On November 18th, Donald Trump commented in one of his Truth Social posts, “we will demolish the Deep State, we will expel the warmongers from our government, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our Country, we will rout the Fake News Media, we will evict Joe Biden from the White House, and in big bold caps , he posted we will “FINISH THE JOB ONCE AND FOR ALL!” The 2024 election, he wrote, “is our final battle.” Sound apocalyptic to you?

The former president’s use of the words “cast out” elicited a chorus of praise from his most loyal constituency: white evangelicals. That sort of term is commonly used by evangelicals, Pentecostals and more radical Christians to describe the exorcism of demonic forces. Such “demons” could be as diverse as sexual to educational to political in nature.

Trump knows that these communities, in particular, its older members, harbor beliefs deeply etched in the endemic, right-wing anti-communism of the Cold War era, in which political ideologies such as communism, socialism, and Marxism etc. were seen as anti-American, as well as anti-Christian. Trump’s continued support from white evangelicals demonstrates how much they embrace his desire to abolish democracy and reconstruct a xenophobic government in their own image. To them, Trump is the answer, their salvation.

For the past several years since Trump was elected, leaders of and subscribers to this political segment of American politics have engaged in the most destructive rhetoric publicly expressed by paranoid citizens since the days of the early McCarthy era. During the height of the Black power era, even President Richard Nixon’s infamous “southern strategy” of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which was able to garner, successfully, the support of the region by manipulating racist Whites who were fearful of and resented the civil rights movement, did not seem so overtly hostile in its aims.

Large segments of this political demographic people cannot fully accept the fact that the “Leave it to Beaver”, Norman Rockwell, “Happy Days,” “Laverne and Shirley,” “Pleasantville” early post-World War II suburban America, male dominant WASP culture has suddenly included non-Whites (and for sexists, women) in the top echelons of power in the U.S.  The America that that these people knew, where non-Whites were frequently marginalized, and occasionally seen but not heard and certainly had little, if any voice, this America has managed to secure Supreme Court seats, resided in the White House as first family, and secured the offices of president and vice president. These facts have driven a number of them mad with PARANOIA!

Trump’s acidic rhetoric is seen as a license by his followers to demean and disregard others just as he does. He portrays others as existential threats, determined to destroy everything his MAGA base admires about America. It signals to his supporters that destroying your perceived enemies “by any means necessary,” and that disregarding basic human restraint and decency is permissible. While there are some conservatives who have denounced the tactics of some of their more extreme brethren, these are the individuals who seem to be voices in the wilderness as opposed to being taken seriously as rational voices of reason.

Truth be told, the current Republican Party has become so rapacious, barbarous and amoral in its blind thirst for power, they seem determined to attack and, if possible, nullify any political, social or cultural movements that are not conducive to their dystopian agenda. We have already witnessed the party engage in this sort of undemocratic activity with voter suppression and the duplicative election laws they have enacted.

The acrimonious rhetoric of the far right betrays the undeniable truth that they are terrified and aware that their stronghold on the current state of affairs will erode if they are unable to manipulate the laws and future elections. Thus, they are attempting to establish a form of minority rule. They have to be prohibited from doing so at all costs if democracy, as we currently know it, is to survive.