Wajahat Ali and scholar of American right-wing religious movements Julie Ingersoll discuss how Pete Hegseth's intent to mount a "new Crusade" underlies much of the rhetoric about the attack on Iran. Ali asks,

"What is Hegseth's endgame and those who are allied with him in some way, shape, or form who truly believe they're doing God's work but through secular means?"

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #HolyWar #crusades #WhiteChristianNationalism
/1

https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/the-trump-administrations-modern

The Trump Administration's Modern Crusade

Pete Hegseth asks Americans to pray for victory against Iran "in the name of Jesus Christ." He is part of an increasingly dangerous & rising threat of Christian Nationalism seeking complete domination

The Left Hook with Wajahat Ali

Ingersoll:

"They want all of the nations of the world to be Christian. They want to institute theocratic governments across the globe. They think the whole world should be Christian. This ties into their eschatology. They are what we call post-millennialists. They believe the kingdom of God was established at the resurrection, and it's the job of Christians to build it."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #HolyWar #crusades #WhiteChristianNationalism
/2

"And for them, that means to go all about the world and make everything Christian."

Ali:

"At the end, the end goal, for these different groups is control. And it's control for one group of people. And that one group is Christians and specifically white Christian men at the top."

#Trump #Hegseth #Iran #war #HolyWar #crusades #WhiteChristianNationalism
/3

"On Easter Sunday, I received an email 'alert' from the National Faith Advisory Board (NFAB), an organization led by the televangelist Paula White, a longtime friend of President Trump who is also the senior advisor to the White House Faith Office. The 'alert' came six hours after Trump’s Truth Social post threatening war crimes against Iran if the 'crazy bastards' did not 'Open the Fuckin’ Strait.'"

~ Sarah Posner

#Trump #Iran #war #WhiteChristianNationalism
/4

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/trumps-evangelical-leaders-are-working-overtime-to-spin-the-iran-war

Trump’s Evangelical Leaders Are Working Overtime to Spin The Iran War

In Church, Merch, and State, Sarah Posner writes about the intersection of religion...

TPM - Talking Points Memo

"While the NFAB email delivery might have been scheduled in advance, it nonetheless was jarring in the context of Trump’s vulgar and violent morning. 'Dear Faith Leader,' it read. 'This sacred weekend from the greatest platform in the free world and beyond, President Trump proclaimed the Gospel to all that could hear.' The email linked to a short video, establishing that the platform in question was not Truth Social, but the Oval Office."

#Trump #Iran #war #WhiteChristianNationalism
/5

"From there, Trump robotically read (and at some points strangely shouted) an Easter message about Christ’s resurrection. At points, he sounded like someone who was hearing about John 3:16 for the very first time. ...

As Trump flounders in the prosecution of his war on Iran, his evangelical loyalists are feverishly closing ranks, including during a Holy Week marked by Trump’s & Hegseth’s Christianity-infused bloodlust, which prompted papal rebukes."

#Trump #war #WhiteChristianNationalism
/6

"That is why they are intensifying their messaging that Trump is divine, that he is persecuted like Jesus was, that his war is destroying Iran and protecting Israel from Iranian savagery, all while igniting a Christian revival in America."

#Trump #Iran #war #WhiteChristianNationalism
/7

As Julie Roginsky explains, standing behind Trump's white Christian nationalist disciples with their rhetoric of Trump as messiah are economic elites who fund and promote this religious rhetoric for their own ends — to divide and conquer as they plunder:

"During Holy Week, when Christians mark the Passion and resurrection of their savior, White told Trump, 'Jesus taught so many lessons through his death, burial & resurrection'."

#Trump #WhiteChristianNationalism
/8

https://saltypolitics.substack.com/p/turning-trump-into-myth-the-white

Building a Messiah: How Trumpism Plans to Outlive Trump

How a billionaire cabal is exploiting evangelicals to advance their mission

Salty Politics with Julie Roginsky

"'He showed us great leadership, great transformation requires great sacrifice. And Mr President, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price. It almost cost you your life. You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It’s a familiar pattern that our lord and savior showed us.'”

#Trump #Iran #war #WhiteChristianNationalism
/9

"In turn, Trump did not dispute the parallels between himself and Jesus. 'On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem as crowds welcomed him with praise honoring him as king,' he said. 'They call me king now. Can you believe it?'”

#Trump #Iran #war #WhiteChristianNationalism
/10

"Ten years on, it has become clear that 'Make America Great Again' is largely a nostalgic appeal to an earlier era; a time when America’s global dominance was exercised unapologetically, other nations were treated as expendable, and the rhetoric of overwhelming force fit comfortably alongside a domestic history built on exclusion, hierarchy, and a selective vision of whom American greatness was ever truly meant to serve."

~ Marlon Weems

#WhiteChristianNationalism
/11

https://thejourneyman.substack.com/p/the-dark-history-behind-trumps-stone

The Dark History Behind Trump's "Stone Age" Mindset

Trump’s rhetoric echoes a doctrine of total war that once justified firebombing entire cities

The Journeyman.

Colleen Dully, Mia Lobel, Ben Richmond, and Mary Harris discuss the disconnect between Trump and his MAGA white Christian nationalists, and Pope Leo. As Richmond says, "The White House may be blowing the Catholic Church off, but they are not staying silent."

But as Harris notes, J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio are Catholic, and it's as though Leo's words mean nothing to them when he speaks out vs. war.

#Trump #PopeLeo #WhiteChristianNationalism #war
/12

https://slate.com/podcasts/what-next/2026/04/pope-leo-has-a-message-for-vance-hegseth-and-rubio

Trump Vs The Pope

As a White Sox fan, this pope deeply understands Jesus’s teachings about loving the least of these.

Slate

Harris says,

"So will the real Catholicism play style stand up?"

Dully replies,

"If the real Catholicism is not the Pope, then we might have a problem." Dully points to Pope Leo's Palm Sunday sermon:

"The bolder line from that homily on Palm Sunday was the one right after it where he says that Jesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them."

#Trump #PopeLeo #WhiteChristianNationalism #war
/13

"And then he quotes from the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. … To hear a pope come out and say, like, yeah, not only is God not listening to your prayers, but God is rejecting them is, it’s a huge call."

#Trump #PopeLeo #WhiteChristianNationalism #war
/14

"Donald Trump is threatening war crimes and even genocide against Iran — 'a whole civilization will die tonight.”

Only a narcissistic megalomaniac would say such a thing. ...

And that’s when the President of the United States has decided to destroy and murder — on EASTER."

~ Diana Butler Bass

#Trump #Iran #war #WarCrimes #genocide #WhiteChristianNationalism #Easter
/15

https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/the-warmonger-of-easter

The Warmonger of Easter

Don't let evil force us back into the tomb

The Cottage

"It is a moral horror on its own — a horror compounded by theological heresy, even blasphemy, during the holiest time of the Christian year."

#Trump #Iran #war #WarCrimes #genocide #WhiteChristianNationalism #Easter
/16

"Every single evangelical who supports him is partially responsible for this, along with all of the Republicans in Congress who continue to do absolutely nothing. And every single one of them should be made to answer for his absolutely grotesque post on, again, one of the highest of high holidays if you’re a Christian."

~ Mary Trump

#Trump #Iran #war #WarCrimes #genocide #WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #Easter
/17

https://www.marytrump.org/p/live-with-wajahat-ali

Live with Wajahat Ali

[Transcript edited for clarity, flow and length]

The Good in Us by Mary L. Trump

"If they’re not offended by it, if they make excuses for it, then anything that happens is—well, I think everything that happens is their responsibility anyway."

#Trump #Iran #war #WarCrimes #genocide #WhiteChristianNationalism #WhiteEvangelicals #Easter
/18

@wdlindsy When Alfred Nobel created the Nobel prize, it was because his obituary was published permaturely, and associated him with creating dynamite, a weapon of death, for which he would be remembered.
We need to publish Trump's premature obituary, now, and see if that would help.
@wdlindsy They would tell Jesus himself that he was too woke, as they proclaim Him as their savior.
Even an agnostic like me is hoping for some biblical justice from the God of the first testament.

@wdlindsy

there's a problem with the link (404)

seems to be the "=" sign at the end that doesn't go through the link... you need to add it manually

@RainbowFrog Thanks for telling me. I think I may have now found a better one, and I now added it to the posting.

@wdlindsy

yep this one's is 👍 - thanks !