Now as to the Jesus freaks (which is a purposefully pejorative label that I use to distinguish them from the kind, and decent folks known as Christians) and the Paulinas and the nirthers and the deathers and the gun toting folks, the moronic convergence is all based on fear of losing power and position.

Please let me define Jesus Freak so that my real points do not get lost in quibbling over that phrase. Jesus Freaks are your anti-evolution, think it is ok to bomb abortion clinics, think that gay marriage is a bigger threat to marriage than heterosexual divorce rates, love the death penalty types.
They are strongly correlated with notions of white supremacy, but there is an overlap there, rather than a definition. Also, to prevent useless quibbling about the phrase Jesus freak, there are also psycho-Orthodox Jews and there are also Jihadis.

Now to the real point.

It was OK for Bush to abuse the Constitution because he was a white Christian, whose language pandered to the Jesus freaks. The overall whacko sphere, even when not religious, is deluded that America is defined as a white Christian country (as in theirs, and they do not want to share). However the whackos in a perfect case of projection, believe that a black president with strong secular support can only mean that the abuses of power that the far right would happily use against secular people, might now be applied to themselves.

They are very afraid of losing a perceived entitlement.

Buchanan states it all too well when he goes on about America being founded by white Christian men.

The GOP leadership, realizing that it can not face the Dems with ideas of their own, has decided that embracing and fanning these fears in their base is a more effective route to power.

There was a time in American history where fear of loss of position coupled with racial fear was heavily exploited before. That was 1861. And yes, there is also a nullify the federal government thread moving through this crazy today as well.

For the GOP to legitimatize the absolute worst threads in American history and to risk a resurgence of those threads to the mainstream - hell, to egg it on - is a gross treason.