Recently conservative Christians of the so-called Evangelical Right met with Republican politicians to rally for their cause. It strikes me that neither partner in this alliance is really what they say they are.
The Republican party has been pulled off-center and dismembered by the influence of a reactionary and extremist element, which Donald Trump exploited in his 2016 bid and win of the presidency.
Interestingly, his appeal was not really political – except insofar as he represented an alternative to the political corruption that his base believed was rampant in Washington. The attraction of Trump was in the fact that he was a capitalist and not a politician, a celebrity businessman and not a political insider.
Trump’s voter base largely consisted of working class folk, many of whom were struggling to make ends meet. Government-funded social welfare programs were assisting even poorer Americans in distant cities and of different skin colors than their own, but their taxes were paying for it. The vision of a democracy that protects the rights of its citizens and provides public goods for their health, safety and enjoyment seemed (and still seems) to be biased unfairly against those who can take care of themselves.
The message of capitalism – that by self-reliance, personal ambition, ingenuity and hard work every individual can improve their status and quality of life – resonated more with the values and resentments of Trump’s voter base.
After all, it’s what inspired the New World settlement and American Revolution at the beginning. The “American Dream” is only political as an afterthought, and the earliest versions of democratic government in the young nation were meant to serve and safeguard the economic ambitions of its citizenry.
If you can’t make it work for yourself, then you either have to work harder, lean on your friends, take out a bank loan, or go back to the place you came from.
Donald Trump’s ostensible riches made him an idol of what these “true Americans” dreamed for themselves. And his coarse, racist, misogynistic, pugilistic brand of white nationalism appealed and gave permission to their outraged sense of entitlement. He would open the way to prosperity and Make America Great Again.
So they gave him their vote, and Trump proceeded to hack away at the regulations, rights, liberties and other protections that earlier democratic administrations had put in place.
It makes sense that most Americans and many U.S. politicians would have stronger capitalist than democratic sympathies, given our history and how things got started. These two traditions – one individualistic and the other communitarian, one favoring liberty in pursuit of private wealth and the other favoring equality in the interest of a more perfect union – have never lived in easy agreement.
Before Trump, the political paradigm had managed, or at least had tried its best, to hold the two traditions in balance, letting the engine of capitalism move the nation forward into prosperity as the wheel of democracy guided the ship toward its vision of community.
Once in office, Trump effectively shredded the star chart and put the engine in full throttle. Unfortunately – but again, not surprisingly – a significant number of Republican politicians affirmed and aided his efforts, to the point where they were ready and willing to break democracy and steal his re-election.
That’s how the Republican party degenerated into a gang of “Trumplicans,” self-interested political leaders who use their influence to stay in power and please their base.
A vision and plan for “all of us” isn’t even on their minds.
Then there’s the so-called Christian Right, an evangelical special interest that sees government through the lens of a biblical theocracy, with the president as “god’s son” and America’s messiah. They profess to be Christian, but there is very little about them that aligns with the life, message, and moral vision of Jesus.
- Jesus was a poor brown-skinned homeless person. They are typically middle to upper-class white landowners.
- Jesus dedicated his life to healing and helping people in need. They seek to reduce or even eliminate social welfare programs.
- Jesus taught a message of prodigal love and radical forgiveness. They condemn and reject others who don’t fit their profile of righteousness.
- Jesus criticized the political and religious leaders of his day for conspiring to oppress the human spirit. They sidle up to politicians for the power and privilege they feel they deserve.
- Jesus died in solidarity with those who had no power or position in society. They accrue status and wealth for themselves because they can.
- Jesus held a vision of universal salvation by the power of love. They contrive manipulative schemes that promote their love of power.
It’s remarkable to me how far outside and against the gospel (good news) of Jesus the Christian Right really is. In front of the camera and on social media they spew bigotry, hostility, and conspiracies against their opponents – with occasional references to “God,” “Jesus,” the Bible and a “Christian nation.”
Back in his day Jesus himself called out such people as hypocrites, ‘whitewashed tombs’ with an out-facing righteousness but filled with the stench of spiritual decay.
In Against Democracy I explored the ideological opposition of Christian orthodoxy (the official Church tradition of “correct beliefs”) to the core principles of democracy, as yet another way to understand the vulnerability of Christian believers to autocratic movements, leaders, values and ideas.
The belief in a god-king (i.e., divine autocracy or theocracy), combined with beliefs in the inherent depravity of human nature and a future rescue when we will leave this fallen world and all our problems behind us: such convictions foster a deep resistance to democratic ideals, so deep in fact that most Christians can’t even articulate and certainly won’t acknowledge it.
Those in the so-called Christian Right can thus be regarded as the true devotees of Christian orthodoxy – not true to Jesus and his vision, ironically, but true to the religion that coopted and turned him into something almost exactly the opposite of who he really was and what he was all about.
It’s why so many of them believe that Donald Trump is their present-day messiah, so persecuted and misunderstood, god’s agent of a new theocratic order where Democrats, drag queens, homosexuals and other vile sinners will be finally vanquished.
It’s also why Trumplicans and the Christian Wrong are not just bedfellows, but in many cases one and the same.
Tracts of Revolution 