Like him or loathe him, Trump has hit the ground running fast in his second term in office. Given the number of shocks that have already marked these opening days, it is clearly going to be impossible to respond to everything that he says and does! In this post, we are setting a very deliberate goal: to identify and label some of the trends and trajectories that we see at work behind President Trump’s initiatives. Effectively, we are establishing categories that will hopefully mean that we won’t need to follow every hook and curve into every nook and cranny in the future, but instead recognise that they are following patterns similar to those we have already noted. It is very likely, though, that we will need to continue highlighting particular issues for prayer!

Obviously, as a small team, we can only share from a particular perspective. Although we are not seeking to persuade anyone to a particular viewpoint, we do need to be faithful as spiritual watchmen and chroniclers – and that may often come across as taking ‘sides’ over certain issues in these fast-evolving situations.

The Hebrew Bible has no qualms about taking a view: the chroniclers make it very clear that while some kings served the Lord and the people faithfully, others did evil in His sight – while others began well but became wayward. Although the new President has only been in office a short while, the direction of his government is already strongly dividing opinion, with some welcoming every move he makes, and others gasping with incredulity at some of the things that he is saying and doing.

As watchmen, we have felt the Lord encouraging us to continue tracking the trends being established in America, and to bring them to the Body of Christ so that we might pray and ask Him to outwork His purposes. This is a work that is the unique privilege of believers. Stones may cry out, but they don’t intercede. And whilst angels act as messengers, and fulfil the commands of God, they do not ask for mercy on behalf of mankind. At least, I cannot think of an example of this happening in Scripture. It is our job to pray and plead, and the Lord’s to accomplish His work – often by sending angels to be His chosen means for answering those petitions.

It will require time to digest and ponder all we are sharing here, and to step back from the immediacy of events to discern the spirit and trends behind them, but we would urge you to take that time. The Lord wants people who ‘understand the times,’ and this is our contribution to that process.

May He lead each one of us to engage with the particular matters that He highlights to us, and to pray for the grace and power of the Lord to be at work in America and around the world.

You will find much spiritual material to help understand the topics covered in our reports in our Pilgrim’s Guide ‘Whitewash or Godliness? From Idolatry to Glory: A message from Ezekiel.’

May He lead each one of us to engage with these major matters and pray for the grace of the Lord to be at work in America and around the world.

An overview of Trumpian trends and trajectories

T&T 1: The pursuit of profit and power
T&T 2: Dismantlement
T&T 3: Disruption
T&T 4: Propaganda
T&T 5: Dealing in untruths and re-writing history
T&T 6: Oligarchy
T&T 7: Dictatorship: Circumnavigating Congress and the Senate
T&T 8: Bullying
T&T 9: Fascism
T&T 10: Revenge and fear
T&T 11: Racism
T&T 12: Claiming divine appointment

These T&Ts (Trends and Trajectories) are markers we have discerned for what we might see being played out in the coming months and years. We present them in no particular order.

T&T 1: The pursuit of profit and power

When seams of gold are discovered, many people’s hearts start racing. Some sell all to join the wild gold rush and make a fortune. Rather more find, to their chagrin, that they are pursuing nothing greater than ‘fool’s gold.’ Again and again, we have sensed that behind the whole ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan and movement lie the twin poles of profit and power.

It is frightening to see how Trump and his team are throwing caution and care to the wind in their exultant abandonment of well-grounded and meaningful projects. They seize on some wrong part of one, and then infer that the whole project is a complete failure. Please do read this extraordinarily important refutation of the charge that USAID is a criminal organisation that does not good to anyone.

T&T 2: Dismantlement

Trump is implementing many of the goals of Project 2025. After examining this massive document, which is heavily influenced by the example of Vicktor Orbán in Hungary  Emma Shortis concluded that it ‘reveals a radical plan to reshape the world.’

She describes plans for climate and the global environment, defence and security, the global economic system and the institutions of American democracy with a view to the total dismantling and restructure of both American life and the world as we know it. She noted that Project 2025 allows for the administration to unilaterally re-categorise, fire and replace tens of thousands of independent federal employees with political loyalists, and comments on a secret “Playbook” – a resources bank of things like draft executive orders and specific transition plans ready for the first 180 days of a new administration.

With many European countries now moving swiftly and sharply to the right, it is highly probable that other nations will be tempted to follow very closely in the footsteps of at least some of these radical measures.

For all that Trump sought to distance himself from this playbook during the electoral campaign, it was co-authored by members of his team. For more about this extremely important Project 2025, and the trajectory it sets for the Trump administration, see this significant report from Heather Cox Richardson.

T&T 3: Disruption

Whether ‘on the hoof reactions’ or by implementing deep-laid plans and policies,’ President Trump believes in acting boldly and brazenly, and then waiting to see what happens. (It sometimes feels as though he is a gleeful in the process of creating fear and chaos as he is in interested its results). People and nations either succumb to his threats or challenge them; diplomatic efforts are either stepped up or come to a grinding halt. If he set out to disrupt then he is succeeding: all over the world, people, plans and process are being upended and thrown into disarray.

It is notable that Trump often appears to be strongly influenced by whoever he last spoke to about a topic. That is, he is suggestible. One suspects that his ambitions towards Greenland and Panama may originally have started out in such some such way. So, for instance, it is not obvious if his whole idea of reconstructing Gaza as an American-run Riviera is something he has been nursing for a long time or a relatively new idea. (It certainly took many of his own staff by surprise).

One possible thing to note in this respect is that Trump may not be quite as much in charge as he may like to think that he is. Shift was not only the initiator of the great change that happened in Narnia, but in time he became little more than a figure head for other more ambitious and controlling people. Perhaps a point to store away and note?

Early in February 2025, Richard Murphy published a paper that is seriously worth reading in which he argues that Trump is setting out to deliberately create chaos. In it he asks whether people can react in time to save anything of value in the world that they’ve known. We are back with Bob Smietana’s comment on The Last Battle in which he wrote, ‘Once trust is lost, it is almost impossible to regain. The Narnians learned that too late. By telling their story, Lewis hoped we’d listen and avoid their fate.’

There is a great deal available to read online about Trump’s mental state, and in particular about his manic drive and extreme narcissism. May we suggest going all the way back to an article that was written by Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist, immediately after the events on the Capitol Hill in January 2021 called The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists’?

It is important because it speaks of a two-way process Trump has with his followers, which goes a long way to explain how so many of his key delusions have succeeded in spreading and becoming mainstream. Unless we grasp the gist of what Lee is explaining here, we are likely to continue to scratch our heads about how it is that so many are willing to believe his most improbable statements, and even blatant and patent falsehoods.

T&T 4: Propaganda

Trump has well-oiled and well-prepared propaganda departments, and the role of Karoline Leavitt, the new White House Press Secretary, is central within them. She has got more or less the reporters she wanted present for these far-reaching White Houss press conferences. She is unwaveringly loyal to Trump, very articulate and highly savvy in this role that she had coveted ever since serving in an under capacity in this department in the last Trump administration. She had expanded the people present at these meetings to include more sources favourable to Trump than the traditional ‘legacy’ media. She also admitted that Trump likes to adopt a strong posture in many situations in the hope of gaining leverage.

The rhythmic and mesmeric repetition of ideas – even such unfounded ones as all migrants being mass murderers – gains traction when people are eager for a strong leader, and unschooled in historical realities. These are words that ring out and take root. To judge by the example of those who endured Goebbel’s sophisticated propaganda in the 1930s, and Putin’s in Russia today, it is extremely difficult for people to avoid absorbing such wall-to-wall mesmerizing messaging. The power of it to influence people’s hearts and minds is well known, and only too many dictators have sought to exploit it over the years. The worrying thing is just how many people buy into his misleading announcements and proclamations. Pray for people to make the effort to verify both the facts they hear and the conclusions that are drawn from those false stating points. May they make good use of the excellent fact-checking services available, and be willing to broaden the variety of news sources they draw on.

T&T 5: Dealing in untruths and re-writing history

Immediately after his formal inauguration speech before a global audience, Trump made his way to an event where he was able to address his core supporters in much less restrained tonality, in what he described as ‘a better speech than the one I made upstairs.’ Here, he gave vent to his real beliefs and ideas.

Making a great deal of his involvement in releasing the hostages from Gaza, Trump typically gave no credit to the likes of Anthony Blinken, who had worked so hard for this, and then spoke of the jailed J6 rioters as being ‘hostages’ rather than criminals. Following Trump’s lead, I heard certain senators who had been in favour of their imprisonment at the time bending over backwards now to say that they should never have been gaoled in the first place.

Apart from failing to recognise all the good things that people already enjoy in America, this is all part of a myth that Trump wants Americans to swallow as he waxed lyrical about ‘the golden age of America’ starting ‘now,’ and of ‘Liberation Day.’

What is going on at a deeper level however is nothing less than a serious attempt to re-write history – which, of course, is what dictators have always done. Trump had promised to be one such, and he is doing his best to make good on that pledge, supported as he is by large crowds of highly motivated followers, who are willing to consider even resorting to civil war as an option, if need be, to fulfil their ideals.

T&T 6: Oligarchy

From the Greek: oligoi meaning ‘few’ and arkhein meaning to rule.

A form of government in which power rests with a small number of people. (Wikipedia)

I have coined what is happening now in Washington as ‘The Reign of the Nine Billionaires.’ In years to come it will surely merit a long entry in historical records, but even now its consequences are already being massively felt far and wide, and this is where we must focus our prayers.

In this, as in so many other things, Trump and his team are effectively acting as if they are the government, even to the point of defying governing statutes and the constitution. The following is a summary of the processes by which Trump will attempt to exercise dictatorial powers.

T&T 7: Dictatorship: Circumnavigating Congress and the Senate

The forces of law and order can only operate to the degree that those who carry the responsibility for them are allowed to perform their duties. When a leader takes upon himself authority to overrule those forces, then we are in the realms of dictatorship. As Trump’s avalanche of executive orders tumbles down upon the nation, it can only be right to pray for every State authority to have the vision, strength and resilience to play its part to the full to protect democracy and upright government.

Congress is finding it increasingly difficult to conduct its business, not only because of its razor-thin majority, but also because Trump has promoted some members from the lower house to fulfil specific roles elsewhere in his administration, leaving him with a reduced minority for the time being.

In addition, funding normally given to Congress as grant, loan and federal assistance programs for specific purposes is being withheld, so that no monies should go to programmes Trump wants to end. This, House Rep. Jamie Raskin warned, constitutes nothing less than ‘an assault on civil society.’

Will the White House will comply with the order by a District Judge for a temporary block on the freeze? It is certainly causing chaos and confusion amongst millions of Americans, as did the order to two million civil servants to cease working from home or risk forfeiting their jobs – which has also, at the time of writing, been temporarily paused.

President Nixon was the last person who tried to redirect funds in this way. On that occasion, the Supreme Court ruled that what he was doing was unconstitutional, and released the funds again. Pray that courts play their part to the full in determining how this issue is worked out, and that the largely Trump- appointed Supreme Court will make just and righteous decisions.

But why indeed should pro-life tax payers pay for abortions or gender transition treatment? Trump is slamming the brakes on and lives are being turned upside down, but how else could it come about? The trouble lies not here, so much as in the huge efforts underway to diminish the scale and size of the Department of Education, as well as in the healthcare, transport, veteran support, Social Security and Medicare sectors – all of which the President had previously pledged to leave intact. None of these measures will bring even-handed benefits across the board.

The DOGE Act, (Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency Caucus) aims to cut federal spending by truly staggering sums, as well as to eliminate programs to halt climate change.

America’s founding fathers worked hard to establish a political system that could not be taken over, but just such a thing now looks incredibly and horribly possible. The difference between Trump’s first presidency and now is that he has a very strong team of ambitious people who are eager to carry out his schemes – and there are no guard rails in place to limit his ambitions. It is very a serious matter when pride and ambition enter a leader’s heart, for they pave the way for selfish and unjust laws passed, proper rules and procedures to be circumvented, and ungodly alliances entered into. And where leaders lead, people follow – especially when the leader undertakes a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign.

Mike Johnson has described Trump as ‘the most powerful president, certainly of the modern era, maybe in all of American history.’ Will historians write him up as a man who served America and the world well? Or as a dictator?

T&T 8: Bullying

All that Trump is doing now on the world stage stems from things he learned to do and practice in childhood. At heart he has been a life-long bully, as this account of his teen years reveals.

No-one is beyond the reach of the Lord, and grace can intervene at a moment’s notice, as He woos and draws people towards repentance and to opening their hearts to Him. Nevertheless, it is no small thing to pray for a leopard to change its spots, and in truth by far the greater number of narcissistic tyrants never do.

In the meantime, it is vital to pray for the governments of the world, and for agencies in the United States, as well as for individuals directly targeted, to show resilience in standing up to the unfair pressure Trump puts on them. The largest U.S. government workers’ union and an association of foreign service workers has already sued the Trump administration in an effort to reverse its aggressive dismantling of USAID.

T&T 9: Fascism

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.

Although this quote is often attributed to Sinclair Lewis, the popular author of It can’t happen here and Main Street, it would appear to be a variation on a theme that concerned several American writers prior to the Second World War. James Waterman Wise Jr, for example, commented that,

If fascism comes, it will not be identified with any ‘shirt’ movement, nor with an ‘insignia,’ but it will probably be ‘wrapped up in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and preservation of the constitution.’

Halford E. Luccock wrote that,

When and if fascism comes to America, it will not be labelled ‘made in Germany’; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism.’

In the Penguin History of Europe series, British historian Ian Kershaw wrote a book called To Hell and Back: Europe 1914–1949 in which he noted the characteristics that signified interwar Fascists. They make for sobering reading. See what you think about whether, and to what extent, some of these elements are to be found in Trump’s administration.

• Hyper-nationalism – based on the integrated nation cleansed of the influence of ethnic minorities, “foreign” races, and other undesirable elements;
• racial exclusiveness – although not necessarily the biological racism of the Nazis – a cleansed nation would allow the unique or superior qualities of the people to come forth;
• complete destruction of political enemies – through radical and violent means, not only against Marxists, but also democrats, liberals, and reactionaries;
• an emphasis on discipline, manliness and militarism – linked to authoritarianism and often involving the use of paramilitary forces.

Other features which Kershaw found to be important, and sometimes central to specific movements, but which were not common to all were:

• the creation of a “new man” and a new society – requiring the total commitment of the population to the overturning of the existing social order and the building of a national utopia, in “a revolution of mentalities, values and will.”
• irredentist or imperialist goals – not necessarily all expansionist in nature;
• corporatism – the reorganization of the national economy along corporatist lines, with trade unions eliminated and groupings of economic interests called “corporations” (i.e. industrial and agricultural workers, teachers and students, lawyers and doctors, civil servants, etc.) regulated by the state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism
• Nationalism based around ethnicity or race
• Bitter and irreconcilable” demands for territory

Lord, we see the spectre of fascism rearing its head and becoming entrenched in hearts and lives of millions. We cry to You, spare America from going down the same path the Mussolini led Italy down. In Jesus’ name, we pray.

Because this is such an important topic to be aware of, may I recommend that you explore it further by following up the links that follow:

Read this long and in-depth Wikipedia article highlighting many concerning points: Donald Trump and Fascism. I especially recommend the section Dehumanisation and Racism

See too the third of three articles on our website, ‘Crying out for the soul of America’, and in particular the section, The final piece of the jigsaw where I wrote that what is happening now is pointing toward history repeating itself:

A man who wants to ‘make [his nation] great’
A man who lies and creates a ‘big lie’ that many come to believe, despite the lack of evidence to that effect
A man who demands completely loyalty and obedience
A man who intimidates and supresses those who oppose him
A man who celebrates ‘strongmen’ around the globes

T&T 10: Revenge and fear

A prominent character in Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera The Mikado, Ko-ko, the Lord High Executioner, declares

As someday it may happen that a victim must be found
I’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!

Virtually every performance includes a rewrite of the song to suit its audience’s own ‘little lists.’ Donald Trump has his list too – and it is a very long little list indeed. It includes all the names of the people he has vowed to take revenge on for opposing him in his political aspirations. And unlike Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic take, he is deadly serious.

Once again may I refer you to this prescient commentary from Heather Cox Richardson.

It is worth noting that many politicians, like many corporations, are reluctant to raise their voices in protest, doubtless because they are afraid that Trump and his ‘rottweilers’ will come against them if they do speak out.

Threats now being directed against those who orchestrated the (entirely legitimate) raid on Mar al Lago, which discovered piles of classified documents.

T&T 11: Racism

Amy Fischer, Director of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Program at Amnesty International USA declared,

“Barely a couple of hours into his second term, President Trump is already seeking to implement his harmful, racist, anti-immigrant agenda with these executive actions. President Trump’s National Emergency Declaration turns the white nationalist ‘Great Replacement Theory’ into federal policy.

To be clear, reinstating cruel border policies, ending rights enshrined in the Constitution like birthright citizenship, shutting down the CBP One application, and implementing targeted raids across the United States, not only sows chaos and fear among communities across the country and people attempting to seek safety in the US, it perpetuates false narratives and harm rooted in white supremacy.”

In an interview during the 2016 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney worried that Trump’s presidency would deliver “trickle-down racism” (Schleifer, 2016). Numerous scholarly studies since then suggest that his election has indeed made his supporters ‘more willing to report dehumanizing attitudes about Black people.’

Wikipedia reports that,

“Trump’s controversial statements have been condemned by many observers around the world, but excused by some of his supporters as a rejection of political correctness, and by others because they harbour similar racial beliefs. Several studies and surveys have shown that racist attitudes and racial resentment have fuelled Trump’s political ascendance, and have become more significant than economic factors in determining the party allegiance of U.S. voters. Racist and Islamophobic attitudes have been shown to be a powerful indicator of support for Trump.”

The fact is, Trump is making wild and abhorrent claims about non-white immigrants, and supporting groups who hold to white supremacist ideologies.

As an example of this, we need look no further than his (yet to be ratified by the Senate as of early February 2025) appointment of Darren Beattie, a former Trump speech writer to a very senior post. It was Beattie who crazily blamed the FBI for the attack on the Capitol, and who wrote recently on X that

“Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.”

The fact that such blatant racism (and sexism) is emerging once again from the shadows with the changing of the guard in the White House highlights just how dark the cloud is that is now spreading once again over America.

T&T 12: Claiming divine appointment

As I shared in Part 3 of Crying out for the soul of America, Christian leaders continue to assert that, despite much evidence to the contrary, Trump is a man appointed and anointed by God who will lead the nation back to truth. In this article, the Baptist author passes on on a warning given by the scholar, Matthew Taylor, about adopting this perspective uncritically. See also this article from Reuters, which casts a journalistic eye over Christian media and its support for Trump. It states that ‘The former president started some rallies with a messianic video made by social media influencers which opens with these words: ‘On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a caretaker’ so God gave us Trump.’ He has also shared on the Truth Social media app a sketch of himself in court, sitting next to what appears to be a rendering of Jesus Christ.’

At a rally in North Carolina, Donald Trump told faith leaders that he could see the hand of God leading him, and that his faith ‘took on new meaning’ following July’s assassination attempt, and added, “I would like to think that God saved me for a purpose, and that’s to make our country greater than ever before.”

The question is, what does a ‘greater’ America looks like? Does it look like the Kingdom of God, or has Trump fallen into the trap of seeking a kingdom after his own likeness? The answer to that question matters enormously.

Photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash