Has MAGA Become MIGA?
Donald Trump introduced MAGA to American voters during the 2016 presidential campaign. MAGA (Make America Great Again) was a shorthand for Trump’s America First political platform of lower taxes, less government regulation, border control, ending foreign wars, and re-industrialization.
MAGA was back again in 2024, and, once again, the message of America First proved popular with voters. The name “America First” dates to the 1930s and 1940s, when concerned American patriots wanted to keep America out of the brewing wars in Europe and Asia. Perhaps the best-known spokesman of this movement was the famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, who has been described as “a leading voice of opposition to U.S. involvement in World War II.”[1] The America First Committee’s influence came to an end with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.[2]
As such, “America First” was not some boastful tagline about America’s greatness or a declaration of imperial ambitions, but quite the opposite. It was the name of a movement made up of Americans who wanted, as the Apostle Paul said, to live at peace with all men to the extent that it depended on them. It described Americans who believed that the U.S. government should put the interests of the American people first, not those of the globalists and imperialists who wanted to waste American treasure and spill American blood to advance world government and empire.
Sadly, it was not to be. America First was subverted by the globalist FDR and his cronies, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Donald Trump tapped into that same vein of American thought with his 2016 and 2024 campaigns. Many Americans are rightly weary of watching their government send hundreds of billions of dollars overseas to fight unnecessary wars in places such as Ukraine and the Middle East. Many Americans see through the lies of “we’re fighting them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here.” This is why many voted to return Donald Trump to the White House. But are these America First voters getting what they voted for, or are they getting something else?
Based on Trump’s announced nominees for foreign policy-related posts, it appears that while the American electorate voted for MAGA, what they’re getting instead is a hearty dose of MIGA, Make Israel Great Again. Let’s take a look at a few of his picks.
Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense
Hegseth, currently a Fox News commentator and Army veteran, was rightly described in a recent X post as “apparently a 3rd Temple nut.” A 2018 video that accompanied this quote shows Hegseth speaking at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, where he announces to the applause of the audience that “there’s no reason why the miracle of the re-establishment of the temple on the temple mount is not possible.” This, of course, is one of the fever dreams of Zionists, both Christian and Jewish. While it’s in the interest of the United States and Israelis to avoid war and promote peace and stability in the region, Zionist zealots such as Hegseth throw around rhetoric that has the effect of heightening tensions and making war more likely.
As is the case with many people, Hegseth has a hard time distinguishing between America and Israel. He seems to think they are almost, if not entirely, the same entity. Quoting from Hegseth’s 2020 book American Crusade, Philip Giraldi posted on X, “If you love America, you should love Israel. We share history, we share faith, and we share freedom. We love free people, free expression, and free markets.”
America, at least historical America, certainly does not “share faith with” Israel. America is a historically Protestant nation. Israel, as Benjamin Netanyahu has told us, is a Jewish state. Biblical Christianity and Judaism are not the same thing, despite what people who throw around the term “Judeo-Christian” would like us to believe.
Mike Huckabee, Ambassador to Israel
Mike Huckabee has long been influential in the Republican party. As the former governor of Arkansas and presidential candidate, Huckabee has built a career as a conservative media personality. It is worth noting that Huckabee is also a former Southern Baptist minister, which is likely where his Christian Zionism comes from. The Baptist Standard commented on Huckabee’s appointment thus,
Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist pastor, is an outspoken supporter of Israel, especially in its ongoing conflict with Hamas in the wake of Hamas’ attacks in October 2023. He has endorsed the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and he has led several Christian tours of the Holy Land.[3]
On CNN, Huckabee said, “I think Israel has the title deed to Judea and Samaria.”[4] How it is possible for some to utter these words when, in fact, the Jews were kicked out of Judea for their unbelief, and in unbelief they remain until this day, is beyond me. In Matthew 23, we read, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…See! Your house is left to you desolate.” As John Gill explains,
Behold your house is left unto you desolate. Signifying that the city in which they dwelt, where they had their ceiled houses, and stately palaces, would, in a little time, within the space of forty years, be destroyed, and become a desert; and the temple, formerly the house of God, but now only their's, and in which they trusted, would be abandoned by God, he would grant his presence no more in it; and the Messiah, the proprietor of it, and who was now in it, would then take his leave of it, and never more return to it; and that also should share the same fate as the city, and at the same time. Our Lord seems to have in view those passages in Jer 12:7 and which the Jewish writers understood of the temple.[5]
Kristi Noem, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
Kristi Noem, Trump’s appointment for head of Homeland Security, is another confused Christian Zionist who has used her current position as Governor of South Dakota not to support the Constitution of the United States of America but to attack it. Specifically, Noem attacked the First Amendment by signing into law a bill that incorporates the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) “working definition of antisemitism” into state law. In Europe, people have been fined or sent to prison for violating this “working definition” by statements they’ve made. Is this the unstated intent of the framers of this legislation, to prevent any criticism of Israel or Jews by labeling it "antisemitism"?
A day after signing the bill, Noem released a statement explaining her action titled “Ensuring the Security of God’s Chosen People,” which shows that Noem neither understands nor believes the Bible or the Constitution. God’s chosen people are not ethnic Jews, but those who are saved through belief alone in the Lord Jesus Christ, “who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” It is Christians, believers, not ethnic Jews, of whom Peter wrote, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people” (I Pet. 2:9).
Thomas Jefferson famously said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. As Christians, we must guard our liberty against those who would infringe upon it, even if they are those whom we are inclined to favor, even if that person is Donald Trump.
[1] “’America First’: From Charles Lindbergh To President Trump” by Greg Myre, NPR, 02/06/2017, https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/02/06/513240634/america-first-from-charles-lindbergh-to-president-trump, accessed 11/17/2024.
[2] Some believe, as does this author, that F.D.R. provoked Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor to involve America in WWII, a war that many Americans, in part due to the efforts of the America First Committee, rightly did not want to fight. For a detailed account of F.D.R.’s treachery, see Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert B. Stinnett.
[3] “Trump taps Huckabee as the ambassador to Israel” The Baptist Press, 11/13/2024, https://www.baptiststandard.com/news/world/trump-taps-huckabee-as-ambassador-to-israel/, accessed 11/17/2024.
[5] John Gill, Gill's Bible Commentary (Kindle Locations 251049-251056). OSNOVA. Kindle Edition.