Trump’s GOP has corrupted faith in ways that are destroying our liberal democracy.

“Happy Holy Week!” — as no one but Donald J Trump would say. “Let’s Make America Pray Again!”

If you thought there would ever come a time when evangelical Christians might draw the line at the Orange Herod’s antics, surely “the only Bible endorsed by President Trump!” for $59.99 a pop might have qualified. But apparently not, as we have come to accept. He’s getting a cut, of course — not that that would trouble Joel Osteen and his “prosperity Christians.” And Trump’s pitch is the familiar melange of lies and graft: “All Americans need a Bible in their home and I have [pause to acknowledge lie] many. It’s my favorite book” of all the countless books he has never read. For added value, it includes a “handwritten chorus to ‘God Bless the USA’ by Lee Greenwood,” alongside a copy of the US Constitution. As if the Almighty is a Republican.

This was the same week that Trump took to Truth Social to tell the world about a text he said he had just been sent: “Received this morning — Beautiful, thank you! ‘It’s ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you. But have you seen this verse …? Psalm 109: 3-8: ‘They have also surrounded me with words of hatred/And fought against without a cause.” So Trump’s fraud trial is seen by one of his supporters as the contemporary equivalent of the passion of Jesus Christ. “I’m praying this over you daily. Thank you again for taking the arrows intended for us.” This last trope seems to equate the prosecution of Trump for fraud with Jesus’ atonement for the sins of the world.

When I first wrote about “Christianism,” I saw it as a politicized version of Christianity, a form of theocratically-motivated illiberalism. It still is, of course, and now the guiding philosophy of, for example, the Heritage Foundation. And the fusion of religion and politics is a potent and volatile thing, as the Founders well understood. Hence my concern about George W Bush’s desire to place a prohibition on gay marriage as an amendment to the very Constitution of the United States.

But the current iteration — a new intensification — is more radical. It’s an explicit fusion of a particular strand of Christianity with the identity of the entire country and the transformation of a secular politician into an anointed instrument of God’s will. It makes voting an act of religious faithfulness, not democratic deliberation.

The absurdity of Trump of all people as an emblem of Christianity, a faith his entire life mocks, matters not. In fact, it’s a test of faith that you see how mysterious the ways of the Almighty are. The best we can hope for is my old friend Rod Dreher’s response to Trump’s gold-ribboned Bible — appropriately revolted, but politically undeterred:

As gross as this is, it must be remembered that Joe Biden stands for abortion on demand, and the right of children to be mutilated for the sake of becoming another sex. What Trump does above is tasteless, and maybe even sacrilegious. But what Biden stands for is, from an orthodox Christian point of view, evil.

And there you have it. The constant refusal of mainstream and online conservatives to break from the ever-crazier fringes to their right is an exact mirror of the cowardly toleration of the woke fanatics on the center-left. But while the left now draws on the energies of the new religion of neoracism, the right still has the depth and range of Christianity to plunder, use and abuse its opponents with. And as the extremes strengthen, it was only a matter of time, I suppose, before the Trump right embraced old-school anti-Semitism, just as the woke left has now adopted the new-school anti-Semitism of neoracism.

The departure of Candace Owens from Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire is not just a minor media story. It marks a rapid curdling on the extreme right. Owens has responded to the Gaza War with familiar tropes of a Jewish cabal calling the shots, and in the heat of online battle she deployed the term “Christ is King,” a reference to a minor part of Christian doctrine and a Catholic feast day. Andrew Klavan, another online conservative, called this out as an anti-Semitic dog-whistle — and before you knew it, X was aflame with #ChristIsKing and crude Jew hatred, led by Trump’s former dinner companion, the execrable Nick Fuentes. One of the ramparts of neoconservatism was the shift in the 1980s to refer to the “Judeo-Christian tradition” with respect to the West — a way to mute any tensions between evangelical Christians and Jewish intellectuals. It was always a bit of a sham — Jesus was either the Messiah or he wasn’t — but it worked in that Bill-Kristol-style, principle-free, whatever-gets-us-elected way.

It turns out, however, that these kinds of incoherent alliances only function in a chill era of liberal democracy, where we leave the jugular alone. But once the populist devils are unleashed, and there is never any cost to moving ever-rightward or ever-leftward, the old hatreds emerge. And what we’re seeing with what’s left of American Christianity on the right is a very Weimar thing: in an era of demographic ethnic insecurity and perceived cultural marginalization, as more people see their country under the control of sinister forces arrayed against them (the Deep State, the woke elites, the foreign policy Blob), the religion rooted in an abdication of worldly power becomes obsessed with wielding it ruthlessly — just for self-defense, mind you!

When I studied Weimar in college, I was genuinely shocked to discover the existence of the Deutsche Christen — German protestants who sought to synthesize the Gospels with Nazism and worship of the Führer. No, I’m not saying this is the same as contemporary American Christianism. But I am saying that the abuse of Christianity to shore up a political faction behind a charismatic leader in a populist, extremist era is not a new thing in history. It’s actually critical to Putin’s nationalist and imperialist project as well.

The nationalism and racialism inherent in Christianism is, of course, profoundly blasphemous. But if you can persuade enough people that their very existence as a culture is at stake, which Trump has successfully done, then the blasphemy becomes part of the point, proof of your dedication to the cause. Watching all this rapidly unfold on Elon Musk’s X — which now shows me endless loops of racial crime videos and ever more graphs of racial IQ bell curves — is like watching the right radicalize and polarize itself in real time. The fervor here is as intense as that of the woke, because it is rooted in misplaced religious zeal.

Tragically, liberal Christianity has in far too many places become incapable of countering this with simple theological orthodoxy. It has itself become something of a social justice cult almost as politicized and partisan as the right. And yet this week of all weeks, and this Friday of all Fridays, we are invited to understand the deeper spiritual power that comes with the renunciation of earthly power. The longer I’ve lived, the more I have begun to grasp how this authentically Christian understanding of the limits of worldly power is a kind of bulwark for a free society, a guardrail against the foolish certainties of Christianist right and left, and a guarantee of some kind of spiritual humility and social peace.

I pray this week that this tradition survives this awful era, as it has done in some of the more hideous episodes of the past. But I have rarely felt less hope behind that prayer. Or sensed so much darkness coming toward us.

There are fewer greater tributes to the legacy of Joe Lieberman, the late Senator, than the Gallup poll this week that showed American public opinion now tilting decisively — 55 vs 36 percent — against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. A whopping 75 percent of Democrats are now opposed, alongside 60 percent of Independents.

Lieberman dedicated his entire life and career to ensuring that no administration, Republican or Democrat, would ever use its huge leverage to nudge Israel into a real compromise with the Palestinians. He did this, in liberal Zionist fashion, while constantly touting his support for a two-state solution. Here’s a classic example of the Lieberman hustle:

I’ve looked at every other alternative over the years, between achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and you can’t do it unless you recognize the right of the Palestinians to have their own state. This much I’ve heard President-elect Trump say — he would really like to be a part of achieving the ultimate agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.

He said that in reference to Donald Trump’s appointment of the settlement-booster David Friedman to be US ambassador to Israel, a man so extreme he called members of J Street, a liberal American pro-Israel group, “far worse than kapos” — the Jews who sent fellow Jews to the ovens under the Nazis. Of course, the goal of Friedman, Trump, and Jared Kushner was to ignore the Palestinians entirely, to defund, immiserate and humiliate them, bury them in ever-more settlements, and isolate them internationally by doing deals with cynical Arab regimes. It’s a strategy that arguably led precisely to Hamas’ desperate attempt to regain relevance by the hideous, Nazi-style crimes of October 7.

Lieberman is being eulogized as a “moderate” but his moderation ended where Israel was concerned. In 2010, he had a conniption at the very idea that US loan guarantees could be reviewed if Israel continued to try and sabotage the Obama administration’s Middle East policy. “Any attempt to pressure Israel, to force Israel, to the negotiating table by denying Israel support will not pass the Congress of the United States,” he told the world — and he wasn’t wrong.

His blind dedication to the Jewish state, right or wrong, meant he could not even bring himself to condemn Netanyahu’s extremism, let alone the Grozny-style obliteration of Gaza that has followed. When even Chuck Schumer — a man who once said that the core problem in Israel is that the Palestinians don’t believe in the Torah, and argued for “strangling” Gaza’s economy in 2010 — drew a line against Netanyahu’s extremism two weeks ago, Lieberman, true to form, excoriated him:

For a US senator — let alone the majority leader; let alone the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in Washington — to tell Israel that it’s time to get rid of Netanyahu, that’s outrageous.

Just before his death, Lieberman was at work alongside Alan Dershowitz (who else?) preparing a statement warning President Biden against any attempt to pressure Netanyahu to moderate the Grozny-fication of Gaza: “Pro-Israel voters have alternatives to simply staying home,” Lieberman wrote. “None of us can or will vote for any candidate who supports cutting military support for Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas.”

What Lieberman never allowed himself to contemplate was that by always backing Israel in every single case, on every single point, including its expansionism and fundamentalist radicalization, he was not helping the Jewish state but hurting it. Reflecting on errors did not come easily to him, of course: he still backed the Iraq War two decades after its horrifying failure. He believed, like his beloved but equally deluded confrère, John McCain, that there was no war America shouldn’t fight and no region it shouldn’t seek to dominate indefinitely.

It was the fixity of that delusion — and its toll on thousands of lives, American, Iraqi and Palestinian — that ultimately shifted the GOP to Trumpism and the new isolationism; and it’s beginning to shift the Democrats away from an Israel synonymous with war crimes. Lieberman may have been a good man, a decent soul, and a moderate in most things. But he damaged America and Israel permanently. You can harm the things you love the most.

Danny is a journalist, politician and old friend. Formerly an adviser to Prime Minister John Major, he was appointed to the House of Lords in 2013. He’s a former executive editor of The Times of London and is still there as a weekly political columnist. He’s also a director of Chelsea Football Club. Danny’s latest book is Two Roads Home: Hitler, Stalin, and the Miraculous Survival of My Family (the title in the UK is way, way better: Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad). It’s an astonishingly well-researched thriller of a story.

Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — comparing the horrors of the Soviets and the Nazis, and whether Anne Frank would have been a Justin Bieber fan. That link also takes you to a bunch of commentary on last week’s episode with Richard Dawkins, as well as a long series of anecdotes of people blasting loud noise in public. A classic reader thread.

“We should not treat God’s word as a political tool. We should not think Christ is coming to save our nation. He is actually coming to end it. We have to choose — Christ or country,” – Erick Erickson.

“Do you have a butt plug right now?” – Alex Jones to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.

“If you say [to a Trump supporter], ‘You dumb son of a bitch, how can you ever think that this fat, slimy, rapist, criminal, racist should be president?’ they’re going to recoil. I think Democrats should say: ‘Look, you believed in him. You felt like you weren’t being seen, you were being culturally excluded. But he betrayed you. You thought he was going to be for you and helping you, but he was really for TikTok and tax cuts to the rich,’” – James Carville, in a must-read MoDo column.

“New Harvard/Harris poll: 73% of voters are fine with the term ‘illegal immigrant,’”- Peter Hamby.

“I never listened to Andrew Huberman and know little about him, but I kept reading this endlessly gossipy article in this shit magazine, waiting for even a single revelation about his private adult life that merited public interest or knowledge, and never found a single one,” – Glenn Greenwald on New York Magazine.

“As humans, we are obsessed with race, and that obsession can really hinder people’s aspirations and growth. Racism should be a topic for discussion, sure. Racism is very real. But from my perspective, it’s only as powerful as you allow it to be,” – Idris Elba.

“My lifelong goal has been to get the kind of conversation we have in life — utterly real, completely authentic, cleaned up for no one — on the air. … Dance like no one’s watching? We talk like no one can cancel us” – Bill Maher on launching his own pod network. Mazel! Bill has also agreed to come on the Dishcast soon.

A reader digs deeper into the murder story that led my piece on loud-music offenders:

I searched for more on the story, because I used to live in the Bronx, and I also have major sensitivity to other people’s music/speakerphones. The Bronx man who was murdered, Tyquan Pleasant, was a young black father trying to get his neighbor to turn down her music at 1 AM, so that his baby could sleep. Shaun Pyles, a trans woman neighbor, stabbed him in the back after Pleasant first called 311 and then crossed the hallway to complain in person.

Oy. I withdraw the “Free Shaun Pyles!” joke. Another reader:

Regarding the final paragraph of your latest column, I would like to encourage you to examine your highly critical, over-the-top, critique of younger people. You often sound as if you believe the last good generation was your own, and those younger people simply fail to meet your very personal, self-centered standards. It may be that because you are not a parent yourself, all you can see is the bother you feel in younger folks’ behavior. You sound like people who don’t own dogs who are disgusted by the anthropomorphism one often observes in dog owners.

Maybe we are all blinded by love, but I believe my youngest daughter and her friends are hard-working, competitive, resilient, responsible adults. Sure, they have some generational faults, but they are not fatal — just as your generation’s vulnerabilities were and are not fatal. Having said this, if the world is in a shitstorm today, it is the Baby Boomers who created it. Let’s own that.

I’m growing weary of people whining about those coming up. The idea of “the good old days” is a common delusion — a form of narcissism and self aggrandizement. Be careful not to place yourself on a pedestal. The fall hurts.

I’m grateful to you for knocking me off it. But I think you’re wrong. I’ve long delighted in younger generations, surrounded myself with them from the early days of the Dish onward, and often spoke admiringly of them. But not the generation that came out of college from 2015 onward. Truly fucked up. I wish it weren’t so — but if this crew of young transqueers ever had to deal with what my generation did, they’d collapse in a quivering heap of self-pity. At some point, the pity one feels is mixed with contempt. And the feeling is entirely mutual. Young gay contempt for the elders who gave them their rights, especially if you’re white and male, is striking. They tell us we did nothing — but black trans women were heroes.

The dissents-and-podcast page is also full of hilarious and passionate assents to my column last week on compulsory, Bluetoothed public music. It’s lit! Check it out.

And as always, keep the dissents coming: [email protected].

Scraggly bros blowing off steam:

• The special election in Alabama is the latest omen for Republicans on abortion. Did the media get the IVF story wrong?


• What do we know about RFK Jr’s running mate?


• Jason Linkins argues that Dems “should be happy that the legal system won’t save them” from Trump.


• The Free Press has a debate over banning TikTok.


• Four years into Covid, Yglesias feels “we’ve made frustratingly little progress in figuring out how to do better.”


• Why is the “Ukrainian resistance in more peril than at any time since February 2022”? A leadership crisis.


• The EV charging network in the US finally has a breakout year.


• The subway in NYC continues to be a violent shit-show.


• Is the new SAT dumbed down?


• Bryan Caplan is baffled by the exorbitant price of out-of-state tuition.


• A great headline from Eva Kurilova: “Don’t Mistake Emotional Dysregulation for Passionate Advocacy.”


• Do children make you happy? “It’s complicated,” Filipovic finds.


• Evan Marc Katz wonders why poly peeps are so smug, “especially when they seem so miserable.”


• Could psilocybin become a treatment for dementia?


• Memo to drug guides: “Don’t fuck your patients.”


• Thirty-seven percent of UK ads feature black people, who are just 4 percent of the population.


• Wokeness is in retreat, but it still has a stronghold in indie music.


• The Borowitz Report has a new home on Substack, as does Peter Singer.

Where do you think? Email your entry to [email protected]. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. Proximity counts. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a View From Your Window book or two annual Dish subscriptions.

See you next Friday.