With Senate confirmation hearings of Trump’s motley crew of Cabinet-level nominees, one issue Democrats will need to confront right away is when and whether the appointees’ often-exotic religious views are an appropriate subject for discussion. I offered some simple guidelines at New York:
Amid all the hotly disputed allegations that he has a history of excessive drinking and inappropriate (or even abusive) behavior toward women, Donald Trump’s defense-secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth, has another potential problem that’s just now coming into view: His religious beliefs are a tad scary.
Early reports on Hegseth’s belligerent brand of Christianity focused on a tattoo he acquired that sported a Latin slogan associated with the medieval Crusaders (which led to him being flagged as a potential security problem by the National Guard, in which he served with distinction for over a decade). But as the New York Times reports, the tattoo is the tip of an iceberg that appears to descend into the depths of Christian nationalism:
“’Voting is a weapon, but it’s not enough,’ [Hegseth] wrote in a book, American Crusade, published in May 2020. ‘We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians one thousand years ago, we must …’
“In his book, Mr. Hegseth also offered a nod to the prospect of future violence: ‘Our American Crusade is not about literal swords, and our fight is not with guns. Yet.’”
His words aside, Hegseth has chosen to associate himself closely with Doug Wilson, an Idaho-based Christian-nationalist minister with a growing educational mission, notes the Times:
“[After moving to Tennessee two years ago] the Hegseth family joined Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a small church opened in 2021 as part of the growing Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. The denomination was co-founded by Doug Wilson, a pastor based in Moscow, Idaho; his religious empire now includes a college, a classical school network, a publishing house, a podcast network, and multiple churches, among other entities …
“In his writings, Mr. Wilson has argued that slavery ‘produced in the South a genuine affection between the races,’ that homosexuality should be a crime, and that the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote was a mistake. He has written that women should not ordinarily hold political office because ‘the Bible does say that when feminine leadership is common, it should be reckoned not as a blessing but as a curse …’
“Mr. Hegseth told [a] Christian magazine in Nashville that he was studying a book by Mr. Wilson; on a podcast Mr. Hegseth said that he would not send his children to Harvard but would send them to Mr. Wilson’s college in Idaho.”
All this Christian-nationalist smoke leads to the fiery question of whether Hegseth’s religious views are fair game for potential confirmation hearings. Would exploration of his connections with a wildly reactionary religious figure like Doug Wilson constitute the sort of “religious test … as a qualification to any office or public trust” that is explicitly banned by Article VI of the U.S. Constitution? It’s a good and important question that could come up with respect to other Trump nominees, given the MAGA movement’s cozy relationship with theocratic tendencies in both conservative-evangelical and traditionalist-Catholic communities.
Actually, the question of the boundary between a “religious test” and maintenance of church-state separation came up conspicuously during the first year of Trump’s earlier presidency in confirmation hearings for the then-obscure Russell Vought, whom Trump nominated to serve as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (he later became director of OMB, the position to which Trump has again nominated him for the second term). Bernie Sanders seized upon a Vought comment defending his alma mater, Wheaton College, for sanctions against a professor who said that Christians and Muslims “worship the same God.” Sanders suggested that showed Vought was an Islamophobic bigot, while Vought and his defenders (included yours truly) argued that the man’s opinion of the credentials of Muslims for eternal life had nothing to do with his duties as a prospective public servant.
This does not, to be clear, mean that religious expressions when they actually do have a bearing on secular governance should be off-limits in confirmation hearings or Senate votes. If, for example, it becomes clear that Hegseth believes his Christian faith means echoing his mentor Doug Wilson’s hostility to women serving in leadership positions anywhere or anytime, that’s a real problem and raising it does not represent a “religious test.” If this misogyny was limited to restrictions on women serving in positions of religious leadership, that would be another matter entirely.
More generally, if nominees for high executive office follow their faith in adjudging homosexuality or abortion as wicked, it’s only germane to their fitness for government offices if they insist upon imposing those views as a matter of public policy. Yes, there is a conservative point of view that considers any limitation on faith-based political activism in any arena as a violation of First Amendment religious-liberty rights. But those who think this way also tend to disregard the very idea of church-state separation as a First Amendment guarantee.
Critics of Christian nationalism in the Trump administration need to keep essential distinctions straight and avoid exploring the religious views of nominees if they are truly private articles of faith directed to matters of the spirit, not secular laws. It’s likely there will be plenty of examples of theocratic excesses among Trump nominees as Senate confirmation hearings unfold. But where potential holders of high offices respect the lines between church and state, their self-restraint commands respect as well.
Most of Democrats’ factions are opposed to any change in party objectives, strategy or even tactics.
Regular “regular”/consistent voters and the overwhelming majority of elected officials (including almost all of the party elite) are aligned on this.
Pelosi has again spoken on behalf of the party apparatus rebuking Bernie.
Democrats are split between several factions:
1. swing voters who usually vote Democrat (less ideological, low information);
2. The mainstream partisan electorate that mostly cares about wins but is unable to steer the party anywhere except by the time and in the context of presidential and other major turnout primaries (more moderate, less ideological);
3. The partisan get out the vote operation which also cares very much about wins but that is often involved in liberal advocacy too and is therefore resistant to critiques of liberalism (more liberal, specially on culture);
4. leftwing artists, journalists and other cultural workers (liberals but mostly care about culture);
5. the professional advocacy staff of the liberal “groups” (mostly cultural issues and environment);
6. the staff of leftwing ideological media and politicians, many academics (progressive);
7. liberal-progressive voters (leftwing on culture and economics);
8. economic-progressive voters (more focused on economics e.g. 2016 Bernie);
9. anti-American leftists (minority nationalists, cosmopolitan humanitarians, pacifists, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, etc);
10. elected officials (mostly lacking ideology or willing to take any risks that don’t personally and immediately benefit themselves -beholden to their funders and to party elites-);
11. party elites (former very high ranking officials and permanent party leadership -DNC- and funders, mainstream media personalities -same as #10-).
There is a need to reduce the organizational influence of the advocacy groups and the cultural influence of anti-American leftists, but also of the party elite.
The problem is lower ranking politicians have absolutely no backbone and very little incentive to stick their necks out (in a wave election the remaining electeds live in deep blue places, while potential candidates in purple places have to care more about funders and party elites and can’t be seen as rocking the boat).
Democrats have become as internally autocratic since the Clintons as Republicans since Trump.
The Biden re/de-nomination debacle showed just how broken the governance and culture of the party are.
If the Bernie wing is going to increase its influence and the Warren wing going to keep its current influence, they must push the party further in the direction of a formal coalition model of governance.
The way the DNC (and its several bodies) is elected must be reformed as a first step.
The way the House and Senate Caucuses operate also need to change.