The Republican embrace of Christian nationalism under Donald Trump was never about sincere faith or “traditional values.” It was (and remains) a calculated power play: religion deployed as a bourgeois ideological instrument to consolidate executive authority, divide the working class, and mask naked class war. And Trump has only sharpened this weapon.
The evidence is not rhetorical. It is etched in executive orders signed within weeks of inauguration.
On February 6, 2025, Trump issued Executive Order 14202, “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.” It created a high-level Task Force led by Attorney General to root out what the administration calls “anti-Christian weaponization of government.” Two days later came the establishment of the White House Faith Office. Then, on May 1, 2025, Trump created the Religious Liberty Commission, chaired by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. These bodies have since been weaponized not only for policy but as direct infrastructure for the 2026 electoral strategy.
This escalation now has clear midterm objectives. As we sit in April 2026 (just seven months from Election Day) Republican strategists are openly using the Faith Office and Religious Liberty Commission to coordinate voter registration drives at mega-churches, organize “Faith and Freedom” rallies, and turn every policy win into campaign ammunition. Franklin Graham and other evangelical leaders have been enlisted to urge “loyalty to Trump’s agenda” as a religious duty, with church-based get-out-the-vote operations targeting swing districts in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona. The administration is deliberately framing the midterms as an existential “spiritual battle” for America’s soul.
Nowhere is the religious weapon deployed more aggressively than in the administration’s framing of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (whose book American Crusade openly calls for a “360-degree holy war” against perceived threats including Islam) has repeatedly cast the conflict in explicitly Christian terms. At Pentagon prayer services and press briefings, Hegseth has prayed for “overwhelming violence” against Iranian enemies “in the name of Jesus Christ,” invoked Psalm 144 (“Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war”), and described U.S. troops as fighting under “divine providence.” Commanders under his leadership have briefed soldiers that the war is part of a divinely ordained crusade, with Trump “anointed by Jesus” to confront “religious fanatics” seeking Armageddon. Hegseth’s Crusader tattoos and public rhetoric have turned what began as a geopolitical clash into “Pete Hegseth’s holy war” − a textbook case of religion as imperialist instrument.
These are not random culture-war flare-ups. They are systematic state actions that convert religious ideology into enforceable policy and into electoral power. Project 2025’s theocratic recommendations have been fast-tracked through executive action and congressional bills precisely to give the GOP concrete “deliverables” to sell to their religious base heading into November 2026.
Religion, as Marx wrote, is the “opium of the people” not because believers are fools, but because it offers illusory consolation while the real chains of exploitation remain. In 21st-century American capitalism, this instrumentality has been refined into a science of hegemony. The ruling class does not need theology; it needs a superstructure that secures the base: private property, capital accumulation, and the suppression of class consciousness.
By pitting “Christian values” against “godless elites” at home and “Islamic fanatics” abroad, the Trumpian offensive creates false consciousness on a global scale. Abortion, school prayer, and LGBTQ+ rights become wedge issues that split the proletariat along cultural lines while the material attack (union-busting, tax cuts for billionaires, deregulation) proceeds unchecked. The Iran war extends this logic. Religious rhetoric justifies imperialist aggression, distracts from the economic costs borne by working-class soldiers and taxpayers, and rallies the evangelical base for the midterms. Rank-and-file religious workers are not the enemy. They too suffer stagnant wages, unaffordable healthcare, and precarious housing. The real driver is the fusion of organized evangelical leadership, billionaire donors, and the Republican apparatus. This is Gramsci’s hegemony in action: ruling-class ideas dressed up as “common sense” and “tradition” to manufacture consent for austerity and authoritarianism.
The material consequences for the working class are already visible and are being deliberately amplified to drive midterm turnout. Women face heightened criminalization and surveillance of reproductive choices. LGBTQ+ youth and workers lose protections in schools and workplaces. Non-Christian communities are demonized as threats to “America’s heritage.” Public education tilts toward indoctrination over critical thinking. The Iran war adds blood and treasure to the ledger: working-class Americans pay the price while Hegseth’s holy-war rhetoric turns imperialism into a spiritual duty. All of this occurs amid sharpening economic contradictions. With wages lagging behind profits and inequality at historic levels, the religious offensive provides a cheap ideological distraction while the real midterm prize (continued Republican control of Congress) remains in reach. If the GOP succeeds in using this theocratic mobilization to hold or expand its majorities in November, it will further institutionalize Christian nationalism as governing ideology for the next two years.
Yet the contradictions are sharpening. The very aggressiveness of the offensive reveals the ruling class’s insecurity. Genuine working-class religiosity can be a source of solidarity and moral outrage against exploitation; the task is to win those believers to materialist politics without conceding ground to the weaponizers.
The religion could be used to defeat us. This year the evidence is undeniable and the 2026 midterms represent a critical battleground. The cross is being wielded to defend the dollar and secure Republican power for the next two years. The only question left is whether the working class will allow itself to be divided and conquered or whether we will answer with organized, materialist resistance: independent unions, class-based secular coalitions, and a politics that unites workers of all faiths (and none) around concrete demands for higher wages, universal healthcare, affordable housing, and an end to capitalist exploitation.
The veil must be torn away. The instrument of faith has shown its true face. Now it is time for the working class to seize the initiative before the 2026 midterms lock in this theocratic offensive for years to come.
* Nathan Richardson is a writer: dawn1776.substack.com
