Donald Trump often appears explosive and inconsistent: sudden insults, over-the-top statements, and contradictions that make headlines. This media spectacle, however, risks obscuring the most important fact: behind the apparent schizophrenia lies a precise political strategy, both domestic and foreign. Underestimating this means failing to understand how power blocs and electoral loyalty are built in the United States today and how international balances of power are managed, for better or worse. Analyzing what is happening within the United States, in terms of profound transformations of American democracy, could help us understand the transformations that, in the not-too-distant future, could also affect Europe.
US-made "foreign policy" actions are constantly discussed, but what appears so elusive in analysis are the repercussions on domestic balances. Let's not forget that even the most aggressive and powerful democracy in the world must abide by the rules of political representation, regardless of the wishes of its rulers. For this reason, Western democracies have been under attack for years, with various attempts to prolong governments or introduce presidential and authoritarian changes. In the United States, the president, despite possessing enormous power even when he holds an absolute majority in Parliament, faces a series of obstacles inherent in the constitutional protection mechanisms and the courts.
Attempts to install trusted figures often prove ineffective, so it's better to weaken the apparatus and change the rules of the game. Many of America's domestic policy actions should be understood from this perspective. But regardless of the long-term, far-reaching trajectories, the most powerful man in the world will soon have an appointment with his electorate and the midterm elections. Therefore, he must necessarily cash in and shake the confidence of his electoral base. Trump isn't simply arguing with the Vatican to make noise; he's using the conflict with the Church as leverage to redefine the moral authority of the American right and to discipline a political field that needs, in the upcoming midterms and beyond, unity, participation, and a competitive identity. The first truth to recognize is that the tactic of attacking the Pope or delegitimizing the Curia is not a theological whim but a consensus-building technology.
It's not a matter of convincing Catholics to renounce their faith, but rather of rebuilding the connection between faith and politics according to horizontal parameters: legitimacy no longer descends vertically from the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but is distributed horizontally within a political-media ecosystem. This explains why insults and provocations can serve this process, fueling the perception of a distance between "Rome"-understood as a global, moralizing elite-and the "real" America of conservatives, leaving room for political leaders to present themselves as the true defenders of national Christianity.
All perfectly in line with the mantra "Make America Great Again," great also in terms of theological mastery, great also in restoring meaning to religiosity. But to achieve this, it is necessary to ignite a profound sense of Americanness, exposing the meaning that history has in the United States, that is, a nation that has had to invent its own history over time. Every aspect of this history is valorized, even if it is always told by "victimizing the victor," who prevails because he has the Almighty on his side. In that typically Calvinist vision that makes the consciences of those who have always done "the right thing" feel at ease.
Here comes into play the process we might call "cultural Protestantization" and the production of post-institutional identity, two sides of the same strategic objective. Historically, in the United States, religion has been mediated by a Protestant-based political culture: an emphasis on the individual and conscience, a distrust of distant authorities, and the conversion of faith into direct political engagement. When significant segments of Catholicism organically integrate into the conservative right, they assume these coordinates: the political community and media networks become the primary locus for constructing religious identity.
This is not a marginal reshuffle, but a transformation that redefines the role of the Church in the political system. This transformation takes on particular weight in a historical moment marked by the crisis of representation and the state's difficulties in ensuring the stable and legitimized reproduction of capital. In this context, the distinction between public and private dissolves. The state may be more or less democratic, it may or may not fulfill redistributive functions, but its image as a mediator of social cohesion is in crisis. Faced with this erosion, hybrid forms of social reproduction are emerging: local networks, parastatal institutions, and political subcultures, which perform functions that were once the prerogative of state apparatuses or large transnational institutions. The "new Catholic right" is precisely one of these hybrid devices: it does not replace the state, but integrates and recodifies its functions of moral legitimacy, the organization of consensus, and the formation of local cadres.
In concrete terms, this transition relies on a communications and organizational ecosystem: conservative media, religious influencers, think tanks, podcasts, fundraising networks, and alliances with evangelicals. These actors produce a performative religiosity, recognizable and consistent with the populist political agenda: it is a religion that orders public priorities (immigration, abortion, gender, religious freedom) through the language of cultural warfare, and connects the sphere of the sacred with that of institutional conflict. The result is a post-institutional identity: the conservative Catholic no longer defines himself primarily by religious affiliation, but by his place within a political community that provides moral guidance, emotional mediation, and a network of practical resources.
The practical phase of consensus follows precise and measurable logic: the construction of a local ruling class consistent with the cultural agenda. Governors, prosecutors, judges, school administrators, and local councilors become the hubs of the new power architecture. These are not merely symbolic victories, as control of these positions determines the concrete implementation of identity politics, such as abortion regulation, redefining school curricula, access to religious services in public institutions, and the management of immigration policies at the state level. The presence of conservative Catholic leadership in the judiciary and local governments creates cumulative effects: laws and rulings that consolidate new cultural norms, institutions that legitimize the use of "defensive" rhetoric, and a network of political patronage that strengthens loyalty to the camp.
This explains why Trump, despite not being a paragon of Catholic virtue, is perceived by many as a defender of Christianity: because he has successfully positioned himself as the person who activates and coordinates these networks, making his distance from Rome a source of authenticity. He doesn't need to theologically defeat the Pope; he simply needs to insinuate that the Vatican is out of touch with the real world of American concerns, and present himself as the one who translates grassroots values into concrete policies. It's a move of great realpolitik, marginally delegitimizing central authority to centralize, politically, his own role as the community's interpreter and guarantor.
The potential for consolidation of this strategy is significant. If the tactic continues to have an impact, conservative Catholicism risks stabilizing as a politically autonomous subculture, with its own structures for education, communication, and mobilization. This outcome implies that the Roman Church will progressively lose its ability to exert unified influence on the voting and political practices of its faithful in the US. The institutional implications are profound: at the state level, politics could become increasingly connected to identity networks within the right. At the federal level, pressure to appoint judges, fund denominational schools, and shape the civil rights agenda will increase, consolidating a self-reproducing ecosystem of power.
However, there are limits and weaknesses. The strategy is calibrated: Trump and his followers cannot afford to push the conflict to the point of symbolic schism, because they would risk losing the moderate sectors and the more pragmatic Latino Catholics. For this reason, criticism of the Vatican remains selective, attacking specific issues-immigration, cosmopolitanism, the "softness" of the elites-but not declaring war on the faith as such. Polarization works as long as it holds together the active electorate and does not overwhelm the moderates. However, if a scandal, an overly explicit shift, or a unified response from the Church were to reconstruct an alternative identity discourse, the coalition could weaken.
Ultimately, reading Trump's "dismissals" against the Vatican as mere impulsive acts is dangerous: they are part of a plan to recode moral authority, create post-institutional political identities, and conquer decision-making spaces at the local and national levels. The midterm elections are merely the next stage in a process that, if not contained or understood, could structurally transform the relationship between religion and politics in the United States. This is not a mere curiosity: it is a maneuver that simultaneously reflects and shapes the crisis of representation and the transformation of forms of social integration in an era of precarious state mediation. Understanding this means understanding not only Trump, but the conditions of possibility for the next political decade.
JR
https://umanitanova.org/trump-e-il-vaticano-contendersi-losso/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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