Anointed by the Algorithm: Karoline Leavitt and the Rise of Digital Theocracy

The Rosary and the Flag: Karoline Leavitt and the Rise of Spiritual Authoritarianism

In the shadow of the Capitol dome, a new kind of press secretary walks the halls of power. At 27, Karoline Leavitt doesn’t just speak for a president—she speaks, by her own admission, for God. In a recent interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, she described her role as not merely political but spiritual. The United States, she claimed, is engaged in a battle between good and evil. And Donald Trump, she said, was saved by God for a reason.

Leavitt's language is not metaphorical. Her message is clear: to oppose Trump is not just to disagree politically but to align with "evil forces." This is not standard political spin. It is something older and more dangerous. It is spiritual warfare repackaged for modern audiences, filtered through a microphone, and streamed live from the White House briefing room.

What Karoline Leavitt is doing, very deliberately and very effectively, is transforming secular political conflict into a moral crusade. She is redefining journalism, law, and policy through a religious lens—a lens that sees enemies of the administration as enemies of the divine. This is not simply propaganda. It is the scaffolding of spiritual authoritarianism.

The Shift from "Woke" to "Warfare"

The term "woke" once served as the MAGA movement’s all-purpose scapegoat. It was meant to represent everything supposedly wrong with progressive politics: empathy, equity, education. But as the term became overused, satirized, and stripped of fear, the right needed a new rallying cry. Enter the language of righteousness.

"Spiritual warfare" is not just the new dog whistle. It is a divine siren, alerting followers that the stakes are no longer earthly. This isn’t about taxes or border walls. This is about souls.

Where "woke" suggested cultural contamination, "evil forces" suggests demonic possession. And where the former could still allow for discussion, the latter demands elimination.

Faith as Armor, Cruelty as Virtue

Leavitt often invokes her Catholic upbringing and her faith-based identity. She speaks of God’s plan for her life, of trusting the process, of enduring criticism with the help of prayer. It is a performance of piety designed to shield her from scrutiny. Because if she is chosen by God, then to question her becomes an act of heresy.

But her policies betray her scripture. The Book of Leviticus commands believers to treat the foreigner as their native-born, to love them as oneself. Yet Leavitt is the mouthpiece for an administration that deports migrants to violent prisons without due process, many of whom are fleeing conditions not unlike those faced by biblical refugees.

This is moral inversion: compassion is weakness, while cruelty is reframed as moral clarity. It is a pattern we have seen before in the architecture of fascist regimes, where the suffering of others becomes a badge of righteousness.

Discrediting the Courts, Anointing the Cause

Leavitt does not stop at spiritualizing her own role. She targets the judiciary with the same fervor, accusing judges of being political operatives who hate Trump and abuse their power. This is not a critique of legal reasoning. It is a declaration of war against legal authority itself.

The purpose is twofold: to pre-emptively invalidate any legal decision that challenges Trump’s agenda, and to signal to the faithful that only rulings favorable to Trump can be trusted. The law, like the press, becomes just another arm of the resistance, unless it bows to the ordained leader.

This is not just delegitimization. It is replacement. In Leavitt's cosmology, the Constitution is subordinate to divine will—as interpreted, conveniently, by those in power.

Optics of Innocence, Machinery of Power

Leavitt is young, female, and devout. This is part of her function. She is not the usual authoritarian mouthpiece, and that is exactly the point. Her youth disarms. Her gender reframes her aggression as passion. Her religiosity cloaks her statements in holiness. Together, they form a kind of spiritual camouflage for a deeply anti-democratic message.

In a media landscape trained to expect older, male authoritarian figures, Leavitt arrives like a Trojan horse. She doesn’t look like Franco. She doesn’t sound like Pinochet. But she is reading from the same playbook: undermine the press, discredit the courts, exalt the leader, and claim divine sanction.

The American Theocracy, Soft-Spoken and Streaming

What we are witnessing is not a theocracy in robes and incense. It is one in red blazers and studio lighting. Leavitt is turning the White House press briefing into a pulpit. And in doing so, she is sanctifying policies that kill, displace, and destabilize. But because her message is coated in scripture and spoken with conviction, it does not always trigger the alarms it should. It is common to both parties but the right has internalized the tactic in a way the left has not.

The danger lies not in her piety but in her power’s framing. When she says she believes in spiritual warfare, she is not warning of an abstract battle. She is designating political targets. She is telling her audience who the demons are.

And in doing so, she opens the door to violence.

Because if opposition is evil, then persecution is virtue. If disagreement is heresy, then silencing critics becomes holy. If you truly believe you are on God’s side, then no policy is too extreme. No act is unjustifiable. It is why belief has to be objectively grounded to be credible, otherwise it is just a dull knife for hacking.

This Is Not New. That Makes It More Dangerous.

History has seen this before. In Spain under Franco, Catholicism was used to justify state brutality. In Chile under Pinochet, religious rhetoric masked torture and repression. In America, the marriage of white evangelicalism and political power has long been used to prop up injustice, from slavery to segregation to the criminalization of poverty.

What Leavitt represents is not a new phenomenon. It is a new face for an old tactic: the sanctification of power. And her youth, her femininity, and her faith make her particularly effective at selling it to a public primed to see her as trustworthy.

But make no mistake: she is not just selling policy. She is selling a new moral order, one in which dissent is a sin, justice is loyalty, and the press secretary speaks for the divine. It may be soft-spoken. It may be livestreamed. But it is authoritarianism all the same. And it is coming wrapped in the flag—and carrying a rosary.