Trump’s Cabinet (and Other) Picks Paint Picture of a Christian Nationalist ‘Kakistocracy’ - Part II
Homan's mass deportation horror, Miller's White Nationalism & Gabbard's defense of Dictators
Here is part II of the latest piece by and I over at “Religion Dispatches”:
Tom Homan—‘The whole family can be deported together’
Homan, who served as the head of ICE in Trump’s first administration has, for the past few months, been touring the country, auditioning hard for the position of “border czar.” When I saw him speak on a breakout panel at this year’s National Conservatism Conference, he sat comfortably next to panelists who espoused White nationalist talking points, and told gruesome tales of countless children allegedly sex-trafficked across the Southern border, and graphic stories of young women, murdered and sexually assaulted at the hands of undocumented immigrants.
During the first Trump administration, the draconian border policy of family separation was Homan’s brainchild, though images of kids in cages quickly ignited a heated (international) backlash against the measure. When asked in a recent 60 Minutes interview how he plans to avoid the same result given the 15 million mass deportations he’s promised to deliver, Homan calmly responded that “Families can be deported together,” which suggests that Homan is willing to deport entire families with mixed documentation status. Or, to put it more bluntly: he’s also willing to deport American citizens, such as the children of undocumented immigrants who were born on US soil (something which ties in neatly with Trump’s and Miller’s plans to end birthright citizenship).
Homan, like so many other Christian nationalists, parrots the narrative of a nation under siege; one beset by an “invasion” of violent migrants who must be stopped—by force if necessary. Should any Democratic governors and mayors refuse to comply with his plans, he’s threatened to: “take [sanctuary cities] to court” and to “start charging some of these politicians with crimes.”
In 2022, Homan accepted an invitation to AFPAC, the yearly conference put together by neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes (with whom Trump had lunch in 2022). When confronted by The Huffington Post, Homan declared that he had left early and that he didn’t know who Fuentes was. A few minutes later Homan called the journalists back to clarify his position on the neo-Nazi-led conference: “I’m not saying this is a bad group, I’m saying I don’t know.”
Stephen Miller—‘America is for Americans and Americans only’
Homan isn’t the only member of Trump’s cabinet who’s refused to distance himself from White supremacists and White nationalists—an embrace that isn’t exclusive to White Christians. Deputy chief of staff nominee, Stephen Miller, who is Jewish, was first brought into the Trump White House through his work with Christian nationalists like Michele Bachmann and Jeff Sessions. In fact, he has long allied himself with a wide range of White supremacist organizations, using the Islamophobia and anti-Muslim violence rampant after 9/11 to connect with David Horowitz, VDare, Richard Spencer, and others.
His anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric is long held, from high school and college, and Miller’s own uncle, David Glosser, has gone public and voiced his “horror” at his nephew’s views. Glosser cited their ancestry from Jews who came to the US as refugees, fleeing antisemitic pogroms in what’s now Belarus to point out Miller’s hypocrisy. During Trump’s first administration, 55 civil rights groups and 100 Democrats in Congress had called for Miller’s dismissal after more than 900 emails to a Breitbart writer had been leaked in which Miller promoted racist and White supremacist views.
Miller was the architect of Trump’s Muslim ban, and struck a succinctly authoritarian tone in response to judges who blocked it, declaring “the whole world will soon see” that President Trump “will not be questioned” when it comes to his executive powers. With Miller as deputy chief of staff in charge of policy, and Homan and Noem around to implement his domestic agenda, the likelihood of White supremacist violence is even higher.
This time around, Miller, who “will set the overall contours of American immigration policy,” according to MSNBC’s Hayes Brown, is promising large-scale “detention camps” for migrants; militarized mass deportations (including an end to birthright citizenship); and to “turbocharge” what he calls a “denaturalization program,” which would strip legal immigrants of their citizenship.
But beyond promised policies, it’s important to listen to his words. At the infamous Trump-Vance Madison Square Garden rally, Miller said “America is for Americans and Americans only!” It sounds as though he’s just talking about undocumented immigrants, but as Jean Guerrero has pointed out, what it means to Miller and the Trump administration is White Americans. And the line itself echoes the Klan banner, “America for Americans,” a deliberate hearkening back to the worst parts of the twentieth century, much like “America First.”
The Second Klan, which used that slogan, was an explicitly Christian nationalist—and more aptly, a Christian fascist—organization. This echo is not a mistake. The iconography, the rhetoric, all of it is deliberately recalling a time when Americans was understood to mean White, English-speaking, Protestant Americans. And despite not meeting all of those qualifications, Miller is happy to steer the country in that direction.
Tulsi Gabbard—‘[If we had only acknowledged] Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO’
Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was partly raised in a fringe Hare Krishna offshoot known for its homophobia and Islamophobia, and is now a practicing Hindu—the first elected to Congress in fact. In 2016, during India’s far-right Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the US, Gabbard presented him with her personal copy of the Bhagavad Gita, which fits neatly into the global far-right alliance Trump’s allies have been building—particularly at this summer’s NatCon in Washington, D.C., which featured several members of India’s BJP.
Gabbard is—at least at first glance—a quintessential Trump pick given her total lack of experience in the intelligence sector. In fact, her appointment has been widely seen as a major national security risk due to her previous defenses of dictators Putin and Assad, both of whom she sticks up for to this day. She’s been caught multiple times parroting Kremlin propaganda, sometimes word for word. According to the Washington Post’s Adam Taylor, just hours after Russia invaded Ukraine:
Gabbard wrote on the social network then known as Twitter that the “war and suffering” could have been avoided if the Biden administration and its allies had acknowledged “Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO.”
Putting her in charge of US intelligence agencies must have set corks popping in Moscow and perhaps with other hostile foreign governments around the world. Apart from being a loyal Trumper, what connects Gabbard to her fellow appointees is her Islamophobia, her comfort with White supremacist dog whistles, and her support of religious nationalism.
Vivek Ramaswamy—‘Our country was founded on Judeo-Christian values, there’s no doubt about it. It is a historical fact’
Trump’s nominee for the so-called “co-Director of Government Efficiency”—a theoretical advisory committee position alongside Elon Musk—Vivek Ramaswamy ran for the Republican nomination on a young MAGA platform, emphasizing his age and his entrepreneurial record (alongside his Eminem rap performances). But a great deal of his time was spent dealing with the issue of his race and religion in an ever Whiter, ever more conservative Christian primary. Despite being a Hindu, his solution was to lean in to the narrative of White Christian nationalism, declaring in a town hall that, “Our country was founded on Judeo-Christian values, there’s no doubt about it. It is a historical fact.” At that same town hall he argued that he was running for Commander-in-Chief, not Pastor-in-Chief, while also selling himself as an American Modi—but for Christians.
His campaign website’s list of “Truths” carefully constructed a language of Hinduism meant to appeal to Christians—“God is Real” reads the first—and White supremacist—“Reverse racism is racism” reads another—while emphasizing standard MAGA talking points. While his approach clearly didn’t work Ramaswamy certainly made his openness to a Christian nationalist America crystal clear. And given the dropping of any pretense of religious pluralism at GOP events this past summer it was a savvy move.
By White Christians, for White Christians
Of course, as we’ve seen in the case of Matt Gaetz, there’s no guarantee that all of these nominees and appointees will survive the confirmation process (even if, as Trump has threatened, he circumvents the Senate via recess appointments). And history tells us that some of them will annoy the president-elect and be out of the running before the process even begins.
But the wishlist has a great deal to tell us about what he wants in a Cabinet and for his administration. It’s clearly not about governing efficiently—he chose people with almost no real world experience for a number of major positions. Nor is it about defending the Constitution—as is evident in the switch from at least some professionals the first time around to the Yes Men and Women proposed for the second.
What Trump appears to want (or what he’s putting together at least) is a kakistocracy, a government consisting of the least suitable people—the Matt Gaetzes, Pete Hegseths, and Elon Musks of the world. But while this Christian Nationalist Kakistocracy may be incompetent, its goal is to create a government by White Christians, for White Christians, at the expense of everyone else. God help us if they manage to make it work.