DEFEAT FASCISM

When you think about it, the extreme right-wing fundamentalist evangelicals may be headed into a box canyon, a positive sign in the long term. It's like this:

The rise of the MAGA cult has benefited in large part from the support of the fundamentalists. How did this happen?

From the book THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND THE GLORY by Tim Alberta, we learn that they blossomed due to first their religion, then from fear, and finally from hatred. It didn’t arrive through study and introspection. The willing derived it by being spoon-fed rations of fear. Evil influencers preyed on minds troubled by primal fears that their lives were not progressing as they had hoped. Their belief cohort might not sustain hegemony. Dread of becoming a minority gnawed at their equilibrium.   A huge crowd of anxious prospects awaited the new alter call.

Giving them the doubt that many feel moved by their religious fervor, how did they move from the Sermon on the Mount to support the attacking of the most cherished citadel in secular America, the United States Capitol building in Washington D.C? How did they come to support a presidential candidate marked chiefly as being totally devoid of decency or morality?

Seems the next step was fear, fear that some dark force was forcing Christians to abandon their most cherished beliefs. Some were not long held. Abortion, for example, did not become a politically charged issue in the United States until the 1970s and 1980s, primarily due to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Someone saw it as wedge issue to be exploited, despite it's not being mentioned in the New Testament and only by enhancement of vague passages in the old, such as Psalm 139:13-16, which describes God's presence in the womb, suggesting to some the sacredness of life from conception.

From there it became a foundational “fear stone” in the movement of fundamentalism from religion to politics.

Gun control formed another support. Although if allowed, some Americans would vote to rescind the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, there has never been a serious suggestion by any politician or person of power. It has become, nonetheless, an issued laced with almost rabid vitriol.

Then came sexual orientation and those who are not avowed heterosexuals.

Next, the “least of those among us,” demeaned as non-producers.

Then came immigrants forced to leave their homes due to warfare among cartels battling for supremacy in meeting the insatiable demand for drugs by Americans.

Then they moved to honest, decent Americans, not excluding Jimmy Carter, Anthony Fauci, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama and family, not to mention Joe Biden.

Then anyone who spoke on behalf of supporting the planet.

Then all Democrats and anyone labelled a "liberal." They don't ascribe the word to a supporter of policies that are socially progressive and promote social welfare. They refer to those who dare provide love and grace to "the least of those among us."

The fear and hate didn’t arise from a study of scripture, it came from pulpits, first for monetary reward and then for political power, usually for both. Far too many ministers found, that for personal reasons, the rewards of fear and hate far outweighed the rewards of love and grace.

Each year demands a new set of monsters bent—according to right-wing evangelist ministers, Fox News, and political operatives—on taking away evangelicals' freedom to practice their religion. Each step moves the group of monster/victims closer to average Americans. This includes our friends and neighbors, particularly mainline Christians who still spread the love of Jesus and don't mix it with politics. All of us are in danger. After all, the hate mongers must have new fuel with which to replenish their demand for fear.

In short, they will run out of sujets de haine, subjects of hatred.

Where can they turn, then, but to themselves? Rember the Nightof the Long Knives?