In my discussion with Alan Atchison and Ray Fava, we touched upon the problem of conservatives and war propaganda. Tension grew among conservatives almost immediately because an elite of establishment rightists, namely those who were counterpoised against Donald Trump, embraced the rhetoric favoring escalation and American entanglement in the Russia-Ukraine war. That Trump fed this same rhetoric in his own way only makes it more obvious that the right is dead. All signs and polls indicate that the Trump base rejects Biden’s war propaganda and does not want to throw America’s weight behind Ukraine. Yet there are very few elite leaders on the right who champion the true feeling of the base.
As Ray Fava joined our conversation we extended the death of the right to the death of orthodox evangelical churches. Fava and Atchison have both worked diligently to fight against the liberalization of evangelical churches. I have tended to see the problem more as authoritarianism and corruption in general rather than simply one political camp or another gaining ground. Either way I see the moribund state of the political right mirrored in the moribund state of not only the Southern Baptist Convention but actually the entire range of evangelical denominations.