Just over 100 days into Donald Trump’s return to the White House, his administration has wasted no time implementing an expansive and ideologically driven authoritarian agenda—one that civil liberties advocates, scholars, and international observers say is targeting political dissent, eroding democratic institutions, and reshaping U.S. governance around Christian nationalism and ethno-nationalist policy goals.
A comprehensive report by Political Research Associates (PRA) outlines how the Trump administration has moved with “Biblical proportions” in its second term, a phrase used by newly-appointed Israel ambassador Mike Huckabee, to describe the administration’s vision for the Middle East. At the heart of this project is a robust partnership with Christian Zionists—a movement of evangelical and Charismatic Christians whose theological commitment to the modern state of Israel is shaping not just U.S. foreign policy but domestic repression as well.
Christian Zionist leaders are now deeply embedded in the Trump administration. In addition to Huckabee, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Paula White-Cain, Senior Advisor to the White House Faith Office, play leading roles. White-Cain, a figure in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), has helped steer the administration’s aggressive culture war agenda. According to PRA, “Pro-Israel evangelical leaders have signaled their unparalleled access to the halls of power by leading worship services and praying over President Trump in the White House in recent months.”
The alignment between Christian Zionism and Trumpism is being institutionalized. A new coalition, the Conference of Presidents of Christian Organizations in Support of Israel, was launched to mobilize advocacy at all levels of government. Pastor Mario Bramnick, head of the Latino Coalition for Israel, declared at the group’s Israeli launch, “God has given Israel a blank check with the election of Trump.” PRA notes this signals a push toward “full Israeli annexation of the West Bank,” which evangelical and Israeli right-wing leaders see as the logical next step after Trump’s earlier actions like moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and initiating the Abraham Accords.
Yet the domestic implications of this alliance are just as alarming. Under the guise of combatting antisemitism, Christian Zionist leaders and MAGA strategists have launched a broad campaign of state repression targeting Palestine solidarity activists—particularly students, immigrants, and Muslim communities. One of the most chilling developments came in early March, when Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student at Columbia University, was abducted by plainclothes ICE agents waiting in an unmarked van outside his apartment. “His was ‘the first arrest of many to come,’” PRA reports, quoting the White House’s social media post: “Shalom, Mahmoud.”
This abduction appears to be the start of what many civil rights advocates are calling a political purge of pro-Palestine voices in academia and public life. By late April, the administration had revoked more than 1,800 student visas, most of them targeting foreign nationals from Muslim-majority countries. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has openly bragged about these actions, framing them as part of a national security campaign. But PRA warns, “These enforced disappearances inadvertently make political violence visible by exposing the authoritarian state’s insecurities.”
The crackdown echoes tactics previously employed during Trump’s first term. In 2020, federal agents abducted racial justice protestors in unmarked vans in Portland and New York City—tactics now repurposed for punishing solidarity with Palestine. Khalil’s disappearance, along with the detainment of students like Leqaa Kordia and Mohsen Mahdawi, shows that the administration is no longer content with surveillance—it is now employing “forced disappearances,” a hallmark of authoritarian regimes.
This second Trump term is also marked by the systematic dismantling of reproductive rights and LGBTQ protections. On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order recognizing only two biological sexes and rejecting gender identity as a valid legal category. This has already led to the elimination of federal support for gender-affirming care, restrictions on trans athletes in schools, and pardons for those who violated the FACE Act—effectively sanctioning violence against abortion providers.
“These parallel assaults on reproductive care and LGBTQ rights share a common goal,” PRA writes, “enforcing a Christian nationalist vision of public life using every lever of government power.”
Trump’s reproductive policy is being reshaped in line with Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for dismantling federal protections and replacing them with religiously motivated alternatives. The administration has frozen Title X funding, gutted programs serving low-income communities, and directed support to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers. The result is devastating: “The freeze targeted providers for opposing racism or offering gender-affirming care,” PRA notes, “demanding an inordinate amount of paperwork to justify receiving funding.”
Meanwhile, the far-right coalition is showing signs of internal strain. Trump’s recent IVF executive order—framed as a “pro-family” gesture—sparked backlash from groups like Students for Life Action, who equate embryo storage with the loss of life. At the same time, tech billionaire Elon Musk, a Trump ally and vocal IVF supporter, promotes the procedure as a solution to demographic decline, reinforcing eugenic narratives about “smart people” needing to reproduce more—further dividing the coalition between pragmatists and hardline ideologues.
Internationally, the Trump administration has revived some of the most extreme global anti-rights policies of previous Republican administrations. It has reinstated the Global Gag Rule (Mexico City Policy), halting U.S. funding to any health organization abroad that mentions or supports abortion. According to PRA, the resulting health care collapse has “denied humanitarian aid to women and girls in crisis zones” from Palestine to Ukraine. Foreign LGBTQ organizations have shut down after funding was slashed by executive order, and the administration has taken further steps to rejoin anti-abortion alliances like the Geneva Consensus Declaration.
More chillingly, Trump’s allies are now openly using international human rights bodies to spread anti-trans rhetoric. In March, U.S. diplomats at the Commission on the Status of Women used language from Trump’s executive orders to oppose gender inclusion in global human rights standards. These moves “undermine the international human rights system’s bulwark against authoritarianism,” PRA warns, aligning the U.S. with global anti-LGBTQ regimes like Hungary and Uganda.
The administration has even deported LGBTQ asylum seekers to dangerous foreign prisons. PRA highlights the case of Andry José Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan man deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison—despite known threats of targeted violence. This echoes the administration’s broader push to eliminate due process and normalize rendition-style deportations.
At home, these authoritarian shifts are bolstered by state governments working in lockstep with the federal agenda. States like Florida, Missouri, and Tennessee are pushing laws to exclude immigrants from census counts, end birthright citizenship, criminalize immigrant education, and even incentivize private citizens to capture suspected undocumented individuals. DeSantis recently boasted that Florida was “the tip of the spear” in arresting more than 1,100 people in a single week under Operation Tidal Wave.
And even the judiciary, once seen as a bulwark against authoritarianism, is being sidelined. The administration has ignored court rulings, arrested a judge who resisted ICE intrusion, and continues to use executive power to undermine civil protections. “While settling the contradictions between the administration’s actions and courts’ orders may well take months or even years to resolve,” PRA notes, “there is also an effort concurrently happening in states and local municipalities to ensure the expanding architecture for mass deportation will outlast the current president’s time in office.”
Taken together, these moves represent more than isolated policy shifts—they are part of a coherent strategy to transform the U.S. political order through religious nationalism, ethnic cleansing abroad, and repression at home. The authoritarian playbook is being implemented openly and unapologetically, with tools of surveillance, state violence, and theological justification.
But as PRA concludes, “Such efforts are no longer a ‘trial run’ for something more authoritarian or fascistic—this is our reality for the foreseeable future.” And in this darkening political climate, only organized, sustained resistance—across communities, borders, and belief systems—can slow the tide.
Just as I thought Political Research Associates is a left-biased organization so I take their finding with a grain of salt:
“Overall, we rate Political Research Associates as left-biased due to their strong focus on critiquing right-wing ideologies and promoting progressive values. For factuality, we rate PRA as mostly factual rather than high because of its advocacy bias, often presenting one-sided perspectives without incorporating counterarguments or perspectives from those they critique.”
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/political-research-associates-pra-bias-and-credibility/