As this WSJ piece reports, there is a not so subtle underpinning in Trump world of what's being called "Christian Nationalism," headed by Pastor Douglas Wilson. The incendiary pastor calls for taking away women’s right to vote and barring non-Christians from holding office. Pete Hegseth and Tucker Carlson are among his fans. At a time when the share of Americans who identify as Christian is on the decline— from 78% in 2007 to 63% in 2024, according to Pew’s Religious Landscape Study—Wilson is bucking the tide, winning followers and influence with a hardline evangelical message. “We don’t parcel out bits of the Bible with a teaspoon,” Wilson said in an interview. “No, we want the lordship, the authority of Jesus Christ to be operative, to have some difference in our lives, in our thinking, every day of the week, everywhere we go.” For Wilson, that means obedience to Christ should be paramount in public life as well as family life. Tucker Carlson approvingly called him “the person most closely identified with that phrase, Christian nationalism.” Now that message is spreading from his home base in Moscow, Idaho, into the centers of power in Washington, D.C. Earlier this month, Wilson spoke at the capital’s National Conservatism Conference, which drew senior Trump administration figures including border czar Tom Homan, budget chief Russell Vought, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. And who said Trumpers don't believe in anything but their own greed?
PS re a Trump Successor: The eerie parallels to the stated beliefs of Charlie Kirk cannot be ignored. But, while Charlie Kirk, given his youth, appeal to youth, and charisma might have been the one person who could have succeeded Trump, we can take heart that neither Douglas Wilson nor anyone else on the scene likely can.
[EOP]
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