Rick Santorum, the man-god of the GOP cult

The GOP has come full circle. In early months the front-runner was Donald Trump, who paraded around the nation like Sherlock Holmes determined to prove the president was not an American. Now the cult’s latest flavor of the week claims the president is not really a Christian.

In between the man who questioned the president's Americanism and the man who questions the president's faith there has been a reactionary cult figure of laissez-faire extremism of Ayn Rand and Austrian economists, and a candidate who did not know that China is a nuclear power and is embroiled in multiple charges of abuse of women. And a candidate who once talked secession and virtually threatened violence against the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. And a career adulterer who found God but whose Christianity enables him to claim that poor black people want to take food stamp money from white people, while saying supporters of Freddie Mac should go to jail after taking big money from Freddie and bearing false witness claiming he was paid to be a historian.

These were not just fringe candidates of far-right European parties. They were front-runners in the party of Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.