Stephanie Jo Warren explains why, while the rest of us see massive, astonishing, out-in-the-open corruption with Trump, evangelicals see blessing:

"In the evangelical viewpoint, God blesses individuals and nations through the divinely appointed. So, if a leader is 'bringing America back to God,' are luxurious items like airplanes and potential real estate deals corruption, or are they merely evidence of divine approval?"

#Trump #evangelicals #corruption
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https://thestrongwilledchild.substack.com/p/why-evangelicals-dont-see-corruption

"This isn’t an outlier perspective. It represents the prevailing narrative in white evangelical communities today, where prosperity gospel theology has intertwined with the New Republican Party, otherwise known as Christian nationalism. This creates a worldview where material wealth is not regarded with skepticism but is seen as an entitlement endowed upon them by the Holy Spirit."

#Trump #evangelicals #corruption
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@wdlindsy

Ascribing unearned wealth to divine forces, allows evangelicals to ignore **how** that wealth was created.

Walmart heirs got theirs by underpaying its workers.

Elon Musk got his estimated 100 illegitimate children using grift & fraud.

Koch Network, Tim Dunn, & the royals from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE got theirs from frying a planet & looting their national treasuries via corrupt sovereign wealth funds.

Many members of the GOP inherited wealth from slavery & robber barons.

@Npars01 @wdlindsy

Walmart made billions on more than low wages. It extorted subsidies from state and local govts, worried about the decline of their small towns.

Owing to those subsidies, the average new big box store breaks even or makes money before it opens. It drives out small employers by underpricing and cannibalizing their employees, paying them less, with no benefits, and worse conditions, and takes its money out of state. Their employees survive on govt assistance.

@huntingdon @wdlindsy

Walmart & Amazon also sends millions of dollars of wealth out of local economies.

https://www.cambriapress.com/pub.cfm?bid=55

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5144254_Wal-Mart's_Impact_on_Local_Revenue_and_Expenditure_Instruments_in_Ohio_1988-2003

@AbandonedAmerica
has post after post of images after a local economy is drained of its wealth.

It also provides data for surveillance capitalism.

https://jacobin.com/2020/03/surveillance-capitalism-shoshana-zuboff-review

https://www.abcactionnews.com/politics/economy/grassroots-movement-calls-for-economic-boycott-to-protest-corporate-influence

@Npars01 @wdlindsy

Yep, though I did mention that Walmart, like all big box stores, sends its revenue and profits out-of-state, further harming local economies. It also sends a lot of it offshore.