The Trump budget is out, and it’s an extension of the ongoing destruction of America’s scientific supremacy and its safety net. The budget would cut $163 billion on everything from national parks to helping seniors pay for heating bills.

In a letter to Congress, Russell Vought, Trump’s budget chief, trotted out the usual rhetoric to justify the cuts. “The recommended funding levels result from a rigorous, line-by-line review of FY [fiscal year] 2025 spending, which was found to be laden with spending contrary to the needs of ordinary working Americans and tilted toward funding niche non-governmental organizations and institutions of higher education committed to radical gender and climate ideologies antithetical to the American way of life,” Vought wrote.

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The reporting on the budget has been full of speculation about the difficulties that it faces in Congress. Can House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) manage to pass a bill with such a narrow margin? Will Republican “moderates” (although there are no true moderates in the GOP) be willing to accept drastic cuts to Medicaid? Will Democrats put up a fight or will they simply issue press releases complaining about how unfair the budget is?

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Lost in all the coverage is the fact that the budget is a reflection of Vought’s personal philosophy, which is Christian nationalism.

Vought has been very, very clear that he wants to use the levers of government to reshape American society to serve the will of God. He literally wrote a column for Newsweek in 2021 titled, “Is There Anything Actually Wrong with ‘Christian Nationalism’?” He spent several hundred words answering the question: “No.”

Vought is also the architect behind Project 2025, the blueprint for the Trump administration’s anti-democracy drive. Project 2025 is as much a theological document as a political one. It relies upon a “biblical” interpretation of marriage and family as strictly heterosexual. It attacks the very existence of trans people as against God’s order. It describes support for LGBTQ+ rights as “pornography.” So when the federal government takes very specific aim at programs that help LGBTQ+ people, the basis is this warped philosophy.

Yet the fact that the Trump administration is pulling $800 million for research grants to support LGBTQ+ health somehow gets presented as simply “in keeping with its deep opposition to both diversity programs and gender-affirming care for adolescents.”

Well, yes, it is. And that opposition is rooted in right-wing Christian beliefs, which go unmentioned in mainstream coverage.

It’s bad enough that the administration is engaged in rampant anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry. It has gone so far as to threaten to cancel the LGBTQ+ suicide crisis line, sending a message that the government is now pro-suicide when it comes to LGBTQ+ youth. Of course, the Christian right would promote conversion therapy in its place, even though conversion therapy actually increases the risk of suicide among youth.

Vought is counting on a revolution happening in plain view and no one reporting it. And he is getting his wish. The mainstream media have reported how dramatic Trump’s actions have been, but not the broader context. They present the changes as political when they are in fact far broader than that. Vought is trying to implement changes not just to our system of government but how we live as Americans. He has a constrained view of the world where America is whiter, more Christian (of a specific type), and less democratic.

The problem is that the media don’t see the revolution. They just see the budget. But nothing that comes out of the Trump administration is regular politics. As Vought and Project 2025 made clear, this is a holy crusade. Politics is just the vehicle for the war, and LGBTQ+ people are meant to be among the first casualties.

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