Republicanism has taken a very hard right turn. To be a Republican today is to join a cult. This cult believes in money. Money is the one thing that holds any of it's current logic in a place of power. Money is more important than the environment , than personal health, than future relations with allies, than race relations, than international conspiracy, than education, than reason. Money has become the root of all evil because it is loved above these things, as though that very admiration will solve all of our problems. It is never seen as an integral part of why we have the ills we do.
But there has to be a moral high ground in loving money. And that is where cultism is born. Q-anon and the "deep state" have taken root in the minds of far too many Republican mental functions. It has strange roots that have grown from "tea party" mentality, from underlying desires to hold on to privilege that "others", including "liberals" have taken away. The connection to the ways in which that privilege has cost those people and cultures and even nations not falling within its scope remains in the realm of willful ignorance. The loss of natural habitat with healthy diversity is of little concern to greed. The loss of healthy diversity in culture is likewise unseen. The roots of selfishness has grown into a belief in a deep state that tries to undermine a godlike leader, who understands this nation belongs to them, and only to them. This deep state involves many celebrities and other sorts of liberals, like Obama, and Clinton and ..... Democrats, who have enslaved kidnapped children and drink their blood in the basement of a Pizza Parlor. Drinking those children's blood allows these liberals to feel young. But even some of Trump's Republicans understand the absurdity of that, and have developed alternative cult initiatives that satisfy the same need to find a high ground within that moral corruption of greed. Some Republicans can survive on the notion that this nation was built for white people, who are far more reasonable that "colored" peoples, and are above these kinds of riots, because as they have demonstrated, they can open carry guns into a Walmart, or into a State House, and not shoot anybody, unless they can actually find a reason. Sometimes the reason is that they may be wearing a police uniform, or were "afraid for their life" after provoking an incident. These particular whites tell others to go back where they came from without a glimmer of understanding where they themselves came from or why others may be here. These whites believe they are superior because they fear they are not.
Alas, there are more opportunities for culturing cult mentality. Bastardizing the very teachings of Jesus Christ gives ample fodder for over the top evangelicals who thrive more on the emotional highs of "rapture" than on the hard work of separating truth from false representations and lies. The ability to see beyond what they want to see, is lost in the emotion that satisfies the need to be among the "chosen" ones. And those chosen deserve salvation and ...... money. The others must be banished.
At every turn the new Republican cult mentality can turn the blame for our ills on someone else; the "Mexicans" whose indigenous ancestry on these lands have been crushed; the many tribes that have been brutally crushed and ignored when sacred waters, and indeed precious ecosystems, they try to protect; the Chinese for inventing the COvid while leadership simply promoting and following the protocol established over the past 3 or 4 Presidencies would have solved this particular problem by now. Socialism is blamed for the weaknesses of how we have employed capitalism.
