a staffer, but has not apologized. Update: 2/14/2026, Trump has even attacked members of the GOP who have criticized the monkey business as disloyal to him. What that says to me is that he himself believes his MAGA base is as racist as he is, and who also believe that black people are directly descended from apes and are still inferior to White people. Trump privately lashes out at GOP lawmakers over racist video blowback, sources say

That view of Black people was in my most racist Jim Crow eastern Oklahoma birth place and what I experienced and heard until I went off to college in 1956." Negroes were inherently descended from a branch of apes, so it went ,who were therefore inferior and incapable of governing (good at sports and music, however), either to be treated, like children paternalistically, andalso to keep them separate from us White folks. (The Obamas, intellectually, behaviorally, and oratorically, were a slap in the face of the old trope.)

There appears to be still a large segment of Americans stuck in the attitudes of the 1950's, even though there are subsequent generations in leadership. The silence from all but a few to the monkey posting on Trump's media on the right is incriminating. While being called "racist" by those on the left as an insult hurled at MAGA, I fear there are many in MAGA who look in the mirror and are OK with being called one and who are comfortable with a president who has a lifetime history of racist dog whistles and policies that resemble their own feelings.

The icing on the cake, in case you are still upset or sceptical of my view is what happened this past week: While DEI is now removed as a standard for government behavior, the orders from above to the DOJ are now to protect the majority racial groups in power, us White people, who have been so discriminated against by DEI and civil rights legislation. White supremacy has now come out of the closet and into the light as official public policy.

White Christian nationalism is closely related to racism and white supremacy. It has overtaken the White House and Trump, himself, as Trump says the separation of church and state is no more. https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2026/02/moral-indignation-rises-as-major.html

Trump refuses to apologize after posting meme condemned as racist | Watch. Would it be because he would turn off part of this MAGA base who agrees with the belief that the Obamas are descended from apes so they are lesser.

Modern anthropology and science have found the following, per a Goog;e AI search of the question if White people are also descended from apes. The answer:

•  Early hominid species (human ancestors) diverged from the ancestors of chimpanzees and gorillas in Africa
• Race and Evolution: All modern human populations (white, Black, Asian, etc.) share a common ancestor that lived around 200,000 years ago in Africa.
• Light Skin Development: The development of white skin in Europeans is a relatively recent evolutionary adaptation (roughly 8,000–12,000 years ago) as populations moved into higher latitudes. 

Why is it some verbal slings and arrows do not bother Trump or MAGA?

  MAGA seems to dismiss certain verbal attacks on them by the libs as not just hot air, but they  ignore and sometimes even embrace what others call slurs and insults like the words fascists and dictators.  The most stunning recent development has been the millions participating in peaceful marches under the banner of "No Kings", a polite way of calling Trump a wannabe dictator who is destroying the democracy we have had for 250 years.  Trump just brushed that off before the entire world by not being offended by being called a dictator, but embracing it in Davos with "sometimes you need a dictator.. There is evidence that many in the MAGA movement agree, given CPAC and the implementing documents of  Project 2025 and actions unfolding before our very eyes on amateur and professional videos. They are either silent or in denial.

Is it time to call Trump a fascist kind of dictator? Dictators are not confined to specific ideologies. They can just as easily be communists as those on the farthest right. A recent case was made in the Atlantic that it was time to call Trump a fascist, despite the negative reaction it would inflame. My answer is to call specific actions the same as what fascists once did, instead of calling people or a group fascists. Fascist is still an insulting label, and hurling insults never was a good way to make friends and influence people. Yes, there are those within the MAGA movement who are there for reasons other than ideology or hero worship, are fearful, or have political and business ambitions. who would not like to be called fascists. Applebaum at the Atlantic, Maddow at MSNOW, and a bevy of historians and political scientists have doing a yeoman's job in educating what fascists in the last century did, but there needs to be more explicit linking the specific act to being similar to fascism,  similar to what the fascists once did.

The implicit message is, if you do not want to be called a fascist, then do not act like one. 

There is plenty of evidence that some in MAGA have already decided it would take a dictator to accomplish what they want to happen. What they want to happen sums it up in Make America Again, back to an era that resembles the 1950's, I suspect, though the "again" is never dated by  MAGA interviewees, but resembles their attitudes that look like before the civil rights legislation and DEI.  As evidence, CPAC(the conservative political action committee) began holding meetings in Hungary, whose dictator, Viktor Orbán, epitomized the kind of strong leadership that was their ideal. If that was not enough of a clue of what kind of America MAGA wanted to have govern us, they gave us another clue: Project 2025, which was a publicly printed blueprint of how to remove the checks and balances that kept a King, a tyrant, a despot, a dictator from becmiing "president", and used the placid term: unitary government. It would make the "president" be both the legislative and judicial branches, by subjugating those branches to his/her power. In his second term, the writers of that document were put in key positions to carry out the methods of achieving Project 2025 to replace all decision-making positions,  civil service protected, and appointee positions with appointees who were screened to ideological loyalty to the White Nationalist agenda. It was done under the banner of getting rid of the deep state. Laced throughout that document was the destruction of DEI in all matters. Trump appointed the Project 2025 architect as the person in charge of personnel and then proceeded to use the DOJ to threaten and to prosecute those who put up resistance or who did not resign.   Their weapon and tool was Donald Trump, who seems to have never enough absolute power to suit his appetite, even after his appointees on the Supreme Court gifted him immunity from criminal prosecution. Trump himself touted his lack of moral standards (he'll use his own version of what is moral, he told Davos) "transactional.. another polite term that means right is whatever favors him and his advantage and power, which he believes, and said so, in a recent interview that he has the power to do whatever he wants.

The other element in the MAGA equation, not openly expressed because there is still an element of political correctness, is, in my opinion, the belief that white people were superior to those of other colors and races, and they deserved to be the ones governing the country. The evidence is that they support a president whose racism ranges from calling brown migrants, legal or not, those who are "poisoning the blood of our country", sometimes referring to them bringing diseases", or who mostly were rapists and murderers as he descdended his golden escalator, and then to even call neo Nazis some fine people in the Charlottesville demonstrations. .  MAGA's silence when being called racists or supporters of the white race is as good as consent. They are supportive, or silent, of ICE targeting only those of color for their drag net, a racial profiling, mass deportation policy that not only got the murderers and rapists, but also deported far more who were only guilty of a misdemeanor by not having documents showing legal status. Even some who flashed proof of birth, passports, green cards, said they were citizens, were caught and sent to detention camps if they looked or had accents like migrants.

What has unnerved the MAGAs is that millions of white, middle-class people objected to the tactics of ICE by marching in every big city and red and blue hamlets in America.  They do not share the MAGA values. What word the citizens of Minneapolis coined was to call migrants of color their neighbors, in the spirit of the words spoken by Christ or some other moral standards.  They backed up their attitudes by helping those afraid to be snatched by ICE agents in danger because of their color, accent or language, even if they had proof of legal status. 

 The final straw that may put a dent in MAGA itself (maybe) or further inspired more protesters (for sure) was the suppression of white protesters whistling, shouting slurs, and videoing ICE take down atrocities and the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, white, middle-class protesters. Calling them immediately "domestic terrorists" has been a hard sell to most Americans as videos and backgrounds became more known and reported in more media. The "don't believe your very eyes" is the MAGA response that is wearing thin. Now, the arrest and prosecution of journalists like Don Lemon is a further attempt to suppress inconvenient revelations to the world of ICE's inhumane and unconstitutional tactics.  Trump has always called journalists the enemy of the people (meaning him?). The truths they reveal are not always convenient.

For those of us who have had personal experiences with both communist dictators and fascist dictators and/or who remember history lessons of the 1930s, or knew refugees from fascist Latin American dictators, the term describing how history is repeating itself, using the word fascism, is appropriate. What the Trumpists are doing is similar to what those we called fascists in the previous century also did. Calling a person or a group of people fascist is still too inflammatory, but accusing them of acting like one in specific ways has historical validity. 

 My response as a political opinion writer/journalist is to call whatever actions are the same employed by fascists and dictators in the recent past, as that. It is when the tactics and actions are the same used by these villains of the past, we should call out those acts as fascist. Such acts are what we once called evil.

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: My nagging question: why does fascism keep raising its ugly 

Yes, It’s Fascism - The Atlantic

Comments attributed to Trump:

Sometimes we need a dictator: it is common sense  President Trump at the World Economic Forum: “Sometimes you need a dictator.” #news #trump

July 23, 2019: At a Turning Point USA summit,, "Then I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president." He made this claim while criticizing the Mueller investigation.

• August 2025: During a White House Cabinet meeting in his second term, when asked about potentially using the military domestically, he asserted, "I have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the president of the United States".
• January 2026: In a New York Times interview, he refined this idea by stating that international law does not limit him, only his "own morality" and "own mind"   
• October 2023: In an interview with The National Pulse, Trump stated: "It's poisoning the blood of our country. It's so bad, and people are coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you could have".
• December 2023: At a campaign rally in Durham, New Hampshire, he repeated the claim, telling supporters that migrants from Africa, Asia, and South America are "poisoning the blood of our country".
• December 2023: During a later rally in Waterloo, Iowa, he doubled down on the rhetoric, alleging without evidence that migrants bring "crime and potentially disease with them".
• Truth Social Posts: Trump also used all-caps posts on Truth Social to assert that "illegal immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation". 
• Sources above Google AI 

White people are poorly treated, claims Trump. His true self is revealed again

 The president just claimed that "white people in this country are poorly treated."Trump's true self is revealed again. I have been trying to find proof, too, that those who are not DEI hurt white people. By eliminating DEI throughout the federal government, the result is not to level a playing field, but to give a green light and to remove a barrier to what nationalists most desire, which is giving their race (and mine), already a heady majority, more of an advantage over others. This is a nation with nearly 40% percent of those not white. This is the white nationalists' dream to increase domination of a majority over a minority, a formula for a past and a future of racial conflict. It is not just divisive, it is dangerous for a future we hope will be peaceful and governed by and for all of the people.

What we now have is a country led by an obvious racist and who includes white nationalists in non-elected, powerful, influential positions in his administration. Now his administration is actively recruiting white nationalists for ICE. The US government seems to have a clear message for white nationalists | CNN Politics Whatever could go wrong?

What is clear is that Trump has built his political base and risen to near absolute power on racism, from birtherism to central park 5 to the golden escalator to constantly documented dog whistles to rally his fellow racists, like calling tiki torch carrying neo nazis fine people. Trump has made it clear that the only migrants he welcomes to the US are Norwegians and White South Africans. How much more blatantly obvious can a racist be?

The real shame is that so many Americans share or tolerate his racism.

The other shame is that his racist whisperer is in his ear daily and given a permission slip to proceed. Stephen Miller on his staff has a long history of white nationalism. If anything, Miller's contribution to the Trump regime is his anti-immigrant stance, including using the cruelty of family separation as a tool and in deporting immigrants without due process. He is viewed as an extremist in these sensitive matters. Given his anti-immigrant reputation, I doubt if the Bill of Rights and the civil rights-related amendments would be high on his required list of curriculum topics. The Southern Poverty Law Center tags him as an extremist.https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/stephen-miller/. Miller is in charge of this ICE project aimed at ridding the country of as many brown people as he can under the pretext migrants are criminals when 70 percent of those they grab have no criminal record.. ..but are brown and are both american citizens and who only committed a misdemeanor of being undocumented. Miller's campaign involves eliminating the birthright citizenship of those born in the US and cleansing them from this country.

the-independent.com

Trump says white people being treated ‘very badly’ due to civil rights protections

The Young Republicans spouting racial tropes are descendants of a horrible tradition

 The Young Republicans spouting racial tropes are descendants of a horrible tradition. I have not heard the kind of slurs, the exact words, that these future leaders of a political party spoke since my young days in Jim Crow Oklahoma. The question is, where did this trash speak come from: their parents? Their peer group? Was this the entry ticket for acceptance to a cult...to talk this way? What in the world made them assume that those they consider peers would think this is OK? Whatever it was, it comes from a very awful part of America's past, passed down to generations.. One fall out of being in an isolated ideological silo, listening only to those who fortify hate speech and who they consider as their leaders, is assuming that everyone else thinks the same way and putting this in a chat record, so it is now safe to do it. However, it is a window into the dark soul of these racists who seek to lead a political party. It is a condemnation of those in that party who tolerate such racial attitudes in a country that is so very racially diverse and becoming even more diverse. Fortunately, at least, the current leadership of the GOP put their foot down on these foul-mouthed and said this is not politically correct. It may be too much to ask that those of similar foul hearts and minds change their souls and minds, while powerful elements in the Trump staff, like Russell Vought and Stephen Miller, support and advocate a white nationalist takeover of the governance of this country and are in a position to make it happen. Analysis-Violence, racism, and Nazi praise: The dark side of US political group chats

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Racists and white Christian nationalists are laying the groundwork for a future of conflict

For more about the ideology of Russell Vought and Stephen Miller, go to MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: What if it is true: Trump's got dementia as some claim

Then there is JD Vance noting most people do not like people living next to them who do not speak the same language.   With GOP leaders like him, racists and anti migrants will always feel at home. Vance lets his segregationist views slip in new podcast | Opinion

From my August 1, 2025 Facebook post:

For some time I have suspected that the Trump regime's mass deportation policies and executive orders were motivated by racism and discrimination against those with roots from south of our border. or brown people from elsewhere, I have also suspected that after you peel back all of the reasons MAGA supporters use to justify their support of Trump, economy, business interests, religious beliefs, and in spite of Trump and friends' immorality and greed, there is left a large element with the issue that is migrant deportation. Everything else, except mass deportation, seems irrelevant to them. A district court judge just called out Trump's attempt to end all temporary protective visas for migrant refugees fleeing violence, persecution, or natural disasters, racist and discriminatory, and put a temporary hold on the execution of the removal of those holding such visas . The purpose of the special visas was to give refugee status until the conditions in their home from which they fled had improved. The judge found that the condition of their home countries of the plaintiffs had not improved. The evidence of racial discrimination was the words of the Trump regime's administrators themselves. No doubt this will go through the appeal process to end up in the lap of "his" Supreme Court, but the damning language from the judge needs to be cited. For those who protest this ruling, first look in your own mirror.

From: Judge halts Trump's termination of TPS for Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua https://www.msn.com/.../judge-halts-trumps.../ar-AA1JHjR7...

"By stereotyping the TPS program and immigrants as invaders that are criminal, and by highlighting the need for migration management, Secretary Noem's statements perpetuate the discriminatory belief that certain immigrant populations will replace the white population."

Thompson also mentioned comments from Trump and other White House officials about migrants that show racial animus."

Racists and white Christian nationalists are laying the groundwork for a future of conflict

 

Racists and white Christian nationalists are laying the groundwork for a future of conflict.  Racist speech is still considered to be politically incorrect in most quarters. To be a racist, advocates still need to use code words and jargon that some would call dog whistles,  but more and more others are right out in front with the words. In a private chat lately, some members and leaders in the Young Republicans were caught using vile, racist language.  The result was some tongue wagging, some GOP members called for their firing, but it was just another story from which the media is moving on. ‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat - POLITICO

For those who are still concerned about sounding like they are racists with some bad fallout, the challenge is difficult: How can they be racist without sounding like one? There are some terms used that are basic euphemisms. Closely connected to the concept of Christian nationalism is the more racist part of its companion: white Christian nationalism.  The racist element is kissing kin.  Is Trump or members of his regime racist? If there was ever a question whether Trump is a white nationalist himself, or just a demagogue who sees a political advantage in such appeal to the racists among us, a recent proposal from Trump should add to suspicions he is both.. We should not be surprised, given his first-term pronouncements, that he would particularly welcome Norwegians as immigrants, as he promotes immigration policy to favor refugees who are white . Trump Considers Overhaul of Refugee System That Would Favor White People - The New York Times

Some terms like migrants adulterating our blood, regeneration, and replacement theories, are often popping up on the radical right and radical reactionaries. These terms are among those used by white nationalists.

What is driving this? My theory is a fear among those who are white nationalists that by 2045, twenty years from now, those who are white will become the minority, per some think tanks and government data.. Among Hispanics, immigration would account for only one third of the growth of this group, so no matter how theTrump administration plans to slow down this by deporting everyone brown they can, criminals or not, they will still not be able to stop the trend, just slow it down. The disturbing result of this is that if combined with suppression and the end of civil rights protections, this is not going to be a country free of internal conflicts. We will never be like Hungary, which has a population of 94% of the same ethnic group and is led by a dictator who rose to power opposing Syrian refugees. Either we learn to get along together, or it is going to be a sad future for the USA and my grandchildren.

The US will become 'minority white' in 2045, Census projects | Brookings  " Among the minority populations, the greatest growth is projected for multiracial populations, Asians and Hispanics with 2018–2060 growth rates of 176, 93, and 86 percent, respectively. The projected growth rate for blacks is 34 percent.* The demographic source of growth varies across groups. For example, immigration contributes to one-third of Hispanic growth over this time span, with the rest attributable to natural increase (the excess of births over deaths). Among Asians, immigration contributes to three quarters of the projected growth"

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: What is MAGA? Whatever you call it, it is not conservative, but something else.

From Google AI: 

• Latin America and Central America: Reports from the American Immigration Council show that a large portion of ICE detainees are from Mexico or Central American countries.
  • One 2025 report indicated that in 2024, Mexican nationals made up about 43% of the detainee population, and individuals from the Northern Triangle region (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) made up about 46%.
  • Latino individuals with no criminal history are also arrested at disproportionate rates, with a Cato Institute analysis finding that nearly one in five ICE arrests between January and July 2025 were of a Latino with no criminal background.

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