Hiding in plain sight for decades has been a campaign by white evangelicals to change America and subjugate women. They have taken control of the Republican Party and it is probable that Donald Trump was scripted to deliver their message. This campaign goes back to Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and Phyllis Schafly, who almost single-handedly sabotaged the ERA.

This history has been brilliantly told in Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s “Jesus and John Wayne: How Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.” It explains white evangelicals’ undying support for Donald Trump as the hypermasculine hero like John Wayne, whose mission is to rescue America from socialists, feminists, Black people, and homosexuals to restore a male patriarchy. Racism and a belief in segregation has always been a part of the movement, explicitly or implicitly.

Mr. Trump has delivered on this by appointing three justices to the Supreme Court, who overturned Roe v. Wade. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas hinted at the next step in this campaign when he talked about reversing rulings that legalized contraception, gay relations, and gay marriage. The media has missed the centrality of white evangelicals in what the Republican agenda is and where it wants to take the country. It is all about restoring that old-time religion.

GEORGE MAGAKIS JR.

Norristown, Penn.