The Christian Patriarchy is Crusading in the Cabinet with Project 2025. Now what?

The Survivor's Creed Is One Way Through

The weight of Christian Fundamentalism in the presidential cabinet hit me hard again last night. The New American Theocracy looks a lot like a fundie congregation of familiar faces, and I expect they’ll rule that way too. I’ve always said the way the Christian Patriarchy runs their homes is how they’ll run the country. Now we’re here.

The administration's entrenchment with Project 2025 is deep and wide (there’s a fountain flowing deep and wide), and although not every cabinet pick so far is part of it, the loyalists are there for the ride, not to protect us from it.

About a few of them, survivor style:

• Pete Hegseth is the GI Joe at church that the smiling wives don’t feel threatened by because he’s a little bit bad but a little bit hot, and they wish their husbands would spend more time with him so they get the grooming-and-fitness memo. He’s a cheater who’s been married three times, separated from a military assignment for a tattoo used by Crusaders taking Jerusalem by sword from Muslims, and now he’s a member of Doug Wilson’s CREC denomination—Pilgrim Hill Reformed. His classically educated (DW fundie hallmark) quiverful is 2/3 his (his third wife brought in 3). Chillingly, Hegseth’s words mirror my first husband’s, as shared in my own experience with the authoritative discipline of a CREC church:

“In a Bible and book study (Doug Wilson’s My Life for Yours), accountability in meeting with other men who can share openly—not some giant confessional—is a treasure. It’s a fortification of brotherhood. We wrestle with ‘Yes, the Bible is always the answer, but how do you apply it?” (emphasis mine)

• Russ Vought co-authored the new rules, and now, like the church ruling elder who also counts the tithes, he's set to determine the purse to enact them. An evangelical fundamentalist, the kind who went to Bible camp, Bible church, and Bible college, Vought is a stern authoritarian who wants to give King Daddy more power so that he can advance his ideological agenda. Since money is power, he’ll probably succeed in his role.

• Tom Homan appreciates the power of fear. He’s the bouncer and border czar who utilizes parent-child separation as an immigration deterrent, but there are also stories of him as a tough cop with a soft heart. He needs a lot of money to achieve the “shock and awe” he’s promised—including detention camps—and he reminds me of other times in history when very bad things were done on a mass scale by people who deeply believed they were doing the right thing.

• Brendan Carr’s positions are like putting Covenant Eyes on the entire internet—but allowing sex offenders to pose as accountability partners. For example, as presented in Project 2025, he’ll control the licensing and freedoms of media and speech—Catholics hear this presented as anti-sex trafficking without mention of the disguised censorship that comes with the patriarchy’s interpretation of what’s included as obscene, lewd, or sex-oriented content. Bye-bye porn, but also likely sex education on social media and legal online sex work. Having your movie and reading material censored is part and parcel of life in the Christian Patriarchy, and I expect these rules will be strict and often ridiculous.

• Susie Wiles is like the pastor’s quiet wife, standing in the shadows, oilily lobbying for her man's interests and organizing a cluster of frenetic guys—almost without them realizing she’s doing it. She’s the neck that turns the head, the woman who betrays her fellow women because it benefits her position of power to do so. There’s no record I found of Susie in connection with Project 2025, but she’s able to override Trump’s mommy issues and get him to comply—sometimes. That alone makes her a powerful woman in the patriarchy.

If you’d like another take on the P25 7 so far, I recommend this post on Trump’s loyalist hires after lies by

Ahmed Baba

Yes, it’s triggering.

Sometimes, I talk about what it was like so often—the book, interviews, content—that the pain of what it was like living under patriarchal rule numbs. For the most part, my traumatic experiences are integrated and metabolized, and I do this work without self-harm.

But the Hegseth Vought Heritage combo cut through. The judges. The changes. The hate and arrogance and smug claims of wisdom. They are true abusers with a trail of true victims, and my family and I were one of them.

Feeling activated as a religious trauma survivor and exevangelical isn’t unique right now. The majority of the country did not vote for this extremism, and if you grew up in a high-control religion that stunted your growth, mandated your identity, censored your expressions and explorations, and restricted your rights, you’re probably reeling right now, too. Solidarity.

My body and spirit remember the dark dread of walking through life as if surrounded by tender, tender dynamite. Mentally ill leadership plus fundamentalist patriarchy creates an extremely combustible environment. Everyone will learn to dodge and whisper. Don’t set it off…. tip-toe. Hide. Prepare. Whisper.

We will cower from what we know can happen more than what they threaten or do.

And we’ll all soak in The Impending, except for the flying monkeys and water carriers, emboldened to be in the warm light of their proximity to power. And the rabid congregations, foaming and straining to be let off their chains —(Oh the glee of letting their perceived former captors—the libs and dems and dummies—really get it this time.) The bullying from the masses has already begun. They are emboldened.

Life in Christian Fundamentalism drains and burns, and nonbelievers are not trained (or no longer in the practice) to find glory in their suffering. It will be cold here.

There isn’t a way to live with less compassion and kindness than the Calvinist fundamentalism of the Wilson CREC Heritage theobro landscape. They are not moved by crying—they whip babies. They are not moved by need—they’ll let the starving starve. They’ll smile at our struggle and tell us to say thank you because they enjoy a reign of terror over the vulnerable, and they begin with their children.

They will be hell, and they were my hell—every one of my deepest pains came through a Calvinist conservative Christian, often masking as an evangelical, promising they knew what was right and best for me while hurting me and the ones I loved, in Jesus’ name, Amen. Even joining them (and doing it well) doesn’t bring relief. They are relentless and mean, ice-cold in their supposed quest for what they consider to be Christian justice.

Something I know for sure:

The suffering of my life came through Christians, and it comes through Christians still. They’re without mercy, and they’ve stolen the Christ.

So many of the “not all” good ones voted this in, out of misinformation or ignorance, out of diminished belief the critics were accurate. This is the consequence of a faith group that denies the testimony of survivors, refuses to believe women, and shuts exiles and dissidents down.

The only way I found to defeat them (Wilson CREC Heritage fundamentalism) was to leave and love.

Leave their way of thinking, doing, and being.

Love others, love their victims, love the wailing neglected infants they were.

Refuse them a place of importance in my moral compass.

Refuse them ground.

Tell the truth of who they are.

Render them impotent, then sweep them out of my consciousness as irrelevant and small.

The fundamentalists' outcome has already played a role in history many times before. We know where their line goes. Ultimately, hate will shrivel a country. Hate will shrivel its hateful leaders, too.

And so, the survivor’s creed I wrote and clung to last time, that I will pray daily until they’re gone again:

Leave. Love. Light. Again.

Leave. Love. Light.

There will come a renaissance and an enlightenment, too. I don’t believe darkness ever truly wins.

Keep your courage, friends. We’ll need it.

Other posts you might find helpful:

Cultivated Abuse: Dallas Pastors Have a Problem

Predators Feel At Home in the SBC

Fundie Baby Voice Isn’t What We Called It

The Problem with Your Trump Supporting Friends

The Chronic Fatigue of the Trad Wife Life

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