By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
Guest Column
There is a plethora of books in the public marketplace that, with a close inspection, notate the scary drama of too many white evangelicals reaching for their “guns” rather than a prayer book.
Reports, books and interviews are depicting an “army” of disillusioned white evangelicals willing to vote for a noxious Trump personality rather than make a judgment call of who is morally fit to serve in the White House in 2025.
A common theme in the reporting from the white evangelical camps is that
they view Trump as their God-ordained “avenger” of all things that ail them and that he is their champion to bring America back to the good ‘ol days of Leave It To Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best.
You know. The period of American history when Blacks and other minorities were best and safety viewed as shoeshine boys or elevator conductors or, if possible, the occasional mailman walking the neighborhood.
White America loves their sanitized story of the first Thanksgiving with the Native Americans (called “injuns” back then); and they swooned to see lil’ Shirley Temple happily tap dancing with a grinning Bojangles in the farcical movies of Hollywood.
These were the days when macho John Wayne ruled the roost and overt racist politicians like Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and Lester Maddox made the evening news with their denunciations of all things, “Negro”, especially any movement towards integrating their schools with a person named Lashonda or a DeMarcus.
But now. The stakes have been raised and the cultural and political outlook for too many white evangelicals is dire. Dire to the point that their outlook on life in these United States has darkened to the point that they would consider political violence as a means to balance the ship of state and restore what they consider as almost lost and gone, to its rightful place in America.
That place…you say? Simple: A deification of all things white and clean and as a corollary, pure and holy in their estimation.
For, to them, their tabulation of the ills of the society is clearly seen in Black Lives Matters protests, immigration of those “others” (meaning non-Nordic ethnic lineages), the rise of feminism and a feeling of loss that America is no longer a White man’s country…among other grips.
Now, here is where their logic gets twisted and downright perverted. Too many of the leaders of the white evangelicals, including the white Christian nationalists, have concocted a worldview that Donald Trump is their “hired” mercenary to do the pending gun battle with the forces of evil.
A battle that they portend will hasten the return of Jesus the Christ as portrayed in the Book of Revelation when the US of A (as a stand in for a godly Christian nation) fights the good fight against the forces of evil that are in current mortal combat in the Middle East.
Somehow these Bible illiterates have mangled the scriptures to their form and fashion so that they believe that they must take over all aspects of the culture before Jesus can return for his Church (aka: The Rapture).
These Bible manipulators have drunk their own faux religious Kool-Aid and believe that they are on the front lines of fighting for Kingdom values and Trump is their anointed tip of the spear.
In their LA-LA land of bizzarro thinking and regardless of the heinous conduct of Trump or he being a con, a racist, a convicted sex abuser and is under 91 criminal indictments, that does not give them any pause to think that maybe, just maybe, they have backed the wrong horse.
You see, no matter how retched Trump smells and no matter how he reeks of sin and shame, the white evangelicals simply hold their righteous noses and convince themselves that when it is all over, the means justifies the end.
Rather than follow Biblical principles of interpersonal conduct and not seeking their peace and satisfaction in an earthly kingdom (with them ruling,
of course) that they believe they are compelled to set up, they would resort, if need be, to political violence in the name of the Prince of Peace!
Go figure! Until you understand that many of these white evangelicals believe that America was theirs for the taking and robbing and killing of the Native Americans; and they have a “divine” right to it, you will be fumbling in the dark to explain their racist behavior towards all things non-white.
But, as obnoxious and insane as it sounds, the white evangelicals have spooked themselves into a non-permeable mindset that these are the last days and Trump is their cultural and religious hero that has been ordained by God to rescue America from itself.
To the white evangelicals infected with this cancerous lesion, they must remain true to their champion and support him no matter what happens. They gladly overlook his legion of errors and bombastic statements because they believe that they are on the right side of history.
Mockery, fault finding, ridicule, debasement, slander and even facts or logic does not sway them from their fealty to all things Trump. They have allowed themselves to be deluded by the big lie and are staying true to it.
America is in for a rough ride until the 2024 voting rodeo and if, by chance, Trump is able to stay out of jail and enough nitwits vote for him, my advice?
Buckle up…Buttercup!
Contact Lafe Tolliver @ tolliver@juno.com