International relations scholars consider modern Iran to be the world’s only functioning theocratic republic. This means: The country combines elements of two government systems. The population elects a parliament and a president, but real power rests with religious councils and a supreme leader whose authority is derived from God. (This distinguishes Iran from Israel, for example, whose religious institutions have no constitutional status.) There are many republics in the world, and there are also a few small theocracies – but only in Iran can a functioning amalgam of both be found.
I mention this because it points to an overlooked irony of the deadlocked war. As Donald Trump repeatedly threatens to destroy the Iranian state, he appears increasingly determined to establish his own theocratic republic at home. Since the missiles began flying in February, Trump and his Cabinet members have conspicuously and persistently portrayed the war as a kind of modern crusade—ordained by God, through a message that only they can receive.
Trump claims God wants America to win the war as aides escort evangelical leaders to the Oval Office to lay hands on the president. His sinister Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth explicitly compared the shooting down and rescue of an American pilot over the Easter holiday weekend to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. According to reports in the Guardian, some military leaders have persuaded their troops that Trump has been anointed by Jesus and has begun the march toward Armageddon. (This is apparently supposed to be good news.)
Trump’s religious theater
Normally I don’t get too upset about a bit of revivalist piety in politics. Presidents feeling divinely led is nothing new; Anyone who achieves this office finds it difficult not to feel as somehow predestined. And I know some excellent representatives – John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, comes to mind – for whom faith and politics were deeply intertwined. But that’s exactly the point: What makes Trump’s I-speak-for-God act so unbearable is that, unlike all of these people, he is arguably the least religious president this country has ever had.
As he did in his first term, when he lamely waved an upside-down Bible in front of a church in Lafayette Square, Trump is now playing the televangelist – without nearly the authenticity that John Goodman brought to “The Righteous Gemstones.” Biblical scholars are also few and far between in his cabinet; One of the Christian-tinged sermons Hegseth recently gave at the Pentagon was one that he copied straight from “Pulp Fiction” and apparently believed to be real. That would be laughable if we weren’t talking about the man who gets to send our soldiers to war.
No, Christianity as it is practiced in the Trump administration has precious little to do with genuine faith in the Almighty and almost everything to do with nationalist identity—the central idea that white, Christian Americans are the chosen ones in an existential struggle against liberalism and Islam. In this construct, Christ is not the central figure of worship – Trump is. In Trump’s theocratic republic, he is the Ayatollah, sent to interpret the will of God and restore the dominance of Christian culture. No true believer in a higher power would have posted a vulgar depiction of themselves as a cherubic, Christ-like healer hovering over the bed of a sick seeker. To do this without any apology, you have to believe that yourself is the transcendent power we have all been waiting for.
The Pope strikes back
At least one preeminent religious leader sees through this – and that is the American-born pope. Alarmed by Trump’s promise to destroy Iran’s “entire civilization,” Pope Leo fired a warning shot by declaring that “God does not sanctify war” and “does not bless conflict.” After Trump posted the infamous illustration, the Pope followed up by warning against tyrants who were “instrumentalizing religion” for their own militaristic purposes. Trump responded as if the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics was just another Democrat on MSNBC. “I don’t want a Pope criticizing the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected to do IN A LANDSLIDE,” Trump posted, adding that Leo was “terrible at foreign policy” and “WEAK at fighting crime.” Nobody actually knew exactly what this last point meant. Perhaps it was a reference to immigration, perhaps to sexual abuse in the church. Or Trump simply confused Leo with someone else.
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IN HIS ATTACK ON THE POPE, Trump followed a script that has served him extremely well over his decades of political work. Time and time again, Trump has clearly relished attacking institutions and people once considered untouchable in American politics – secret services, generals, the NFL, even Taylor Swift. Each time, commentators loudly predicted that this would drag him down politically – and each time they were wrong. The reason: Trump entered politics with an insight about our times that hardly any insider had really understood. Americans may remain loyal to certain valued institutions, but they trust virtually no one in power. So as long as you despise the generals but not the soldiers, or the football commissioner but not the players, even voters from garrison towns or die-hard tailgaters will probably get behind you.
Trump wasn’t afraid to slam Leo on social media and claim he is a better interpreter of God’s will than the Pope – because everything he’s experienced so far tells him that most right-leaning Catholics would rather follow him than some pompous elite guy from Chicago in a funny hat. This belief was promptly confirmed by JD Vance, a newly converted Catholic who wasted no time in telling the Pope that he should leave theology to the experts.
Risk for the midterms
However, many Washington Republicans fear that Trump’s foray into religion could have more consequences than he realizes – and guess what? You’re right. The landscape for the midterm elections already looked like a hellish scenario for the Republicans: gasoline prices are rising, markets are tumbling. It’s an old rule of thumb in midterm elections that the further presidents’ approval ratings fall below 50 percent, the more damage they do to their party – Trump’s barely scratches 40. You don’t have to be a demographer to know that a whole lot of independent voters in the states that decide control of the Senate – Michigan, Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio – are Catholic. And if Trump has cost his party even a small portion of those voters, that’s more than Republicans can afford to lose.
But the danger for Trump extends beyond Catholicism. The evangelical Christians who are so vital to the Republican cause have always known that Trump is not really one of them. No one ever mistook the loud, self-absorbed real estate celebrity for a closet Calvinist. What tied these voters to Trump was a common enemy – or several: left-wing media, “woke” schools, trans-fixated Democrats, Islamist extremists. Many religious Christians (and quite a few Jews) supported Trump because he reliably infuriated those who looked down on them. He didn’t have to be a man of God – just the unlikely instrument of his will.
Trump’s Iran war — and the tasteless proselytizing that accompanies it — could put this bond to a severe test. Devout Christians and Jews share fears of radical ayatollahs and would probably support almost any measure if Iran were indeed an imminent threat. But that doesn’t mean they can’t wait to return to the Middle Ages to finish what Richard the Lionheart started. And all the rhetoric about divine retribution has exposed Trump’s religious madness less than his sheer unscrupulousness. The proclamations of divine will, the public laying on of hands, the images of the crucifixion – all reflect a Barnum-style president who thinks his own voters are idiots who can be tamed into a holy war in the Middle East.
The truth is slowly dawning
By now, one would think, the truth must have dawned on them. War is not holy. And it doesn’t belong to them.
