Hillary Clinton has accused Donald Trump’s MAGA movement of “waging a war on empathy” and Christian values, in the wake of fatal shootings by federal agents in Minneapolis.
In a lengthy essay for The Atlantic, the former secretary of state said the movement has a “moral rot” over the president’s immigration policy and use of religion to divide America.
She recounted how the killing of Alex Pretti by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents immediately reminded her of the parable of the Good Samaritan.
“Federal agents shot Pretti after he tried to help a woman they had thrown to the ground and pepper-sprayed. Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves and help those in need. “Do this and you will live,” he says. Not in Donald Trump’s America,” she wrote.
Clinton said that videos documenting the shooting of Pretti and Renee Good, who was killed on 7 January, “exposed the lies of Trump-administration officials”.
“The rejection of bedrock Christian values such as dignity, mercy, and compassion did not start with the crisis in Minnesota,” the former first lady said.
Sharing her article on X, Clinton said: “I believe that Christians like me—and people of faith more generally—have a responsibility to stand up to the extremists who use religion to divide our society and undermine our democracy.”
The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee criticised the “glorification of cruelty and rejection of compassion” which “threatens to pave the way for an extreme vision of Christian nationalism that seeks to replace democracy with theocracy in America".
Clinton warned that Christian nationalism, which she described as "the belief that God has called certain Christians to exercise dominion over every aspect of American life", was rampant in the White House.
She accused MAGA of having a worldview shaped by "vengeance, scorn, and humiliation” and not “generosity or solidarity".
Clinton praised Erika Kirk’s grace in publicly forgiving the killer of her husband, Charlie, but lamented that Trump “rejected” that value.
On her Christian beliefs, Clinton said: “I’ve never been one to wear my faith on my sleeve, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important to me. Quite the opposite: My faith has sustained me, informed me, saved me, chided me, and challenged me. I don’t know who I would be or where I would have ended up without it.”
Clinton revealed that she has occasionally taught at her church in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her mother taught her in Sunday school at the Methodist church in Park Ridge, Illinois.
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