The Fruit of the Victim Tree

In October of 2016 White evangelical protestants--formerly the most stalwart against having a political leader who behaved immorally in his personal lives became the group most willing to overlook that. It wasn't by a small margin either--it was by a whopping 42 points. Indeed, most religious organizations became more tolerant of having a leader who engaged in moral transgressions--while the religiously unaffiliated dropped three points. Why?

The Omnivore Is Gonna Explain It To You: Victimology

There is a pervasive and immoral belief among the religious that Christians are rapidly becoming--or have become--the most persecuted religion in America. This mirrors the notion that white people are under attack and all other races are privileged over them.

Huh?

That's right--with every president being protestant (save for a Catholic here or there--which was a big deal at the time)--with the levers of power at all levels held by the faithful--what is going on? Are Christians being persecuted--and if they were, why would it suddenly be okay to have a leader who commits immoral acts in his or her personal life??

It doesn't make any sense.

It Makes Plenty Of Sense

It is no mystery what drove Evangelicals into the heart of Trump-Country: they feel they are losing a culture war and want someone who will fight for them. Trump is a fighter. Trump will fight. Fight what? Political Correctness--Trump will fight it with a right of iron and a left of steel--and if one doesn't get 'em, the other one will.

Trump with his three wives and naked FLOTUS shoots--with his grab-them-by-the-pussy school-bully bravado will fight like a fighting fighter. The Evangelicals believed--because he is a great con-man--that he would be their fighting fighter.

He would stand up for the little man--the forgotten man--forced to bake a cake for the homosexuals. He would stand up for the forgotten owners of the mom-and-pop pizza place mercilessly savaged on Yelp--and allegedly receiving threatening phone calls--for refusing to cater a sodomite wedding.

Yes, Trump, they believed would fight--for Christian values, by throwing transgendered people--sexual deviants--out of the stalwart armed forces. He would fight against the rising tide of homosexuality ushered in by Obama with its gay-marriage and homos in uniform.

Trump would make America a place where it was safe to say "Nigger" again.

:: RECORD SCRATCH ::

Wait--what?

Let's look at a poll of over five thousand people by the University of Virginia, after the Charlottesville Unite The Right rally found that:

• 14% of all respondents both 1) agreed that white people are under attack and 2) disagreed with the statement that nonwhites are under attack.
• Nearly one-third of respondents (31%) strongly or somewhat agreed that the country needs to “protect and preserve its White European heritage.”
• 6% of respondents said they strongly or somewhat supported the alt-right.
• White nationalism got 8%.  The Neo-Nazis got 4%

Of more interest to The Omnivore, however, was this:

'Political correctness' threatens our liberty as Americans to speak our minds.

• 52% of Republicans Strongly Agree while only 26% of Democrats do
• For Evangelical Christians that was 62% Strongly (40%) or somewhat (26%) agree.
• For white people it was 38% (the highest) and those with no college (35%--the highest)

For Marriage should only be allowed between people of the same race, we got:

• 12% for Democrats (8% Strongly and 4% Somewhat) and 23% Republicans (13% Strongly, 10% Somewhat)
• For Tea-Party people it was the strongest correlation at 38%: 25% of Tea Partiers agreed strongly, while 13% agreed somewhat.
• Evangelicals ranked the highest with 21% agreeing (13% Strong, 8% somewhat)

So What Does All This Mean?

What you are seeing here is the same mechanism which makes it "okay" to be a white supremacist. Or "okay" to be a Nazi--or whatever. In this case the majority or at least those of a racially or ethnically privileged group (such as, uh, aryans) are told they are beset by the forces of evil in the form of Judaism or Social Justice Warriors--or whatever--and specific grievances are, if not wholly manufactured, seized upon and magnified--they are weaponized against the faithful or against the angry--and it takes amorphous anger and discontent and it directs it in the direction of those who want to use it--usually to enrich themselves (either monetarily or politically, or whatever).

The faithful, in this case, the Evangelicals, are of the persuasion that they are being beaten into submission by a government machine run by libertines and sodomites and athiests--who will use the obscene power of the courts against places of worship and against Christian values--to exterminate them from the culture.

This is the same way that white people who are feeling stuck or forgotten or frustrated are shown a tiny slice of outrage inducing black people with "Obama Phones" (a program started under Bush) and can be convinced to become Neo Nazis:

Yeah, It Makes Perfect Sense

People who are convinced they are being victimized--that they are under attack--will look to just about anything to defend them.

If the first thing they have to throw overboard is their ethics and morals? Well, a surprisingly large number of people  will do just that.

But Wait, Didn't That Guy Have To Bake The Cake?

Last The Omnivore heard, he did. And The Omnivore does agree--threatening phone calls to a pizza joint or forced cake-making are indeed injustices. That wedding photographer who was successfully sued too--she's got a valid complaint. A Jewish photographer shouldn't be forced to photoshoot a Nazi wedding.

But you know what? Today we don't have Nazi weddings--not as a big thing anyway--and they certainly don't hire Jewish photographers to shoot them (well, maybe in the other sense of the word "shoot"). But if based on these cases--the very specific cases--the very few specific cases that you know about because your media FED them to you--you jettison your morals?

If it becomes okay to vote for a president who will protect that baker even though he has the morals of an ally cat? You know what happens next?

NEXT--YOU GET FUCKING NAZI WEDDINGS

Do you understand that? Those moral positions were there for a reason. A good reason--and the gatekeepers of the moral standards? They're not supposed to sell them out for a 'W.' They're not supposed to say it's "okay" to vote for a guy who reflects exactly zero moral values because we think he'll burn our enemies--that's what we call playing with fire.

These evangelical leaders? They ought to know that when you play with fire, real often? You get burned.

Watch Trump extract fulsome praise from assorted sycophantic religious leaders on the national day of prayer wherein he rescinded DACA. How much can you stomach?