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| The conservative evangelicals who supported Donald Trump are a sad bunch. |
The irony of this particular Wednesday is incredibly stark.
Conservative evangelicals finally got a taste of the moment they have been wanting and anticipating for decades - a Supreme Court which may actually overturn Roe v Wade. A court which embraces their view of the so-called sanctity of life - however hypocritical - is something they have been pining for with all of their planning, plotting, and basic maneuvering. It's possibly the same court which could also give the LGBTQ community and our rights - particularly the one to marry - fresh hell after it finishes carving up a woman's right to an abortion.
And they owe it to their canny vigilance and cynical support of Donald Trump. By overlooking his basic faults, making excuses for his tendency to lie, and practically anointing him as a "baby Christian," conservative evangelicals are now in the catbird seat overlooking a moment in history where they may actually get what they want.
And it's on this same day that we learn something else equally nauseating about Donald Trump, the man which they owe their success to. According to his former aide Mark Meadows, Trump was COVID positive three days before his first debate with now President Joe Biden. And this was a day before an event he held with Gold Star military families whom he later blamed for giving him COVID.
So on top of everything else people have reason to despise Trump for, we can possibly mark him as a personal spreader of COVID. And this doesn't begin to account for how his sad governance indirectly caused the pandemic to wreak deadly havoc across the country.
Taking all that into account, you would think I am going to weave a sad narrative about how conservative evangelicals supposedly sold their souls for what looks like a moment of victory. You probably think that I am going to make literary comparison of people like Franklin Graham and groups like the Family Research Council to the legendary Faust, who sold his sold to the devil to gain his heart's desire.
But I'm not going to.
For the comparison to make sense, a soul must first be involved. The pain that comes from attaining your heart's desire at the cost of your innocence must be involved. And the sad realization that what you gained in your deal with the devil isn't worth what you gave up must be acknowledged.
But none of this internal trauma is going to happen with conservative evangelicals. How can it when they obviously didn't have a soul to begin with.
The truth is that they don't give a damn. All they care about is what Donald Trump has done for them. Because of him, they now have a conservative majority on the court and this majority is very close to overturning Roe v Wade. At least for now.
Everything else - the lives lost to COVID, the hypocrisy, the lies, the awful governance - is simply collateral damage to be explained away. Or worse yet, ignored.
