2026.04.18 Religious recources of the Trump administration.
On February 7, 2025, Trump announced the creation of the White House Faith Office, to be led by Paula White-Caine, his spiritual adviser.
In april 2026, ‘the Trump administration appears increasingly bent on casting the Iran conflict as a holy war‘ blessed by God, Trump’s spiritual advisor Paula White-Caine compared to him with Jesus at White House easter.
CNN, 2026.04.16: In fact, Hegseth has been speaking in such terms dating back to a book he published in 2020 called, “American Crusade.” In that book, Hegseth approvingly cited a pope having blessed the crusades.
“The pope, the Catholic Church, and European Christians chose to fight — and the crusades were born,” Hegseth wrote. “Pope Urban II urged the faithful to fight the Muslims with his famous battle cry on their lips: ‘Deus vult!,’ or ‘God wills it!’”
On this issue, the openly undiplomatic clash of the Trump administration with the American pope Leo XIV led to a shift of Europe’s far right to the centre-right, (stimultated by the Gaza genocide and Hungary’s elections) as the clash alienated catholic voters from the far right perspective of culture wars. Trump himself sealed the alienation by stating in an Italian newspaper about Meloni, who called the clash with pope unacceptable: ‘She’s the one who’s unacceptable’.
More background
Wikipedia, 2026.04.18: Central to the theme of the “American Crusade” is that there is something called “Americanism”, which The Guardian describes as essentially being right-wing populism. Hegseth characterizes “Americanism” in being opposition to forces like feminism, globalism, Marxism and progressivism and says either “Americanism” will prevail or “death” will.[4]
Hegseth describes leftists, progressives and Democrats as the “enemies” of freedom, the American constitution and the United States. Hegseth explicitly rejects democracy in his book, equating it to a leftist demand; “For leftists, calls for ‘democracy’ represent a complete rejection of our system. Watch how often they use the word,” adding: “They hate America, so they hate the Constitution and want to quickly amass 51 percent of the votes to change it”. He has also expressed support for election-rigging through gerrymandering, saying “Republican legislatures should draw congressional lines that advantage pro-freedom candidates – and screw Democrats”.[3] Regarding violence, Hegseth writes “Our American Crusade is not about literal swords, and our fight is not with guns. Yet.”[5]
Hegseth describes the 2020 presidential election as a clash for “the soul of America”, saying “the leftist media and machine hate President Trump – but they hate you just as much, if not more”. Hegseth predicted that if Trump lost and Democrats won the 2020 election, “America will decline and die. A national divorce will ensue. Outnumbered freedom lovers will fight back”, and the “military and police, both bastions of freedom-loving patriots, will be forced to make a choice. It will not be good. Yes, there will be some form of civil war”; he describes this as a “horrific scenario that nobody wants but would be difficult to avoid”. He says the end of the United States Armed Forces, which elsewhere he calls “the only powerful, pro-freedom, pro-Christian, pro-Israel army in the world”, will mean that “Communist China will rise – and rule the globe. Europe will formally surrender. Islamists will get nuclear weapons and seek to wipe America and Israel off the map”
Chris Hedges in his 2007 book American Fascists – The Christian Right and the War on America: “when I see how these people are manipulating the Christian religion for personal empowerment and wealth and for the destruction of the very values that I think are embodied in the teachings of Jesus Christ, I’m angry.”[7]
Leon Dessau 