THE ELEPHANT SNEEZED AND FELL ON HIS KNEES

A tip of the hat to Vox Media’s Matt Yglesias, from whom I learned the term “collapse without replacement.”  It’s what happens when a movement is in denial about the fact that it has abandoned its core principles.  When that happens, it can’t grow or adapt.  All it's left with, Yglesias says, is that “a degenerate version of the old agenda.” 

Yglesias used the term to describe the decadence of the Republican Party.  Not that this was breaking news, but I found the descriptor useful. 

Collapse without replacement perfectly describes the hollow shell of a political party that Donald Trump encountered in 2016.  Trump huffed and puffed, and the GOP’s much touted “deep bench” – more than a dozen governors, congressmen, plus assorted randos – collapsed like a house made of straw.  

But the important point is that Trump didn’t corrupt the Republican Party.  He simply exposed the corruption that was already there, just waiting for someone like him to give them permission to embrace their dark side.

What was once the “Party of Lincoln” is now the party of neo-Confederates and neo-Nazis.  The former party of fiscal responsibility now happily creates trillion-dollar budget deficits to help the rich can get richer.  People who once boasted of being “family values” voters have cast their lot with a compulsive adulterer, liar, and thief. 

And speaking of family values, collapse without replacement is a pretty apt description of what has happened to the white Evangelical movement.  If white Evangelicals ever believed what Jesus taught in the Gospels, those days are long gone. 

They ignore Jesus’ teaching that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.  Bummer, dude.  What Republican voter wants to hear that?  How much more pleasant it is to listen to prosperity gospel hucksters in megachurches who tell them Jesus wants them to be rich.

Evangelicals claim to be “pro-life,” but they’re really only pro-fetus.  After all, when fetuses become babies, they develop bad habits, like needing food, shelter, and education.  Some of them turn into anchor babies and welfare queens.  Best to ignore them once they leave the womb.

Blessed are the merciful?  Turn the other cheek?  Love thy neighbor as thyself?  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?  Nowadays, those sentiments would get you branded as a social justice warrior.

Evangelicals would be scared shitless if they really believed what Jesus said in Matthew 25:40-41: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me….  Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”