The most important distinction between the two, however, may have to do with faith, and Trump’s well-evident lack thereof. Right From The Beginning, Buchanan’s 1988 memoir of growing up from a rabble rousing Georgetown juvenile delinquent to Dick Nixon’s hatchet man – an entertaining book which everyone should read – is knit together by his Catholic faith and his devotion to the church, a far cry from the New York billionaire who a few weeks ago tried to put money in an Iowa communion plate. Buchanan’s culture war speech to the 1992 convention is one of the greatest American statements of fiercely populist social conservatism, warning of the apocalyptic decay to come.

Trump exists in a post-apocalyptic world for social conservatives, and he exists in it as an avowed secularist who gives off enough signals that he seems like an ally. So the culture war he fights in place of Buchanan’s is about political correctness, not abortion and gays. His secularism makes him difficult to balance against. The usual frame for greedy Republicans is that their faith makes them a hypocrite, but unlike other Bible thumpers, no one believes Trump has actually read the Bible.

In the wasteland, the strongman bully seems more tempting as a warrior against the foe than the soft optimist who speaks to our better angels. So instead of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God or the Prosperity Gospel and Why God Wants You To Be Rich, Trump promises he will “make them say Merry Christmas” – and that is enough for the shell-shocked evangelicals of South Carolina, who have in the past two decades seen “them” do everything Pitchfork Pat predicted and worse.