Libturds Don't Get Evangelicals Either

Why do Evangelical Christians (even in Canada) love Donald Trump? The client/patron model explains this too and I finally have an answer to a question my sister once posed as to why one should take a Roman history class. Evangelical Christians are paranoid but being paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get you. What this well worn phrase indicates is that one may have a justified sense of exclusion or persection but apply it to all the wrong objects and magnify it out of all proportion. Evangelicals think that they, the Christians, are subjects of a global wave of perscution that the 'left' does not care about or perhaps even secretly endorses. There is some merit to this a complaint: the 'left' does not in fact care about 'religious persecution' of Christians in places like Egypt or Pakistan. Of course this fact gets spun in terms of an apocalyptic conflict between the children of God and Satan and if you point out, say, that, that religious conflict in a place like Nigeria is heavily implicated in a little thing called oil the Evangelical will not thank you. In fact he will take that as a put down and an expression of callous indifference. Whether Muslim or Liberal, whether there or here, Satan and his powerrs are coming after Christians and every slight and every injustice has to be understood in that context. Let me state a caveat here: though I am currently very upset at them I do not despise Evangelicals OR their culture OR even their theology. Even a decade ago I noted that some of my best and most curious and engaged students were Evangelical kids seeking to understand their faith in the best medieval sense of fides quarens intellectum. Students from other faith backgrounds often betrayed a dull complacency about what they had been taught as is to be expected of those with a sense of 'mainline' privilege. Evangelical kids asked questions becasue they were self-conscious of their awkward position vis a vis the rest of society. I sincerely hope this spirit does not go to waste though I see perfectly well why it might. There is an alternative to thinking and that is reacting and one reaction to being 'on the fringe' is finding a 'boss' who will protect you. I know there are progressives who look at this community and see nothing but whiny individuals basking in white Christian privilege. This picture however is false. In the sphere of culture (at least)Evangelicals think they are punching bags and objects of easy mockery. They feel the rest of the world delights in trampling on their sensibilites and ridiculing their cherished beliefs. They are, as far as I can see, correct in this and they are also correct that eventually this will have some economic bite and cost in terms of career opportunities. What is worse, this sentiment goes with a theology that is at its heart individual and privatised. Evanglelicals have little care for the political realm and little trust in it. The laws and institutions of the world are not set up to protect them. They cannot rely on constitutions or governments to recognize their basic rights as individuals. Of course they CAN rely on God and on LEADERS that God may raise up to protect them OUTSIDE the framework of legal and political institutions (as we might see in the book of Judges say). This is a perfectly understandable attitude but tragically it is also a PERFECT recipe for Fascism. This, as far as I can make out, is what is transpiring in the US. Trump is running a kind of extra-legal protection racket with Evangelical voters. They vote for him and he gives them small cultural victories AND much more importantly a sense of security about their future. He has returned to them their sense of respect and their sense of place. This is why they forgive him again and again and are praying for him even now as his incompetance and narcissm threaten to kill thousands or even millions. This is as sad as it is predictable. This is exactly how a mobster runs a small neighborhood; esepecially one where no one trusts the cops or the government but they do trust the Don or the big boss. Trump is playing Evangelicals like a mob boss; giving them the 'respect' they don't get elsewhere and protecting them from the outsiders 'Liberals' and 'Muslims' who are out to steal their respect and their place in the nation. Thus, when he made his transition from boss to TV boss to boss of everything they were primed, both politically and theologically, to be his number one dupes.