Just ahead of his headline spot at the CPAC convention in Virginia and the South Carolina primary on Saturday, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump delivered a speech to right-wing broadcasters Thursday night in which the former president vowed to hand power over to the Christian nationalist movement on an unprecedented scale.
Trump said during his speech at the annual conference of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) in Nashville, Tennesse that he would defend “pro-God context and content” on the nation’s AM radio stations as he told the audience that religion is “the biggest thing missing” in the United States and warned, without evidence, that Christian broadcasters were “under siege” by the left and a “fascist” Biden administration.
“We have to bring back our religion,” Trump declared. “We have to bring back Christianity.”
Striking a Christ-like pose at one point with his arms outstretched as if on a cross, Trump mentioned his legal struggles, including multiple criminal indictments and civil judgements, and said, “I take all these arrows for you and I’m so proud to take them. I’m being indicted for you.”
As Common Dreamsreported earlier this week, right-wing Christian Nationalists operating in Trump’s inner circle are quietly preparing for the prospect of his possible reelection.
In his speech Thursday, during which he also promised to close the Department of Education so that Christian fundamentalists could take over school policy at the state level, Trump said, “If I get in, you’re going to be using that power at a level that you’ve never used before.”
Are they pretending that Christians are a victimized class in America again? They need that persecution fetish to fuel their bizarre revenge fantasies, but in reality no one gives a shit about them. Maybe that’s why they are so mad.
The public and politicians needs to understand that “Christian” in the context of MAGA is just shorthand for “marginalized white non-catholic Americans who mostly lives away from the Pacific and Atlantic coasts” who got screwed by a severe deterioration of living standards as globalization only harmed their livelihoods (although allows them to buy cheap stuff that, in the end, does not make it for the lack of long term life prospects for them and their communities).
America has a way of not caring for communities and livelihoods in the midst of economic changes and the electoral influence of MAGA is the ultimate symptoms of this culturally-ingrained and supported lack of care. And Dems also have no plans or policies for them, so it is a one way ticket to political extremism.
See, but that dividing line is the issue - that minority figured out how to use the political process for their needs. We can debate whether they got external help or not, but they face no visible opposition and the many different varieties of opposition have no coherent plan to counter that, as each of the opposition have their own particular and absolutist view of how it should be done and can’t agree on a way forward, either.
Basically we are living that Austin Powers gag of the guy who was squashed by the steamroller until November comes
You’re simplifying the problem. I agree with part of your description of “Christians” as being marginalized by globalism. But you are downplaying the problem by making them seem out of touch with the times. The Industry I work in is very right leaning and MAGA. It is dominated by small and mid sized businesses. Of that I’d say 40% or more of owners actively call themselves Christian, the others generally keep to themselves on their religious beliefs.
The owners who identify and wear their Christianity on their sleeve are typically the sleeziest people you will ever do business with. They are all over the country, they are wealthy and they donate to Republicans in large numbers. They believe they have the right to dictate how they should do business and by extension how their employees live. They resent interference of the government in how they do business or how they treat their employees.
I imagine it is the same in other industries that have strong small business models. These people are not marginalized or weak.
They want to dominate and dictate their own local fiefdoms just like any of the billionaire oligarchs that you read about in the news.
