This is a tough one to review.

Like many others, I have a hard time understanding my Evangelical friends who wholeheartedly support Donald Trump. They see him as a flawed man, but still being used by God to do wonderful things much like King David in the Old Testament.

I see Trump as completely lacking a moral compass.

Posner does a wonderful job showing the history of the roots of far right movement in the US. Trump is not a political aberration, but the result of many years of dissatisfaction, as the conservative right slowly creeps farther and farther into radical right territory.

This one needs to be read by everyone living in the fraught US political situation today, or those who see antidemocracic movements on their own countries.

In writing this review, I can see I need to read it a second time, slowly, making notes. Because although I can follow the author’s history and arguments, I still don’t understand the whys of those who believe Trump is a redeemer. ( )

Read this with Sacred Liberty by Steve Waldman. ( )

Like many of us, I really wanted a detailed understanding of why the evangelicals have embraced Trump, with such deep devotion and continue to do so. Posner has been studying the Christian right for decades and she lays it out perfectly here, explaining why this was a match made in heaven. Not always a pleasant read but an important one. ( )

Nothing observers of Trump's ascendance will find new and published prior to Trump's 2020 defeat with its concomitant (and ungoing call for) insurrection. What sets this book apart is its roll call of political and ('so called,' in my estimation) religious leaders who cant dangerously (and unapologetically) to the undemocratic right to grasp and maintain personal power. Chief among them throughout is conservative political activist Paul Weyrich whose 1980 observation that "I don't want everybody to vote....As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down" besets us as a nation now and illustrates the decades' long campaign to uncouple the United States from democratic norms. It is this long game that makes Posner's book so terrifying. ( )

The challenge of history is always in perspective. Attempts at assessing the legacy of a person or an event anywhere near their lifetime is always premature. Consider how differently we have looked upon World War I since it happened: the "war to end all wars"; the pointless war that presaged WWII; now that WWII has all but passed from living memory, we can see WWII as the almost inevitable consequence of WWI, and how the latter broke European history and changed everything. The H1N1 pandemic which came at the end of WWI was not thought of nearly as much until another pandemic a century later. Sometimes it takes more than a century; witness the recent reconsideration of Reconstruction and its legacy.

And yet, even though short-term works of history lack perspective, they can serve an important purpose: to lay out the way things were and the connections which led to a given circumstance. To this end Posner's book on the relationship between Trump and Trumpism with white Evangelicals is significant.

The author does not hide her liberal bias. But she has been immersed in the world of white Evangelical politics for some time and is able to effectively strip the conceit away from the past five years: Trump was not an aberration, but the culmination of everything white Evangelical political machinations were working for over the past fifty years.

This book isn't really about Trump. Yes, he is mentioned often; his behaviors are described; his policies and decisions considered. But all are done with a view to look back at the ground prepared for this kind of presidency.

The author does well at showing how on issue after issue - religious liberty, immigration, economic policy, posture toward opponents, legal theory, matters of race - Trump became the embodiment of what the vast majority of white Evangelicals was prepared to accept and to look for. We hear the stories of the "prosperity gospel" advocates who latched onto Trump and have apologized for him. We can see how they attempt to wrap Trump up with the cross and with prayer whenever the news cycle turns dire. We see how the political agitation didn't really start with abortion - in fact, Evangelical postures about abortion were pretty shockingly pro-choice in the 70s - but with the threat of loss of tax-exempt status for segregation academies in the South. We learn of Billy Graham's political posturing and messaging. We see major figures in the development of the white Evangelical political machine - Weyrich and others - and while Trump might be more vulgar than they would have appreciated, his policy platform and general posture were exactly what was sought. We see the veneer of an attempt at racial reconciliation in the 90s which proved too costly to the white nationalist Evangelical masses in the 21st century. And we see a group of people constantly relied upon for their votes but rarely given much of a hearing and standing in the halls of power - until Trump elevated them. We see a whole cottage industry of zealots prepared for administrative work finally given an entrance since Trump was so odious to the Establishment. Prepare yourselves to hear about all kinds of backroom and bureaucratic decisions which took place that will shock and mortify when we hear of them.

They may not really be fans of adultery and vulgarity, but Trumpism is what white Evangelical nationalism has been yearning for and working toward for generations. That explains the past five years very well. And it explains why even though Trump has lost, and Trump has started to really disgrace himself, what he hath wrought will not go quickly into the night. ( )