Outside the Beltway

A Photo of Christian Nationalism

Right in front of our noses, one might say.

Steven L. Taylor · Sunday, February 22, 2026 · 3 comments

Setting aside the weird new MAGA lovefest between Trump and Nick Minaj, we have here the head of government autographing a holy text that, I would note, is a product that he sells.

The thing that makes this gift meaningful is the personalized signature, not the text itself. This is putting the “nationalism” in “Christian nationalism.”

You’d think it would upset a lot of Christians, but I guess not. Like a lot of things, it is difficult to imagine any previous president doing such a thing. One can imagine multiple segments from days on Hannity had Obama done such a thing.

To be clear: I am not personally upset that Trump sells a Bible (except for the part where he is clearly leveraging his presidency to sell merch), nor am I personally scandalized that he autographed one (although it is clearly a crass thing to do). What concerns me about this kind of symbolism is the merger of religion and government in an identitarian way. Worse, it is the fact that it doesn’t offend a lot of conservative Christians when it should, on its face, be offensive to them.

Their lack of offense as he hawks Bibles and autographs them means they are giving him a pass to act sacrilegiously because they find his political views palatable and because they want their religious views to be furthered by the state. It is ultimately not sacrilege in their eyes because their guy does it and because he merges, in their minds, their political and religious projects.

Hence, this is a hallmark of Christian nationalism.

Sometimes you tell on yourself for what you get offended by, while at others you tell on yourself what you decide to let slide.

Bonus clip:

This really is so very gross.

A grift all the way down.