Republican Party taken over by anti-democracy Christian dogmatists

 I usually read historian Heather Cox Richardson's Substack "Letters from an American" each day.  She gives an excellent historical perspective to today's world.  Her April 1, 2023 missive does a good job of presenting an historical observation of the differences between today's conservatives and today's liberals.

"They (White Christian Nationalist conservatives) argue that the ideas that underpin democracy—

• equality before the law, 
• separation of church and state, 
• academic freedom, a 
• market-driven economy, 
• free speech—

have undermined virtue. These values are “liberal” values because they are based on the idea of the importance of individual freedom from an oppressive government, and they are at the heart of American democracy. But post-liberal thinkers say that liberalism’s defense of individual rights has destroyed 

• the family,
• communities, and even the 
• fundamental differences between men and women, 
• throwing society into chaos. 

They propose to restore the values of traditional Christianity, which would, they believe, restore traditional family structures and supportive communities, and promote the virtue of self-sacrifice as people give up their individualism for their children (their worldview utterly rejects abortion). 

The position of those embracing a post-liberal order is a far cry from the Reagan Republicans’ claim to want small government and free markets. The new ideologues want a strong government to enforce their religious values on American society, and they reject those of both parties who support democratic norms—for it is those very norms they see as destructive. They urge their leaders to “dare to rule.”

Those who call for a new post-liberal order want to “reconquer public institutions all over the United States,” as Christopher Rufo put it after Florida governor Ron DeSantis appointed him to the board of New College as part of a mission to turn the progressive school into a right-wing bastion.  ... To spur that process, Republicans have turned to so-called culture wars"

I see this as Christian fanaticism and I see the government imposition of a religion to be a violation of the First Amendment.  But clearly, these Christians think that their interpretation of the Bible supersedes the dictates of the Constitution of the United States of America.  

I believe they are fundamentally anti-American, and I recall that the British who fled to America in the pre-Revolutionary war decades came to America to flee religious persecution in the old country where their brand of Christianity was oppressed and brutalized by more dominant brands of Christianity.  It seems to me that those who claim the mantle of Christian morals to themselves have a long history of oppressing others and forcing conformity to their very limited notion of spirituality.

And they are running the Republican Party.  But I believe the foundations of America rest upon the Constitution rather than on some particular religious dogma.