In spring of 2010, as congress was scheduled to pass reform in our health care sector, Rep John Lewis of Georgia was walking up the steps of the US Capital, wading through a throng of protestors who were verbally defiant and aggressive.
I can’t imagine how Mr. Lewis, a civil rights icon, must have felt hearing the chant of ‘Nigger’ as a man spit on him.
Barely a year earlier, Rick Santelli, a broadcaster with CNBC proposed in a heated moment that a Tea Party event be held in a demonstration of their opposition to the Governments intrusion into the housing market.
That crowd, that day on the steps of the capital, who chanted racist and divisive remarks, that crowd that spit on Rep Lewis, were members of the Tea Party, a populist movement that sprung up around Rick Santelli’s proposal.
Picking up that banner to populate the new Tea Party were Republicans Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, Chris Christie and Rand Paul, all deeply conservative. All names that have yet faded from the collective memory.
While there’s probably truth to the belief that the Koch Brothers funded the Tea Party, the foundation, the push to build a different Republican Party began much earlier, with the evangelicals, and while those involved with the Tea Party issued statements that their protests had nothing to do with social or religious issues, issues, the Tea Party members were largely white Protestant evangelicals.
While one can trace the rise of evangelicalism in this Nation to the now defunct Roe vs Wade, evangelism’s main goal is a Christian America, preferably white. While the supreme courts landmark decision in 1973 drove many white Christians to the republican party, it would be Ronald Reagan that gave them a voice as he was catapulted to the presidency, and with it the birth of Jerry Farwell and the moral majority.
Among white evangelists, a full 2/3 are nationalists, nationalist defined as a person who deems their national interest as supreme, above all other, often referred to as exceptionalism, and more often than not, associated with white supremacy.
Nationalist tendencies, a belief in American exceptionalism are not new issues, they’ve been around since the early 1800s here in America, and chances are, nationalism and evangelism isn’t going anywhere in the near future.
Especially when one considers that over 90% of trump supporters are evangelicals.
While the Tea Party has for the most part disappeared, the rampart, hateful behavior of misinformation, ridicule and bias continues with the likes of Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Green, Jim Jordan and a host of others continue to this day. All believers in American exceptionalism, nationalism and tied to those who put them in office.
Far Right Evangelicals born of Farwell and Pat Robertson. Perhaps not Protestant, perhaps not practicing evangelicals, but all willing to sell their soul a little thing called power.
Lauren Boebert recently claimed she would like to see an end of separation and state as stated in our first amendment. This position, is the primary belief of evangelicals, and some very vocal republicans in office. This is their endgame, ending the separation of church and state and the only way to do that is obliterate the first amendment.