In 1980, Ronald Reagan made common cause with Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority ushering in the golden age of cynical fundamentalist Christianity. This expedient bargain gave wealth to plutocrats and power to Pastors. No longer tut-tutting from the sidelines, these cynical moralists tapped a deep well of fear and loathing among rural, white America. And used the coin of bigotry as a down payment on political power.
Added to the mix was the sense that foreigners were out to destroy our Americanism. The Soviets were determined to steal “our precious bodily fluids”. And a surging Japan was going to eat our high-tech lunch. The right warned of an irresistible tsunami of brown people flowing across an undefended southern border. And the wages of the American worker were hostage to the unwashed hordes lapping our shores.
Only a firm embrace of Flag and Bible could contain the threat of godless communists abroad. And resist the evil of sexual deviants, abortionists, feminazis, and moral relativists at home. Thus the right’s modern theocratic autocracy was born.
But they faced a potential catastrophe — a decline in religious observance. The fight against gay marriage was waged and lost. Polls showed the average American empathized with LGBTQ+ citizens. The success of the moral crusade was restricted mostly to gerrymandered southern states — and relied on the minority rule enabled by the Electoral College.
The religious right still holds some sway. Arkansas’ legislature overturned the Governor's veto of a transgender hate act. The forces lined up against Roe are still vigorous. But these feel more like a rearguard action by regional resistors rather than a concerted national movement. And Republicans were drubbed in the 2020 presidential race.
However, the unexpectedly close House race showed conservatism is still a threat to decency. Racists, sexists, xenophobes, and homophobes are still empowered to pursue their dismal agenda. This illuminates a shift in focus for the right. And shines a light on the irony of Trumpism.
In 2016, the religious threw their weight behind the least religious man to become President. They celebrated an immoral pig as a 21st century Cyrus the Great. They drew parallels between the non-Jewish Emperor who delivered the Jews from their Babylon captivity and the non-Christian strong man who would deliver America’s Christians from their secular torment by liberal atheism.
It worked out great — for a while. God’s moralists photo-oped in the Oval Office and were permitted to lay hands on their savior. They shrugged off revelations of pussy-grabbing by the ‘Two Corinthians’ guy because he gave them political hope. Their dream of an unfettered secular role for churches would be enhanced by a defeat of the prohibition of political speech by religious organizations.
But while the religious right seemed in ascendence, beneath their rise was a subtle shift in right-wing priorities. From Reagan through Bush the Younger, the Bible was the ne plus ultra of conservative symbolism. Under Trump, autocratic nationalism became the central rallying point.
To be sure, this was not an extreme change. Many of the Bible people were also happy xenophobes. But it presaged a change in political direction. And it is bad news for Americans who were counting on a decline in religiosity to sap the power of the right. This switch of focus tapped into a far bigger pool of bigotry.
Now non-churchgoers could feel welcome. Neo-Nazis and white supremacists didn’t have to worry about Sundays. They could pursue their dreams of domination without taking time off to kneel. The Proud Boys and Oathkeepers, neither notably religious, became the face of movement conservatism. And the attack on the Capitol was energized by talk of election theft and anti-government zealotry, not moral decline.
Epitomizing this shift is Stephen Miller. Unlike others who came and went, Miller’s power remained constant. His malevolence influenced the administration from opening day to its political final curtain. As the bonds of family frayed with the decline of Ivanka and Jared, Miller prospered. Pence’s fundamentalist Christianity didn’t shield him from the wrath of the mob. But Miller’s lapsed Judaism was irrelevant in the calculus of power.
Look at the change in language. The conservative enemy had once been the moral relativist — it is now the socialist. To the right the threat no longer comes from the gay agenda but from eco-warriors. Evolution is no longer the ‘false science’ threatening the social contract. The ‘lie’ of global warming has taken its place. The one constant is a loathing of the brown man.
Trump also made sexual piggishness cool. True believers no longer had to deny the rape claims and adultery as a political smear. Instead, they celebrated this in-your-face immorality as a sign of fuck-you toughness. And the little people lined up behind the bully in the schoolyard. Just look at Trump’s mini-me, Matt Gaetz. No show of contrition by him. Just the deny, deny, deny mantra of the pathological liar — and nary a Bible in view.
Too bad for Gaetz that he is such an evil toad his fellow Republicans have no interest in coming to his aid. Their antipathy is personal, not political. Liberals should take no comfort, Republicans aren’t about to stop appealing to the basket of deplorables. (Hillary was more prescient than even her biggest fans imagined.)
Since the founding of the Republic, there has been a strain of fear and anger, hate and bigotry, and love of the autocrat. The right-wing authoritarian has long tapped this well of resentment and sense of entitlement. There is no better example than the Civil War, where a small number of plutocrats convinced the average man to do their fighting. Their flag has become such a symbol of blind obeisance that the small-minded bigot waves it to this day.
Republicans are now faced with a decision. How to widen their base as the religious voter declines? They have made their choice. It isn’t an appeal to the majority of Americans. It is an appeal to the majority of whites. And to ensure that this translates to political power as whites decline as a percent of the population, they are embracing a new era of Jim Crow. For years conservatives won by restricting the vote and they aren’t about to shelve that advantage.
In 1954, during the McCarthy Red Scare Senate hearings, Army lawyer Joseph Welch punctured the McCarthy’s bigotted braggadocio by demanding of Joe "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" McCarthy’s support evaporated and within three years he was dead. But what he represented lived on.
During McCarthy’s reign of terror, acting as an ear-whispering, eminence-grise, was a young lawyer, Roy Cohn. He went on to advise a young Donald Trump. His advice? Embrace your inner meanness. Never admit. Punch the other guy before he punches you. Use your friends. Demand loyalty without giving it. But nowhere were biblical values discussed or embraced.
Trump listened. Then dumped Cohn when his usefulness was gone. And brought this secular brutality to modern right-wing politics. God may come and go. But human depravity and loathing is eternal in America’s right-wing.