I'm not so sure that it's the Religious Right that coopted the GOP, and suspect it was the other way around. The way that they built a coalition of strange bedfellows over the last few decades suggests that used statistical software to slice-and-dice the electorate, trying different combinations of special- and single-interest groups, factoring in the pathologies created by the Electoral College system, to fabricate an optimized message that would appeal to the bare margin required to get Republicans elected.

Inevitably parroting a cynically fabricated message sinks into the speaker, and Republican politicians have adopted some of the "God-is-on-my-side-and-I'm-right-and-you're wrong" attitude. It's exacerbated by the way the thinktanks have woven a roughly coherent message out of commonalities among the various GOP blocs. Fundamentalist religions are always authoritarian, and that trait was woven together with the authoritarianism lurking in the Conservative bloc, to produce a series of Presidential candidates marketed as Moses 2.0™, the strong patriarch who will lead us through the Valley of Shadows and into the promised land.

I think that the artificial nature of the GOP coalition explains the vapidity and shallowness of Republican rhetoric, and especially its intensely visceral nature. The strategists have to restrict themselves to commonalities like authoritarianism, and avoid the risk that specifics will reveal the deep schisms within the coalition. They have to keep everyone in the coalition angry at Democrats and Liberals so that they don't examine their own side too closely.

One testimony to the validity of this view is the expression of discontent by the religious Right early in the primary season and their threat to start a third party. Some on the religious Right are starting to question why Republicans fail so dismally on their promises to transform America into a Christian Nation. The cracks are starting to become visible.

On its own, I don't think that the "RRR" is much of a threat. It's only when they're used by Republican politicians for their own advancement that they're put into a position where they can credibly threaten to twist American into their own image. Maybe we should be grateful that Republican politicians are only cynically exploiting the RRR and that they do have a terrible track record of facilitating their takeover of the country.