We need to take seriously that dying is worth the risk to them. Depriving their own access to healthcare at the moment they need it most is worth the risk, in order to be sadistic to somebody else... Whether you're talking healthcare or climate collapse, you're not going to win a battle if you simply interpret your opponent as duped. When they are voting away breathable air for future generations, interpret that as a sign of intent. They are enjoying something.

Religious studies scholar Tad Delay examines the sadism at the heart of evangelical politics - as the capitalist branch of Christian theology hardens around White supremacy and social hierarchy, a deep vein of apocalyptical cruelty runs throughout the religious right's response to the end-times conditions of their own making.

Tad is author of Against: What Does the White Evangelical Want? from Cascade Books.