In some ways, Trump is the kind of political leader the Christian right has been seeking for decades. He has fully championed the movement’s long-held policy priorities: overturning Roe v. Wade, pushing prayer in schools, and curbing LGBTQ+ rights. Now he is taking their movement even further, embedding right-wing Christian ideology into every facet of federal policy.

It’s a “broad coalition across Christian denominations,” says journalist Talia Lavin, “whose goal is an extremely socially restrictive agenda.” Lavin, author of “Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America,” argues that today’s Christian right is more receptive to authoritarianism than previous generations. “They’ve reached a kind of acme or apotheosis of their power and influence, where that sort of attitude towards democracy has attained real relevance in the way we’re governed.”

Washington warns that many liberals dismiss Trump’s alliance to the Christian right as fringe, missing its deep political impact. “While it’s this convenient political organizing tool, it is also a deeply held belief,” she says — one that rejects the idea that Black people and queer people have a rightful place in American leadership. Trump, she adds, validates the belief that only white Christian males are the true inheritors of the nation’s legacy. “Trump is both a product of and an accelerant of this movement.”