What's it all about?
What was the point of it?
Why did, according to some polls, over four fifths of white evangelicals vote for Donald Trump?
It wasn't because Donald Trump is a moral person. Clearly, he is not. Nothing in the way he has conducted his business, in the way he has treated and talked about others, in the narcissistic way he talks about himself, indicates otherwise. And I don't think white evangelicals were fooled into thinking he was a decent person. The voters who used to identify as "the moral majority" simply decided not to base their vote on personal morality.
Was it because they wanted to see health care eviscerated, as the Republican House passed on Thursday? Clearly, they did not. It's not even what Trump campaigned on. Yes, he said he would replace Obamacare, but that he would give us something better. That did not happen. A bill was passed (in the House only - it still has a long way to go to become law) whose basic intent was to eliminate the medicaid surtax on the very wealthy, and to do so by taking away funding for health care to the old, the sick,and the poor.
It's true that many on the right despise the name Obamacare. However, when individual elements are polled, many components do quite well. People like their children being covered under their plans through age 26. They like that pre-existing conditions are covered. It's only when the Affordable Care Act is identified as Obamacare that it's popularity fades. And even that's changing. As the Republican alternative comes into sharper focus, Obamacare is now at its height of popularity.
Do they want to see Wall Street back in charge? Instead of draining the swamp, it is now overflowing it's brackish stink from coast to coast. I think that this barely registers with white evangelicals.
Is there a racial component to it? Most definitely, but how conscious they are of it is hard to tell. It is a vague desire to return America to a golden age that never was. It is an indeterminate longing for the preservation of white privilege. The wall becomes a symbol of protecting American values, as seen through the lens of those who see other groups as threat to their dominance. But the wall is ultimately symbolic. They won't turn on Trump if he fails to build it.
What is ultimately driving them can be seen not in the frightening destruction of American health care, but in the executive order signed that same day - the "Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty" executive order. It busts down some of the barriers between church and state, and will allow tax-exempt churches and religious organizations to participate more fully in political discourse and activities, ordering the IRS to relax enforcement of that barrier. It also will make it easier for religious organizations to deny the contraceptive part of health care.
This is just the beginning of the Faustian bargain they made in putting Trump over the electoral top. It was the promise that if he was elected, he would hand over the keys to the Christian Right in setting their agenda. They would gain control of the Supreme Court, insuring the eventual reversal of Roe V. Wade. They would be able to reverse the progress made on LGBTQ rights. They could move us more to openly religious schools (Christian right denominations only - Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and others need not apply). Prayer could be restored in school, as long as it was THEIR prayer. Liberals on campuses could be silenced and prosecuted, revised libel laws could go after the press.
Meanwhile, Trump chews up and spits out the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, and he and his family make a fortune at our expense. His cronies dismantle effective government functions and turn them into profit for themselves and their wealthy buddies. Our tax system is adjusted so that the income inequality we've seen so far looks like chump change.
But they don't care. Because they'll get what they want. A Christian version of Sharia law.
That is what it is all about.
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