Trump/Pence Regime: Moving to Institutionalize Christian Fascism

March 26, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Christian fascists are a powerful, leading component of the fascist cohorts that make up the Trump/Pence regime. These biblical literalists are steeped in anti-scientific ignorance, hatred for LGBTQ people, and a determination to deny women any control over their own bodies and reproductive functions.

Bob Avakian has analyzed the rise of Christian fascism within the U.S. ruling class and in society as a whole, in works such as “The Truth about Right Wing Conspiracy... And Why Clinton and the Democrats Are No Answer.”

These fascists are deadly serious about imposing a theocracy—a society in which the Bible taken literally and forcefully becomes the basis for the law, culture, and morality of all society. Donald Trump has appointed Christian fascists to leading  influential positions in major institutions and organizations. They are rapidly shaping law and society as they move towards the theocracy they seek. They pose a mortal peril to all society.

Some key developments from last week alone:

Trump named Christian fundamentalist Robert Redfield to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC is the leading national institute to promote public health and safety. Redfield was a U.S. Army medical officer when the AIDS epidemic ran rampant in the 1980s and early 1990s. Ignorance of the origins and forms of transmission of the disease was enormous. Redfield contributed to that ignorance, and designed barbaric forms of punishing people with AIDS. HIV-positive recruits were barred from the military. Mandatory testing, with no confidentiality, was initiated for all troops. Chaplains informed soldiers if they were HIV positive, while military police rifled through their possessions looking for “evidence of homosexuality.” Soldiers who tested HIV positive were isolated in special barracks known as “the leper colony,” and “treated as prisoners,” as one report said. They stayed there until they were given dishonorable discharges, or developed full-blown AIDS. Redfield said, “The reason we have done what we have done, is that we think it’s good medicine—and it’s medicine that might work in the civilian sector, as well.” Now this ignorant, bigoted, hateful quack is set to impose those fascist methods on all society as the top official responsible for the public health of the population.

Trump renewed his transgender ban for all branches of the U.S. military. He approved a policy recommendation that “transgender persons who require or have undergone gender transition are disqualified from military service.” Trump’s latest order circumvents a court order that overturned his previous transgender ban, by saying transgender people can remain in the military under “limited circumstances” at the behest of either the Defense Department or Homeland Security secretaries. The U.S. military is an organization of reactionary violence against the people of the world, and NO ONE should want to join it. But the fascist Trump/Pence regime is branding trans people as “unworthy,” and less than human, and it is signaling to rabidly anti-gay people that it is now “open season” to persecute and assail trans and gay people. This ban is also a cornerstone of the Christian fascist remaking of society, and developing a virulently anti-gay military.

Mississippi’s Christian fascist governor signed a law banning abortions after 15 weeks, the earliest abortion ban in the country. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. The law also punishes doctors—they must submit reports on abortions, and if they are determined to have “knowingly” violated the law, their medical licenses will be suspended or revoked. This is the latest Mississippi law that restricts to the point of eliminating access to abortion in the state, which has only one clinic. A legal challenge by the clinic has temporarily blocked the law from being implemented. But the governor, who has said his goal is to “end abortion” in the state, has vowed to fight until that is achieved.

The Christian fascists are very far along and increasingly well-positioned to achieve the triumph of their theocracy. The Trump/Pence regime poses a mortal threat to humanity and the planet itself. The need to drive it from power is urgent, and the time must be seized before it is too late.

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