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This was all plainly predictable if you have paid any attention to what fuels his base. I'm just going to drop some links to stuff I've written over the years -- I don't cover the religion/politics beat per se, but all of this is embedded in and carried by pop culture.
If you read anything: The GOD'S NOT DEAD series has every piece of this embedded in its three films. https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/4/3/17180138/gods-not-dead-light-darkness-evangelical-christian-persecution-race
The aesthetics of MAGA -- Trump the brave warrior, Trump the apocalyptic figure, as illustrated by Dinesh D'Souza and Jon McNaughton: https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/8/8/17376824/trump-fan-art-maga-dinesh-dsouza-jon-mcnaughton
Pence made a pitch to churches via video the weekend before the election, and at the time it seemed clear to me what they were doing and what it meant: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/7/13546186/johnson-amendment-mike-pence-donald-trump-evangelicals-religious-right-moral-majority
Everything about white evangelical attitudes toward Trump tracks with the LEFT BEHIND books except, curiously, his parallels to the anti-Christ figure; I wrote for WaPo about the books, Hal Lindsay, etc etc a few years ago at @alyssarosenberg's invitation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/07/13/the-left-behind-series-was-just-the-latest-way-america-prepared-for-the-rapture/
Martyrdom and victimhood are baked in -- back in the 90s, for instance, when evangelical kids were told they'd shoot us if we said we loved God: https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/20/15369442/columbine-anniversary-cassie-bernall-rachel-scott-martyrdom
@samthielman and I had @NotoriousTIB on our podcast ( @YAMMPOD) to talk about THE TRUMP PROPHECY, in which shofars and antics like the ones you've seen the past few days figure heavily: https://yammpod.substack.com/p/episode-18-christwashing-trump
@samthielman and I also talked with @joshgondelman about GOD'S NOT DEAD on the podcast ( @YAMMPOD): https://yammpod.substack.com/p/episode-16-gods-gonna-run-you-over
@samthielman and I talked with @espiers about A THIEF IN THE NIGHT, from which some notable imagery has been stolen by Christian TikTokers talking about conspiracies (particularly with the vaccine/the govt) https://yammpod.substack.com/p/episode-11-intrigued-by-the-guillotine
Perhaps the most obvious parallels between what you see right now and the past is in THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH, which we also talked about on @YAMMPOD: https://yammpod.substack.com/p/episode-1-you-should-write-a-book
And this one isn't about evangelicals/the Trump base -- it's about media coverage of Trump (written before Mark Halperin, surprise surprise, joined Newsmax): https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/2/3/14475250/trumped-review-the-circus-showtime
I could tell you about Audio Adrenaline's 1993 album DON'T CENSOR ME or the long, grifty history of "historian" David Barton or a whole lot more about LEFT BEHIND or refer you back, God help me, to the films of Dinesh D'Souza, but let's just say: none of this is new
And you should of course read @kkdumez's book: https://bookshop.org/books/jesus-and-john-wayne-how-white-evangelicals-corrupted-a-faith-and-fractured-a-nation-9781631499050/9781631495731
Oh, I forgot about Frank Peretti
