Under God by Geoff Cartr « The Pen in Hand Blog

Illustration by Michael DiMilo

By Geoff Carter

When I was growing up, we were required to say The Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of every school day. From fourth grade on, we studied our country’s history and its government. We were taught that we the people were self-governed, that we chose our own leaders and therefore, the course our country would take. Now the unthinkable has happened. Someone is hijacking our democracy before our very eyes. It’s not a direct attack like the ones you may have seen in Hollywood movies like White House Down or Red Dawn or Seven Days in May. It’s a sneak attack aided and abetted by not only those at the very top, but by powerful forces that have been working for years to topple our government.

In 1998, when Hillary Clinton spoke of “a vast right-wing conspiracy” as the reason for the continued attacks against her husband Bill and herself, she was continually by conservative politicians and pundits. In 2016, she reaffirmed that the conspiracy still existed, although at that point she stated it was now out in the open. She was right.

For years, the Christian Nationalist movement has sought to identify and consolidate members from across a wide array of religious institutions. From roots stretching back to Pope Nicholas V’s Doctrine of Discovery which stated “that European civilization and western Christianity are superior to all other cultures, races, and religions” and that therefore the forceful imposition of Christianity on indigenous peoples was condoned and warranted by God—which happened to coincide with European imperialism—to American traditions like the slave trade and manifest destiny that were natural offshoots of this racist philosophy, white Christian nationalism holds that white American Christian values should be imposed (forcefully, if necessary) on the entire country. A prime directive of Christian Nationalism is to fuse religion and nationalism, and to champion one religion over all authors.

This concept has been realized in dominionism, “a group of far-right Christian ideologies that seek to institute a nation governed by Christians and based on biblical law” (Domipnism) and its execution has been outlined in the Seven Mountain Mandate, which maintains Christian ideology needs to influence family, media, religion, education, entertainment, business, and (surprise) government.

In 1981, an umbrella organization embracing conservative interests and religious groups called the National Policy Council was formed. Besides having close links to elements of white Christian nationalism, including the Arlington Group, the Heritage Foundation, and others bent on formalizing far-right conservative strategies (your vast right-wing conspiracy) which culminated in Project 2025, the Trump Administration’s current playbook. Percolating along with this religious fervor, political ambition, and unbridled avarice was a wide streak of white supremacist nationalism.

None of this happened overnight. It took decades of incubation and careful fostering before the unholy Project 2025 was spawned. And today, within the past few weeks, we have seen the realization of this terrible dream, this unholy desire to tear down democracy and replace it with a governmental hybrid of religious intolerance and corporate greed.

As part of his flurry of Executive Orders his first day in office, President Trump attempted to eliminate all DEI programs within the federal government. This week, Elon Musk, President Trump’s hatchet man, has attacked USAID, The Department of Education, the Department of Justice, the FAA, and the FBI. That is only as of this writing. He has illegally fired thousands of federal employees—as explicitly outlined in Project 2025. Perhaps the most frightening thing he has done is to infiltrate the Department of Treasury’s payments systems, the arm which sends out money for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, tax returns, and any other payments for which the US government is responsible.

Apparently, Musk, who was appointed by the president to head the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, barged into these offices and demanded access to all these files. Officials who refused were put on administrative leave or summarily dismissed. Mr. Musk has no power to fire any federal employee without due process, but that didn’t stop him and his assistants, “professionally trained” assistants aged nineteen to twenty-five (we’ll get to these juvenile delinquents later) bulled their way into these offices and accessed files.

Our government is built upon a system of checks and balances. When one branch (see above) runs amok in a berserk power grab, the other two are supposed to check it. The courts have been doing their best to put the brakes on Mr. Trump’s 2025 blitzkrieg. They put stays on his efforts to shut down some payments, dismiss employees, and other sundry illegalities. As labor unions and individual states have brough lawsuits challenging the legality of these moves, our courts have responded.

Of course, should any of these cases wend their way up to the SCOTUS, which was conveniently packed with conservative judges by Senator Mitch McConnell, who knows what might happen?

Congress is another story. The Republican-controlled Senate and House have done absolutely nothing to slow these attacks on our Constitution. When the House Oversight Committee brought forth a motion to subpoena Elon Musk to find out what the hell he was doing, the motion was shut down. The Republican Senate Majority has confirmed every single nominee to Trump’s Cabinet, including Robert Kennedy, Jr., Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, and Russell Vought, the author of Project 2025, as head of the Office of Budget and Management. What better way to defund programs that are—according to these people—unchristian? DEI—not white enough—gone. FBI—the guys who investigated Trump’s January 6^th buddies?—gone. DOJ prosecutors who tried Trump—gone.

This more than begs the question of why the Republicans aren’t protecting our democracy. Are they worried that the president may primary them and that they might lose their seats? What good is a seat in Congress if there is no more Congress—which is where this administration wants to take us. If Republicans realize this, are they hoping that Donald may grant them a fiefdom or a title for their loyalty. I wouldn’t hold my breath. Look at Mike Pence and Rudy Guiliani.

Yes, things look bad, but on the plus side, nationwide protests erupted on Wednesday, February 5^th, to protest the Trump administration policies. Congressional democrats are fighting tooth and nail in Congress to stall these tactics, and individual states are suing Mr. Trump for the illegal actions of his people.

Governor Pritzker of Illinois is trying to keep things in perspective. He announced that he would be renaming Lake Michigan to Lake Illinois and annexing Green Bay for the security of the state, underlining Mr. Trump’s lunatic ambitions to annex Greenland and rename the Gulf of Mexico. He’s right. Sometimes you need to call a clown a clown.