To play devil's advocate and be only a little cheeky, it seems the way the right of recent American politics tries to help people help themselves is to offer them military-grade weaponry, deregulated environmental protections, laws to enforce sexual and vice Christian-specific rules not widely agreed on by non-Christians, and decreased worker protections. This seems almost perfectly calculated to help them become criminals or wage slaves to modern robber barons. The people most served by the modern right are the robber barons themselves (except for the weapons part). If I was a robber baron the last thing I'd want is all my workers watching their livelihoods disappear to all have automatic weapons.

I think this is why so much messaging goes to convince people that their worsening situation is because LGBTQ+ or immigrants exist and God is punishing them for the "wickedness of the land."

I myself very much would prefer a model that helps people help themselves, but I am unclear what policies would achieve that goal that aren't already supported by the left. Many Americans don't want hand outs, they want dignity and a good job that pays them a thriving wage.

However, they also will vote against policies that enforce a fair wage, because it's coming from the mouths of "sinners" who for all they know are causing this via "wickedness." The left can be very condescending and is large enough to have lots of people who similarly think that lack of ideological purity is the cause of the nation's issues, only the ideology is not completely agreed on by any of followers, so it's always shifting, which gives the impression that it's less serious and is very easy to mock. There's a lot about making places safer, which runs counter to how many Americans want to see themselves: they don't want places to be safer, they want to be tougher individuals, so such attempts feel weak to them.

As someone who's studied the Bible far more than average (I read New Treatment Greek and went to seminary for a bit), I feel like there is _very_ little thought about sins like pride, hatefulness, and gluttony in the modern church, so it's only a partial truth according to the Bible. Describing the classic "fruits of the Spirit" does not sound anything like the modern Right: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.

It seems a situation where the messaging has just enough Christian ethics to resemble some of what one would hear from church leadership, but without the inward reflection required of most of the New Testament. It's very Old Testament with messaging that implies "it's these sinners among you who are the problem and need to be stopped or killed." The New Testament would instead lead someone to conclude that if they are being punished it is from their own personal sin. This is enforced with lessons like "let he without sin cast the first stone."

I really diverged a bit here, but I've been thinking a lot about the situation of politics. The right cannot be understood without understanding how much of that worldview is shaped by religion, but also that it really isn't a Christian worldview, it's an Old Testament worldview. Too many people crave "righteous" wrath against sinners, not humble admission that all are sinners all the time, and we all need grace and forgiveness not a murderous rampage.

As it pertains to policies, I'm not sure how to even start to deescalate the situation. But attempting to do so without understanding the worldviews involved will never work.