Civil Commotion

Your country needs you: Saddle-up and get to the polls and vote for the obliteration of the Republican Party.

This is grotesque, but at least has the virtue of pointing toward the only good thing about the Trump presidency: Nobody with two eyeballs and a properly functioning mind can feel any confusion any longer about the utter, irremediable decadence of the Evangelical Right.

Just so’s you know, a bunch of armed, homegrown whackjobs are headed to the border to backup the thousands of American troops sent there to defend the Good Ol’ U.S. of A. against a looming invasion of hungry peasants.

Gun-carrying civilian groups and border vigilantes have heard a call to arms in President Trump’s warnings about threats to American security posed by caravans of Central American migrants moving through Mexico. They’re packing coolers and tents, oiling rifles and tuning up aerial drones, with plans to form caravans of their own and trail American troops to the border.

“We’ll observe and report, and offer aid in any way we can,” said Shannon McGauley, a bail bondsman in the Dallas suburbs who is president of the Texas Minutemen.

It is a statistical certainty that, in a country of roughly 320-million, there are going to be some really stupid people. Surely there is some lawful way we can exploit the fact that, now, we know who thy are?

Evangelical leaders are urging their sheep to get out and vote.

Evangelical policy groups have been investing serious money in turning out votes to shore up a red firewall. Mr. Reed’s coalition, for instance, is putting $18 million into this cycle, up from $10 million in 2016 and $5 million in the 2014 midterms. “The only thing that matters is who comes out on Election Day,” Mr. Reed said.

The Christian nationalist turnout machine relies heavily on an extensive network of conservative pastors. The Family Research Council, for example, runs “pastor briefings” through its organization Watchmen on the Wall, which claimed 28,000 members in 2014. At a Watchmen pastors briefing in Unionville, N.C., on Oct. 4, Mr. Perkins said: “The members of your congregation need to vote. As pastors, you need to — I’m not going to say ‘challenge them’ — you need to tell them to vote.”

“You need to tell them to vote.” Because, you know, the sheep will do as the Holy Men tell them.

The poor pitiful boobs have no idea how much contempt their leaders really have for them, or how casually their votes are bought and sold — or how much harm they’re doing to their country.

Remember this when some witless enthusiast cites the economy as a reason to support Trump (6-bankruptcies): The rate of job growth has slowed under Trump.