Nina-Bytes: Dark Omens of a New Crusade

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Church and State

Although it feels like a lifetime, it’s important to remember that we are only six months into the second Trump presidency. Right now, the Pork Reich appears to be laser focused on subjugating the media and higher education, while rapidly progressing a white nationalist ethnic cleansing project that will end in mass graves. The anti-trans pogrom is still steamrolling ahead, the regime is still co-opting local police and every other security force in the country, all while the funneling of wealth to oligarchic power at the expense of labor class lives, disaster preparation, and a planet that can sustain human life, continues unabated. The reality however is that nothing is ever stable or static in a fascist society; fascism doesn’t work without a constant state of peril and crisis. Trump and his minions will eventually start casting around for their next crusade, because the fascist style of rule absolutely requires an endless cast of threats and enemies to define the ever-shrinking “us” who must be protected, and always-expanding “them” who must be eliminated.

Having watched the regime carefully, and knowing which groups in Trump’s coalition of openly fascist cliques and power blocs feel like the Swine Emperor still owes them something for his election victory, I am increasingly convinced that next crusade the Trumpenreich will organize around is the enforced adoption of Christian Nationalism as a quasi-state religion, under the guise of fighting “anti-Christian persecution.” To that point there have already been disturbing signs that this is the case from Marco Rubio’s State Department, who back in April announced an attempt to root out “anti-Christian bias” at Foggy Bottom; a plan which functionally amounted to allowing Christian Nationalists at State to purge their less fascist, and less religious colleagues, while crying about how cracker fundamentalist nazis are actually the people being persecuted, in true fascist fashion.

Well, it sure sounds like whatever Rubio installed at the State Department was popular inside the Trump regime, because a recent memo from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management makes it clear that Christian Nationalist domination is intended to be a government-wide policy for the Pork Reich. To give you a better idea of what I’m talking about, let’s turn to this July 28th, 2025 article by Brett Wilkins, writing for Common Dreams.

Trump Administration Lets Federal Employees Push Religion in Workplaces

“FFRF co-president Laurie Gaylor said that “these shocking changes essentially permit workplace evangelizing, but worse still, allow supervisors to evangelize underlings and federal workers to proselytize the public they serve.”

“This is the implementation of Christian nationalism in our federal government,” Gaylor added.”

You always know you’re off to a good start when a US government mandarin sounds like an aggrieved bible thumper who wants to know why you don’t write “Merry Christmas” on the side of your coffee cups anymore, while he’s announcing an official federal workplace policy. To say that cracker Christian fascists in the Trumpenreich have a persecution complex would be a massive understatement, but it’s important to understand that just like Trump’s fake invasion, the fascist regime does not require the nonexistent “war on Christians” to be real, for it to serve as justification for the Christian Nationalization of the federal workforce. Owing to the influence of both the Christian Zionist movement, and the Heritage Foundation (the key force behind Project 2025) the Venn diagram showing the overlap between “Christian Nationalists” and “Trump loyalists” is basically a perfect circle. That means this odious, but seemingly-minor federal workplace policy change, is actually an instrument for allowing the fundie fascist leadership caste Trump has sprinkled throughout the federal government to conduct loyalty tests for the regime, and ultimately purge their ideological opposition inside the federal workforce.

There will of course be folks who accuse me of overreacting when I say this new guidance is clearly the on ramp for the official adoption of Christian Nationalism as a state ideology, but I think even a cursory reading of what OPM Director Scott Kupor just released here demonstrates that this has nothing to do with workplace tolerance, or freedom of religion. In addition to allowing religious iconography, and public prayer, Kupor also wants government employees to be able to display “posters” with “religious messages” and solicit participation from even non-Christian employees in group expressions of religious sentiment. So what happens when your evangelical nazi co-worker puts up a poster saying “God hates queers?” How about when your Christian Nationalist supervisor calls “the team” together for a group prayer asking Jesus to protect the chosen one, Donald J. Trump? If you have to ask those questions, you’re clearly not understanding the policy; remember, laws, rights, and rules have no dominion over fascists in power, and only serve to bind or oppress their enemies.

Even more alarmingly, the OPM memo expressly allows fundie fascists to proselytize their coworkers and subordinates. Do you want a promotion? Well maybe you better get with the program and accept cracker Jesus in your heart by showing up the next time your evangelical fascist supervisor invites you to the “God, Guns, and Trump” retreat with his local church group. Furthermore, Kupor encourages the kind of religious “debate” in the workplace that we all know is a code for fundamentalist harassment, which should work out well as a way to chase off folks that “just don’t fit in” with a Christian Nationalist worldview, without leaving much of a paper trail.

“Employees may engage in conversations regarding religious topics with fellow employees, including attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature,” OPM said—without elaborating on what constitutes harassment.

“Employees may also encourage their coworkers to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer, to the same extent that they would be permitted to encourage coworkers participate in other personal activities,” the memo adds.”

Taken together then, these policy changes effectively institutionalize an unofficial marking system that allows fundamentalist nazi Trump loyalists throughout the government to easily identify the necessary “us” and “them” inside the federal workforce; an obvious precursor for enacting precisely the kind of fascist ideological and religious purges Rubio is trying to institutionalize at Foggy Bottom. If you think this is just going to be about letting Christians annoy people at work in the government, I don’t think you understand how committed to installing a fascist cult this administration is. This isn’t about religious freedom, this is about institutionalizing a Christian Nationalist religious worldview as a perquisite for government service in the Trumpenreich.

This nazi nightmare train doesn’t stop (holy) rolling here.

 

 

– Nina Illingworth

 

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, and on Mastodon.

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