This is probably the most bizarre and ghoulish part of the Christian evangelical culture in the US: hoping not just for political defeat but for the complete destruction of the country in order to teach a lesson. Take Franklin Graham, for instance. His Obama Derangement Syndrome is full-blown:
Maybe God will have to bring our nation down to our knees—to where you just have a complete economic collapse. And maybe at that point, maybe people will again begin to call upon the name of almighty God.
This goes back to what I’ve been saying now is the chief goal of the GOP at this point: to relentlessly punish the coalition that President Obama built in order to try to split it, to force it to break through applied Stockholm Syndrome. Graham’s words go right into this. It serves the GOP’s purpose: “our kind” will be spared, “those people” will be punished. From Mitt Romney’s “gifts” comments all the way on down, the GOP is now looking to knock the blocks out from under the Democratic Big Tent platform. They’re targeting the Voting Rights Act, going after contraception and Planned Parenthood funding, still dragging their feet on immigration and marriage equality. They know that if the Dems get proper credit for those, the Republicans are done.
Before it was about sabotaging the country to win. Now it’s about sabotaging the country for revenge.