Quagmire

The Vietnam quagmire has reincarnated as Trump’s war on Iran. Then as now the ground looked solid until it turned to mush. Trump has said that destroying Iranian ships rather than capturing and reusing them was “a lot more fun doing it this way.” Now we destroy things for kicks. But deeper forces hide within this volatility. Vietnam was prosecuted by secular Cold War liberals—McNamara, Bundy, Rusk, LBJ—operating entirely within a geopolitical framework of containment theory and domino logic. There was no theological sanctification. There was no digital gamification. The Iran War embraces both—one providing divine sanction, the other providing giddy entertainment.

The Holy War

Pete Hegseth stands at the Pentagon’s pinnacle, his Christian nationalism inked in skin. A Jerusalem cross, a Christogram, and “Deus Vult”—symbols so tied to extremist violence that Hegseth was flagged and removed from National Guard duties for President Biden’s inauguration.

“Deus Vult” (“God wills it”) evokes the bloody Crusades, once unifying knights under a perceived holy order to reclaim Jerusalem. Today, it appears on flags at a white supremacist rallies. It was seen in Charlottesville 2017 and at the January 6 2021, insurrection. The neo-Crusader narrative justifies antagonism toward Muslims to ensure a predominantly white Christian America.

Hegseth’s mentor, Pastor Doug Wilson, codifies this. When Hegseth was sworn in, his Bible was embossed with “Deus Vult.” He doesn’t just wear the Crusade on his arm; he took his oath on it. Now, he hosts worship services for Pentagon employees and infuses military promos and speeches with scripture.

“Blessed be the LORD my Rock,
Who trains my hands for war,
And my fingers for battle.”
—Psalm 144:1

Wilson’s goal is a global Christian theocracy to facilitate Christ’s return—a project he sees as 250 years in the making.

Who is Doug Wilson?

Wilson is the pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho — a congregation he has built since the 1970s into an international network of more than 150 churches, Christian schools, a college, and a publishing company. Since 2019, his congregation has doubled to roughly 3,000 in a town of 25,000, driven by families averaging four to six children and a deliberate emigration strategy targeting conservatives fleeing blue states. In September 2025, he appeared on the cover of Der Spiegel as one of the “archconservative Bible fanatics” surrounding Donald Trump. In February 2026, Hegseth invited him to address the United States military.

Wilson’s views on women are regressive:

“They are the kind of people that people come out of.”

In his church, women do not vote. Their husbands vote and make all the family decisions. As a self-described “paleo-Confederate,” he argues that “The Christians who owned slaves in the South were on firm scriptural ground.” He argues that abolition is the “original sin” that led to federal overreach, abortion, and gay marriage. He calls for the criminalization of sodomy and the banishment or execution of LGBTQ individuals.

Wilson’s influence reaches JD Vance, a Catholic convert who advocates laws that privilege Christianity; Senator Josh Hawley, who openly calls America a Christian nation; Peter Thiel, the billionaire who bankrolled Vance’s Senate campaign; and Tucker Carlson, who introduced Wilson to his podcast audience as the person “most closely identified” with Christian nationalism.

Wilson’s desire to amend the Constitution to acknowledge the “truth of the Bible” has found a receptive bench on the Supreme Court. Over the past decade, conservative Justices have hollowed out the Establishment Clause while inflating the Free Exercise Clause far beyond its original intent. Religious organizations are now allowed to discriminate outright while receiving state support. Louisiana has passed a law requiring a government-approved Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom. Protestant Ten Commandments. Not Catholic. Not Jewish. The sectarian denomination is written into the statute. The statute is being contested in federal courts, which have so far ruled against it. The Supreme Court will have the final word. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in a recent dissent:

““Today, the Court leads us to a place where
separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.”

Reports are circulating that over 200 service members across more than 40 units spread across at least 30 military installations have filed complaints with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. One complaint reports that their commanders told them the Iran war is divinely ordained, and that Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” The foundation’s director has declined to provide documentation, citing troops’ fears of retaliation. Nevertheless, thirty Congressional Democrats have requested a formal Department of Defense Inspector General investigation. A Public Religion Research Institute survey finds that 55 percent of Republicans now identify with Christian nationalist views. This isn’t fringe. It’s what a majority looks like when it controls the Defense Department.

The Sumo Wrestler

If sanctification is one face of the Iran War Janus, gleeful gamification is the other. One makes killing holy; the other makes it fun.

Since the opening days of the war, the White House has posted dozens of videos to social media. Each features military strike footage intercut with NFL, bowling, and video game scenes. The memes paper over the true costs of war. There are no human beings or school children. There is only fantasy material masking the impact of strikes on oil depots that have left Tehran shrouded in toxic black smoke and oily rain. The city of 9 million reports burning lungs and skies dark enough to block the sun. Gen Z sees none of that. They view the action from a fictional gun camera accompanied by gut-thumping music.

This digital disconnect wasn’t available during the Vietnam War. There was no internet, no social media, no video game culture, no meme architecture. Walter Cronkite was the communications director. He was in our living rooms night after night showing unmediated images like Napalm Girl which ultimately broke the war’s public support.

Steven Cheung is Trump’s Communications Director. Trump calls him “my Sumo wrestler.” Before joining Trump, Cheung spent several years as director of communications for the Ultimate Fighting Championship in Las Vegas. That’s his operating manual. He is importing the sports entertainment aesthetic into politics—and injecting it into the celebration of war.

Cheung doesn’t hire anyone over 25. The pipeline is deliberate: Gen Z content, built by Gen Z, fed straight into influencer streams. Violence is fun. Killing is cool. A senior White House official, speaking anonymously to Politico, said it plainly:

“We’re over here just grinding away on banger memes, dude. There’s an entertainment factor to what we do. But ultimately, it boils down to the fact that no one has ever attempted to communicate with the American public this way before.”

The conservative Washington Times addressed the anonymous official directly, closing its editorial with a single word: “dude.”

Another White House official praised the effort by noting that over a four-day period these meme posts garnered 3 billion impressions. That’s not three billion people informed. Not three billion people safer. That’s three billion impressions—an entertainment metric applied to war.

One of these White House meme posts cuts between U.S. military strikes in Iran and Grand Theft Auto—a game built on stylized, consequence-free violence. An animated American avatar walks a deserted street, muttering:

Each repetition triggers an explosion at an Iranian site. Then the screen flashes red:

It’s meant as a victory cry. It isn’t. In the game, WASTED doesn’t mark your enemy’s death. It marks your death. Game over.

The American avatar has been smoked. Killed. Rubbed out. Defeated.

Not the enemy.

Maybe no one in the White House bothered to learn the Grand Theft Auto rules. Maybe the rules don’t matter anymore. Confident. Careless. Wrong. A superpower narrates its own defeat in the language of entertainment.

Korea. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan.

And now Iran.

These are some of the Courtside Warriors holding the line on authoritarianism— fighting to save democracy—and winning. Sign up for their newsletters. Support them if you can. They are joined by Attorneys General in 24 states who have won more than 80% of their cases against the authoritarian regime.

Democracy Forward, Public Citizen, Protect Democracy, Democracy Docket, League of Women Voters, Campaign Legal Center, ACLU, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Democracy Defenders Fund, Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause There are many more.

The Courts—Especially the Supreme Court—Won’t Save Us.
Nevertheless, we’ve got to support our Courtside Warriors any way we can.
Just Security Litigation Tracker
On January 29, 2025 there were 24 legal challenges
to Trump Administration actions.
As of March 25, 2026, there are now 727…and counting