The political hard right exploits religion as a tool rather than honoring it

Evidence

I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 19

Categorization

• APHORISMS: A durable warning about mistaking political religiosity for genuine faith — worth revisiting whenever religious movements fuse with partisan power.
• XREF: Echoes Balmer’s broader thesis that the religious right formed around racial rather than theological grievances, and connects to critiques of religious nationalism elsewhere in the library. — connects to: Christian Right political strategy rejects turning the other cheek outright. — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 232
• SEED: Essay angle: tracing how the marriage of fundamentalism and the hard right has repeatedly converted moral language into electoral weaponry.