Is America a theocracy?

Comment published on New York Times online blog in response to “Trump and the return of divine right,” 7/12/18:

Our republic vests authority partly in the people and partly in the Constitution.  But rule in the name of God can only be tyranny, not democracy.  Biblical or divine authority can be cited to justify just about anything.  In America, belief in God means you are an obedient subject of what is effectively imagined as a divinely authorized absolute monarchy.   As this is the dominant way talk of religion in politics is framed, even non-evangelicals get sucked into it.  The reference to God is contradictory, though, because if God has a place in the state, then he must exercise power through it, and in secular terms.  But secular claims can be examined and debated.  

Use of religious discourse is one of the biggest problems of American society politically.  There really are just two broad religious principles that have weight in our political culture: The prophetic one that a society should care for and be just to its citizens and residents, and one I would call the authoritarian moralism of the enforcement of normality and property, usually in the service of patriarchal familialism.  The latter is the dominant religious strain in our country's social and political life.  This is the religious right, which has power in this society unlike any other outside the Muslim world.  It is not Christian, for where in it is the gospel of love?  These people just believe in a set of moral rules to be enforced.  But this is the place of secular law.