The Christofascist U-Turn
It may come as a surprise to many of you, but American Christians were not always radical Republicans. I was present for the U-turn back in the day, before evangelical Christianity became a political identity. In fact, there was a time when politics didn’t play such a prominent role in theism. What happened and when?
Obviously it is simplistic to suggest that today all persons professing faith in Christ are necessarily drooling MAGA fanatics. It is also simplistic to suggest that politics and religion haven’t been conjoined in many ways in the past. But there’s an undeniably substantial increase in a trend in that direction in the last 50 years. And there can be no denying the fact that, absent evangelical Christians, Donald Trump would never have been elected president in 2016.
So what happened? Ronald Reagan happened, for one, and he (or rather, his handlers) noticed how well Jimmy Carter’s sincere claim of “born again” status played in the South, and how powerful the evangelical movement in general was. They made it a point to emphasise that Reagan was also a man of faith, and from that point to this Republicans have recruited “born again” Christianity, in one form or another, in the service of getting votes.
What’s particularly bizarre about all of this, is that Donald Trump is an atheist. Michael Cohen reports that Trump routinely mocked his evangelical supporters. When they came to the White House to “lay hands” on Trump and pray for him, Trump would frequently ridicule them after they left and call them “losers and fools.”
Bizarrely, this information has absolutely no negative affect on Trump’s evangelical followers today. They are bulletproof against the truth and are unreachable on Trump’s obvious indifference to religion. They are convinced that Trump is one of them despite daily evidence to the contrary.
It is also becoming more and more frequent for MAGA evangelicals to refer to those parts of the New Testament that repudiate the pursuit of wealth or talk of compassion for the poor as “liberal talking points.” In other words, their metamorphosis from Christianity to MAGA Christofascism is almost complete, and they have become radicalised Christians, much the way the terrorists of 9/11 were radicalised Muslims.
I realise that “MAGA” is a relatively new term, but the Christofascist tendency in that direction is not new. It’s just a convenient word to identify them, and is becoming more and more the term of convenience to distinguish this all-encompassing radical movement.
“MAGA” is also a dualistic term. In the mouth of a Trumpist Republican, MAGA is high praise. In the mouth of a Democrat, MAGA is a pejorative. But whatever your
position concerning the term, MAGA is rapidly and inexorably moving to the right.
Many Republicans are terrified of this movement, and recognise that not even someone as far right as Kevin McCarthy was safe from its all-devouring proclivities. And MAGA is coming for them, too, and it takes no prisoners.
You’ll notice, in fact, that MAGA is even becoming less and less about professed evangelical Christianity, and more and more about protecting Donald Trump. The Christofascist U-turn that began in the 80s is continuing to evolve to the point where Donald Trump is becoming the focus of worship.
Difficult (and tantalising) though it may be to believe, one day Donald Trump will die. One has to wonder, however, if his memory will be deified by his more loony followers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they referred to this current season one day as “Trumpmas.” That would certainly be the “logical” conclusion of the trajectory of this most bizarre and counterintuitive movement, the MAGA Republican descent into Christofascist lunacy. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.