Emily

“Why Trump, many wondered, including many evangelicals themselves. For decades, the Religious Right had been kindling fear in the hearts of American Christians. It was a tried-and-true recipe for their own success. Communism, secular humanism, feminism, multilateralism, Islamic terrorism, and the erosion of religious freedom—evangelical leaders had rallied support by mobilizing followers to fight battles on which the fate of the nation, and their own families, seemed to hinge. Leaders of the Religious Right had been amping up their rhetoric over the course of the Obama administration. The first African American president, the sea change in LGBTQ rights, the apparent erosion of religious freedom—coupled with looming demographic changes and the declining religious loyalty of their own children—heightened the sense of dread among white evangelicals. But in truth, evangelical leaders had been perfecting this pitch for nearly fifty years. Evangelicals were looking for a protector, an aggressive, heroic, manly man, someone who wasn’t restrained by political correctness or feminine virtues, someone who would break the rules for the right cause. Try as they might—and they did try—no other candidate could measure up to Donald Trump when it came to flaunting an aggressive, militant masculinity. He became, in the words of his religious biographers, “the ultimate fighting champion for evangelicals.” 6”
― Kristin Kobes DuMez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

“The far-right ideas had been there for as long as the tech industry had existed—all the way back to the founding of Stanford University. But it had taken Peter Thiel to bring those ideas above the surface, and then to weaponize them.”
― Max Chafkin, The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and the Rise of the Silicon Valley Oligarchs

“They're so excited for one day in a pretty dress... someone should really tell them. They can wear a retty dress whenever they want... Women are out there tethering themselves to mediocre men just so they can wear a ball gown. It's a shame.”
― Rachel Harrison, Cackle

“What has happened to us in this country? If we study our own history, we find that we have always been ready to receive the unfortunate from other countries, and though this may seem a generous gesture on our part, we have profited a thousand fold by what they have brought us.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt