Armageddon It On
The Republicans / conservatives present their need for self-destruction as a desire for Armageddon. If you will note, a number of the rank and file come from robustly depressing environments, areas that suffer from extreme poverty with little hope for the future.
They orient themselves around a white salvation ethic because they identify themselves with the colonial forces still in power today and hope that some respite can come from people similar to them until Armageddon comes.
Armageddon is a Biblical term that refers to the last battlefield, the place where good and evil clash and good wins. How it wins and what it looks like after is never fully addressed, just that good is stronger and everything will be perfect after.
It’s the perfect metaphor for people who either feel they have nothing, or that everything will be stripped from them. This stems primarily from fear. Fear at judgement, fear at not being enough, fear for family or self.
Hopelessness and powerlessness breed this. It creates a mindset where everybody gets brought down to the lowest level, considered evil (for example), and the only hope for -everyone- becomes final judgment on the field of battle.