1). “The coming crisis of 2025: What a second Trumpocracy would mean: Trump will have significantly more help in a second term”, Oct 27, 2023, Dr. Clarence Lusane, Salon, at < https://www.salon.com/2023/10/
2). “The Cataclysm of a Second Trump Term”, Mar 3, 2024, Dr. Clarence Lusane interviewed by Sam Goldman, about the consequences of a Second Trump Term, and afterwards Goldman interviewed Amanda Moore about her experience covering CPAC and being removed from the event. plus discussion of events that were taking place on the date of the podcast, Refuse Fascism, duration of audio 58:05, Lusane Interview begins at 12:30 and ends at 38:55, Moore interview begins at about 39:55 and ends at 55:30, a complete transcript is included, at < https://refusefascism.org/
3). “Trump allies prepare to infuse ‘Christian nationalism’ in second administration: Spearheading the effort is Russell Vought, president of The Center for Renewing America, part of a conservative consortium preparing for Trump’s return to power”, Feb 20, 2024, Alexander Ward & Heidi Przybyla, Politico, at < https://www.politico.com/news/
4). “Trump shares bizarre biblical video saying God made him to be America’s ‘caretaker’: Republican gives full vent to messiah complex on eve of Iowa caucuses”, Jan 15, 2024, Joe Sommerlad, The Independent, at < https://www.independent.co.uk/
5). “Christian Right Observer Weekly (Volume 14): CROW's 7 stories on the Christian Right that you need read this week”, May 4, 2024, CROW, Christian Right Observer Weekly (Volume 14), at < https://crownewsletter.
6). “Court Approves Vigilante Mass Voter Challenges Devastating Threat To 2024 Election”, for the Thom Hartmann Report, Jan 4, 2024, Greg Palast, Greg Palast.com, at < https://www.gregpalast.com/
7). “Behind the Curtain: 6% of six states: Swing states that are expected to decide the 2024 presidential election”, May 6, 2024, Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei, Axios, at < https://www.axios.com/2024/05/
8). “Can you trust 2024 election polls on Donald Trump and Joe Biden? Here's how to cut through the noise”, May 1, 2024, Karissa Waddick, USA TODAY, at < https://www.usatoday.com/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction by dmorista: The upcoming Presidential election and the many other elections for Federal, State, Local, and for a variety of State Consitutional Amendments including several to reestablish or more comprehensivley ensure the right to Abortions and Reproductive Healthcare, in an at present unknown number of states. But certainly including Florida where Initiative-4 is that endeavor in The Sunshine State.
Items 1 – 4 all address aspects of the massive effort to establish a fascist Theocracy in the U.S. that would, of course, rule to serve the ever more extreme agenda of the billionaire oligarchs, using fanatical Christo-Fascists and their bully boys. Item 1)., “The coming crisis of 2025: ….”, and Item 2)., “The Cataclysm of ….”, both feature the analysis of Dr. Clarence Lusane from Howard University. Lusane clearly thinks it is worthwhile to work to keep Trump from ascending the throne, though he points out that even if Trump loses the Electoral College battle the forces of the far-right will not accept the loss and will stage many violent attacks on the progressive people in the country (he will surely lose by some millions in what is euphemistically called “the popular vote”).
Item 3)., “Trump allies prepare ….” analyzes and exposes the extreme right-wing Christo Fascist roots of the supporters and operatives that are working to “elect” Trump and who would staff his administration. The 880 page Project 25 manifesto and organizing operation lays bare exactly what they intend to do. Item 4)., “Trump shares bizarre biblical video ….”, has some good analysis but is posted primarily to provide access to part of the “bizarre biblical video” that extolls Trump as a saintly tool of God's Will. There are about 49 seconds of a 3-minute video embedded in the article.
The material in Item 5)., “Christian Right Observer ….” is a rundown of the ongoing actions by the Christo Fascist Right to take power and impose a harsh Theocratic State on the population of the U.S. This is an important and ongoing process and the Christian Right Observer Weekly is doing yeoman work documenting what these dangerous people are up to. Readers here can go to CROW’s Substack, that only began working in late December of 2023, at < https://crownewsletter.
Of course the various Religious Right operatives don't just trust to the aid of God, but have used state power to maintain their odious rule. Item 6)., “Court Approves Vigilante ….”, discusses the State of Georgia and the efforts of Republicans there to suppress the vote of those who oppose their agenda. The Right in Georgia is not content with just making it a crime to give voters waiting in line a bottle of water or a slice of pizza, or in setting up a process for the State Legislature to take over county election boards where the Rethugs in the Leg don't like the results, or to remove County District Attorneys who oppose them. No they have set up a process under which private citizens can challenge the voter registration of unlimited numbers of registered voters, and now a Federal Court has turned down a challenge to that process by Fair Fight (the Stacy Abrams led voting rights coalition). As Palast wrote:
“A federal court in Georgia ruled on Tuesday that the challenge to 360,000 Georgians’ right to vote, suspiciously targeting Black voters, does not violate the federal Voting Rights Act. Judge Steve C. Jones slapped aside the suit brought by Stacy Abrams’ Fair Fight against Texas group True the Vote, which had created the hit list of voters.
“Biden, who only won Georgia by 11,000 votes in 2020, may have to kiss the state goodbye in November. And because the ruling came down from a federal court, True the Vote has a green light to expand its mass challenge of voters to other states including, according to the triumphant group itself, Arizona, Texas and several other swing states.
“One disastrous decision by the court helped sink Fair Fight’s case. Fair Fight needed to show that the 80 vigilante challengers relied on True the Votes’ target list. The incriminating evidence was caught on camera and included in our film Vigilante: Georgia’s Vote Suppression Hitman. Republican Party official Pam Reardon personally challenged a breathtaking 32,379 voters. ….
“Case closed…except the judge would not let Fair Fight put our film into evidence.” (Emphasis added)
Item 7)., “Behind the Curtain: 6% of six states: ….”, discusses the fact that of 244 million people eligible to vote in this upcoming election around 350,000 voters in a handful of “Swing States” will determine who becomes President. Let's remember that about 155.4 million actually voted for President in 2020, and only 128.8 milllion voted in 2016, in which there were turnout problems for the Democratic Party. Joe Biden's winning margin in the Six Swing States in the 2020 election, the same as this year but without North Carolina was 300,000 or about 0.19% of the total votes cast. Anywhere else in an at least partially democratic society the actual margin would have been at least 8 million votes, and if we count the massive voter purges of likely Democratic Party voters in the Red States, the margin would have been more like 16 million votes.
As usual the winning of the Electoral College is down to a handfull of “Swing States”, this year being some 7 states. These are generally noted as being Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. These seven states are colored darker blue on Map 1, and Grey on Map 2, while 6 (without N. Carolina) are Grey on Map 3. Map 4, that uses the data from the 2016 to show the “popular vote” totals as compiled by county. Blue for Clinton and Red for Trump and with purplish hues to express the outcome.
FFinally Item 8)., “Can you trust 2024 election polls ….”, is a basic analysis of election polling, its values and its foibles. This is pretty standard stuff, but might be useful to some readers here.
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The coming crisis of 2025: What a second Trumpocracy would mean
If he becomes the official nominee of the Republican Party in next year’s presidential race, Donald Trump will receive tens of millions of votes in the general election. He may get less than the presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. He may get more. Regardless, tens of millions of GOP, conservative, and extremist voters will cast their ballots for him.
In 2016, despite his history of elitist, racist, and sexist behavior, failed businesses, lack of governing experience, and no demonstrated past of caring for anyone but himself, he won nearly 63 million votes. While still almost three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton got, it was not just enough for a victory in the Electoral College but a clear warning of things to come.
In 2020, after four years of non-stop chaos, the death of more than 200,000 Covid victims at least in part because of his mishandling of the pandemic, a legitimate and warranted impeachment, abuse of power, ceaseless corruption, and more than 30,000 documented public lies, he gained 74 million votes, even if, in the end, he lost the election.
Now, in addition to all that history, you can add on the incitement of a violent insurrection, a second impeachment for attempting to overthrow the government, four criminal indictments (91 separate charges), being found liable for sexual abuse, and a stated plan to exact retribution against his enemies in a second term. And yet he will undoubtedly again receive many tens of millions of votes.
In fact, you can count on one thing: the 2024 election will not resolve the authoritarian attraction that the Trump vote represents. So perhaps it’s time to prepare now, not later, for the political crisis that will undoubtedly emerge from that event, whatever the vote count may prove to be.
The Authoritarian Threat Continues
A year from the next election, multiple scenarios are imaginable including, of course, that neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden will be contenders. While Biden’s health seems fine at present, he will be only weeks away from his 82nd birthday on Election Day 2024. A lot can happen, health-wise, in a year. When it comes to Trump, however, Biden is now likely to be significantly healthier (mentally and physically) than him. Among other things, no blatant lies or well-tailored suits can hide his unhealthy obesity.
And while he relishes castigating Biden’s cognitive state, it was Trump who only a few weeks ago, while giving a speech attacking the president’s capabilities, stated that he beat “Obama” in an election, that Americans needed IDs to buy bread, and that Biden would lead the country into “World War II,” which just happens to have ended 78 years ago. While some of Trump’s GOP opponents like Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron DeSantis, and Nikki Haley have indeed launched ageist attacks against him, it’s true that he’s roughly in the same age group as Biden.
Meanwhile, don’t forget that Donald Trump’s legal health is on life support. It’s a good bet that, in 2024, he will spend more time in courtrooms than on the campaign trail. He may very well face that moment of truth when he has to decide to cut a deal that keeps him out of prison and out of the White House.
In any case, the current trajectory remains Biden vs. Trump 2.0 while, whatever the outcome of the election, this nation seems to be headed for a crisis of historic proportions. No matter who wins, next November 7th will do nothing to end the divisions that exist in this country. In fact, it’s only likely to exacerbate and amplify them.
Trump Remains a Danger
Trump has already made it clear that he won’t accept any losing outcome. Neither will millions of his followers. For modern Republican Party leaders and their base, election rejection (if they lose) has become an ironclad principle. On the stump, Trump has already begun to emphasize that the spiraling legal cases against him are “election interference,” that the Democrats are putting the pieces in place to steal the election from him, and that the Black judge and prosecutors holding him accountable are “racists.”
As he wrote on one of his social media posts (in caps) those individuals are to him “RIGGERS.” That stable genius’s use of a term that rhymes with a racist slur against Black people was undoubtedly no accident. After all, he spends a considerable amount of his private time branding people. White supremacists wasted hardly a moment in beginning to use the term online, in part, to get around censors on the lookout for explicitly racist terminology.
He is, in other words, already laying the foundation to claim election fraud and creating the basis for another MAGA revolt. While there’s plenty of reason to believe he won’t be able to draw tens of thousands of his supporters to attack the Capitol again, not the least being the Justice Department’s prosecution of hundreds of those who tried it the last time, he’ll certainly have GOP members in Congress ready to resist certifying a Democratic victory.
Trump’s desperation to win is driven not only by the prospect of multiple convictions in his various trials, drawn-out appeals (that are unlikely to be successful), and possible prison time of some sort, but also by the brutal public dismantling of what’s left of his financial empire. The civil suit New York Attorney General Letitia James brought against Trump and the Trump organization has already resulted in a devastating judgment by Judge Arthur Engoron. He ruled Trump and his adult sons liable and immediately stripped them of their control over their businesses. Trump may now not only lose all his New York business properties but have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution. For someone whose whole identity is linked to his purported wealth, there could hardly have been a more crushing blow.
In his mind, a second term as president clearly has little to do with benefiting the country, the Republican Party, or even the rest of his family. It’s his only path to shutting down the two federal cases against him in Florida and Washington, D.C. However, even such a win wouldn’t help him with the election interference case in Georgia or the hush-money criminal case in New York. Convictions in either of those would mean further accountability sooner or later. A second term would undoubtedly offer him another chance to monetize the presidency, just as he did the first time around, in a fashion never before seen.
His record is still being investigated but, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Trump raked in tens of millions of dollars that way. It reports that Trump’s businesses took in more than $160 million from international sources alone, and a grand total of more than $1.6 billion from all sources, during his presidency. As CREW put it: “Trump’s presidency was marred by unprecedented conflicts of interest arising from his decision not to divest from the Trump Organization, with his most egregious conflicts involving businesses in foreign countries with interests in U.S. foreign policy.”
Trump’s Violence Advocacy Grows
Trump’s legitimate fear of losing is pushing him toward ever more strident and violent language. He’s also signaling to his followers that the use of force to put him in power (or go after those who deny it to him) is all too acceptable. His visit to the Palmetto State Armory gun shop in Summerville, South Carolina, on September 25th was an unambiguous message to them: get ready for war.
There, he admired a Glock pistol and was visibly eager to purchase it. However, he ran into a legal snafu. His spokesperson, Steven Cheung, initially posted a video on social media celebrating Trump’s purchase of the Glock, a special “Trump edition” that had a likeness of him and the words “Trump 45th” etched on it. According to the New York Times, Trump gleefully said, “I want to buy one.”
However, after a staff member apparently realized that no one under federal indictment could legally do so, the post was deleted and a subsequent statement was put up that read, “President Trump did not purchase or take possession of the firearm. He simply indicated that he wanted one.” The store would also have been liable under federal law 18 U.S.C. 922, given that it would have been hard for its proprietors to deny that they knew the former president was under multiple indictments.
That visit was more than just a message to his followers to arm themselves. There are 158 gun stores in South Carolina and yet Trump selected the very one linked to a mass killing of Black people in Florida. At least one of the guns used in those murders had been purchased at that very gun shop. On August 26, 2023, white supremacist Ryan Christopher Palmeter went to a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, and murdered three African Americans — Angela Michelle Carr, 52; Jerrald Gallion, 29; and Anolt Joseph Laguerre Jr., 19 — and then killed himself as the police closed in.
The shooter had two guns, a Glock and an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, one of them from the South Carolina Palmetto State Armory gun store. Palmeter also left behind several racist manifestos.
That carnage occurred just a month before Trump’s visit and his implicit decision to associate himself with that explosion of bigoted violence — like an earlier trip to Waco, Texas, the site of a deadly gunfight between federal law enforcement agents and antigovernment extremists — helped reinforce the idea on the far right that violent force is acceptable for political ends. In his speech at Waco, his first “official” campaign rally for election 2024, Trump stated, “I am your warrior, I am your justice… For those who have been wronged and betrayed… I am your retribution.”
The chaos and disorder likely to follow any Trump loss in 2024 will only be further enhanced if the GOP keeps control of the House of Representatives or wins control of the Senate. A number of congressional Republicans have shown that they will not hesitate to do all they can to put Trump back in the White House, including igniting a constitutional crisis by refusing to certify Electoral College votes.
All that said, Trump losing and sending his supporters into the streets amid tantrums by congressional Republicans and Republican state governors and legislatures would hardly be the worst possible scenario.
After all, if Trump were to win, the extremists in and out of government would immediately be empowered to carry out the most right-wing agenda since the height of the segregationist era. A reelected Trump will find the most loyal (to him) and corruptible cabinet members possible. Their only necessary qualification will be a willingness to follow his orders without hesitation, whether or not they’re legal, ethical, or by any stretch of the imagination good for the country.
Count on one thing: it wouldn’t be an America First but a Trump First and Last administration.
He would undoubtedly engage in a series of personal vendettas with the sort of viciousness and resolve never before seen in Washington. He would take a victory, no matter how marginal or questionable, in the Electoral College as a mandate to attack all his perceived enemies with whatever power his new presidency could muster. He’s also well aware of a Department of Justice policy (of questionable legality) not to prosecute a sitting president, which he’ll interpret as a license of perpetual lawlessness. Trump’s persecution administration would harken back to the worst days of McCarthyism and beyond.
And lest you think that’s the end of the matter, it only gets worse.
Trump Will Have Significantly More Help in a Second Term
Beyond Trump’s individual sociopathic behavior, a far-right agenda is being created that will provide a certain ideological clarity to his bumbling authoritarianism. The policy work, not just from the Trump campaign but from Project 25, should scare everyone. A $22 million initiative by the rightwing Heritage Foundation, Project 25 has already produced a 920-page book, "Mandate for Leadership: the Conservative Promise," detailing plans to reshape the federal government. If implemented, its strategy would write “the end” to the classic separation of powers, checks and balances, and even a non-partisan civil service. Every single federal department and agency would instead be restructured to fall under the complete control of the president.
It also offers hundreds of new policies on issues ranging from the environment and labor rights to education and health care. Its underlying assumption: that, post-2024, a conservative president will be in power for some time to come. (If so, Trump will, of course, have the backing of Republicans in Congress, who again may control one or both chambers, and a 6-3 Supreme Court majority.)
Count on this: resistance will be swift, massive, and enduring. Trump and Republican minority rule would not go unchallenged and the repression sure to follow would only generate yet more resistance and, undoubtedly, a generation of political turbulence.
On the other hand, a significant electoral defeat for the Republicans and Trump (along with his conviction on any number of criminal charges) would certainly prove a major obstacle to future authoritarianism. However, tens of millions of his voters will not go quietly into the night, while far-right elected officials in Congress and state legislatures will continue to push extreme conservative policies. White nationalists and radical evangelicals will mobilize as best as they can. Financial and political resources will be available.
The effort to defeat MAGA at all levels and in all ways politically will go on, bu progressives need to prepare for the challenge of 2024 and the perilous years to follow.
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The Cataclysm of a Second Trump Term
Refuse Fascism Episode 192
Sun, Mar 03, 2024 5:16PM • 58:05
Dr. Clarence Lusane 00:00
A lot of attention is focused on Trump’s behavior and the kind of bigotry that he speaks, but it’s really the policies that are the danger and what will be the political agenda. They are very conscious of their ability to exploit weaknesses on the Democratic side, so it will not just be Trump coming into power if he comes back in, but all that he brings with him.
Amanda Moore 00:24
The implicit endorsement is that CPAC and ACU are okay with literal Neo-Nazis being at their event. All of those things that are supposed to be mainstream were absolutely converging with the Nazis.
Sam Goldman 00:57
Welcome to Episode 192 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers, and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes analyzes and stands against the real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States.
Right up front: What do we mean when we talk about fascism? We’re talking about the danger posed by the Republican Party as a fascist party; fomenting and relying on over ambitious white supremacy, xenophobia, male supremacy, oppressive “traditional values” for rule through brute force — refusing to accept any outcome of elections that do not declare them the victors, gutting the rule of law, or turning it into a bludgeon to further shred the rights of the people — dictatorship rule by open violence, readying, and in many places where they hold power, already inflicting violence on immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQ people and their political enemies.
What is crucial to understand is that once in power, fascism essentially eliminates traditional democratic rights. In today’s episode, we’re sharing an interview with Dr. Clarence Lusane on the catastrophe posed by Trump 2.0. Plus, you’ll hear from journalist Amanda Moore who helped uncover the presence of open Nazis at CPAC this year.
Thanks to everyone who rates and reviews the show, like Richard Socal, who wrote on Apple podcasts: “Great news, updates, and substantive interviews. Vitally important discussion in good hands.” Glad to hear you think so, Richard. And to everyone else: Help this show get into more ears during a year old and refusing fascism is most crucial. Review our show on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen, after listening of course. Click the share button in your app to send this episode to a friend.
We couldn’t run today’s episode without saluting those who poured into the streets — in many places, in pouring rain — to call for an end to the ongoing genocide in Gaza made possible by the U.S. government. Before we get to the interview, I wanted to touch on some developments from the week as they relate to the now undeniable, but widely-denied and discounted fascist threat, even as the threat of Trump walking right back into the White House is terrifyingly likely. It would rock the world if the highest court in any other country were to consider presidential immunity — the ability for the President to openly commit crimes — and there weren’t people flooding the streets with cries of illegitimate, refusing to back down until the fascist wannabe president was held to account.
But here we are, in 2024, and the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear the immunity case. Absent mass international condemnation: silence. One could easily imagine civic organizations and threatened political parties calling people into the streets, the President going on TV with a plan, assuring people that there will be accountability. Here, however, the highest court has the ability to hand Trump the keys to power without explicitly doing so, and meet no resistance. It is a story of a never ending coup — of an opposition party, unwilling and perhaps incapable of stopping them, beholden to the stability of the system over justice, and to people so eager to be placated and to be told fairy tales.
This past week, the Supreme Court of the United States granted Trump’s cert, and will consider presidential immunity, setting oral arguments for April 22. Consequentially, through this ruling, on Wednesday, Trump’s D.C. criminal trial, the one concerning his attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election, must be delayed for at least another two months. The Court has already effectively delayed his trial for two and a half months in an order handed down last December.
This is nothing short of a victory for fascism. And the possibility he’ll even have a trial for attempting to overthrow an election is quickly evaporating, just in time for him to possibly do it again. Let’s just sit for a sec with the fact that they’re even pausing to think for months about Trump’s claim that the Constitution forbids any prosecution of a former president for any official acts he engaged in while in office. Remember Trump’s lawyer saying: Yeah, Trump could order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival and not be prosecuted unless the President was first successfully impeached and convicted by the Senate — impeached and convicted by lawmakers who, under Trump’s argument, the President could order to be killed if they attempted to impeach him.
As Mike Rothschild, previous guest on the show, so aptly tweeted: “The Supreme Court needs more time to decide if being the President makes you a God King who can have your enemies murdered.” We’re talking about the same Supreme Court that has turned fascist Congress member’s pipe dreams into law without those mettlesome legislative things like hearings or votes.
This week, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden visited the Texas-Mexico border. Let’s set the scene: Deadly razor wire strung along the Rio Grande around Eagle Pass. Numerous people, including small children, have drowned as a result. Texas has occupied the city park of Eagle Pass with National Guard troops, and Abbott recently ordered construction of a military base just south of town. Texas’ onslaught has the full support of Donald Trump and 24 Republican governors. Abbott and his fellow fascists are aiming to undermine and delegitimize the authority of the federal government in service of a genocidal, Trump fueled, MAGA fascism.
So of course, Trump headed to Eagle Pass, a symbol of state defiance of the federal government to more cruelly dehumanize and harm migrants. He met with Abbot and Texas National Guard soldiers who have commandeered the park and put up the razor wire to slice the skin of migrants as they struggle to get to land for safety. Trump amped up his 2016 anti-immigrant toxic garbage calling migrants criminals, terrorists, “poisoning the blood of the country.” His promise if he returns to power, as you’ll hear more from Dr. Lusane, is mass detentions and deportations unlike anything seen before.
We see previews of the violent horror show that would face migrant and brown communities and recent legislation in Arizona, where the GOP is advancing a bill that would allow people to murder someone for attempting to trespass or trespassing on their property, which would legalize the murder of undocumented immigrants who often have to cross ranches that sit on the state’s border with Mexico. We see it in Georgia, where House Republicans are backing a bill that would require every eligible police and sheriff’s department to help identify undocumented immigrants, arrest them and detain them for deportation.
So when Biden visited, he proceeded to remove the wire, federalizing control of the Texas National Guard, bringing in federal agents to ensure the wire stay removed. Umm… no. Instead, Biden, which we do have to note has deported more immigrants than any previous president, vowed to shut down the border and essentially eliminate asylum, said this in Texas: “Here’s what I would say to Mr. Trump: Instead of playing politics with the issue, instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me, or I’ll join you in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill. We can do it together. You know and I know it’s the toughest, most efficient, most effective border security bill this country has ever seen. So instead of playing politics with the issue, why don’t we just get together and get it done.”
What we see in Texas is an escalation of the open conflict between the Republifascists, spearheaded by Abbott, embraced by Trump, versus Democrats led by Biden. This conflict is over how intensely and viciously anti immigrant policy will be enforced, and yet this conflict concentrates deeper differences over the fascist remaking of society and exemplifies the Democrats’ approach of still trying to reconcile and collaborate with these Republifascists. We urge our listeners to act now to call out the demonization of our immigrant siblings, to support and defend migrants under attack as part of refusing fascism.
The election in November is fast approaching, and with each passing week, it seems fantasies of election season reach maddening new heights. Three years and two months after the January 6th coup attempt and Trump leaving office, he has not been held accountable for any of his crimes committed as president. It’s been almost seven years since the start of Mueller investigation, the first of many major investigations into his political crimes, but it seems millions of people are convinced that in the next nine months, somehow, the legal system or the Attorney General’s office, or the Biden administration will suddenly unearth some super secret leak proof cache of urgent, efficient action to stop fascism.
But no, the thing about this is no amount of voting can rectify it. They aren’t missing your vote to convict Trump. Right now, as it stands, the lack of accountability, he can just do it again, this time with a legal precedent perhaps. I don’t think we missed some separate referendum on whether they’re allowed to or capable of holding Trump accountable. This shows two things. One: There is no solution to fascism within the normal workings of the system, judicial or electoral or otherwise, and two: We, the people who refuse fascism need to be the ones leading the fight. Right now, we see instead of fighting fascism, the Biden administration fighting its own voter base, blaming their own base of support for Trump’s viability, scolding decent people who don’t want a fascist future for not being loyal enough to a genocidal Democratic vision of empire that, in my opinion, the Democrats exist to prop up.
In my opinion, it needs to become clear that the goal of defeating fascism this year cannot be defined by a day in November. Yes, things are shaping up — what happens in the election and the response to that election is something we need to prepare for. We need to be thinking of the possible scenarios and how we’ll respond, but for defeating fascism, right now, what we do over the next months is decisive. Decent people in this country must decide what horror we will accept, whose suffering we will dismiss, what monsters we will absolve, what demands we will obey, what of all this we will justify as the unstoppable will of history racing by. Or, if not, what will we actually do about it? Now, here is my conversation with Dr. Clarence Lusane.
Dr. Clarence Lusane is a political science professor and current Director of the International Affairs Program and majors at Howard University. He’s an author, activist, scholar, lecturer and journalist. He is an independent expert to the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance. His latest book is $20 and Change: Harriet Tubman and the ongoing fight for racial justice and democracy. Welcome, Dr. Lusane. Thanks for chatting with me.
Dr. Clarence Lusane 12:30
Thank you so much for having me.
Sam Goldman 12:32
What I wanted to start with is on a lot of people’s minds, and we’ve had guests that have spoken to various aspects of this, but right now, aided and abetted by the Supreme Court of the United States that he helped curate, the possibility of a Trump return to power is seeming great and grave in the likelihood increasing. I wanted to start by getting into what a second Trump term would mean. In some of your writing, you describe it as a catastrophe, and I just was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what you think we need to be paying most attention to in terms of the threat that is posed?
Dr. Clarence Lusane 13:14
That’s a really important question, because a lot of attention is focused on Trump’s behavior, and the kind of bigotry that he speaks. But it’s really the policies that are the danger, and what will be the political agenda. It will not just be Trump coming into power if he comes back in, but all that he brings with him and who he brings with him. This is really terrifying, because as bad as the first Trump tenure was, this was really just sort of wetting his feet. There are a lot of weak, but some obstacles to an agenda he was trying to carry out; from there being establishment kind of Republicans who did not feel any kind of love for Donald Trump, to hiring people — bringing people into administration — who were law, but incompetent, and they are not planning to make those mistakes again. Trump has reconstructed the Republican Party from top to bottom, so it really is the Trump party. We see it already in the House of Representatives, very likely in the U.S. Senate, states across the country, they have all been Trump-ified over the last four years and much more so than in 2016.
We’ve been seeing the proposals that are being developed from the Heritage Foundation and their Project 2025, to other conservative and far right think tanks, they’re laying out an agenda. The Heritage document, it’s 900 pages, and it goes to every single government agency with an agenda of how to transform those agencies. This will not be — can’t underscore it — a normal Republican conservative administration. This will be an extreme authoritarianism, that will likely, if Trump comes back in, respond to rejection of that with force. We will likely see political violence coming from the federal government under Trump’s watch. So it is a very grave concern that a second Trump administration will be something we have not seen in most of our lifetimes in the United States.
Sam Goldman 15:29
What you were talking about in terms of transforming, or gutting the party of anyone that isn’t a loyalist, is something that we’ve seen happen with the example of changing RNC leadership, those types of things, but also in terms of sidelining anyone who remotely like criticizes an aspect of a program. Even if they went along with Trump’s policy agenda, if they criticized at one point, the coup attempt, then they were sidelined. But what we’re seeing now in the threat posed by Project 2025 is the purging of government officials that are not people that are partisan or anything like that, but have worked for the government for decades, but might be loyal to what they see as the Constitution or something like that, and not loyalty to Herr Trump.
That clarification that you are making is a really important one in terms of this isn’t going to be more of the same, as awful as that was the first time around. You talked about the threat of political violence. Is there anything historically that would help us understand both the combination of the America First pledge and this political violence that he’s threatening.
Dr. Clarence Lusane 16:58
There certainly is. I’ve focused a lot in my discussions and some writings on what I call racial authoritarianism. By that, I mean that authoritarianism in the United States will not be without its racial dimensions, that will be very critical to that. There’s a lot of rejection of how far the U.S. will go in those directions, that there are roadblocks, and there are fences, that the system is protected, but I remind people that for 100 years following the Civil War, Black people lived under authoritarianism. We called it Jim Crow segregation, but it’s what some scholars will call sub-authoritarianism, where a part of the country lives under more or less democratic norms, but other parts of the country do not; they are not subject to the same criminal justice system, they’re not subject to the same rights, they’re not subject to opportunities for political inclusion or holding political office.
That exactly was the situation for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, for decades. This was government driven. This wasn’t just a few racist segregationists, there was government policy that shaped housing, that shaped education, that shaped political access. So there is a history in this country. I spend a lot of time outside of the country for the work I do, and specifically, I’ve visited places where there were genocides; in Rwanda, in Cambodia, Germany, in Bosnia. In all of those places, there were normal societies at a point, where people had differences, but they kind of worked them out. But extremism grew, it was not checked, and then within a very short period, extremists came to power.
So we have to be really, really careful. There’s no such thing as sort of a little authoritarianism. It manifests and it grows and then it metastasizes. Already, what we’re hearing from what the Trump second term would look like should have people shaking in their boots. They really want to build a gulag for immigrants. They’re talking about building camps around the country, similar to the camps that were used against the Japanese and Japanese Americans, and people of Japanese ancestry during World War Two. These are not camps, these are prisons. They can label them whatever they want, these are prisons. They want to send a message, and I believe they will, first day in office, institute this through an executive order, and they want to send a message that, they’re gonna be tough, they’re going to be very different, and anybody they deem to not belong in the country, they’re going to round up. And that will just be the beginning.
Trump, of course, when he first came in, tried to ban Muslims from coming from certain countries. There was a check back on that by Congress and by the Supreme Court. Trump has had, as you noted earlier, three individuals that he put on the court since then, and we’ve seen some of their rulings already, and how those have already eroded the rights of people in this country. We can expect much more of that in a second term.
Sam Goldman 20:18
I really appreciated the warning that you make around what I see as this American exceptionalism that allows us to think that it can’t, it couldn’t, even though it has, it is, and it will, unless we change the tide. I think that there’s this constant clinging to these guardrails and the belief that there’s these un-penetrable institutions that are so America, that they’re so strong, they’re so good for everyone that this can’t come to pass.
There’s this continued surprise and shock, and paralyzation because of that each time, he is able to push through what that perceived crisis is — whether it be the trials, you know, it’s: Oh, he can’t… With the Mueller report, the this, the that, it’s always something, and then he’s able to do it anyway. There’s that shock, and I think that it’s really important, this time, when, as you said, there’s a whole huge document that anyone could pick up and read, that shows so clearly, what the threat is. There cannot be — we cannot afford to be surprised. Now is the time to act, not after… What happened? You were aluding to the comparisons to the internment camps. It made me think about one of the pieces that you recently written in relation to the prospect of Trump’s second term.
You wrote about America’s Japanese internment camps and the Reconstruction Amendments, and on top of what I would classify as fascist, utter dehumanization of non citizens, it seems that they have their sights set on destroying the modern idea of citizenship, and all the rights that come with that. I was hoping that you could talk a little bit about what does citizenship mean to them? Why is it such a threat to them? And what have those around Trump, the Republican Party, been saying and doing to undermine it?
Dr. Clarence Lusane 22:41
Great question. First, let me respond to one point you raiseed I thought was really important, about norms. There’s been a reliance on norms to protect democracy, and that’s not enough. That does not work, cause we’ve seen, Trump push through every norm possible, and there are basically no consequences. They didn’t have legal heft behind them. So that’s really, really kind of critical.
I think there’s a three-stage kind of approach that we’re gonna see relative to the issue of citizenship. One is going after people who do not have legal documents to be in the country. And that varies. A lot our students who overstay their visa. They didn’t try to come to the country illegally, they stayed. That happened to me. I was living in London, and I ended up overstaying my visa, primarily because the visa application was slowed down, and it went past the date, I was supposed to be in there. So, it’s not that people are all in the country because they illegally want to be here. So, it’s going after that community, which Trump labels “poisoning the blood of the country” on all of that.
Second, even during World War Two, with the Japanese, many of them were citizens. There were some visitors to the country, but many were citizens. So, they weren’t the right kind of citizens. You build up a hatred and bigotry against a certain community, then you can target them because you’ve set the stage for them to be dehumanized. Then the third stage will be going after, in similar ways, your ideological enemies who may be of any race or any color citizen or not, they become the target as well. This is who Trump called vermin. They’ve used the language, and everything that Trump has said, has been said by Steve Miller, Steve Bannon, all the people in and around Trump, and it echoes and echoes and echoes. So you create an atmosphere where you’re not going after people, you’re going after enemies, and anything is allowed.
That’s where there’s a real responsibility to call that out. The media has a real important role in doing that. I went to a book talk the other day for the new book by Barbara McQuade called ‘Attack from Within,’ and she discusses disinformation, how that will play such a critical role — has been, and will continue to — play such a critical role in how people view the country and, and citizenship and all those issues, and race and everything. One of the questions I raised is: What will the media do when after the election in November, Trump comes almost immediately and declares that he’s the winner? Do they broadcast that? Do they let that sit on social media?
This is just straight up disinformation, lies. They did it last time — Trump came on within hours after the election saying: We won. That set the seed for what would eventually happen January 6th, and till this day, like 60-70% of Republicans still think Trump won the election. So how do you shut that down? Can you shut it down? Should we shut it down? These are questions that we’re going to be confronted with. It’s not going to be theoretical. The election is not going to resolve the differences in the country. He’s absolutely not going to accept losing, so as a country, prepare for that. And then, are we prepared if Trump wins? How do we begin to deal with that?
Sam Goldman 26:16
These are essential questions and questions that I agree we need to be asking now, not November 6 — afterward is not gonna be tenable. Even as Trump’s vitriol against everyone who’s not white has escalated, I feel like so have his often unhinged attempts to win support from Black folks. Even with little evidence of an increase in support. I looked at data that was put out recently, and by no means growing numbers of Black folks saying yes to Trump — definitely nowhere near the majority. Yet, it seems Trump, much of the media, and his prominent supporters like Tim Scott, have no problem claiming much more widespread support of Trump in the Black community. You’ve studied black politics in the electoral arena for decades, and I was wondering if you had any insight to shed here on what’s happening there — what they might think they’re doing and what they’re actually doing.
Dr. Clarence Lusane 27:21
I’ve been working on this for a while, what I call Trumping while Black. While there may have not been some growth, in terms of Trump getting more Black votes, in terms of overall support, not at all. But, they are very conscious of their ability to exploit weaknesses on the Democratic side — one being Biden’s age. So even though he’s very much close to Trump in age, they have weaponized that. In some of the surveys of Black voters — we just did one from Howard University, there are others — when asked what do people see as their greatest concern about Biden, it’s age — not policies, not anything that really affects your life directly, it’s age. They do not say the same thing about Trump, because Biden is put foth as a 95 year old dottering dude, and Trump has put forth as basically, kind of seventy year old, running around with crazy energy. That really kind of has had an impact in the Black community.
But more specifically, they actually have targeted, trying to increase their Black vote, because in the places where Trump lost in 2020, in Michigan, and in Pennsylvania, and in Georgia, Wisconsin. They want to have impact on the Black vote in Detroit, in Atlanta in Philadelphia. Part of it is a big win some votes, but also they can convince people just not to vote — that: Okay, we’re both terrible, we’re both horrible, just don’t go out and vote, All which accrues to Trump.
There are a number of organizations that are trying to carry that wave. The Black conservative Federation, for example, where Trump spoke right before the South Carolina primary. I listened to the whole thing. He gave like an hour and a half of the most rambling crazy talk you ever heard in your life, but he kept hitting those popular buttons. He imitated Biden, called him, you know, slow Joe and sleepy Joe and dumb Joe. He attacked Nancy Pelosi attacked Obama, talked about immigrants, just hit all of those spots he knows — a completely nonsensical talk, but you can see for Black conservatives, at least those Black conservatives, they have swallowed the pill. They were reacting just as you see the white conservatives who support Trump.
So then, I think the other thing that’s very possible is that Trump will pick a Black running mate — Tim Scott, Byron Donalds, Ben Carson, any of those who have shown 1000% loyalty, who basically say we will do what Pence would not do. Again, trying to particularly win more Black male support. They may do that move, but again, we have to call it out for what it is: It’s a cynical, ridiculous gesture. It’s not gonna to mask what’s gonna be policies that will be harmful to the Black community, to other communities of color, to working people, LGBTQ communities. We’ve gotta call all of that out.
Sam Goldman 30:27
Some of it is just, if it weren’t so dangerous, it would be comical. Like him going to sneaker con in Philly with his ridiculous Trump shoe, or him trying to woo Black folks and talking about how he’s liked because he’s persecuted. Things that are just proving how overt his white supremacy is, and yet, he’s like: No, this is great, this is great. Again, I would love to be able to laugh it off, but it’s dangerous.
Dr. Clarence Lusane 31:04
It is very dangerous and it reflects Trump’s view of the Black community; that it’s a criminal community, it’s a poor community, it’s an ignorant community, there are no professionals, only live in, you know, hardcore ghetto places. This is his view, and it’s been his view. He hasn’t changed his view, and the few exceptions are the Black people who like him. They’re different. So, Ben Carson and Byron Donalds, these are not like regular other Black people who won’t vote for me, who are living in these horrible, horrible situations that only I can fix. So that’s the kind of the selling point he puts out there, and unfortunately, they carry the weight for that vantage point. But Trump’s policies and Trump’s views on race are as horrid as they ever were. They don’t bring up: Trump sits down to dinner with Nick Fuentes and Trump cavorts with, you know, all kinds of white supremacists. That is just kind of erased from the picture. But we’ve gotta call all of that out.
Sam Goldman 32:07
Absolutely. I wanted to ask you about the latest developments from the Supreme Court, where they have given Trump’s immunity argument, cert, entertaining the notion of the President as absolute ruler, and basically acting as his accomplice by delaying his prosecution once more. Trump is already claiming that he intends to be, as you said earlier, “dictator for a day.” What does it mean that he’s essentially making the legal argument for that, that SCOTUS is entertaining it, and that it’s being legitimized in the discourse?
Dr. Clarence Lusane 32:48
There are a couple of concerns. One is that, again, they even take up this issue, that the President has total immunity, and that pretty much he can commit murder and crime and anything he wants for four years with there being no consequences. That is just kind of nonsense. So why they would even take it up is problematic. The guess is, which I think is probably right, is that there are at least a couple of members on the Court who want to debate the issues. The consequence of that, though, is, it does probably mean that the trial, probably not only the January 6th trial out of D.C., but the documents trial out of Florida will probably be delayed. If they delay too much, then they will not happen before the election.
Trump will have whoever he puts in the Justice Department bury those cases so they never see the light of day again. There was a big concern that legitimate charges against Trump that were determined by grand juries — it wasn’t a single prosecutor who said I’m gonna charge Trump — it had to go through a process, it had to go through judges, so that needs to be emphasized. But there is a possibility that those two federal charges, federal trials, will not happen before the election. There’s a lot of reform that needs to happen, because Trump’s privileged kind of treatment should not exist in the legal system. He’s got all kinds of privileges and protections that you and I would never get for a second or none of his supporters.
Sam Goldman 34:22
I wanted to pivot to fascism rising around the world. Folks here like to think we’re the center of the universe, but we are not. Over the past few years. We’ve covered on the show that international rise of fascism, with episodes focusing on various different times and developments in Brazil, Hungary, the Philippines, Israel, Palestine, and conversations touching on many other parts of the globe. You’ve conducted field research on human rights and race relations in dozens of countries. I wanted to ask if there are developments happening that you think people in the United States are not as aware of in terms of the global rise that people should know about.
Dr. Clarence Lusane 35:06
I think for many people, when they think of fascism, they think historically, and they think these fascist leaders coming to power through violent means, through overthrowing governments. What we’re seeing, though, is that people are coming to power through electoral systems. Once in power, then they exploit, and then often disabuse their constitution or the laws that govern that country. The Spanish have a term for it, autogolpe, which means self coup, which is what Trump tried to do. They get to powers through systems they can exploit, and they never want to leave.
Now, if you were looking at Argentina, you’re looking at Italy, you’re looking at Hungary, you’re looking at Turkey, you’re looking at the Netherlands, in all of these countries, you’re seeing the far right, stepping into electoral politics as kind of their way to power. I sit on a commission, it’s called European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance, that’s part of the Council of Europe, and all of the member states, 46 member states have representatives — we’re all called independent experts. We spend all of our time reviewing every single country in Europe around issues of racism and intolerance, focused on homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and other ways in which hate and intolerance manifest.
I go three or four times a year to the plenary sessions, and I’m bombarded with questions about what’s going on in the U.S., because people read the papers and they see the news, but they can’t even believe some of it. So I end up having many sessions discussing how the norms in the U.S. have been eroded, and how someone like Trump can come to power, can have a base, has almost single handedly taken over one of the major political parties. Then I point to: Well, you know, look at the U.K., look at France, you know, look at these countries where, they’ve had these traditional liberal parties, traditional conservative parties, but doors open up, and you saw these far right forces being able to come in and begin to have an impact. And look at Germany, with the AfD.
There’s a lot of developments that are going on, that require looking at each other and drawing some conclusions about what are the ways to kind of prevent these rises. In the U.S., I think that there are a range of constitutional changes that need to be made, like the Electoral College, for example, needs to go, because it’s the door for someone becoming president who’s not popular. Donald Trump has never won — probably would not again win the popular vote, but he could become president for the second time. We need to reform the U.S. Senate. The way it runs and operates has been undemocratic. With Mitch McConnell stepping down, and probably some MAGA Senator taking his place, if they control the Senate, it will become even less democratic than it is already.
We need to reform how we put people on the Supreme Court. It can’t be the whim of literally one person deciding when someone will go up and when someone can’t go up. I’ve got 20 more changes I want to recommend, but these are areas that have functioned, kind of with norms, kind of with some policies and procedures, but when you really kind of peel back the onion, then you see these, really, problems in terms of how an autocratic anti-democratic force can exploit them.
Sam Goldman 38:55
I want to thank you so much, Dr. Lusane, for coming on, and sharing your expertise, your perspective and your time, with us.
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Last month, the Conservative Political Action Conference welcomed explicit Nazis to their annual convention outside of Washington D.C. Yes, that CPAC, ushered into prominence by Ronald Reagan; that CPAC where Trump made his more or less official entry into national politics in 2011; that CPAC which, during the Trump years, became instrumental in transforming the “conservative” movement into a fascist juggernaut; that CPAC where Trump made his first public appearance after the January 6th insurrection, a triumphant return to his heart and base of support.
This year, CPAC was a little different for a number of reasons, even as more seats sat empty. Even as the halls lacked some of the shine of past few years, the conference brought in and embraced fascists from around the world. From Bolsonaro Junior, Hungary’s ambassador to the U.S., and one of many prime ministers of Great Britain to the current leaders of Argentina and El Salvador alongside their keynote speaker, Donald Trump. We spoke with Amanda Moore, who was there, who got kicked out, who exposed the gleeful embrace between Neo-Nazis and the mainstream of Republi-fascist politics. Here is that conversation.
Last week, I shared a little bit about how CPAC kicked off with pizzagate conspiracist, Jack Posobiec, kicking it off with: Democracy, we’re here to overthrow it completely, and Trump promising to be the crowd’s retribution. But, I left out a lot of things. I did leave out Stephen Miller calling for the border to be sealed, to deport all illegals, to establish large scale staging grounds for removal flights, deputizing the National Guard, and deploying military to the Southern border. And, very importantly, that there were explicit Neo-Nazis that were welcomed at what some call the most mainstream establishment conservative conference.
It’s truly no surprise that a crowd who gives straight up Hitlerian speeches a standing ovation has open Nazis in the crowd, but there’s more to unpack there. So, to discuss that, I am so glad to be joined by Amanda Moore, whose critical journalism exposed the overt Nazi presence at CPAC this year. While the Nazis were welcomed, she was actually kicked out of the conference. I’m really glad to get to hear all about it from her. Amanda is a writer and researcher who focuses on the far right extremism. Welcome, Amanda, thanks for chatting with me.
Amanda Moore 42:22
Thank you for having me.
Sam Goldman 42:24
First, let’s talk about CPAC. Briefly, for those who don’t know what it is, what is it, and who generally participates in it?
Amanda Moore 42:34
It’s the annual conservative gathering. It used to be much smaller. It wasn’t as much of like a big show, always in a smaller venue, and I wouldn’t say it had more normal people, because CPAC was always a little bit of the weirdos, like Ron Paul would go to it. But it’s, over time, gotten more and more circus like, I would say. Maybe they’re trying to imitate Turning Point USA with a smaller budget. So, you’ll have Stephen Miller, you’ll have Steve Bannon now, who was previously banned, you’ll have Nazis now, all kind of hanging out in the same space. It’s usually four days, I think it was three this year, of speeches. There’s an exhibit hall where there’s various vendors, and that’s pretty much it. It’s dying, though. It used to be, in the heyday of Trump, it was very exciting. And especially during COVID, it was huge, because that was the only thing to do. But this year, it was a pretty sad, sad display.
Sam Goldman 43:32
Walk us through what happened this year at CPAC. I know that there had been some word that at the beginning. [Matt] Schlapp [CPAC chair] had said no journalists or something like that. Walk us through what happens there and what your experience was.
Amanda Moore 43:47
First, I want to say I was credentialed media in 2023, and it was not a problem. So, this year, I applied, and they’re so disorganized. They don’t send you a confirmation email when you apply for media. I applied in, like, early January — as soon as you could, I applied for press credentials. Then, four weeks later, I was like: Hmm, maybe I forgot to apply, so I’m gonna do it again. But then I realized I had definitely done it twice — that’s important in a minute. The week before CPAC, I get an email: You’re approved, no problems.
They start sending me the press emails over the next few days, and the Monday before CPAC, I get another email that says you were rejected. I thought, because I’m an idiot, I was like, maybe this is because I applied twice and they just have two different files for it. So I showed up Wednesday for the press check in, and they were like: No, your revoked. But just hours before I had gotten there, Matt Schlapp had gone on Steve Bannon’s show and said: We’re going to deny, or take away press credentials from the left wing propagandists, and if you want to come to the event, you can buy a ticket like everyone else.
So I asked the women working: Can I buy a ticket? And they said: Oh, yeah. And I said: Will I get kicked out?: And they’re like: That’s never happened, so no, you won’t get kicked out. I bought a ticket. The next day, first day of CPAC, I go, and within hours, a security guard named Tim is taking the badge off my neck and saying I have to leave the premises. He means that I can stay at the hotel, the lobby, I can stay at the restaurants, anywhere I wanted, but I could not come back to CPAC.
Sam Goldman 45:14
What rationale was given? You had paid for it.
Amanda Moore 45:16
I was on a red flag list, and I was never to be admitted at all, and it was an error I was ever allowed in the door.
Sam Goldman 45:23
Did this happen to other journalists that you’re aware of?
Amanda Moore 45:25
No, it didn’t. And in fact, Mother Jones, in the middle of CPAC, wrote an article about how they had bought a ticket. Some outlets just chose to not attend. They just didn’t go. But other ones that bought tickets — there was another reporter for a different, far more left outlet, that did not get kicked out, sitting next to me watching me get kicked out.
Sam Goldman 45:45
I wanted to hear from you what happened after that. So you decided not to leave. What did you end up observing, experiencing, in your time kicked out of CPAC in the lobby, in the bar area, wherever else you were allowed to be?
Amanda Moore 46:01
Anywhere you go during CPAC is full of CPAC-ians. Most of the time, I stayed right in the hotel lobby. As soon as I got kicked out, I was sitting there, and I tweeted about it. I of course had to tell my editor: I think the direction for the story has changed, because I will not be talking about the panels. A Nazi that I know walked by. He was like: Hey, I heard you got kicked out. Man, if I get kicked out, I’ll come hang out with you here, and we can start a coalition — an anti-CPAC coalition. And I was like: Ryan, you’re not getting kicked out, you’re gonna be allowed in and he was like: Yeah, I know. And he was — allowed to walk right on in. That was how it has opened up for me [chuckles].
Sam Goldman 46:39
And can you tell listeners a little bit more about what you mean, there were Nazis at CPAC?
Amanda Moore 46:45
Ryan Sanchez, we’ll start with him. He’s the one who is offered to form a coalition with me. He used to be a member of Identity Europa, as you might remember from Unite the Right, and he was also a member of RAM, the racist street fighting gang. He was kicked out of the Marine Corps for being too much of a white nationalist. And this is extremely well known, extremely documented. Ryan has a channel on Cosy, which is Nick Fuentes’ streaming service. He’s friends with Nick Fuentes — streams on his service. That’s what we’re talking about here. And he’s allowed into CPAC.
Last year at CPAC, Ryan and some of his friends surrounded me and called me a slut for six minutes on a live stream. This year, they were a little bit more low key in their harassment than the slut circle. Another one of Ryan’s friends, his name is Colton Buss — he actually just got kicked out of the Young Republican club for being a Nazi — he was happy to show me the backgrounds on his phone were swastikas and other Hitler imagery. He asked me to recite the 14 words… [in the voice of Buss] I’m not a Groyper. I’m not a Nick Fuentes Acolyte, you know, I’m more extreme than that. And he also had a ticket to CPAC and was also allowed inside CPAC, no problems.
Sam Goldman 47:59
In the video that you posted, I believe that there’s at least four men in this video, and they are basically taunting you — I don’t know another way to describe that — by sieg heil-ing around you. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience.
Amanda Moore 48:19
So, in the video, Ryan’s the one saluting. Colton is the one taking the photo, and those are the two that have CPAC access. There were two other men. One is Greg Conte, who was Richard Spencer’s bodyguard at Unite the Right. I feel like that says enough about him right there. Then, the other was somebody else who was involved in the NPI circles and National Justice Party, [uncertain name], or I think about the I think the last name he goe by is Vandal. They did not have tickets to CPAC, but they were in the the physical hotel.
When Nick Fuentes was kicked out of CPAC, last year — I watched it happen — he had to leave the room he had in the hotel. He was removed off the premises, so I don’t know what the difference is there, but I know they could have just went after the “sieg heil.” It’s a lot of discussion: “culture wars” this. “Why don’t I have any white babies?” that. Hitler — that kind of stuff. The normal things you talk about with Nazis. And that was when Ryan was like: We should take a picture, and I was like: We should not take a picture. So I just had my head down, my middle finger up because I don’t want to be in a photo with a Nazi. So I did not know that he had done the salute at the time, because when you post the photo, that’s not what he was doing the photo. Their group had people coming and going, but those were like the four core ones that were standing there.
Sam Goldman 49:31
When this became known, what was the reaction at CPAC? They weren’t removed. Do you know their level of participation in the conference? The degree that other people were interacting with them? What response CPAC made towards having overt Nazis at the conference?
Amanda Moore 49:51
The guy who took the video posted it Saturday night, and the conference ended Saturday — posted at 10:30pm. I was tagged in it and I sent it to a few people that I talked to throughout CPAC. One of them is the NBC journalist who posted it everywhere without having context or my name. So CPAC was done at this point, which is probably why he waited to post it until then. Matt Schlapp primarily was ignoring me — before I published my article, I sent a detailed list of questions, I think it was about 40, including things like — because he says there were no Nazis at CPAC — I said: Well, do you consider sieg heil-ing to be an expression of Neo-Nazi beliefs? Things like that. He never got back… never got back to me. Eventually, after the article I wrote was out, Matt Schlapp sub-tweeted me instead of addressing me — very cowardly. So I quote-tweeted him and I said: Why are you free to talk to me, Matt? And I asked him again about all the Nazis, and he said: I love Israel. So that’s where Matt is. He loves Israel and the Bible, and there were no Nazis.
Sam Goldman 49:59
And that was the only response from [him].
Amanda Moore 50:24
Yeah [laughing]. It’s crazy. There’s a video of it.
Sam Goldman 50:49
I wanted to get your take on how you would describe the relationship between these explicit Neo-Nazis and the more mainstream fascists running the show, and ostensibly filling the seats at CPAC.
Amanda Moore 51:13
I have written a lot about Groypers or generic Hitler fans within young Republican clubs or within state GOPs. This was fascinating because some of my young Republicans I write about were at this event. I don’t know what happens inside CPAC, I honestly can’t speak to people who are over 50. I have no idea how. I was removed right away, and even if I hadn’t been, I really wouldn’t know much about the average person who’s going to be there.
But what I do know is that I watched as the members of the Young Republican clubs that I write about that are known to be more extreme — New York, D.D., a lot of the ones in Texas — they’re there, and they’re going to parties with Ryan Sanchez, who, again, was kicked out of the Marines for being too much of a racist. In terms of what I cover, all of those things that are supposed to be mainstream, were absolutely converging with the Nazis. I mean, it was just happening everywhere. Every time I saw all these people, they were all getting to know one another, I guess.
Sam Goldman 52:19
Do you have any thoughts on why it is that overt Nazis mingling at CPAC has not been really a major story that keeps getting, not just hammered at, but further exposed?
Amanda Moore 52:32
I can tell you when I pitched stories to editors, not about this, but I say: Hey, this guy in the GOP, he’s friends with Nick Fuentes — he’s a Nazi and he’s getting billionaire money. They say: Everybody knows there’s Nazis in the GOP — no one cares. And I’m like: I don’t think that’s true. I think a lot of people don’t understand that. So I don’t know. You have to ask an editor, not me. My personal opinion, and I’m obviously biased because I’m in it, but I think it’s a powerful video if you especially understand the context.
The implicit endorsement is that Schlapp and CPAC and ACU are okay with literal Neo-Nazis not only being at their event, but harassing the journalists who would cover them — and honestly, covering it and not saying that it’s a journalist they’re harassing, that’s running cover for Nazis too, as far as I think. So, I have no idea. I wish I knew, because then I’d be able to sell my fucking stories. But I don’t know.
Sam Goldman 53:29
I really appreciate that, and then the context that you are providing on exactly why this should be a bigger story and more covered. As we close out our chat, I just wanted to find out if there’s anything related to what your research focuses on that you think, right now, people are totally missing, not paying attention to or getting all wrong, that you want to either clarify or get people to start paying attention to.
Amanda Moore 53:57
Well, I’ve got some stuff coming out about Texas and the border, and what Abbott is doing at Eagle Pass. I think that — everybody knew about the convoy, and it was a joke. I went with the convoy — it was a joke, it was awful. What is happening in Eagle Pass, Texas, it’s been a long term plan of the fringe far right in the Texas GOP, and they have been slowly taking over the Republican Party of Texas. I think it’s gonna be be jumping. I think what is happening at Eagle Pass, what Abbott is doin;, he’s not just doing it for fun.
I think it’s more serious than that, and I think that this coalition of states that are trying to buck the federal government in an election year is probably something we should all be keeping an eye on, especially considering the kinds of people that have been pushing for this very conflict between the state of Texas and the federal government at Eagle Pass. It’s been a long time coming.
Sam Goldman 54:51
Thanks so much for that reminder, and it’s something that we’re gonna keep talking about on the show for sure. I want to thank you you, Amanda, for talking with me, for sharing your experience, your perspective and your time. Where do you want to direct people who want to read more from you, hear more from you?
Amanda Moore 55:12
I’m on all social media — Twitter, mostly, but also Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, Tumblr, I think, as @noturtlesoup17, and then I have a Substack at TurtleDiaries.net
Sam Goldman 55:26
Thanks so much. We’ll be sure to link to those.
Amanda Moore 55:28
Thank you.
Sam Goldman 55:30
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Trump allies prepare to infuse ‘Christian nationalism’ in second administration
Spearheading the effort is Russell Vought, president of The Center for Renewing America, part of a conservative consortium preparing for Trump’s return to power.
Russell Vought is president of The Center for Renewing America think tank, a leading group in a conservative consortium preparing for a second Trump term. | Francis Chung/POLITICO
An influential think tank close to Donald Trump is developing plans to infuse Christian nationalist ideas in his administration should the former president return to power, according to documents obtained by POLITICO.
Spearheading the effort is Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget during his first term and has remained close to him. Vought, who is frequently cited as a potential chief of staff in a second Trump White House, is president of The Center for Renewing America think tank, a leading group in a conservative consortium preparing for a second Trump term.
Christian nationalists in America believe that the country was founded as a Christian nation and that Christian values should be prioritized throughout government and public life. As the country has become less religious and more diverse, Vought has embraced the idea that Christians are under assault and has spoken of policies he might pursue in response.
One document drafted by CRA staff and fellows includes a list of top priorities for CRA in a second Trump term. “Christian nationalism” is one of the bullet points. Others include invoking the Insurrection Act on Day One to quash protests and refusing to spend authorized congressional funds on unwanted projects, a practice banned by lawmakers in the Nixon era.
CRA’s work fits into a broader effort by conservative, MAGA-leaning organizations to influence a future Trump White House. Two people familiar with the plans, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal matters, said that Vought hopes his proximity and regular contact with the former president — he and Trump speak at least once a month, according to one of the people — will elevate Christian nationalism as a focal point in a second Trump term.
The documents obtained by POLITICO do not outline specific Christian nationalist policies. But Vought has promoted a restrictionist immigration agenda, saying a person’s background doesn’t define who can enter the U.S., but rather, citing Biblical teachings, whether that person “accept[ed] Israel’s God, laws and understanding of history.”
Vought has a close affiliation with Christian nationalist William Wolfe, a former Trump administration official who has advocated for overturning same-sex marriage, ending abortion and reducing access to contraceptives.
Vought, who declined to comment, is advising Project 2025, a governing agenda that would usher in one of the most conservative executive branches in modern American history. The effort is made up of a constellation of conservative groups run by Trump allies who’ve constructed a detailed plan to dismantle or overhaul key agencies in a second term. Among other principles, the project’s “Mandate for Leadership” states that “freedom is defined by God, not man.”
The Trump campaign has said repeatedly that it alone is responsible for assembling a policy platform and staffing for a future administration. In response to various news articles about how conservatives are preparing for a second Trump term, campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a memo late last year: “Despite our being crystal clear, some ‘allies’ haven’t gotten the hint, and the media, in their anti-Trump zeal, has been all-too-willing to continue using anonymous sourcing and speculation about a second Trump administration in an effort to prevent a second Trump administration.”
Trump’s campaign declined to comment for this story.
Rachel Cauley, CRA’s communication director, said “the so-called reporting from POLITICO in this story is false and we told them so on multiple occasions.”
Trump is not a devout man of faith. But Christian Nationalists have been among his most reliable campaign activists and voting blocs. Trump formed a political alliance with evangelicals during his first run for office, delivered them a six to three conservative majority on the Supreme Court and is now espousing the Christian right’s long-running argument that Christians are so severely persecuted that it necessitates a federal response.
In a December campaign speech in Iowa, he said “Marxists and fascists” are “going hard” against Catholics. “Upon taking office, I will create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias to be led by a fully reformed Department of Justice that’s fair and equitable” and that will “investigate all forms of illegal discrimination.”
On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Trump promoted on his social media a video that suggests his campaign is, actually, a divine mission from God.
In 2019, Trump’s then-secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, set up a federal commission to define human rights based on the precepts Vought describes, specifically “natural law and natural rights.” Natural law is the belief that there are universal rules derived from God that can’t be superseded by government or judges. While it is a core pillar of Catholicism, in recent decades it’s been used to oppose abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and contraception.
Vought sees his and his organization’s mission as “renew[ing] a consensus of America as a nation under God,” per a statement on CRA’s website, and reshaping the government’s contract with the governed. Freedom of religion would remain a protected right, but Vought and his ideological brethren would not shy from using their administration positions to promote Christian doctrine and imbue public policy with it, according to both people familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to avoid retaliation. He makes clear reference to human rights being defined by God, not man.
America should be recognized as a Christian nation “where our rights and duties are understood to come from God,” Vought wrote two years ago in Newsweek.
“It is a commitment to an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society,” he continued, noting such a framework “can lead to beneficial outcomes for our own communities, as well as individuals of all faiths.”
He went on to accuse detractors of Christian nationalism of invoking the term to try to scare people. "’Christian nationalism’ is actually a rather benign and useful description for those who believe in both preserving our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage and making public policy decisions that are best for this country,” he wrote. “The term need not be subjected to such intense scorn due to misunderstanding or slander.”
To ingratiate himself in conservative circles — and Christian conservative ones — Trump has often turned to operatives from them. Among those who helped was Vought.
As OMB director in the Trump administration, Vought became a disciple of the “America First” movement. He has been a steadfast proponent of keeping the U.S. out of foreign wars and slashing federal spending.
CRA is already wielding influence on Trump’s positions. His thinking on withdrawing the U.S. from NATO and using military force against Mexican drug cartels is partly inspired by separate CRA papers, according to reports by Rolling Stone.
“Russell Vought did a fabulous job in my administration, and I have no doubt he will do a great job in continuing our quest to make America great again,” reads a Trump quote prominently placed on CRA’s website.
Trump will have a major platform to convey his vision for Christian policy in a second term when, on Feb. 22, he addresses a National Religious Broadcasters forum in Nashville. The group is the world’s largest association of Christian communicators.
Trump is also talking about bringing his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a vocal proponent of Christian nationalism, back into office. Flynn is currently focused on recruiting what he calls an “Army of God” — as he barnstorms the country promoting his vision of putting Christianity at the center of American life.
Vought’s beliefs over time have been informed by his relationship with Wolfe. The two spent time together at Heritage Action, a conservative policy advocacy group. And Vought has praised their yearslong partnership. “I’m proud to work with @William_E_Wolfe on scoping out a sound Christian Nationalism,” he posted on X, then Twitter, in January 2023.
Vought often echoes Wolfe’s principles, including on immigration. “Jesus Christ wasn’t an open-borders socialist,” Wolfe wrote for The Daily Caller in April while a visiting CRA fellow. “The Bible unapologetically upholds the concept of sovereign nations.”
While speaking in September at American Moment’s “Theology of American Statecraft: The Christian Case for Immigration Restriction” on Capitol Hill in September, Vought defended the widely-criticized practice of family separation at the border during the Trump years, telling the audience “the decision to defend the rule of law necessitates the separation of families.”
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 offers more visibility into what policy agenda a future Trump administration might pursue. It says policies that support LGBTQ+ rights, subsidize “single-motherhood” and penalize marriage should be repealed because subjective notions of “gender identity” threaten “Americans’ fundamental liberties.”
It also proposes increasing surveillance of abortion and maternal mortality reporting in the states, compelling the Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval of “chemical abortion drugs” and protecting “religious and moral” objections for employers who decline contraception coverage for employees. One of the groups that partners with Project 2025, Turning Point USA, is among conservative influencers that health professionals have criticized for targeting young women with misleading health concerns about hormonal birth control. Another priority is defunding Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive health care to low-income women.
Wolfe, who has deleted several posts on X that detail his views, has a more extreme outlook of what a government led by Christian nationalists should propose. In a December post, he called for ending sex education in schools, surrogacy and no-fault divorce throughout the country, as well as forcing men “to provide for their children as soon as it’s determined the child is theirs” — a clear incursion by the government into Americans’ private lives.
“Christians should reject a Christ-less ‘conservatism,’” he expanded in another X missive, “and demand the political movement we are most closely associated with make a return to Christ-centered foundations. Because it’s either Christ or chaos, even on the ‘Right.’”
Wolfe declined to comment.
The effort to imbue laws with biblical principles is already underway in some states. In Texas, Christian conservative supporters have pressured the legislature to require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom; targeted prohibitions on churches against direct policy advocacy and organized campaigns around “culture war” issues, including curbing LGBTQ+ rights, banning books and opposing gun safety laws.
“There’s been a tectonic shift in how the leadership of the religious right operates,” said Matthew Taylor, a scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies, who grew up evangelical. “These folks aren’t as interested in democracy or working through democratic systems as in the old religious right because their theology is one of Christian warfare.”
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Trump shares bizarre Biblical video saying God made him to be America’s ‘caretaker’
Donald Trump has shared an eerie video on the eve of the Iowa caucuses in which he appears to proclaim himself God’s chosen emissary on Earth – sent to deliver America back to prosperity.
The three-minute clip, posted to Truth Social on Sunday evening, opens on grainy footage of an LP turning on a record player, broadcasting an apparently ancient sermon in which a preacher intones: “And on 14 June 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a caretaker.’
“So God gave us Trump,” the voiceover adds.
What follows – set to a photograph of the Republican tycoon as an holy infant followed by a montage of apt scenes from his presidency – continues with a wild cod-scripture narration.
“God said I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, fix this country, work all day, fight the Marxists, eat supper, then go to the Oval Office and stay past midnight at a meeting of the heads of state. So God made Trump,” the voiceover says.
“I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle the Deep State and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild.
“Somebody to ruffle the feathers, tame the cantankerous World Economic Forum, come home hungry, have to wait until the First Lady is done with lunch with friends, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon – and mean it. So God gave us Trump.”
Whether the Bible really contains allusions to Marxists, the Deep State, the Oval Office and the World Economic Forum is likely to be a matter of some debate among religious scholars but, after the odd diversion in which “God” complains about the candidate’s wife, Melania Trump, taking leisurely lunches with her girlfriends and Mr Trump’s exhausting political schedule, the video abandons its conceit and pivots to straight campaign rhetoric.
“I need somebody who can shape an axe but wield a sword, who had the courage to set foot in North Korea, who can make money from the tar of the sand, turn liquid to gold, who understands the difference between tariffs and inflation, will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then put in another 72 hours. So God made Trump,” it continues.
The preacher then picks up the thread again and continues: “God had to have somebody willing to go into the den of vipers, call out the Fake News for their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s. The poison of vipers is on their lips…”
The bizarre video concludes with “God” anointing Mr Trump as the “shepherd” to lead his flock and pledging that his man (assuming he can secure the Republican nomination and beat Joe Biden at the polls in November) will drill for fossil fuels, create more American jobs, secure the southern border, build the US military and “fight the system all day” while still finding time to attend church on Sundays.
Mr Trump’s message, as oddly weary as it is strident, is clearly intended to attract the votes of America’s conservative evangelical Christian community as the primary season finally gets underway in the Midwest on Monday.
Mr Trump is widely expected to trounce his closest rivals Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley in the Iowa caucuses.
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Christian Right Observer Weekly (Volume 14)
1. Leonard Leo Allies Plan to Challenge State Efforts to Protect Abortion Access
In 2017, the Trump administration officially supported a House bill that would have banned abortion nationwide after 20 weeks. Trump has since supposedly reversed course, however, presumably because he realized that he could not win re-election in 2024 while publicly supporting a federal abortion ban. He now claims that individual states have the right to protect abortion access if that’s what they want to do:
“Everybody agrees — you’ve heard this for years — all the legal scholars on both sides agree: it’s a state issue. It shouldn’t be a federal issue, it’s a state issue,” Trump recently declared.
Trump’s remarks are misleading at best. Unbeknownst to most voters, allies of Supreme Court “puppetmaster” Leonard Leo (who advised Trump on all three of his Supreme Court nominations) are already teeing up a plan to thwart state efforts to protect abortion access.
Those allies include attorney Robert George (a Princeton University professor and Leo confidante) as well as Orange County attorney Tim Busch who sits on the board of the Napa Legal Institute with Leo.
As we reported last week, Busch has glowingly referred to the Supreme Court as the “Leo Court,” reflecting Leo’s close ties to all six members of the Court’s right wing supermajority, including the three justices that Trump nominated upon Leo’s recommendation. (See Brief #3.)
Those three Trump justices sided with the majority in Dobbs, the case that overturned Roe v Wade in 2022.
Contrary to Trump’s recent remarks, Busch and Professor George argue that states cannot legally protect abortion access. In support of this position, they claim that a fetus qualifies as a “person” under the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment.
Busch has promoted this “fetal personhood” argument during a post-Dobbs event organized by the Napa Institute (which Busch co-founded).
Professor George has promoted this same argument during an appearance on EWTN, the largest Catholic media network in America.
Likewise, Professor George has promoted fetal personhood in an article published in 2023 by the Federalist Society, which is co-chaired by Leonard Leo. There, Professor George and his co-author wrote that “state laws allowing elective abortion … violate constitutional rights” because they “deprive a class of human beings—those at the earliest developmental stages—of ‘the equal protection of the laws.’”
Professor George had previously advocated fetal personhood in an amicus brief filed in the Dobbs case that overturned Roe. Similarly, the fetal personhood argument was presented in a pre-Dobbs article published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center where Professor George sits on the board of directors.
Leo sits on the same board.
In Dobbs, the “Leo Court” found it unnecessary to decide the fetal personhood issue. But we should expect Leo’s network to present it to them again after the 2024 election, especially if Trump wins that election, which would enable Leo and his associates to maintain and perhaps even expand right wing control over the Court.
2. Tucker Whitewashes Christian Nationalist Kingpin Doug Wilson
Doug Wilson is a highly controversial pastor who leads Christ Church in the town of Moscow, Idaho, with the express goal of transforming the small city into a “Christian town.” In 2023, Wilson’s family publishing company, Canon Press, released a book titled “The Case for Christian Nationalism.” The book is itself highly controversial because, among other reasons, it advocates an ethnically uniform nation ruled by a “Christian Prince,” as detailed by Reason magazine.
Wilson, who has personally promoted the book, was recently interviewed by Tucker Carlson who seemed determined to create the false impression that the brand of “Christian Nationalism” espoused by Wilson constitutes mainstream Christianity.
The interview conspicuously omitted, for example, any discussion of the book’s promotion of a “Christian Prince” and ethnic uniformity. Nor did it mention Wilson’s advocacy of biblical patriarchy, the idea that God expects men to lead and women to submit.
During the interview, Tucker also overlooked Wilson’s infamous remarks regarding slavery, including Wilson’s assertion that “slavery as it existed in the South … was a relationship based on mutual affection and confidence.” Likewise, Tucker ignored Wilson’s extreme anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, such as Wilson’s assertion on his blog that “supporting same-sex marriage” is “a far more serious problem” than “supporting slavery.”
In addition to this softball interview of Wilson, Tucker has recently interviewed Wilson ally Meg Basham (a Claremont Institute alum) and Santiago Pliego, a graduate of New Saint Andrew’s College, which was founded by Wilson in Moscow, Idaho.
It should thus surprise no one if Tucker decides to platform more Wilson enthusiasts, such as Stephen Wolfe who wrote The Case for Christian Nationalism (the book published by Canon) and William Wolfe, a self-professed “Christian Nationalist” who is closely tied to Project 2025 leader Russ Vought, as first reported by Politico journalist Heidi Przybyla. (Link to tweet.)
In addition to his collaboration with Vought, William Wolfe is a co-editor of the “Statement on Christian Nationalism” manifesto, as Jenny reported for the Beacon. He has enthusiastically promoted Stephen’s book but the two men are apparently not related, despite having the same last name and similar ideologies.
William (who has equated multiculturalism with murder) recently founded the Center for Baptist Leadership (CBL), whose goal is to steer the Southern Baptist Convention further right, as we reported last week. (See Brief #2.) While promoting CBL, Wolfe has said that he wants Southern Baptists to embrace “smash-mouth fundamentalism.” He wrote on X that the phrase was inspired by Wilson.
CBL states on its website that it is “supported” by American Reformer, which was co-founded by Claremont Institute fellow Josh Abbotoy and Claremont Institute alum Nate Fischer. Abbotoy has remarked on X that “America is going to need a Protestant Franco.”
For those who don’t know, Francisco Franco was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist forces that overthrew Spain’s democratic republic in the 1930s and established a military dictatorship, executing tens of thousands of Spaniards in the process.
As for Fischer, he belongs to a secretive men’s society, the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), as reported by the Guardian. SACR was founded by shampoo magnate Charles Haywood who shares Abbotoy’s admiration of Franco.
Haywood recently thanked Wilson for promoting “NEOTR,” which stands for “No Enemies On the Right,” a phrase coined by Haywood.
A separate investment firm started by Fischer, New Founding, lists Abbotoy as a Managing Partner on its website. New Founding’s staff includes Santiago Pliego and Joshua Clemans, both graduates of New Saint Andrews College, which was founded by Wilson in Moscow, Idaho, as shown in this thread.
One of New Founding’s projects involves building Christian communities in Appalachia. The project (known as “RidgeRunner” or the “Highland Rim project”) was seemingly inspired by Wilson who has built his own mini fiefdom in Moscow, Idaho.
Fischer and Abbotoy apparently anticipate some sort of attack because New Founding also partners with body-armor supplier Armored Republic.
In addition, New Founding partners with Kindred Harvest, an organic food and beverage company. Despite its wholesome sounding name, Kindred was co-founded by Raw Egg Nationalist, an anonymous influencer with an apparent affinity for Nazi images and dog whistles, as shown in this thread, as well as here. Raw Egg Nationalist has also published a cookbook through Antelope Hill, a Pennsylvania-based company known for its publication of historical works by Nazis and other fascists.
Tucker interviewed Raw Egg Nationalist last year. “NEOTR” indeed.
3. Releasing the Government of God in Oklahoma
"We release the Government of God - and the devil has no part of that story." - Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network Oklahoma Apostle Garland Dale Thomas
Christian Dominionist Apostle Thomas spoke those words not in his church but in the Oklahoma State Capitol. His appearance is part of his stealth assignment praying every Monday in the Oklahoma State Capitol as per elected officials’ request which he revealed in New Apostolic Reformation Movement Apostle Chuck Pierce's Surrounding the Nation Oklahoma call. His weekly Prayer meetings can be found under OK Worship at the Capitol where legislators like Representative Danny Williams have attended.
Prior to the launch of these Capitol Prayer Meetings, Apostle Thomas appeared with Christian Dominionist David Barton and OK Representative Josh Brecheen in 2022. Brecheen and Thomas have also attended theonomy seeking City Elders meetings. Thomas Oklahoma governmental connections also extend to Governor Kevin Stitt, another City Elders frequent flier.
“You believe that man has great potential for evil … All our government is made of fallen men, so our government has potential for great evil.”
This sermon about the government was not delivered by Apostle Thomas, but by his daughter Dr. Julie Mcintosh who is running for State Senate. Thomas has called his daughter an Apostolic Chief and has helped her on the campaign trail. Like her father, Mcintosh has also appeared at a Christian Dominionist City Elders meeting. Oklahomans must seriously consider if they want to take part in the battle of a Heavenlies Civil War when they cast their vote in November.
“We have same good versus evil Civil War going on in our country … There's a Civil War going on in the Heavenlies..Battle will continue until Christ comes & reigns” - Oklahoma State Senator candidate Julie Mcintosh
4. Christian Dominionist Sean Feucht Influences in Harrisburg: A Tale of 4 Events
National Day of Prayer
“We're convinced this is a place [Pennsylvania] that is significant for America and for the future of the world.” -New Apostolic Reformation Apostle Charles Stock of Harrisburg Life Center Ministries
Christian Dominionist Sean Feucht was strategically gathering in his former home base of Pennsylvania this week to prepare for his upcoming Harrisburg Capitol event on October 11. On social media Feucht recently recounted a dream where someone tried to take him out at the PA upcoming event.
Feucht was the crowning post event attraction for the National Day of Prayer Harrisburg Capitol event featuring NAR Apostles Abby Abildness and Stock.
Several elected officials attended or participated in three event:
Representative Marla Brown ,who has spoken at NAR Apostle Mark Kauffman’s International Network of Kingdom Builders event.
Representative Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz
Senator Cris Dush who is part of Abildness Apostolic Hub where she and Intercessors give real time recommendations on bills.
The National Day of Prayer event was coordinated by Kurt Weaver of Church Ambassador Network of Pennsylvania which is an outreach ministry of NAR Life Center.
When reflecting on this Harrisburg event, constituents must remember that Abildness once said:
“I [God] want Harrisburg to be mine. I want it to be known as City of God.”
Pastors Gathering
“The government is upon your shoulders.” - Sean Feucht
After the day of prayer segment, pastors attended a gathering with Sean to help coordinate his tentative October 11 date for Kingdom to the Capitol in Harrisburg. Pastors weren't the only ones attending. Representative David Zimmerman who networks often with Abildness was present along with Abildness. Northeast Regional Director of Patriot Academy Toni Shuppe spoke as did Christian Dominionist Senator Doug Mastriano. Feucht stressed that Pennsylvania was his last state Capitol stop before his Washington D.C. Capitol event strategically timed before the election.
Life Center Worship & US Capitol
“One person + God = A Majority” -Sean Feucht
Feucht appeared at Life Center giving an end times sermon that same evening before traveling with Apostle Stock to the Washington DC National Day of Prayer event to worship in the US Capitol.
“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” - Sean Feucht
Further recommended reading:
5. Christian Nationalism Is on the Ballot in North Dakota State Legislative Race
The Bad News: First-term GOP State Rep. Brandon Prichard is an example of the Christian Right’s Gen Z Holy Warriors.
Prichard called on "conservative states" to codify the idea that "Jesus Christ is King and dedicate their states to him." He also wants to limit how non Christians worship.
He, of course, is also an anti-LGBTQ bigot.
The Good News: Rob Port, a reporter and columnist for In Forum, is covering the story. And he is being primaried.
He represents the future of the MAGA-Christian Nationalist Republican Party, as well as the threat against those of us who believe in a secular, inclusive, multi-racial democracy.
6. Christian Nationalism and Public Policy in the U.S.
Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy brought together experts from across the country for a one-day conference to explore the following questions: Why does Christian Nationalism exist? What are its origins? Is it most closely related to race or religion? What implications will it have on local and national politics and policies?
Check out the amazing lineup and watch the video below.
7. New Book: “Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace”
Elizabeth Neumann, who served as a Homeland Security official in the Trump administration before quitting in 2020 has a new book out – Kingdom of Rage: The Rise Of Christian Extremism And The Path Back to Peace. She was inspired to write the book in part by the horror of Jan. 6, and the role many self proclaimed Christians played in the attempt to overthrow our democracy. She told NPR in an interview: “The people that were committing these horrific acts were praying. They were carrying pictures of Jesus. They were carrying signs that had Bible verses on it.”
From Hatchette Book Group: “In Kingdom of Rage, Neumann explores the forces within American society that have encouraged the radicalization of white supremacist, anti-government and other far-right terrorists by co-opting Christian symbols and culture and perverting the faith’s teachings.While Neumann offers decades of insights into the role government policies can play to prevent further bloodshed, she believes real change must come from the within the Christian church. She shines a bright light on the responsibility of ordinary Americans – and particularly American Christians – to work within their families and their communities to counteract the narrative of victimization and marginalization within American evangelicalism. Her goal for this book is not only to sound a warning about one of the greatest threats to our security but to rescue the Church from the forces that will, if left unchecked, destroy it – culturally, morally, and ultimately quite literally. This is a book for anyone who wants to understand the unholy marriage of right-wing politics and Christian exceptionalism in America and who wants to be a part of reversing the current path towards division, hatred, violence and the ultimate undermining of both evangelical Christianity and American democracy.”
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Court Approves Vigilante Mass Voter Challenges
Devastating Threat To 2024 Election
- by Greg Palast
- for the Thom Hartmann Report
Be afraid.
A federal court in Georgia ruled on Tuesday that the challenge to 360,000 Georgians’ right to vote, suspiciously targeting Black voters, does not violate the federal Voting Rights Act. Judge Steve C. Jones slapped aside the suit brought by Stacy Abrams’ Fair Fight against Texas group True the Vote, which had created the hit list of voters.
Biden, who only won Georgia by 11,000 votes in 2020, may have to kiss the state goodbye in November. And because the ruling came down from a federal court, True the Vote has a green light to expand its mass challenge of voters to other states including, according to the triumphant group itself, Arizona, Texas and several other swing states.
One disastrous decision by the court helped sink Fair Fight’s case. Fair Fight needed to show that the 80 vigilante challengers relied on True the Votes’ target list. The incriminating evidence was caught on camera and included in our film Vigilante: Georgia’s Vote Suppression Hitman. Republican Party official Pam Reardon personally challenged a breathtaking 32,379 voters. Reardon told me, cameras rolling, that she didn’t bother to check any of the info on these voters because she simply took the list from True the Vote.
GOP official Reardon said, “I can’t go through 32,000 people. I was handed the list by True the Vote [who] vetted it.”
Case closed…except the judge would not let Fair Fight put our film into evidence.
A key witness was career military man Gamaliel Turner, 70, whose father founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King. Turner was working on a contract with the Pentagon, assigned to Fort Hueneme in California, requiring him to move temporarily from his home near his base at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was challenged by Republican County chairman Alton Russell as not an eligible citizen.
Army Major Turner (now retired) was told, when he didn’t receive his absentee ballot, that he had to fly to Georgia to prove his American citizenship. In Vigilante, he relates his call to his elections board after the Russell challenge,
“So you’re telling me, 2600 miles away, two days or three days before the election, if I want to vote, all I have to do is show up and prove, as an American citizen, that I have the right to vote!”
The Major was allowed to testify in the Fair Fight case but our film — film that showed Alton Russell’s confession to the reckless, threatening challenge — could not be admitted. (Federal court rules of evidence are a minefield that can make no sense to mortals. That’s why they call it “law” school and not “justice” school.)
Fair Fight had sued True the Vote for violating Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act which bans “intimidation” of voters. Case law defines, “intimidation” as any act which is “intended to deter individuals from exercising their right to vote,” from outright violence to acts “that inspire fear of economic harm.”
The court ruled that what Major Turner went through did not constitute “intimidation,” but rather “inconvenience.” Watch the film of the Major confronting his accuser Russell — who literally dresses up as the vigilante Doc Holliday as a performer — and tell me the Major did not feel intimidated, that he did not fear economic and emotional harm:
The Major won’t Surrender
I just spoke with Major Turner. He does not understand how True the Vote’s actions, including announcing that Seal Team members were recruited to appear at polling stations to enforce their challenges, could be seen as anything but intimidation.
The court also ruled that little harm was done because 99% of True the Vote vigilante challenges were reversed by threatened voters and county elections boards. That ignores the year-long campaign by voting rights groups that included showings of Vigilante all over the state, our website where voters could see if they were on a challenge list, even a billboard over Atlanta with our narrator, Rosario Dawson, pleading with voters to re-check their registrations. All this effort to simply protect voting rights Americans of color thought they’d won half a century ago.
The Major is not a soldier who will lay down his legal weapons. He is now working with one of Georgia’s premiere trial lawyers, Gerald Griggs, President of the NAACP of Georgia (and pro bono attorney for the Palast Investigative Fund) on other paths in federal law to stop these mass challenges which reek of racism.
I spoke with Griggs from Atlanta who said that the ruling sets, “a dangerous precedent for those who want to engage in vote suppression,” though he warned bad actors that the ruling in the Fair Fight suit will not stop the NAACP’s plans to block new vigilante challenges.
Vigilantes Inc—our next film exposé
The Palast team is not done either. We are updating our film featuring the Major and True the Vote — and, to match True the Votes’ expansion — expanding our exposé to include Arizona, Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida and other states. The expanded film’s new title: Vigilantes Inc.: America’s Vote Suppression Hitmen.
Major Turner is also concerned that the public is not only losing interest in the evils of vote suppression, and, worse, losing interest in voting itself. He’s frustrated that many people, not excited by their ballot choices, are suppressing their own vote by not bothering to get to the polls. Forget the candidates, he tells us, it’s not about them because democracy itself is always on the ballot. “Democracy,” says Turner, “should be the rock star.”
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6% of six states will decide the presidential election
The titanic Biden-Trump election likely will be decided by roughly 6% of voters in just six states, top strategists in both parties tell us.
- Each side will spend billions to reach those voters over the next six months.
Why it matters: Roughly 244 million Americans will be eligible to vote. But 99.5% of us won't be deciders: We won't vote. Or we always vote the same way. Or we live in states virtually certain to be red or blue.
Zoom in: Both campaigns are obsessed with six states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
- Those were the battlegrounds disputed by Donald Trump after the 2020 election. And they're the '24 toss-ups, as rated by The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
- A seventh state, North Carolina, is included in some swing-state polls. It's rated "Lean R" by Cook. The other 43 states are either "solid" or "likely" for one of the parties.
Reality check: In our private conversations, Democrats are a lot more worried about November than Republicans are. Democrats say the race is winnable. Republicans think they're winning. The swing-state map is a big reason why.
- An April poll of swing states by Bloomberg and Morning Consult found President Biden two points ahead in Michigan, with Trump ahead or statistically tied in every other swing state.
- Trump was ahead by a sizable 6 points across the seven states polled. (The margin of error was 1 point. The poll didn't include independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)
Between the lines: The Trump campaign is talking to that 6% of persuadable voters when it hammers immigration, crime and inflation.
- Biden is aiming at the 6% when he emphasizes abortion, democracy and stability — and says in response to Trump's vows for a second term: "Do you want to go back to any of that? I don't think so."
By the numbers: Biden's winning margin in the six swing states in 2020 totaled just over 300,000 votes out of 158 million cast for president nationwide.
- The Washington Post found that the winner would have changed by flipping just over 81,000 votes in four states (Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Georgia).
Zoom out: We perked up our ears when we heard a Biden insider use the "6% of six states" formulation as a proxy for how narrow a group of voters are considered truly in play — swing voters in swing states.
- Republicans are making a similar calculation. A Trump insider told us that persuadable voters are below 10% in every battleground: "I think it's probably 6% in Wisconsin but 8% in Michigan, and lower in Arizona."
The big picture: Doug Sosnik, a senior adviser to President Clinton and widely followed election oracle, tells us the map is so narrow largely because states are tightly clustered by educational level, turning them predictably red or blue.
- "Education now transcends race as the best predictor of voting," he told us. "People are increasingly choosing to live around others who share their values and beliefs, which has led to a homogenization of how communities vote."
Sosnik says Trump — who won in 2016 by carrying Midwest battlegrounds with large percentages of voters without a college degree — was a massive beneficiary of this great sort.
- "Trump got in front of this line that had been forming for 15 years," Sosnik told us. "This realignment around education, with Republicans picking up working-class voters, first surfaced in the 1992 election: Pat Buchanan challenged President George H.W. Bush for the Republican nomination, and Ross Perot's third-party candidacy got nearly 20 million votes."
What we're watching: At the Republican National Committee's spring meeting in Palm Beach, Fla., over the weekend, Trump's campaign showed donors a deck arguing that Minnesota and Virginia — both of which Biden won handily in 2020 — belong on the list of states in play.
- A top Democratic strategist dismissed that as spin. "MN is to them what FL is to us," the strategist texted. "Attractive but unwinnable."
The bottom line: Trump needs to pick off one of the Midwestern Blue Wall states he lost in 2020 (Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania).
- Under current electoral-vote rules in Nebraska and Maine, if Biden holds the Blue Wall, he wins, Axios' Alex Thompson notes.
- Many strategists in both parties believe Pennsylvania and its 19 electoral votes could wind up being the decisive state.
Go deeper: Sosnik memo from 2023 on education as the new fault line in U.S. politics.
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Can you trust 2024 election polls on Donald Trump and Joe Biden? Here's how to cut through the noise.
Love them or hate them, political polls aren’t going anywhere. As the 2024 presidential election kicks into high gear, the internet will be flooded with surveys tracking the horserace between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Keeping track of the numbers can be daunting: Who's ahead in national polls? Who's ahead in state-level surveys? Figuring out which numbers to pay attention to – and whether any of it actually matters – can be even more challenging.
Luckily, the USA TODAY Network has got you covered. Here’s a refresher on why polls matter, whether you can trust them and what to look out for this year.
What do polls tell us about the election?
Think of polls as quick snapshots rather than crystal ball readings.
They don’t necessarily predict the results of an election. Rather, they’re used to gauge how people feel about a race during a specific period. Pollsters may ask questions about the future, but surveys have more to say about the voters' current temperature.
Polls also tend to have a short shelf life. Public opinion can shift quickly, meaning that the results of polls are often only a reliable measure of the state of a race during the time they were taken.
A survey taken two months ago won’t reflect the state of a race today, and a poll fielded tomorrow won’t tell us who is going to win the presidential election in November.
However, that doesn't mean polls captured at the beginning of a campaign cycle don't matter. The insights from early polls tease out the major issues voters are thinking about that could shape the race. They also help trace the trendlines of how a candidate is performing – whether they’re gaining traction, stagnating or losing support.
Pollster John Zogby likened the importance of looking at early polling to checking benchmarks while trying to reach an exercise goal.
“Am I going to get on the scale the day before to see how I did?” said Zogby. “No, I get on the scale every so often to say what am I doing? How am I doing? What am I doing right?”
Conducting polls early in a race and often throughout the course of an election allows political scientists, journalists and the public to track trends and spot major inflection points in campaigns.
Beware of two-candidate polls
Not all polls are built the same. The way a survey is designed, from how questions are worded to the demographics of the participants chosen, can influence the accuracy of its results.
David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said political polls are most accurate when they replicate as closely as possible the questions and options voters will see on their ballot.
For instance, he said that polls on the 2024 presidential election should include choices beyond the two major party candidates – Trump and Biden – because most ballots will contain third-party and independent candidates who will garner some support.
“If the polls only show a binary choice, between Trump or Biden, you're not getting the full picture,” Paleologos said.
He pointed to close margins in critical swing states, including Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia, during the 2020 election as an example. Trump lost in those states by fewer votes than Libertarian Party candidate Jo Jorgensen received.
If Jorgensen had not been in the race, the results in those battlegrounds, and possibly the outcome of the election nationally, could have looked markedly different, Paleologos said.
The Libertarian Party hasn’t yet chosen its candidate for the 2024 election. But early polls that include the party and other independent candidates as options are likely to more accurately show how disaffected voters are looking at their options, he explained.
Suffolk University and USA TODAY have a partnership collecting polling data and insights.
Who's being polled?
Another factor that can impact a poll’s accuracy is the sample population surveyed. Polls randomly select a small sample of people designed to represent the broader views and attitudes of a larger population. But every organization uses different methodologies to create their samples.
For instance, some election polls take the temperature of the general population, while others only include active voters or likely voters. They also may weigh demographic information, such as the ratio of Democrats to Republicans, differently.
In the 2024 race, Zogby, author of the forthcoming book "Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should," suggested that the most accurate polls include only likely voters, the pool of people already planning to cast a ballot in November.
“A likely voter today may not be a likely voter on October 31,” Zogby said, but capturing these voters allows political scientists to better understand the Americans who will choose the next president.
Should I pay attention to national polls or state surveys?
Pollsters were lambasted in 2016 for projecting that then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would win the election over Trump.
But national polls, which are supposed to reflect the popular vote across all states, were technically right. Overall, Clinton won nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump.
So, what went wrong? Many analysts overstated Clinton’s lead in national polls, and few organizations conducted state-specific polls in former Democratic strongholds, such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, that Trump was able to capture. His wins in those states ultimately landed him the electoral college victory.
That’s not to say that national polls are inferior to state polls, but you should think of them differently.
“National polls are more valuable to understand what the issues are impacting likely voters,” Paleologos said, while state polls better represent the horserace.
He and other polling experts told USA TODAY that Biden needs to lead Trump by three to four percentage points in a national poll to be tied with the Republican in the electoral college. That's because large liberal-leaning states like California and New York tend to tilt the results of national polls in Democrats’ favor, whereas the "electoral college these days skews Republican," Zogby said.
In other words, a national poll showing Biden and Trump tied would tell a similar story to a swing state poll that shows Trump leading Biden by a few points. But generally, experts warn against comparing national and state surveys, which are built off of different methodologies, against one another.
Can you trust the polls?
Mostly. Because polls are analyzing a myriad of shifting factors, they'll always have some level of uncertainty baked in, regardless of the specific election. Organizations also don’t collaborate on what states they plan to poll, or when, which means there’s always potential for blind spots, like in 2016.
Some political observers rely on poll averages, such as a tally from Real Clear Politics. These are generally reliable, but they can miss trends.
But when interpreted properly, polls often provide an accurate portrait of the state of an election.
“There are folks that will say, ‘Oh, you missed the election by two points,’” Zogby said. "Well, two points – that showed the ballpark of what was going to happen.”
And the more polls there are, the easier it is to evaluate the race.
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