For sure.

Govt has basically always been a form of religion. The more secular versions of govt are arguably the more powerful religions because they make people believe they have evolved beyond religion. The lack of awareness & denial of what it is makes it far more dangerous. Most govts want any belief in a higher authority stamped out so that they are the highest authority. They align with other religions only in so much as doing so makes it possible to subvert them. No religion in school, but you will pray to the flag every morning.

Govt has songs, symbols, statues, monuments, ritual ceremoney, sacred halls, sacred texts, black robed interpreters of said texts, costumed authorities, "intellectuals" for modern preachers (as you pointed out), violent foreign crusades, manufactured external boogeymen (disease, climate, terrorists, etc), & at the end of the day people are just doing horrible shit to each other in the name of an imaginary abstraction.