David Rothkopf writes:

We have seen the future of MAGA, and it is not Donald Trump. But even Trump has to be impressed with who he is being replaced with.

Sunday’s memorial for Charlie Kirk was, on one level, a moment of reflection on the conservative activist’s life—and one of catharsis for his supporters given the trauma of his murder. But on another, it was the most significant high-level gathering of MAGA leaders since Trump’s inauguration and, in that respect, it was strikingly different from any other such conclave we have ever seen.

That is because on Sunday, for the first time ever, Donald Trump was not the center of attention. In fact, he seemed almost out of place there, out of step with its tone and its clear focus on the future of the right wing in American politics.

Quite apart from the looming presence of Kirk himself, the most important voices at the event were his widow, Erika Kirk, and Vice President J.D. Vance.

Erika Kirk’s speech was the most emotionally resonant. Her public forgiveness of her husband’s murderer was clearly the signature moment. But she also established, with her language and focus, the character of the event—and revealed its purpose

Vance’s remarks, meanwhile, were the strongest of the senior Trump Administration officials who appeared on stage. That is true both because he seemed to be the person most genuinely close to Kirk, and also because he was the most in tune with Erika.

While Trump spoke as a politician, Erika Kirk and Vance adopted an approach that appeared more consistent with televangelists. As Erika stated explicitly, what they were there to advance was the politics of religious revival.

Their message was unmistakable: The future of MAGA is Christian nationalism. The central figure of their movement going forward would be not Trump, but Jesus.

On the face of it, it’s hard to object to such a shift.

Clearly, such a move would be a big step up, a transition from one of the worst of men, a living catalogue of vices who has been supported his entire life by the wages of sin, to a deity, the epitome of virtue.

What is more, it is a natural evolution for the American right, which in recent years has had an increasingly religious bent to its structure and focus. Evangelism at large has become a core part of the MAGA base. Movements like Dominionism, which argues that America is a Christian nation that should have Christian leaders guiding the country based on Christian principles, have been increasingly influential within Republican officials, jurists and commentators.

But there are deeply troubling elements to this trend. First, of course, is the fact that not all Americans are Christian or even religious, and that one of the principles on which this country was founded was the separation of church and state.

Also troubling is the degree to which so many televangelists in America have themselves become corrupted by money and power. Nothing illustrates this fact so well as their embrace of as corrupt a person as Trump as an agent of a Higher Power, a quasi-religious figure himself. [Continue reading…]