MAGA Underbelly, guest blog

David Strain teaches college in Arkansas. He goes by the Family Dollar Fuhrer. Some of this is a little strong but written with affection and frustration with many dear to us all who got caught up in MAGA. But God Damn the venal folks who are playing them in Jesus name, like Fox at Five, Yellowhammer News in Bama, Jeffress at FBC Dallas and the staff at FBC Spartanburg who ought to know better. And their theologian in residence at NGU Tony Beam  . And the Heritage Foundation  

AT THE PIFFLE HOUR . . . .

For what it’s worth, it’s not true that I exult in the ongoing humiliation of white evangelicals at the slimy paws of one Donald J. Trump.  Most white evangelicals I know are good people—and good Christians.  For forty-five years, though, they’ve been the frog in the stove pot.  As the despicable reprobates who’ve led them have slowly raised the temperature on the burner, they’ve just kept adjusting, sensing that something is wrong but not being able to identify just what.  And since virtually all of their friends are in the same pot, they don’t have a very easy means of figuring out their dilemma.  They look on with consternation as America becomes a post-Christian nation.  And it causes them deep pain to see that, for the most part, their children—and especially their grandchildren—want nothing to do with their faith (and often aren’t even polite about it).  And they can’t begin to fathom that they’re the reason.

So why am I so deliriously happy that one Donald J. Trump celebrated Holy Week by hawking his very own GodBlesstheKlan Bible?  Because the political and religious leaders who have hitched their star to Christian nationalism are some of the vilest scum mothers in the history of the world.  Most have proved time and again they’d peddle their asses at the mall—and give a group discount.  Still, even though they’re the Anti-Christ’s evil little elves, most still possess a vestigial sense of decency—even if the impulse is faint in most.  They feel the humiliation.  Yet every time their Family Dollar Fuhrer humiliates them, I see the hand of God.  She’s doing Her very best to make them see how utterly reprehensible they’ve become, how absolutely they pollute the church, how unforgivably they impede the Beloved Community.  Sure, I enjoy watching them writhe—I’ll admit it.  (Those bastards are lower than the Yankees—and I mean by a lot!)  But I’d also like to see them saved from the wrath to come.  (There but for the grace . . . .)  Plus, I’d like to see what would happen if they started feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, taking in the stranger, loving the unloveable—instead of just hating and nursing perceived grievances.  Many are quite talented.  Until now, they’ve whored their talents for dog shit.  This poor, sad old world would be so much better if they started using them as directed (see Mount, Sermon on the).