If you think the American evangelical fixation over Israel's well-being is simply about "doing the right thing," my hunch is you'd be wrong. As a southern-born kid who grew up in the baptist faith, there's a lot I came away with despite that fact I'm now a 51-year old atheist. i'm not saying I didn't come away with some good values from that exposure to organized religion, but I'd like to think my family upbringing had an outsized role.

What I do believe, however, is that protestant evangelical ties to the G.O.P. have everything to do with the Nixon-born "southern strategy" (dogwhistle racism, outright homophobia and now transphobia and xenophobia showing itself in spurts and fits when politically necessary).

Because of that partnership, defending Israel is sacrosanct to the Republican (Democratic, too, if we're being honest) party's DNA. It's why a simpleton like Donald Trump gets so frustrated he and his party don't enjoy greater support from the Jewish American voting bloc.

Like a long list of things Republicans are passionate about (the debt/deficit, immigration, reproductive rights come to mind), Israel's security isn't important to them because they're virtuous. Trump appointing former baptist minister-turned Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel is about appeasing the evangelical voting bloc, who simply see Israel as being a 'necessity' to set the table for Jesus' return, per the book of Revelations. If I were Jewish and/or Israeli, it would insult me, and maybe that's one reason voters don't warm to Republican ideology.

Huckabee, for his part, is outraged European allies are daring to have cross words for Israel in the midst of it's 20-month long seige on Gaza. Seriously, can Israel do no wrong with the otherwise "pro-life" evangelical Americans? Even former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert is sounding the "genocidal" alarms. Is he somehow anti-Zionist or antisemitic now? That's the sort of lingo the right flings about anytime student protests come up at college and university campuses, after all.

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While we're looking (and coming up empty) for some actual 'Christian values' in the G.O.P. playbook, their threatening cuts to social safety nets - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - seem like reasons for some Messianic table-flipping, no?

Jay Bookman's latest op-ed - "There’s no way to cut $800 billion from Medicaid without hitting bone" - goes right to the heart of the matter:

"... if you still believe the administration, they’re going to make those cuts without anyone losing benefits. As White House official Russell Vought put in last week, “This bill will preserve and protect the programs, the social safety net, but it will make it much more common sense. No one will lose coverage as a result.”

If your BS detector isn’t ringing by now, you need to take it in for repair.Confronted with the absurdity of claiming that you can cut $800 billion without canceling health care coverage, Trump officials retreat to their fallback position. Yes, they admit, they’ll be cutting benefits, but only for those who don’t deserve it. “Medicaid does not belong to people who are here illegally, and it does not belong to capable and able-bodied men who refuse to work,” another White House official told Politico. “So no one is getting cut.”

Once again, though, your BS detector ought to be blaring. Under existing federal law, undocumented immigrants are already barred from getting Medicaid. They’re promising to cut benefits to people who are already not getting those benefits.

So no savings there.And the truth is, most of the able-bodied men who are too lazy to work are also too lazy to worry about jumping through the hoops needed to get Medicaid health-care coverage. Such men do exist, no doubt, but in numbers far too small to generate $800 billion in savings."

More on that in the Thursday podcast.