Reactionary morality flows downward in a hierarchy. The higher one is, the more rightful their actions are.

With some variations it is as follows:
1) The maximum leader (Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, etc)
2) Political party
3) Wealth
4) Religion
5) Race
6) Sex
7) Locality

In this framework, it is not wrong for Donald Trump to engage in actions that violate Christian teachings. Nor is it wrong for wealthy people to do so.

Being in a less favored identity group means your actions are more likely to be immoral. But you can accrue greater regard by belonging to other identities.

Normally, a Black woman of low income would be viewed as inherently immoral, but if she identifies as a Republican Trump supporter, her actions automatically are imbued with rightfulness.

So long as she refrains from criticizing Republican elites, she will have greater moral authority than a White Democratic man.

Reactionaries are inherently anti-intellectual so they never will explicitly state or even implicitly acknowledge their moral frameworks, but it's observable in all of the decisions they make.

Example: Most reactionaries call themselves "pro-life," but they also uniformly oppose social welfare spending or regulations to protect parents and children...

This seems like hypocrisy to a non-reactionary, but it isn't. Social welfare policies for families are wrong because they will benefit poor people or people from racial minority groups. These people are inherently immoral in reactionary thinking, so they must not receive any benefits.

The only thing poor people should receive is religious instruction to make them virtuous.

Donald Trump was shocked when he first encountered reactionary morality. It was almost unbelievable to him, and he expressed that publicly in his infamous remark that "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters."

He was 100% correct in this. Shooting someone would be immoral based on Christian teaching, but because he is the tribal leader, this action would either be of no moral consequence or actually be a positive action.

This moral viewpoint should not be called "fascist" since fascism is actually a manifestation of it. What I'm describing goes back much further in history to two primary concepts that have been believed across many cultures and times:

1) Divine command theory
2) The great chain of being

The second idea flows from the first.

Divine command theory is the idea that all morality is determined by God alone. Anything God says is moral. Anything opposed to it is immoral.

This moral concept is repeatedly taught in the Hebrew and Christian sacred texts, most prominently in the story of Abraham being willing to kill his son Isaac in obedience to God as related in Genesis 22.

At the very end, God intervenes and stops Abraham from murdering his child, but this is pure happenstance. If Abraham had killed Isaac, it would have been the righteous action.

We see this taught in the later story of Jephthah told in Judges 11.

The tale of Jephthah is much less famous, but it involves an Israelite warrior chief who covenants with God that if he is given victory in an upcoming battle, he will kill the first being he sees upon his return home.

God keeps his end of the bargain and upon his return, Jephthah's daughter rushes to greet him, thus becoming destined to be murdered.

God does not intervene, however, and after a brief time, Jephthah murders his daughter as he promised. And is righteous for doing so.

The idea of Divine Command Theory was explicitly articulated by Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism when he was trying to convince a teenage girl to become his "spiritual wife" against the wishes of her parents and herself.

“Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire,” he wrote to her in a private letter.

Of course, claiming that morality flows from God is a bit of a problem when it is blatantly obvious that there are no gods telling people what to do.

This is why the concept of the following the leader is so important. Since gods are not actually telling us what to do, we must follow the person/people who are God's chosen instruments.

The leader is God's direct, personal servant. His actions are always correct, because of who he is. To be moral, the only thing we can do is obey w/o question.

The identity of the leader is what makes his actions moral, not whether his actions correspond to prior religious teachings.

Unquestioning obedience is the first and only real commandment in this moral viewpoint. Everything else is secondary.

Giving your money to Trump or the scammy televangelist is not an act of stupidity, it is an act of submission to God. It is laudatory rather than foolish.

I prefer calling the moral system described here as "authoritarian thinking" rather than fascism or conservatism, but some people call it that.

Whatever you want to label it as though, it's critical to also understand that besides being a moral perspective, it is also a metaphysics as well.

This is what the "Great Chain of Being" refers to. God exists as the highest moral being, but also the highest physical being. All higher beings have the right to control lesser ones.

@mattsheffield

It misses the details and subtleties you include, but I call this "obedience/submission to hierarchy", and, as a little Jewish kid, it's what screamed out at me in the story of Abraham and Isaac, and made me a hard "no thank you" for the whole thing.

@mattsheffield

Ehn, the credit probably goes to my parents, who did almost no religious indoctrination, and only sent us kids to temple so we could throw a bar & bat mitzvah.

I'm honestly more impressed by those who were heavily indoctrinated, and yet managed to see clearly, and have to pay the price in family strife that has no prospect of end.

I believe that describes you, and it strikes me as incredibly difficult. I hear the stories, and realize I got "easy mode" in this area.