Marko Elez was once shy about his convictions. The Wall Street Journal reports that the DOGE staffer used a pseudonym to post racist content on X before he deleted the account in December. “Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” he posted last July. Other posts expressed support for a “eugenic immigration policy,” urged the normalization of “Indian hate,” and said, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.” When the Journal first linked Elez to the account, the 25-year-old engineer resigned from his position with DOGE — and the right howled. The Trump White House soon took notice. “Here’s my view: I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social-media activity should ruin a kid’s life,” Vice-President J.D. Vance announced on X. “We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever. So I say bring him back. If he’s a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.”
In a later reply to Representative Ro Khanna — who, like Vance’s wife, Usha, is Indian American — Vance added, “Racist trolls on the internet, while offensive, don’t threaten my kids. You know what does? A culture that denies grace to people who make mistakes. A culture that encourages congressmen to act like whiny children.” Vance is a conservative Catholic and should know that grace is the heart of the Christian tradition. As Paul said in his letter to the Ephesians, “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” To MAGA, grace is now the gift of Donald Trump through his proxy, Elon Musk. Elez does not need to hide any longer. He did not even need to apologize. Musk has said he will rehire Elez at DOGE, where he will help reshape the federal government into an instrument of his masters and, by extension, bring to life a state Christianity made over in the image of Trump. The administration reserves grace for men like Elez and denies it to those who need it the most.
Advocates for the separation of church and state have long warned that in elevating one version of Christianity above all others, the right would transform the faith into a weapon. Conservatives would then wield it against all who dissent: other Christians, religious minorities, and LGBTQ+ people, for example. That future is now here. Although Trump is not particularly religious, he and his acolytes grasp Christianity’s cultural power and see it as a way to consolidate power around themselves while exacting retribution on their political enemies. Theirs is a Christianity marked by grievance and cruelty, corroded by the pursuit of power and the enforcement of a strict social hierarchy. Grace, when they offer it, does not encourage humility in the recipient. Rather, it is a way to keep everyone in their appointed place. The racist Elez can return to DOGE, while anyone connected to “DEI” must be purged.
Even when members of Trump’s circle praise Jesus Christ, it’s in service of the president’s state Christianity. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who confronted the president during a prayer service last month, and Pete Hegseth both call on Jesus, but to MAGA, only one is the true Christian — and it’s not the bishop. Budde spoke of compassion and mercy; Hegseth spoke of lethality and war fighting. Allegations of rape, alcoholism, and domestic abuse did not keep Hegseth out of power. The Defense secretary has said he was redeemed by Jesus Christ, and Republican senators believed him because he had the support of the president. It was Trump, not Christ, who made all the difference; it was Trump that gave the holy utterance power, and it was Trump who saved him from irrelevance.
The Christian right’s conflation of God with Trump is not new, and today’s Christian nationalism is itself the product of a decades-old alliance between conservatives and some people of faith. Progressive Christians have long known that their conservative peers do not consider them brothers and sisters at all. What distinguishes Trump’s second term from his first is the maturity and ambition of his state religion. When Trump first took office in 2017, much was still in formation. Seven years later, his Christian backers are more enthusiastic than ever. Sated by the loss of Roe v. Wade and thrilled by Trump’s war on civil-rights protections for their foes, they want to finish what Trump once began. Christianity to them is as much as a political and racial signifier as it is a living faith, a way to cast political threats into the outer darkness. So far, it’s working.
Trump’s supporters are open about their goals. On X, Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, accused “Lutherans” of money laundering because they receive federal grants for their work with refugees and the homeless. Musk responded, saying DOGE was “shutting down these illegal payments.” The administration also moved quickly to make it easier for immigration authorities to make arrests at churches and other houses of worship. Under Trump, no sanctuary is safe; those who harbor migrants cannot worship freely. The right to religious freedom is conditional, depending on a congregation’s allegiance to Trump. Religious groups who filed suit against the policy say it has already lowered attendance rates and left members in fear, which is not a coincidence. Adherents of Trump’s state Christianity see it as a way to root out opposition and establish total dominance. To them, anything short of absolute power is persecution.
In the book of Philippians, Paul beseeches the early Christians “to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” Trump’s loyalists — men like Musk and Vance — expect the same of us all. Anyone who does not obey Trump must be defied or punished. As Republicans plot cuts to Medicaid and call for mass deportations, they clarify their new doctrine. The tenets of their faith include a reverence for whiteness and masculinity and the infliction of pain. There is no mercy here, only cheap grace and mass suffering.
