The New Villain Class
I made it about three paragraphs into Katherine Stewart’s piece in The New Republic before I started feeling like I was watching the trailer for a political horror movie instead of reading an opinion column.
Apparently, we are now one patriotic prayer rally away from authoritarian collapse.
Stewart describes Trump’s upcoming Freedom 250 celebration with all the subtlety of someone narrating a ghost tour through Salem. Readers get hit with phrases like “Christian nationalist propaganda,” “extremists,” “authoritarian,” “Crusader-tattooed,” and my personal favorite, “torture-defending rabbi,” all carefully stacked together to create the impression that conservative Christians gathering in public automatically signals danger ahead.
The Trump Freedom 250 program is embedded with unvarnished Christian nationalist propaganda. It kicks off with a rally on the National Mall called Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving, which bills itself as “part of the broader Freedom 250 initiative.” The event, hosted by a private foundation in partnership with the White House, has been described by proponents as “a major faith gathering” that will “bring together faith leaders, public servants, music, prayer, and testimony to honor God’s hand in America’s story.” In fact, it will bring together leaders and representatives of the narrow but powerful Christian nationalist groups dedicated to replacing American democracy with a (supposedly) Christian autocracy. – The New Republic
By the end of it, you half expect thunderclaps over the National Mall and a warning to stay inside after dark.
And look, I am not even here to defend every person involved in this event. Paula White has always made me cringe a little myself. But that is not really the point. What stood out to me was how quickly ordinary religious and patriotic expression got wrapped into the same giant ominous cloud as extremism and authoritarianism.
That seems to be happening a lot lately.
President Trump announced that on May 17 we are rededicating America as one nation under God. Rededicate 250 is a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
Get your FREE tickets today 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/FQmLm17Ymy
— Freedom 250 (@Freedom250) May 7, 2026
Oh the horrors of wanting to rededicate American as one nation under God!
When Everything Becomes “Extremism”
One thing Stewart does very skillfully is blur categories together until readers stop noticing the difference between them.
Prayer rallies become threats to democracy. Patriotic gatherings suddenly feel suspicious. Conservative Christians become “Christian nationalists.” A flag waving next to a church somehow starts sounding adjacent to fascism if you squint hard enough and add enough emotionally loaded adjectives.
This is where progressive media loses normal people.
Most Americans can tell the difference between actual white supremacy and regular churchgoing conservatives who still believe faith belongs in public life. The average person hearing “God bless America” at an event is not secretly plotting a theocracy between bites of potato salad at the church picnic.
But articles like Stewart’s increasingly treat visible Christianity itself as something unsettling unless it arrives fully sanitized, politically progressive, and approved by the cultural gatekeepers first.
And then Stewart takes things even further.
When Disagreement Becomes Moral Condemnation
She argues the Freedom 250 celebration is not really about patriotism or civic pride at all. According to Stewart, the entire purpose of the event is essentially to divide Americans into moral categories of “good” and “bad” citizens based on religion and political loyalty.
On this semiquincentennial, one might have hoped for some expressions of unity. America’s Founders, after all, prized unity almost too much. That is why they made so many compromises in their quest to create a United States of America. But Freedom 250, like everything Trumpian, is about dividing America, not uniting it. It’s there to tell us that there are “good” Americans and “bad” Americans. The good ones are Bible-believing Christians. The bad ones include media that reported accurately on the fiasco of the Iran war, for example; anyone who criticizes Dear Leader; and, of course, those who fail to adhere to the nation’s supposed founding faith. – The New Republic
That is not analysis. That is projection wrapped in dramatic language. Stewart is no longer critiquing specific speakers or political rhetoric. She is assigning dark motives to millions of Americans she has never met, many of whom probably just see faith, patriotism, and the country’s 250th birthday as things worth celebrating without being portrayed as democracy-threatening extremists afterward.
This is part of why so many Americans have stopped trusting elite political commentary. Too often, progressive writers no longer merely disagree with conservatives. They frame them as morally dangerous people whose public gatherings, religious expression, and national pride must always carry some hidden authoritarian threat underneath.
Stewart starts sounding less like concern over extremism and more like discomfort with traditional Christianity existing publicly at all.
The Founders Did Not Flee Christianity
The part that really lost me was Stewart trying to frame this entire celebration as somehow betraying the spirit of America’s break from Britain.
That is simply not what the Revolutionary War was about.
The Founders rejected monarchy, centralized power, and government control over religion. They did not reject religion itself. Many openly referenced Providence, biblical morality, and the importance of faith throughout public life. Public prayer and religious language existed from the very beginning of the republic.
There is a massive difference between a state-controlled church and citizens openly expressing faith in civic life. But writers like Katherine Stewart increasingly blur that distinction until a prayer rally on the National Mall starts sounding one step away from authoritarian rule.
The New Rules for Public Dissent
This is not just happening in America anymore either.
Look over at the UK right now. Before Tommy Robinson’s rally even began, Prime Minister Keir Starmer was already warning the public about division, extremism, and dangerous rhetoric. The messaging practically implied that anyone showing up was automatically suspect before they had even waved a flag.
Across the West, establishment politicians and media figures increasingly talk about populist crowds, nationalist gatherings, immigration protests, or religious conservatives the way nervous suburban moms talk about unsupervised teenagers at the mall.
The assumption now seems to be that if ordinary people gather around patriotism, faith, borders, or national identity, something dark must be brewing underneath.
The Language of Alarm
What bothers me most about Katherine Stewart’s style of writing is how emotionally manipulative it has become.
The trick is not necessarily lying outright. It is building an atmosphere.
You stack enough loaded phrases together like “authoritarian,” “Christian nationalist,” “extremist,” “dangerous,” and “threat to democracy,” and eventually readers stop analyzing what is actually happening. They just absorb the emotional cue that these are bad people doing scary things.
And this is where writers like Katherine Stewart lose people. That kind of constant moral alarmism does not make people more informed. It just makes the media sound disconnected from regular life.
Most Americans do not hear church music and immediately think “approaching fascism.” They do not see flags waving over the National Mall and assume democracy is entering its final stage.
The more progressive commentators describe ordinary Americans like potential threats, the less seriously people take them.
Feature Image: AI-generated illustration.
