Trump has AG Bondi targeting 'anti-Christian bias.' One problem: There's no bias. | Opinion
This is Trump's upside-down reality, where criminals are victims of law enforcement, faithful are faithless oppressors of religion, and the truth about race in America is some duplicitous distortion.
President Donald Trump's worldview has always centered on division. He won the presidential election last year by emphatically amplifying perceptions that pull America apart. And his second term in the White House is designed for continued disunion.
In telling this story, Trump always casts himself as the great defender, protecting one side (his supporters) against the cruelties and crimes of the other side (people who don't support him). This approach requires quite a bit of lying. And Trump is just fine with that.
Consider Trump's speech Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., where he casually lied about former President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party and "anti-Christian bias" allegedly running rampant in America.
That was Trump's tall tale as he promised a presidential task force led by his newly confirmed attorney general, Pam Bondi, to "immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government."
Bondi on Wednesday launched another task force favored by Trump, on the so-called weaponization of the Justice Department during the four years when he was not president and was appropriately prosecuted for crimes he was alleged to have committed during and after his first term. That came just hours after the U.S. Senate confirmed her appointment, following a hearing where she swore she would not politicize the Department of Justice.
And Trump last week signed an executive order designed to prevent American schools from teaching children accurate lessons about race in America, which offends his white nationalist base. Trump calls that "radical indoctrination."
Let's review. A guy who was outraged when a bishop suggested he use power to show mercy, who happens to also be a convicted felon known for saying racist things, is now perverting the American government's approach to religious freedom, law and order, and racial understanding.
Trump wants you to believe Democrats hate God
Trump loves nothing more than a crowd eager to embrace his lies. He opened his speech Thursday by drawing loud cheers for suggesting, "I hope you all agree it's nice to once again have a president that shows up to the prayer breakfast."
Sounds like a dig at Biden, right, for not showing up during his term as president? One problem there. Biden, who very openly expressed his Christian faith, regularly attended the National Prayer Breakfast while in office. He didn't use his last appearance in February 2024 to take any shots at Trump or the Republicans, speaking instead ‒ get this ‒ about faith and Scripture.
Trump also suggested that "the opposing side, they oppose religion. They oppose God." Say those words out loud as you read this. Hear the dishonesty that drives the division, the desperate need to cast people not just as his foes but of enemies for all who support him.
Trump wasn't done lying. He introduced his new religion task force by falsely claiming that a woman he pardoned last month had been sentenced to two years in prison for "peacefully praying outside of a clinic."
Paulette Harlow, who Trump said was in the crowd for his speech Thursday, was part of a group that violently barged into a Washington, D.C., reproductive health clinic waiting room in 2020 and blockaded it until police removed them.
She might have prayed outside the clinic before she stormed in, but that's not what got Harlow prosecuted.
Welcome to Trump's America of actual weaponized government
About two-thirds of Americans identify as Christians, according to a poll published in August from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute. You'd think if 2 out of every 3 Americans were being unjustly targeted for their faith by the federal government, they would be marching in the streets demanding justice.
There's no march because this isn't happening. What is happening is some grifters like Trump have pushed this falsehood hard enough that some people just buy it without needing proof.
Something else is happening with Christian faith in America: The Pew Research Center reported in 2022 that the number of people identifying as Christians dropped from about 90% in the early 1990s to about 63%.
The grifters can cite that failure in faith as a result of government overreach. I think it's just people revolted by the grifting and the false claims of government oppression.
Strap in for four more years of Trump's upside-down reality, where criminals are victims of law enforcement, the faithful are faithless oppressors of religion, and the truth about race in America is some duplicitous distortion.
Trump loves that kind of lying so much that sometimes he just openly tips his hand, showing you all his cards in his deck of deceit. Watch him long enough and you know it when you see it.
Consider what he said at the White House while swearing in Bondi on Wednesday when he apparently lurched off script and started talking about Democrats like this: “She will lead the Democrats … you know where. … She’s going to lead them right down. But I think she's going to be as impartial as you can possibly be. I know I’m supposed to say she's going to be totally impartial with respect to Democrats, and I think she will be as impartial as a person can be."
Translation: Bondi can't really be impartial with Democrats because that's not what Trump wants.
What Trump wants is more division. And he's got the right team in place, armed with executive orders and task forces, for another four years of a riven America.
Follow Paste BN columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan