Dear Revealer readers,

In his recent interview with The Economist, Steve Bannon, the podcaster and presidential advisor, explained that there is a plan for Donald Trump to stay a third term in office. He said that more details about the plan, including how the Trump administration will work around the Constitution’s 22^nd Amendment that prohibits a third presidential term, will be revealed closer to 2028. For now, Bannon wanted the public to know that Trump “must” stay in office “to finish what we started.” And then Bannon’s language turned religious. He told The Economist that Trump “is a vehicle of divine providence,” and that “he is an instrument of divine will.” For Bannon, and likely many others, God has ordained Trump to transform the United States, and such a transformation can’t be accomplished entirely in eight years. Therefore, despite what the Constitution says, as God’s “vehicle,” Trump warrants a third term as Commander-in-Chief.

Revealer Editor, Brett Krutzsch

We need to take seriously what Bannon is telling us: Trump might not step down in 2028. Trump tried to avoid relinquishing the presidency when he lost the 2020 election. And now we know he has a team in place that is already plotting strategies to keep him in office past his second term. While Trump himself has said the Constitution bans a third term, he also denied knowledge of Project 2025 leading up to the 2024 election. We should therefore assume Bannon is telling the truth, that there is a plan, and that the plan contains several contingencies, including how the administration would ignore a Supreme Court ruling preventing Trump from running again, as well as organized MAGA demonstrations in the streets in support of a third term, mass voter suppression of people of color, Vice President JD Vance refusing to certify the results if they do not go in their favor, and much more.

Since Bannon has told us they have a plan to keep Trump in office past the 2028 elections, we would be wise to assume they also have plans to make sure Republicans will control the House and Senate in 2026. We already know that Trump wants Republican-controlled states to gerrymander their Congressional districts to give Republicans more seats in Congress. We know that a provision in the Voting Rights Act is facing a Supreme Court ruling that could eliminate numerous seats in Congress held by people of color who are Democrats. We know that House Speaker Mike Johnson is willing to refuse to swear in elected Democrats. Combine all of that with voter suppression, possible federal “monitoring” of local elections, and placing MAGA loyalists in positions to oversee and certify election results, and we can see how much of a challenge Democrats face to win back the House in 2026.

And all of these efforts are so that Trump, an “instrument of divine will” in Bannon’s words, will have the full support of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the military to execute the desires of right-wing people like Bannon to reshape the fabric of American life. And these tactics, we should note, are not only happening at the federal level. They are also taking place locally in school boards and state legislatures. And they resemble similar right-wing and religious antidemocratic momentum happening in several other places around the world.

The Revealer’s November issue considers this intermingling of antidemocratic forces with conservative religion and examines current pressing issues of religion and politics at local levels, nationally, and globally. The issue opens with Orit Avishai’s “Spreading the Gospel During School Hours,” where she investigates a for-profit company that is working throughout the country so school boards will allow elementary school children to be released from public school for one to two hours a week to learn Christian Bible stories. The program has received strong support in many school districts and it has caused intense division in others where critics claim these programs segregate communities and push children to support a conservative Christian way of life. Next, in “We Need to Talk about Conversion Therapy,” Tom Sayers examines the recent Supreme Court case that would make conversion therapy, the debunked and dangerous programs that claim to turn gay people straight and trans people cisgender, legal throughout the U.S. and considers the implications this case has for a legal system that will let conservative Christians do almost anything they want. Then, in “The Evangelicals Trying to Distance Themselves from MAGA,” Jamie Valentino delves into the evangelical communities that are greatly disturbed by the Trump administration and that are trying to provide alternative models for evangelicals who want to be untethered from MAGA politics. After that, we look at two examples of religion and politics beyond the United States. In “India Cracks Down on Hindu-Muslim Couples Under ‘Love Jihad’ Laws,” Anuj Behal explores a prominent conspiracy theory that makes life legally difficult and, in many cases, dangerous for interfaith couples in India, especially when the husband is Muslim and the wife is Hindu. Then, in “How Church Leaders are Contributing to the Demise of Democracy in Zimbabwe,” Andrew Mambondiyani examines how pastors throughout Zimbabwe collude with the country’s ruling party to encourage their congregants to vote for that political party exclusively and to support the president from relinquishing power in 2030, in violation of Zimbabwe’s Constitution. After that, we conclude with two articles on topics not limited to national boundaries. In “Wrestling with Jewish Shame,” Helene Meyers reviews Sarah Hurwitz’s new book As a Jew to consider what she has to say about why some Jews feel ashamed of their Jewish identities, from shame about Israel’s actions to pressures to conform to Christian cultures, and what Jews can do to overcome that shame. And, in “Why Transgender Interpretations of the Bible Matter,” an excerpt from Trans Biblical, Joseph Marchal, Melissa Sellew, and Katy Valentine reflect on why turning to Biblical texts to investigate ideas about gender variation matter as much today as ever, especially in the current anti-trans political climate.

The November issue also includes the newest episode of The Revealer podcast: “Transgender Perspectives on the Bible.” Joseph Marchal and Melissa Sellew join us to discuss what the Bible says about gender variation and trans people, why some trans and nonbinary people turn to the Bible to think about gender even though anti-trans people do as well, and why thinking about trans people, the Bible, and religion is especially important right now. You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Despite Steve Bannon’s pronouncement that plans exist to keep Trump in office for a third term, we should not accept his declaration as an inevitability. After all, Bannon and his colleagues had plans to keep Trump in office past 2020 and all of those efforts failed. 2028 will be a different set of circumstances, of course, with Trump surrounded by a greater number of people who seem intent on doing whatever he wants despite legal norms and the Constitution’s clear language. But that election is three years away. Bannon gave everyone a warning. Now is the time, as several articles in this issue demonstrate, to organize locally and to connect those local coalitions with others across the country to ensure free and fair elections, to protect inclusivity and religious diversity in our communities and schools, and to defend democracy at all levels of government throughout the United States.

Yours,
Brett Krutzsch, Ph.D.