this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
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It's not the Trump cult, it's the Heritage Foundation cult, of which Trump is the current leader.
If you're a "Republican" who isn't all-in on christofascism, give up and change parties because the Republican Party is no longer for you and never, ever, ever will be again.
Christianity hasn't really be in the forefront since Trump gained popularity. Sure, they throw their conservative Christian base a bone once in a while, but nobody in power believes Trump follows Christianity, or promotes their ideals. Even their biggest win, Roe v Wade, has been quietly shuffled to the side, because they don't want to push a big Christian win while alienating other parts of their base.
Fascism, on the other hand... well, that's always been the goal:
“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” — Grover Norquist, 2001
Have you looked at Project 2025, like, at all? It's a fundamentalist's (sinful) wet dream, in terms of how extremely sexually-repressive it is. I mean, sure, they're trying to keep it on the down-low, but make no mistake: they are fucking delivering for the bigoted prude demographic.
Christian National (or Christofascism, whichever term you prefer) has very little to do with Christianity as a religion. Best I can tell, it's a means to an end. It will borrow ideas, justifications, and recruit followers from Christianity, but in the US, this seems to be the main mythology the Trump cult is basing itself around (and it seems that most fascist movements have a "mythology" of fake facts they are grounded in).
So while "Christianity" isn't upfront most of the time, certain issues and ideas - probably most everything from the right's "culture war" are basically Christian national ideas, and by osmosis, a ton of Christians seem to be absorbing these positions by default.
The people most swayed by Christian Nationalism appear to be non-religious (or non church affiliated) conservatives. It's all just familiar enough and an amalgamation of ideas they've already been conditioned (by various media consumption) to believe.
But for a lot of more active Christians, I've seen a spectrum of attitudes. The number of them that adore Trump seems lower than the previous group, but a lot of them will vote for him because 1) he's the Republican candidate and Democrats are icky 2) they may be a 1 or 2 issue voter, 3) because an authority figure they trust is telling them to.
I've been trying to figure out the link between Trump and why portions of the religious right is completely obsessed with him, and a lot of it is still a mystery to me.
Also, I recently watched this and found it really informative:
https://youtu.be/P4gjE0bpk9k?si=5lExMbjqkyM4RTpI
The abortion thing is hardly a bone.
Trump isn't remotely interested in Christian issues, but he's the horse that the Christian Taliban are riding hard.
Certainly seems that way.
I don't think that trump losing in November will resolve things in the long term. The support he has is a symptom of the underlying problems.