Conservative Christians control all the levers of power in America.  Never mind how it happened here are three ways it will leave its legacy.

Cuts in education are designed to produce an ignorant populace which will be more easily swayed by propaganda. Republicans know they can get the next generation by keeping them as far away from thinking critically as possible.  Religion can’t do this alone anymore, plus the younger generation is dropping out of religion like flies.

The old chestnut romanticization of suffering.  When making people’s lives miserable you can claim it is for a “greater good” or “purpose”.  This doesn’t really work with most people but the people it does work for it works wonders.  They’ll put up with all the crap you throw their way because it’s “building character” or some other bull shit explanation.  Republicans are going to make the poor suffer but their greatest joy would be if we also loved it!

Conservative Christians want to make the world such a bad place to live that one will need to rely on religion to survive it.  This is actually the goal of all religions.  That is why the worst places in the world are the most religious.  If you don’t have anything going in this life you might as well pretend you are going to get something good in the next one.  Republicans don’t believe in climate change and the usual explanation is it’s good for business, but the real reason is when the world burns more people are drawn to religion.