Interview · moment 6 of 10
What Makes Trump Dangerous, and the Evangelical Alliance
from We're Toast with Russ Baker · #118
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
5 minGuest
They discuss what specifically disturbs Russ about Trump as a figure, his appeal in refusing to apologize, and the cynical alliance between Trump and the evangelical right, plus Russ's own chapter on the Bush family's manufactured born-again image.
- 23:52Trump compared to giving power to a malodorous character from Family Guy or The Sims
- 24:15Tim finds Trump hard not to like because he never apologizes and never capitulates
- 24:33Trump gives people license to act on every bad tendency they have, endorsed and covered for
- 24:58The evangelical Christian right's alliance with Trump and control of the courts
- 25:29Bush family used evangelical right as cover despite having no personal interest in fundamentalism
- 26:02Church members are well-meaning people dealing with pain; ministers are cynical and wealthy manipulators
- 26:38Trump is very good at manipulating fundamentalists, whose anger and impotence can be directed at any outsider
- 27:13Historical signs of authoritarianism based on reporter's travels in countries that slipped into it
- 27:38Two paradoxical groups support authoritarianism: those with nothing and those with everything
- 28:00This unlikely alliance of the powerless and the wealthy is essentially the modern Republican party