There’s a quote often attributed to Sinclair Lewis that has gone viral time and time again since Donald Trump first ascended to the White House, fodder for liberal memes on Facebook and reposts on Platform , it will be wrapped in the flag and bearing the cross.”
There is no evidence that Lewis, the early 20th century novelist, ever said or wrote that sentence—its origins remain unknown—but it’s understandable why people think he did. After all, Lewis wrote “It Can’t Happen Here,” the widely read 1930s dystopian novel depicting an Adolf Hitler-like figure rising to power in the U.S.—the type of fascist who eschewed the word “fascist” itself, but ‘preached’. slavery to capitalism under the style of constitutional and traditional Native American freedom,” and who “could quote not only Scripture but also Jefferson” – and the setting up of concentration camps for members of certain marginalized groups, as well as for his political enemies.
The book’s sardonic title has served as the basis for countless op-eds and magazine articles in the decades since its publication, with headlines such as “Could It Happen Here?” and “Did it happen here?” musing whether the horrors of European fascism of the 1930s and 1940s might reach American shores. Of course, these reflections sometimes ignored the fact that many Americans, especially Black and Indigenous peoples, were already living under a kind of fascism: white supremacy.
Yet, with Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory, there is a very good argument that the particularly virulent form of fascism depicted in Lewis’s novel, and the destruction of any semblance of democracy this country has known, about to happen here. now. As the apocryphal quote said, it is wrapped in a flag and carries a cross.
Trump’s connection to Christianity has always been there weakwith critics speculating whether his faith was authentic or born of political opportunism, especially after a crisis in 2015. interview in which he was asked to name his favorite Bible verses, but he repeatedly demurred. But a shameafter his first ascent at the White House, and especially after an assassination attempt in July this year, his religious rhetoric became increasingly intense.
“My faith took on new meaning on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, where I was essentially knocked to the ground by what appeared to be a supernatural hand,” Trump said last month, suggesting that divine intervention had saved him from a future attack. an assassin’s bullet. “And I would like to think that God saved me for a purpose, and that is to make our country greater than ever before.”
While Trump’s rise in 2016 sparked an explosion of fascist groups—the Proud Boys, Identity Evropa, and many more—many of those organizations have since collapsed, embroiled in infighting and scandal, and had their members arrested or doxxed. In many ways, these groups served as shock troops for the “Make America Great Again” agenda, sacrificing themselves to open the Overton Window—that is, the spectrum of acceptable political discourse—so widely that Trump would regularly use their words and ideas reenacts. days of openly talking about ‘remigration’, a well-known euphemism for ethnic cleansing.
Yet the most enduring fascist formation, the one that has survived and thrived in the public eye over the past eight years, has millions of members in its ranks. As HuffPost has done reported On a large scale, they meet on Sunday mornings in a loose confederation of churches, speak in tongues, perform faith healings, and are led by self-proclaimed prophets and apostles who claim a direct line to God. Their revealed word always bears a striking resemblance to the latest MAGA or Republican Party talking points you might hear on Fox News, and includes prophecies that Trump is destined to rule the US and return to the White House to to carry out a reign of terror and vengeance. about those who once dared to oppose him.
Trump has repeatedly threatened revenge, lashing out at the “enemy within,” calling the press “the enemy of the people” and promising “retaliation” and would be a “dictator” on the first day of his next administration. His work will begin in earnest in January.
And he will have the support of the churchs in the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR – a nascent movement of charismatic evangelical churches characterized by a belief in the supernatural, in modern-day miracles, and in modern-day apostles and prophets, as well as an embrace of Christian dominionism, the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation and should be governed with an ultraconservative interpretation of Scripture. This latter belief is expressed in something called the Seven Mountains Mandate, which states that Christians must conquer the “seven mountains” of societal influence – the financial system, the church, education, arts and entertainment, family, media and government. – to form a perfect world. Once that is accomplished, the prophecy states, Christ will return to earth.
It is a movement that is fundamentally hostile to the type of democracy necessary for equal governance in a diverse and pluralistic society like the US. Therefore, it is no surprise that NAR prophets and apostles played such a fundamental role in fueling the anti-democratic January 6. 2021, attack on the US Capitol, and why they have found a home in the upper echelons of a Republican Party increasingly tied to the politics of outright domination.
The Republican Party’s official party platform is full of NAR-inflected language, including a call to “keep foreign, Christian-hating communists, Marxists and socialists out of America.” Such language can also be found in Project 2025, the sprawling fascist blueprint for a new conservative government led by the think tank The Heritage Foundation and which portrays Christians in America as under siege by “woke” enemies.
Trump and J.D. Vance, now the vice president-elect, have repeatedly courted the New Apostolic Reformation, including when Vance spoke in September at an event hosted by an apostle who believes Trump was destined to save America from Kamala Harris , with the Democratic presidential candidate. nominee allegedly sent by the devil to “take out Trump.”
Fascist movements often imbue their leaders with mythological, divine qualities, and the NAR is no exception. Trump was destined to rule for “such a time as this,” according to the movement’s prophets and apostles, who at various times over the past eight years have “made a hobby of associating the famously blasphemous, philandering, greedy real estate mogul.” with biblical heroes and quotable Bible verses,” wrote Matthew Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies and author of “The Violent Take It by Force.”
Taylor wrote for Religion News Service just before the election how these prophets and apostles alternately compared Trump to Cyrus, the ancient Persian emperor; “a modern Job, defiantly enduring devilish persecutions”; “Esther, providentially positioned ‘for such a time as this’”; or “David, a flawed but anointed man of God.”
But the most chilling Biblical comparison Taylor observed came last month, when NAR prophets and apostles rallied for Trump in Washington, equating the former billionaire president with King Jehu.
“Donald Trump is a Jehu type, and Kamala Harris is a Jezebel type. As you know, Jehu cast out Jezebel,” Apostle Ché Ahn said during the meeting. “I decree in the mighty name of Jesus, and I decree by faith, that on November 5, Trump will win, he will be our 47th president, and Kamala Harris will be ejected, and she will lose.”
As Taylor noted, in the Bible, Jehu not only “drove out” Jezebel but also killed her in a gruesome manner. “He demands that her servants throw her from a high tower and then tramples her body with his horse,” Taylor wrote. ‘Wild dogs are coming to eat her corpse. The message of the story: Jezebel was so blasphemous, so heinous, that all memory of her was eradicated.
Afterward, Taylor said, “Jehu goes on a rampage, slaughtering all the children of Ahab and Jezebel and piling their heads at the city gates. He then murders hundreds of Israelite civilians, including religious leaders who supported Jezebel. One of the most brutal and vengeful scenes in the Bible, the revenge of Jehu, is offered as the God-ordained template for a second Trump term.”
It would be easy to dismiss all of this as hot air or bluster, to say that these Christian nationalists don’t mean such comparisons. literal. Eight years ago, the press, the commentariat, Democratic politicians and academics who study fascism hesitated to call Trump a fascist. But in recent months, they have largely grown comfortable with the term, given Trump’s increasingly hostile anti-immigrant rhetoric and reports that he admired the ur-fascist: Hitler.
“We might dismiss the comparisons to Jehu as a metaphor if we hadn’t listened to Trump’s recent rally speeches,” Taylor wrote. “These biblical quotes reflect Trump’s own campaign rhetoric, which itself has taken a more vengeful, violent turn. He launched his 2024 campaign with to declare‘I am your warrior. I am your righteousness. And to those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your recompense.” He ends it with promises to exterminate ‘the enemy within‘and its American adversaries’pests.’”
Ultimately, the quote so often wrongly attributed to Lewis proved true actually prophetic. There is now a fascist movement with real power in the US. It is draped in a flag. And it bears a cross.
