Near the intersection of 41st St. and Memorial Dr. in east Tulsa stands a plain church building made of painted concrete blocks. The building appears to be one story, and its flat roof suggests its past life as a nightclub.
Signs outside advertise enrollment for the church’s daycare. A more permanent-looking sign lists service times and the lead pastors’ names, and exclaims “YOU BELONG HERE!”. About 250 parking spots surround the building to the south and west. There is no need for landscaping, as there is no greenery surrounding this church, nor ornamentation or even any outward indication of its denomination. There is no notice that Donald Trump Jr. will soon appear there.
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Trump Jr., of course, recently played a significant role in his father’s reelection campaign, which will realize its goal Monday when Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States. Trump’s run through American politics has been a startling thing to watch.
In my lifetime I’ve seen two real political movements amass the power to sway electoral politics at national scale: the Bernie Sanders campaign and MAGA. Both have emerged as responses to neoliberalism. But the latter has proven more potent and electorally successful.
By leveraging white grievance against globalization and immigration, Trump has whipped into alignment the conservative movement, the Republican party and even much of the mainstream American corporate oligarchy on his second trip to the White House, embedding his own style as the lingua franca of the Republican mainstream along the way.
Evangelical Americans were early adopters to the MAGA coalition, though they’ve taken a backseat since Trump’s first term in office. And while Oklahoma isn’t a relevant state on the electoral map, it’s certainly a hotbed for evangelicalism: the kind of place you would look to find a church that’s gone full MAGA.