|
Why We Should
be More Afraid of Mike Pence Than Trump
By Travis Gettys
January 30,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Raw
Story" -
Right-wing
Christians have been plotting their takeover of the U.S.
government for nearly 50 years — and the rise of Donald
Trump and his evangelical sidekick, Mike Pence, have
finally set up “the tragedy playing out right now.”
Kieryn Darkwater
is a transgender former evangelical “Christofascist” who
grew up in the
Quiverfull movement and uses “they” as a personal
pronoun, wrote about their experience as a homeschooled
right-wing political activist for the website
Autostraddle.
“I watched the
Tea Party takeover and was surprised no one saw it
coming,” Darkwater wrote. “After all, this was part of
the plan. Trump being elected is also part of the plan,
although not Trump specifically; the true goal is
Pence.”
Evangelical
conservatives started taking over local Republican
groups in the 1970s and setting up right-wing advocacy
groups to push their agenda into the mainstream — which,
of course, is the standard form political activism —
while all along training their children in home schools
and church groups to fight in the “culture wars.”
“It’s a loose
and ambiguous term that basically means anything or
anyone that doesn’t align with this very specific view
of Christianity must not be allowed to continue,”
Darkwater wrote.
The Christian
right hopes to overturn court decisions protecting
reproductive rights and non-discrimination on race, and
Darkwater warned that these religious extremists intend
to amend the U.S. Constitution to legalize
discrimination against women, people of color and LGBT
people .
“The only way
to do this is to infiltrate the government,” Darkwater
wrote, recalling the training and activism they took
part in as a teenager.
“We were sneaky
and polite Trojan horses,” Darkwater wrote. “We had an
agenda. Yes, even as 15-year-olds.”
Right-wing
Christians have wanted someone like Pence in the White
House for years, but a hardline religious conservative
hasn’t even been able to win the GOP primary — until
Trump emerged as a blank slate with no real principles
beyond his own self-aggrandizement.
“They know
Trump is easily manipulated and will change his mind
with the wind if it makes him feel more powerful and
famous,” Darkwater wrote. “Trump couldn’t care less
about policy, a fact he’s made quite obvious. The Right
has given a tyrant power and fame; he will do whatever
they want him to do in order to keep it.”
With Trump
apparently willing to sign anything Pence and
congressional Republicans hand him, Darkwater wrote,
right-wing Christians see an opportunity to finally take
over the U.S. government with an army of homeschooled
religious extremists.
“Those of us
who didn’t leave the far Right are being elected to
federal positions or are taking over states and cities,”
Darkwater wrote. “With Pence in office, even the
reasonable-seeming incumbents – who have been and are
still at the mercy of the Tea Party – are growing more
bold in their attempts to further the Christofascist
agenda: To Take Back The Country For Christ.”
The views
expressed in this article are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of
Information Clearing House.
I Was Trained for the Culture
Wars in Home School, Awaiting Someone Like Mike Pence as
a Messiah: We were,
after all, being trained to take over the country for
Christ, literally. |
