The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus
People love religion, and there are more religions out there than you can shake a stick at. And when it comes to sub-religions, don't hurt yourself with that shaking stick. Religion's role in human life has traditionally been to answer the unanswerable questions -
why does the sun cross the sky every day
how did man discover fire
what are the stars
why do we exist
what happens when we die
how should we live
One thing people like most about religion is when it serves as a comfortable way to "Be right", which is also the attribute that makes it so hard for people to confront inconsistencies in their beliefs - that's a lot of comfort they would have to throw away.
What is interesting on this topic is how capitalist dragons have so effectively co-opted the dominant religion of the most successful capitalist countries. The comic of Supply Side Jesus is one that parodies Christianity as it has been transformed into a platform of moral superiority and intense independence.
When did it all get started? Well, the politicization of religion is almost certainly as old as society itself, considering "holding the answers" was as much a part of the creation of the societal fabric as "holding the weapons". But, we can really tie up our bibs and get chompy starting with the history of the Christian church. And yeah, the economics of petty kings fighting each other for one more land holding while the church fought for a parallel, entwined empire was pretty nasty. I want to get more contemporary, though.
The USA really started to find a way to exploit Christianity hard following WW2, after toying with the idea of "separating church and state" (rather inconsistently) up until that point. The founders recognized the "energizing propulsion" of religion. Colonies had various religious governments that were gradually dismantled with the formation of the USA, mainly in an attempt to avoid the threat of religious squabbles between the states. It took Massachusetts the longest, until 1833, to finish the process.
The global struggle of WW2 had left only two parties at the king's table - the US and the US(SR). With the rest of the world in ruins, the USA was positioned to use its pristine factories and relatively uninjured population (Even Canada was hit harder!) to extract immense value from the reconstruction of Europe and the nearly unchallenged exploitation of the rest of the world.
The prosperity of the postwar-era was preceded by the highly unusual non-competitive collaboration of business and labor, made possible by a huge amount of government spending. The government in turn financed that spending by raising taxes, pushing war bonds (taking out loans from the people), and making huge loans to countries at war - with money that didn't exist - by sending goods that did exist. It took Britain until 2006 to pay off its WW2 debts to the US, and the US never paid off its WW2 debts, because it instead just rode on the increasing GDP gained by taking over the world to dwarf its debts, and in many ways make its debts irrelevant.
At the time of Cheney’s famous nostrum about deficits, in 2002, he was lecturing a skeptical Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill that the expensive war in Afghanistan was no reason to scuttle a push for new tax cuts. An unmoved O’Neill was fired. President George W. Bush got his tax cuts. A bitter O’Neill fed Cheney’s quote to author Ron Suskind (the Michael Wolff of Bush’s first term). The deficit exploded. And Cheney was proven right—nobody cared.
But before that happened, we went through a period of two distrustful superpowers being unable and unwilling to find a way to share the world. One of the biggest ways this manifested was with the Red Scare, beginning around 1947, which was aimed at combating Communist sentiment within the US. This was a brilliant two-birds-with-one stone strategy that both targeted the rose-tinted view Americans had of the New Deal and the "welfare state" programs that got them out of the depression and through the war, and also prevented sentiment from sliding towards a peaceful resolution with the Soviets. Without the Soviet cold war, American citizens may have worked harder to fight enemies of the community within their own borders.
The idea war of the Cold War was more about exploitation than anything else. The US continually undermined governments, assassinated leaders, and funded wars to destroy socialist and communist movements across the world, and where they were successful they created corrupt puppets that would allow the US a profitable and exploitative stake in those countries.
A critical component of this effort was the re-introduction of religion into the American government. "Under God" was added to the pledge of allegiance in 1954, "In God We Trust" replaced the national motto (e pluribus unum) in 1956 and began appearing on money in 1957. This was a calculated effort to cast the Christian identity into the crucible along with Capitalism and forge the alloy of modern America.
The intentional misinformation about the form socialist or communist policy would take in the USA created a radicalization that is with us today - where some people perceive even the slightest [Federal] social safety net as an immorality. These same people will paradoxically praise a hyper-local town-based or church-based safety net.
Of course, there is nothing requiring Communism to be godless, just as there was nothing requiring Capitalist America prior to 1950 to be godless. Nevertheless, capitalist dragons were terrified of the far-reaching effects of various combinations of Marxist ideas and the undeniable prosperity of the common laborer following the New Deal and post-WW2 economy.
This redefinition and projected identity of "Supply Side Jesus" is absurd given that the teachings of Jesus were as solidly Communist as any precursor to Marx could probably get.
With the decline of the USSR, all the money in the world, and an immense amount of public goodwill, the capitalist class were ready to finally turn to where the rest of the profit had yet to be extracted - the laborers of the USA.
With the inherent contradictions of Supply Side Jesus, challenges and apologists are everywhere. The main one applied to the recent problem of refugees being "well if you care so much why don't you put them up in your spare bedroom?" First, the US has the ability to set up refugee camps anywhere and does so frequently. Second, the "regular unleaded Jesus" would not hesitate to do this, so why would Christian America? Third, the government blocks their entry to the USA, and dragons hold all the economic power (such as to pay the costs to house them).
In reality, Supply Side Jesus arguments about Charity being a greater societal good than "coercive" safety nets are rooted in dishonesty and ulterior profit motives. As if the good being done by nationalized healthcare is diminished by not allowing "every good Christian" to independently choose to help their fellow man - and as if "every good Christian" would not so choose! It's disgusting that people are dying in the streets for lack of care while others wring their hands and worry about whether they will get the opportunity to score Charity Points.
The argument that we should not be compelled to live in a society that enshrines the values of cooperation and mutual success, even outside religion or even what is right or wrong, is still thoroughly rooted in hypocrisy. This is because the argument is generally only applied to helping the powerless, or at the very least "helping the ~right~ people". Meanwhile, constant subsidies and welfare for the powerful continues without serious challenge, while people argue endlessly about who "deserves help".
Obama (blue dragon representative) bailed out the banks for many billions after they gambled all their money away, which the banks used to keep the economic system stable but also to give themselves huge personal bonuses. Meanwhile, no one that has the means can seem to spare the $55 Million it would take to fix Flint's water, while the ever resourceful capitalists find ways to keep extracting money from those unlucky citizens and the rest of us keep our heads down and hope we stay luckier than them.
Meanwhile, the news is reporting which mega-rich capitalist is richest/coolest/whatever while Musk can't figure out anything to do with all his extra money than shoot stuff into space. Wealth has long been worshiped as nobility/deity in the USA, but class oppression historically only eases when it forced by violence - for example the Civil Rights act only passed after many days of violent riots following the assassination of MLK.
There is a certain warm fuzziness that comes with giving money or time for what you see as a good cause. But that emotional benefit is a false victory when your $50 donation to fight hunger is made meaningless by national or global policies and institutions that fail to provide access to the food bank or soup kitchen. Even if your local community manages to fully fund a food bank and locally distribute it, it's hard to pretend that what is worth funding locally is not worth funding nationally and globally.