Trangender people, Abortion, Critical Race Theory, Books, Wokeness, Immigrants, Crime
Many would think that the religious right would have issues with Donald Trump, convicted felon, serial cheater, the subject of numerous accusations of alleged sexual assault. As it turns out, his election has never been about moral issues.
Trump promises to protect women and at the same time paints immigrants as criminals when immigrants statistically commit fewer crimes than U.S. born citizens. One can only conclude that the far right cares more about assaults and rapes committed by immigrants than they do about those committed by U.S. citizens.
RFK Jr is a serial cheater who molested his babysitter and whose behavior appears to have led his first wife to suicide. Matt Gaetz, no longer a nominee for AG is alleged to have had sex with a minor and engaged in sex trafficking. There are details relating to an assault allegation against Pete Hegseth, a man who, like Trump, is known to have cheated on two of his three wives. Linda McMahon, inexplicably nominated as education secretary, is the subject of a lawsuit alleging that she overlooked the abuse of ring boys by a WWE anouncer. Prior to the election, hints about Trump’s relationship with the notorious Ephebophile /Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein began to emerge. Pam Bondi, his new nominee for AG was responsible for allowing Epstein to avoid consequences in Florida while she was AG there. It didn’t matter. While QAnon looks under rocks for pedophiles, they display selective blindness to Trump and his minions. To my knowledge, Elon Musk has not been accused of sexual assault but has been accused of running a hostile work environment and sexual harrassment. I am also reminded that Elon Musk has fathered 12 children, many of whom were born out of wedlock. Something that you would think would offend the ostensibly moral far right fundamentalists.
We could easily be led to believe that the other major reason that the religious right supported Trump was over the subject of abortion. If Hitler had been running for president on the promise of banning abortion, something that Hitler actually did, at least for the Aryans (at least one exception was made for a Jewish couple), much of the religious right would have voted for him. Nobody thinks that Hitler actually valued life and nobody can accuse the far right of caring about the well being of children that are not them and/or under their control. Similarly, the Republicans in congress are very concerned about a trans woman who has no history of committing sexual assault using the women’s bathroom. Why isn’t the right concerned about Pete Hegseth raping an unconscious woman, RFK Jr molesting his childrens babysitter, Linda McMahon overlooking a pedophile molesting children, Pam Bondi slapping the hand of Epstein and more importantly Trump, who has been found liable by a civil court jury of sexual assault, not to mention the many other victims of the kind of assaults that he has openly bragged about?
What most voters know about Elon Musk and Donald Trump is that they are successful businessmen, not the details about how they acquired their wealth. They don’t know about Trump’s many business failures or that while Musk’s genius lies in investing in innovative technologies, he is not necessarily the brain behind those technologies. Pete Hegseth, nominee for defense secretary, has allegedly stated that having sex with an unconscious woman should be legal and is accused of doing this exact thing, but none of these things matter.
While not all evangelical leaders are on the far right and many spoke out against Trump, those religious leaders who fueled his rise in the far right evangelical world belong to an elite group of pastors who advocate for dominionism.
Dominionism is fueled by the belief that man (and only man) has dominion over the earth. This is directly in conflict to the belief by more mainstream clergy that we are stewards of the earth. Religious movements like Quiverfull encourage large families, no birth control, traditional stay at home Mothers and homeschooling. The children of these Dominionist movements are considered to be part of an army, raised in insular communities to take over the Seven Mountains, seven areas of government and society, to reform them. These seven are Education, Religion, Family, Business, Government/Military, Arts/Entertainment and Media.
It would take too much time to go into the individuals who appear to have entered these arenas over the past few decades or the successes that they have had. The successes are many. We can expect more success over the next 4 years. There are a couple of notable dominionist individuals now in positions of power. Senator Ted Cruz is the son of evangelical leader Rafael Cruz who once dreamed that his son would become president. Supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett was groomed by the Federalist Society, a powerful right wing organization that is responsible for the nomination of six of the current conservative justices on the court. Although a Catholic, Coney Barret was raised as a member of “People of Praise”, an extremely conservative charismatic Christian movement that some consider to be a cult.
Earth, the Dominionists believe, is there to be exploited and this is done in exchange for wealth. Wealth, they believe, is God’s reward for those who deserve it. It is Donald Trump’s wealth, not his morality, that is a signifier of his worthiness and God’s favor. RFK Jr has even been said by some to have “Christ consciousness”, “a type of spiritual awareness that is supposedly on the same level of spirituality as Jesus”. It is Elon Musk’s wealth that makes him worthy. Some believe that Trump is the savior. The fact that these men are singularly self absorbed and lack empathy (according to family members) is entirely unimportant. Women, unless they are being groomed for positions in the Seven Mountains, are meant for child rearing and expected to be subservient to their husbands.
There are many interpretations of the book of Revelations. In the Puritan era, individuals behaved as though they were upright, moral people likely to be among the chosen when Jesus returns. Some believe that the initial 144,000 will be Jewish people who have finally converted to Christianity which leads to a different but related discussion about Christian Zionists and Israel. Let’s say that if you believe one interpretation, that only 144,000 individuals are going to initially be raised to heaven when Jesus returns, it will not be trans people, the “woke mob” or their allies and supporters that go to heaven. It may be men like Trump, Musk and RFK Jr who lead them there and their morality does not matter.
Would you like to learn more about how we got here? Here is a plug for “Wild Faith, How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America” by Talia Lavin.
Also of interest, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War and The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlett
