This is a great article, but it misses one very important dimension. I was raised mostly in Iowa by a conservative evangelical minister, and attended approximately 20,000 hours of church services, church camps, and national week-long meetings. My earliest memories of church start about 1973. Prayers using these same biblical references started in 1979 when Ronald Reagan began campaigning against Jimmy Carter. My “Christian” minister father stopped speaking to a lot of our relatives because they tried to point out that Jimmy Carter was a MUCH better human being than the former actor.

Forty years of conditioning sessions. These prayers aren’t new, and they aren’t specific to TFG. This was prepared.

I’ll leave you with one small anecdote: When I was in my mid teens, the logic of the evangelical movement started troubling me. During the midweek prayer meeting and Bible study (questions and discussion were encouraged) I questioned some of the premises that were being touted. I was removed (by my father, the pastor), taken to the parsonage, and told to NEVER question his authority on biblical matters in public again. Apparently there was a defiant look in my eye, and I was picked physically up and thrown through the front picture window of the parsonage. I thank my kismet, karma, or raw random chance that this happened because otherwise my family would probably be the same full on Trumpists mess that my siblings families remain to this day.

Also, I am male, I have children and grandchildren, and I don’t own a cat, but I now identify as a “childless cat lady”.