The Unholy Marriage Between Evangelicals, Billionaires And Trump.

There’s a long history between the GOP and evangelicals dating back to the late 1800’s. In the book The Family, you’ll read about wealthy industrialists and evangelicals joining forces to keep labor unions from gaining power. In the 1950’s, Eisenhower was put in office with the help of evangelicals. He rewarded them by agreeing to create the National Prayer Breakfast, by agreeing to the addition of “Under God” to our Pledge of Allegiance and by changing the national motto from “E Pluribus Unum” (Out of many, one) to “In God We Trust.”

It was evangelicals who supported Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s abuses in the blacklisting of virtually anyone accused of socialist or communist leanings. It was evangelicals who became an integral part of the GOP’s Southern Strategy after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. And it was evangelicals and Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority” who used the anti-abortion movement to help Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush gain office.

All of that is reason enough to question the beliefs of most evangelicals. But, in 2016, these same evangelicals…the purported followers of Jesus…helped a greedy, narcissistic, unqualified billionaire who bragged about his sexual assaults to gain the White House. Why? They were willing to compromise every tenet of their supposed faith based on the promise that Trump would appoint federal judges and Supreme Court justices willing to overturn Roe v Wade to ban abortion.

And that’s only the beginning.

In a number of radio interviews, Jane Mayer has spoken about the wedding of evangelicals and anti-government libertarian billionaires with failed congressman, failed governor and current vice-president, Mike Pence, as the ring bearer.

The billionaires in question are the Koch brothers who have created a large network of dark money groups to fund candidates who support their anti-government philosophies, the Robert Mercer family who bankrolled Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News and the Trump campaign, and the combined families of Erik Prince and Betsy Devos who have used their combined fortunes to fund attempts to privatize our military and our education system.

As Jane Mayer points out, these billionaires essentially share the same belief – that the federal government should do only three things: Provide for the national defense, maintain stability, and provide for law and order. They view social issues, such as abortion and immigration, as mere tools that can be used to divide and influence voters to support their candidates. Focused on such issues, people vote for their candidates unaware of the billionaires’ plans to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all other social safety nets.

Similarly, many voters are oblivious to billionaires’ plans to rewrite the US Constitution to incorporate their narrow-minded beliefs. Indeed, they are just a few states short of the required two-thirds needed to hold a Constitutional Convention.

Having been placed in office as a result of dark money donations from the billionaires, Trump and the GOP congressional leaders are well on their way to cutting taxes for corporations and billionaires. If they succeed, the government will run large deficits until the resulting debt will generate draconian cuts to the safety nets that the billionaires despise. And should Trump be removed from office leaving Pence to replace him, be afraid…very afraid. Though Trump is a willing participant in the billionaires’ plans, his oversized ego makes him highly unpredictable.

The evangelical Pence, on the other hand, is a willing puppet guided as much by his billionaire sponsers as he is by his narrow and hateful interpretation of the Bible.