Trump is promising an 'authoritarian' Christian nationalist 'task force' within DOJ: analyst

During a December 19 campaign event in Iowa, 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump promised far-right white evangelicals that if he returns to the White House in January 2025, he will set up a Christian nationalist task force within in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Trump told the crowd, "As soon as I get back in the Oval Office, I'll also immediately end the war on Christians. I don't know if you feel it. You have a war. There's a war…. Upon taking office, I will create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias to be led by a fully reformed Department of Justice that's fair and equitable. Its mission will be to investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment and persecution against Christians in America."

MSNBC's Sarah Posner, in an opinion column published this week, slams Trump's proposal as yet another example of Trump's "authoritarian" mindset and his emphasis on "the theme of Christian persecution."

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Posner, author of the 2021 book "Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind," explains, "In recent campaign stops and on social media, Donald Trump has reprised lies aimed at inciting his Christian Right base against Joe Biden. These tirades, centered on the false charge that the Biden Administration is persecuting Christians, aren't just Trump's typically dubious claims. Much like Trump's lies about a stolen election, they are designed to immerse his loyalists in a grievance-laden alternative reality in which Trump alone can rescue them from an evil government threatening their freedom."

Trump, Posner warns, will continue to "feed the Christian Right’s persecution complex."

"One needs to look no further than Trump's efforts during his first term, combined with his 2024 pledges to govern like a dictator, to see the authoritarian steps he is taking when it comes to 'protecting' his base's religious freedom," Posner writes. "He is leaving little doubt that he will do whatever it takes to retain the loyalty of the base that has stood by him through an insurrection, two impeachments, and now, multiple criminal indictments. He is saying loudly and clearly that as part of his broader disparagement of the rule of law, he would shred everyone else's rights in the name of his loyalists' 'freedom.'"

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Read Sarah Posner's full MSNBC column at this link.