Trump’s prayer push is a time bomb for America

Donald Trump’s pledge to restore prayer in public schools has thrilled his most loyal supporters. It feels like a return to tradition, a pushback against decades of creeping secularism. But even the most committed MAGA faithful should stop and ask what comes next. Mandates rarely remain confined to one man or one moment. Power shifts hands. The tools built by one president are soon wielded by another. Today, it's prayer in schools. Tomorrow, it could be something far darker.

Picture a future where the same federal authority is used to enforce “inclusive rituals,” state-written lessons on morality, or ceremonies that run directly against Christian conviction. The precedent will already exist. The door will already be open. Once Washington sets itself up as the arbiter of belief in the classroom, the principle is fixed.

This is why vigilance matters more than short-term victory. Trump’s announcement may please his base, but it also strengthens the hand of whoever comes after him. In 2028 or 2032, the Oval Office may not be red. It may be blue. And a progressive president could easily use the precedent of state-directed faith not to protect Christianity, but to crush it. 

For anyone in doubt, American history is filled with warnings.

Prohibition was sold as a moral crusade, meant to protect families from the scourge of alcohol. Instead, it unleashed a vast federal policing system, armed new battalions of bureaucrats, and gave rise to organized crime syndicates that reshaped American cities. When the “noble experiment” collapsed, the culture never fully returned to what it was before. A generation had lived under new rules, and government power had dug deep roots.

The USA Patriot Act followed the same trajectory. Born in the smoke and fear of Sept. 11, it was marketed as a narrow tool to stop another terrorist attack. But what began as a temporary shield turned into a permanent sword. Warrantless wiretaps, secret watchlists, mass data collection. All were billed as emergency powers targeting terrorists. Two decades later, those powers remain, turned inward on ordinary Americans.

Even the New Deal fits the pattern. What started as temporary relief in the depths of the Great Depression hardened into sprawling bureaucracies that never let go. Social Security, unemployment checks and farm price controls were billed as short-term fixes. They became permanent fixtures. What began as emergency aid ended as a way of life, turning crisis into dependency and cementing Washington’s grip for generations.

The War on Drugs added yet another chapter. Announced as a campaign to protect children from narcotics, it fueled decades of aggressive policing, militarized law enforcement and a prison system larger than any in human history. What started as a strike against drug dealers became a massive machine that still swallows lives and communities whole.

And the Cold War produced its own set of lessons. The Red Scare of the 1950s, with loyalty oaths and blacklists, began as a drive to shield the nation from communist infiltration. It ended by turning suspicion inward, punishing ordinary citizens and eroding freedoms in the name of national security. Once government was given the power to demand conformity, it used it far beyond its original scope.

Each of these began with promises of protection. Protection from alcohol, from terror, from poverty, from drugs, from communism. Each ended by entrenching the power of the state and narrowing the space for freedom.

That is why Trump’s school prayer mandate should alarm even his staunchest supporters. Once the government claims the authority to dictate religious practice in classrooms, that power will not retreat. It will be waiting for the next president, and the one after that. 

None of this means faith should vanish from public life. It means the state should never be trusted with the authority to control it. Faith thrives in families, in churches, in communities — not in government decrees. Once Washington claims ownership of the sacred, the sacred becomes nothing more than another instrument of politics.

That is the picture Americans must consider: classrooms where belief changes with each election, where children are pawns in an endless tug-of-war, where faith is not freely lived but politically performed. Trump’s promise may sound like protection, but the closer you look, the more it resembles a snare.

Even those who cheer today should be wary. What the state gives, the state can take away. And once it takes, it seldom gives back.

John Mac Ghlionn is a writer and researcher who explores culture, society and the impact of technology on daily life.