December 23 2019 America rediscovers its soul: Trump’s evangelicals are splintering and abandoning him

Trump forged the alliance of fundamentalist social conservatives, plutocrats, and white supremacists on whose resources he rose to power; and it is the religious arm of the tripod from which he, and the Republican Party, derive their legitimacy. Without the united support of the evangelicals, especially the Pentecostals, and their enormous tax-free church wealth and the uses of a weaponized pulpit for propaganda and shaping political opinion, the whole tower of lies and force begins to collapse.

    A tripod is an inherently unstable structure; to survive all three of these supports must hold firm; the gun-voting base and deniable militias and terrorists of the white supremacists, the abortion-voting base of the fundamentalist patriarchs, and the campaign money of the plutocrats. Should any of these categories of Republicans begin to question and disavow the tyranny they have enabled, or to awaken to the legacy of American patriotism and our values of liberty, equality, truth, and justice, it will mean the end of the fascism of blood and faith which has ensnared us in its monstrous grasp.

     As Emma Green writes in The Atlantic newsletter of her interview with  editor Mark Galli of Christianity Today, whose bold renunciation of Trump has electrified the nation as many evangelicals splinter and abandon support of our despicable and vile President; “How can a group that for decades—and especially during the Bill Clinton presidency—insisted that character counts and that personal integrity is an essential component of presidential leadership not only turn a blind eye to the ethical and moral transgressions of Donald Trump, but also constantly defend him?”

    “The answer, it now seems, is that some of them can’t.”