Christian nationalists believe Trump on a 'mission from God' to occupy cities: author

President Donald Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to escalating tensions between protesters and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The threat comes a little over a week after the fatal shooting of an unarmed 37-year-old U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, progressive District Attorney Larry Krasner and Sheriff Rochelle Bilal are threatening criminal charges against ICE agents if they violate the city's laws.

In a Thursday conversation for The New Republic's podcast, "The Daily Blast," host Greg Sargent (a former Washington Post columnist) and author Sarah Posner examined the connection between ICE raids and far-right evangelical Christian nationalism.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is an aggressive defender of President Donald Trump's mass deportations and ICE raids, and according to Sargent and Posner, extreme Christian fundamentalism is a key part of that mindset.

Posner told Sargent: "For Johnson, he represents only Republicans. In his mind, he doesn’t represent all American people. He thinks that he is on a mission from God to carry out a biblical or a Christian kind of government. And in his mind, that kind of government does not represent the ideals of, you know, helping your neighbor, welcoming the stranger — things that many people would think are biblical values. But for him, the biblical values are a strong, powerful, militarized government that lays down the law and protects America from what he sees as America's enemies: The left."

Johnson and other white Christian nationalists, according to Sargent and Posner, view ICE violence in Minneapolis in decidedly religious terms.

Posner continued: "They would like Americans to believe that the violence that we're seeing on the streets of Minneapolis and elsewhere is caused by protesters, is caused by neighbors with whistles — not caused by the ICE agents themselves or the Customs and Border Protection agents. And so, to him, he would like America to believe that, yes, there are riots in the street. He used that word: riots. And to him, by definition, those are not caused by ICE, because ICE is carrying out a mission from God to defend America from an invasion of illegal immigrants — from the left who would harbor those illegal immigrants. That's the kind of narrative that he's trying to draw here."

She added, "So he would never even conceive of reining in ICE, of putting restrictions on what they can do with their weapons or in terms of detaining people. To him, they are carrying out a government and a God-given mission to protect America. "

Listen to the full New Republic podcast at this link or read the transcript here.