Trump’s Cabinet (and Other) Picks Paint Picture of a Christian Nationalist ‘Kakistocracy’ - Part I

What Trump is clearly asking for (and promising) is a Christian nationalist kakistocracy—a government by the least suitable, most unworthy people.

Here’s the new piece

Thomas Lecaque

and I have up at Religion Dispatches:

”Benjamin Franklin’s hope and warning, “A republic, if you can keep it,” resonates with too many of us these days. This has especially been the case watching the president-elect nominate his Cabinet, a wishlist of personnel that perfectly embodies Trumpism’s ultranationalist populism, nostalgia for a utopian White Christian past, and fixation with enemies, both internal and external—with a dash of violent rhetoric and staggering incompetence tossed in for good measure. What Trump is clearly asking for (and promising) is a Christian nationalist kakistocracy—a government by the least suitable, most unworthy people. If the Senate confirms these picks, that’s exactly what we’ll get.

The Christian nationalism element is evident when you look at someone like Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, who cosplays as a contemporary American Crusader, both in his writing and in his tattoos. In his book American Crusade he calls for treating “the Left” as an enemy, to be crusaded against—linked explicitly to the violence of the Crusades and the American Revolution, a favorite Christian nationalist mythical starting point. With a president and vice president who’ve repeatedly said that elected Democrats, university professors, journalists, judges, attorney generals and anyone else who opposes them isn’t just a rival but an enemy (and who’ve threatened to use the military to clear them from the streets), Hegseth’s rhetoric would have teeth and approval behind it. 

Mike Huckabee—‘There are certain words I refuse to use’

Trump’s nominee for US Ambassador to Israel is Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and noted Christian Zionist, as Ben Lorber points out. Christian Zionism in many cases is not about supporting Israel or about protecting Jews around the world—not in any real sense. It’s about urging Israel toward its destruction as part of the Christian apocalypse. Christian Zionism, Jerusalem, and the Trump administration have their own long history, of course, as Trump’s 2017 statements about moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem excited all kinds of evangelical fervor. 

Huckabee’s brand of Christian Zionism is prone to missteps and faux pas—not to mention Holocaust comparisons—but in the current environment, his most important trait is a lack of a broader vision. Nethanyahu seems pretty convinced that Trump’s win will remove whatever theoretical guardrails might have existed, and the Christian evangelical reaction to Israel’s genocidal behavior seems to support that. As David Hearst recently pointed out in a Middle East Eye op-ed, “Within days of the election, Trump had already begun filling his cabinet with people who have made every case for Israel to spread the war around the region.” 

Huckabee, in particular, has made it clear how he views the concept of Palestinian sovereignty, telling CNN in 2017: 

There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation. 

This argument–a Christian Zionist one–is a permission structure for wiping out the West Bank, for unrestricted settler violence, for the end of Palestine. 

Elise Stefanik—‘George Soros is trying to fund the downfall of America’

This particular dance around Israel and the lives and protection of Jewish Americans also comes into play with Elise Stefanik. Once elected to the House of Representatives as a moderate Republican, Stefanik is Trump’s pick for US ambassador to the UN. Stefanik made a splash by rebranding herself as defender of American Jews when she grilled university presidents over free speech policies after October 7th. At the same time she was parroting rhetoric from the White supremacist (and deeply antisemitic) Great Replacement Theory and pushing the antisemitic dog whistle that “George Soros is trying to fund the downfall of America”—to say nothing about the rest of her turn towards Trumpism. 

Stefanik is no stranger to conspiratorial, frequently antisemitic, thinking—Great Replacement, QAnon echoes, the overt Soros links—but she’s also in support of an expressly Christian nationalist government. When she introduced Mike Johnson as her nominee for Speaker of the House in 2023, for example, Brian Kaylor and Jeremy Fuzy observed:

“Above the speaker’s chair in the House chamber, is our nation’s motto: In God We Trust,” she declared, sparking a standing ovation from Republicans. “The times in which we are living demand boldness, unity, and transformational leadership that begins with trust in God and each other. Trust is when the magic happens. In the story of King David, we are reminded that man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

The appeal to Davidic kingship is not new in MAGA America, and won’t be the first or last time the language of Christian monarchy is echoed in the halls of government.

Kristi Noem—‘I don’t recognize the country I had the opportunity of growing up in’

The former governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem is yet another devoted Christian nationalist (and unapologetic Trump loyalist) nominated to join the president-elect’s cabinet. She’s in good standing with the Christian Right, having bragged previously about being the nation’s “most pro-life governor.” Noem has signed numerous “pro-life”—that is, forced-birth—bills during her time as governor, even claiming that she had to hire an extra staffer to keep on top of all of her abortion-banning efforts. In addition, Noem has urged other Republican governors to enact draconian abortion bans similar to those in South Dakota, where abortion is banned even in cases of rape and incest, with the only exception being a danger to the life of the mother. 

She’s also followed the Christian Right’s strategy to defend “religious freedom” through legislation, by which they mean the freedom for right-wing Christians to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people, women, and religious minorities. On her first day as governor, Noem held a worship service in the capitol rotunda, during which a pastor declared: “You are Lord and King of South Dakota. We thank you Lord God that we have faith and that the Holy Spirit absolutely takes over every corner and every crevice of this Capitol and of this state.” It would be difficult to find a more straightforward exhibition of Christian nationalism. 

In response, the Freedom from Religion Foundation sent her an open letter, criticizing Noem for violating the separation of church and state on her first day in office. But Noem was undeterred. Every pet issue of the Christian Right, from prayer in public schools to discrimination against trans children and adults, can be found in her policy portfolio. In 2021, at the Family Leadership Summit, Noem gave a speech that showcased her fluency in the stunning doublespeak of the Christian Right, while speaking about her granddaughter: 

I hate this America we are giving her. I don’t recognize the country I had the opportunity of growing up in. When I grew up people were proud to have a job. They weren’t confused on the difference between boys and girls. We prayed in schools … and by the way in South Dakota I’m putting prayer back in our schools … We stood for the national anthem, we honored our flag, and we were proud of our history. That is not Joe Biden’s America. His America is built on hate and division, on pitting people against each other.

Bemoaning division and hatred while actively touting her hatred for “Joe Biden’s America” is quite the Orwellian feat—one familiar to those researching the Christian Right, where hate is all too often sold as love. Noem had previously demonstrated her cruelty towards those creatures she considers lesser (and, more importantly, disobedient) by bragging about shooting her puppy in a gravel pit because it hadn’t yet been sufficiently trained (which in turn inspired her to shoot one of the family’s goats).

But Noem’s cruelty isn’t limited to her pets. She’s a textbook example of the cruelty proponents of Christian nationalism can unleash upon those they don’t deem worthy of safety or rights—those who are unfit to be seen as both Christian and American. Noem has promoted and supported Trump’s draconian and racist immigration policies; offered to send the South Dakota National Guard and more razor wire to aid Texas Governor Greg Abbott in his border stand-off with the Biden administration (whom she threatened with civil war); and has personally been barred from entering the land of multiple tribes for claiming, without evidence, that their leaders had benefited from drug cartels. Noem is now unable to set foot on nearly 20% of South Dakota. 

As Adam Serwer has stated previously, the cruelty is the point—the same goes for Noem’s positions, from the gleeful retelling of her puppy murder to her willingness to vilify and brutalize migrants. But as Amanda Marcotte analyzed in Salon when the puppy-murder story first broke, the core strategy of the Christian Right—and fascist movements more broadly—only works if its adherents also manage to cast the victim of their violence as the aggressor and a threat to some kind of “natural order.” 

Those enacting the cruelty need to re-frame it as a heroic defense of an America under siege—which is the reason why the puppy-killing story fell flat even with MAGA supporters. But alas, puppy murder doesn’t seem to be an impediment to a cabinet position anymore (even if the alleged sexual assault of a minor has stalled Matt Gaetz’s bid to be Attorney General). For all we know, Trump hates dogs, too. Noem will work closely with “border czar” Tom Homan (a position that doesn’t require congressional approval) and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to implement the president-elect’s mass deportation plans.”