Their Endgame

Third to last:

It’s no longer “the threat from China.” This new candidate for the Republican primary (which for the last six elections and for the foreseeable future is synonymous with “Presidential election”) says loud and clear that Jesus, personally, ordered him to “cleanse the entire Earth with the fire of Freedom” and promised that, once His will was made, He’d personally descend from Heaven to protect His flock and establish His reign.

He narrowly loses the nomination.

Next to last:

He tries again. He wins. But, along his first term, he is blocked from actually firing missiles.

Last:

Second term. (Presidential primaries in years 8n+4 are mere formalities.) It took this long to stack the courts and the armed forces with people aligned to the Cause. Also, the midterms helped. That scene from “Dead Zone” becomes reality.

Post-last:

Before the Cleansing, a 3-by-2-mile flat slab had been carved on the side of a mountain range. The letters are 1,500 ft tall, 100 ft deep into the rock. It says:

THE RIGHTEOUS, UNDER OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, HAVE VANQUISHED EVIL AND NOW INHABIT THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, WHILE THE WICKED BURN IN HELL.

Post-post-last:

An asteroid, roughly the size of what was once called Iceland, hits the Earth. And finally, at long last, the far right stops lying.