Fundies Worship Trump: Putting Money Above Jesus Is The ‘Right’ Thing To Do

The most infuriating aspect of the presidential election is how the religious right managed to persuade 81 percent of white evangelicals to ignore Donald Trump’s blatant misogyny, mocking of the disabled, and condoning of violence. For most of the last month, we’ve thought the explanation for this mind-blowing worship of the Donald was easy. The likes of Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, James Dobson, and Franklin Graham were willing to ignore Trump’s outrageous behavior because he made the right clucking noises on social issues.

But Jay Michaelson of The Daily Beast has another theory for why the religious right sold its soul to Trump. He thinks that fundies’ full-throated support of the Donald shows that they have become lovers of money. Specifically, by falling in with Trump, the religious right has now fully embraced Hoover-style rugged individualism.

Michaelson paid particular attention to the presence of former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell as a member of Trump’s domestic policy team. Blackwell is a fundie from central casting. He’s a firm believer in “pray away the gay” conversion therapy, a piece of harmful and pseudoscientific hokum that is now officially sanctioned in the GOP platform.

It turns out that Blackwell is a full-fledged economic conservative as well. If you’ll remember, last week he argued that slashing food stamps was very Christlike because it helps people become more self-sufficient. Apparently he forgets that 75 percent of welfare recipients actually do work–their salaries just don’t begin to be enough for them to make it.

But Michaelson found out that Blackwell has been preaching the gospel of rugged individualism for some time. In his 2006 book, “Rebuilding America: A Prescription for Creating Strong Families, Building the Wealth of Working People, and Ending Welfare,” Blackwell called for taking a pair of scissors to the social safety net. Why? He thought it weakened families and communities in the long run.

This sort of talk has become increasingly common since World War II, when many evangelical preachers rethought their longstanding mistrust of the pursuit of wealth. They started arguing that getting rich didn’t make it appear that you worship mammon after all. A number of them even argued that if you were rich, it was a sign that you were truly blessed.

By the 1980s, this morphed into prosperity gospel, or word of faith teaching. That was when you started seeing televangelists hosting their shows from garishly opulent sets while looking like walking fashion plates, while their followers began flocking to churches that looked like coliseums. Michaelson doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that preachers took a different line on wealth around the time that southern Democrats felt chagrin over the national party’s embrace of civil rights.

This started a gradual migration of Southern whites and lower-middle class whites in other parts of the country to the GOP.However, through it all, the GOP hasn’t abandoned its worship of Hoover economics. What has changed, Michaelson argues, is that most fundies now think greed is good.

There’s definitely something to this. After all, some of Trump’s earliest fundie supporters were prosperity gospel peddlers like Kenneth Copeland and Paula White. They’re of a piece with Trump–they openly flaunt their wealth while posing as country boys and girls made good.

As a domestic violence survivor, I am appalled that the religious right was so determined to build a “culture of life” in this country that they were willing to build it on the backs of myself and others who have had to endure abusive relationships. Well, now it looks like the church was blinded in part by green smog.

(featured image: screengrab from YouTube)

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.