Marco Rubio Is Rebranding the State Department as Explicitly Christian |
Special Investigations
Press Freedom Defense Fund
Marco Rubio Is Rebranding the State Department as Explicitly Christian
Since Rubio became secretary of state, the department has only marked Christian and Jewish holidays on its Instagram while boosting clear religious messaging.
The State Department has shifted its public image in favor of explicit Christian messaging and iconography and away from secular and multicultural causes, an analysis by The Intercept of the department’s Instagram posts has found.
Posts marking Passover, Good Friday, and Easter in 2026 included explicitly religious messaging, including imagery of Christian crosses and references to “Christ’s sacrifice” and the Resurrection. The Intercept’s analysis, which catalogued of the department’s Instagram posts from 2020 through early 2026, found these posts show a clear change in messaging not only from the Biden years, but also from President Donald Trump’s first term.
“From a digital diplomacy point of view, this looks like more than a change in images. It suggests a shift in how the U.S. government is presenting itself online,” said Corneliu Bjola, a professor of digital diplomacy at the University of Oxford. “In earlier years, posts projected a broad and inclusive image — what you might call ‘the shiny city on the hill.’ The 2026 pattern points to a narrower and more controlled message about strength and authority — ‘fortress America.’”
Long considered the government’s primary diplomatic arm, the State Department historically used its account to highlight a wide range of international, cultural, and religious observances. In 2020, under the leadership of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the State Department used its account to mark holidays and observances including Juneteenth, Chinese New Year, Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Yom Kippur, and Kwanzaa.
Since Secretary of State Marco Rubio assumed his role, observance-related posts have been limited to Christian and Jewish holidays, including one that featured an impassioned speech by Rubio describing the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The account has not marked major Islamic holidays or other widely observed cultural events that it routinely highlighted in prior years.
Federal agencies have already faced scrutiny over controversial social media posts. The Department of Homeland Security has recently drawn scrutiny for using a neo-Nazi-linked song in a recruiting post, and the Department of Labor has faced criticism for social media imagery depicting an all-white, all-male workforce in a 1950s-style campaign, including a post that read, “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American.”
Meanwhile, the State Department has moved away from posts highlighting multiculturalism in the United States and abroad.
Under Pompeo,........