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Fake Quotes From an Imaginary Progressive Pope Leo XIV
Season 6 · Episode 19
Tuesday, May 20, 2025 • Duration 10:45
Your friends on social media may have reposted inspiring graphics in which Pope Leo XIV (AKA Robert Prevost) said, “To be called woke in a world that sleeps through suffering is no insult.”
It’s bogus. Pope Leo XIV never said any such thing.
An atheist made up the fake quote using an artificial intelligence chatbot in order to see how many people would fall for the hoax. “The fact that so many of you wanted this to be true shows how far Catholicism is from real progress,” he said, revealing the fake.
Pope Leo XIV also never said that “To be woke is not a threat. It is a calling.” That’s another fake quote. Pope Leo XIV has never defended the woke perspective. In fact, he has criticized it.
What about the following statement, though?
"You cannot follow both Christ and the cruelty of kings. A leader who mocks the weak, exalts himself, and preys on the innocent is not sent by God. He is sent to test you. And many are failing."
Nope. It’s another fake quote. Pope Leo XIV didn’t say it.
There’s a longer quote claiming to be from Pope Leo XIV that people have been forwarding around in which the new Pope directly criticizes Donald Trump:
“Trump, the immigration policies you've implemented are a blatant trampling on both the teachings of the church and the promises of the American dream. You've made a big show of declaring a state of emergency at the border, dispatched the military to enforce the law there, canceled birthright citizenship and even had law enforcement officers barge into places like churches and schools which are supposed to be inviolable to arrest illegal immigrants. You're turning the United States into a country that has no room for tolerance, going completely against the diversity that the U.S. has always advocated. In order to win those so-called votes and pander to some extreme voters, you've resorted to all means to create external enemies and have intensified social conflicts. All of your actions are a hideous manifestation of white supremacist ideology. What's more, the incident of you accepting an airplane from the cartel is truly despicable. Such behavior of yours has seriously damaged the image of public officials. You're simply using your power as a tool to seek personal gains. I, Robert Prevost, firmly oppose everything that you stand for. Every single thing you've done is dragging the United States into the abyss of darkness and undermining the very foundation of this country.”
By this point, you know what I’m going to say. Yes, it’s a completely fake quote. This supposed statement by Pope Leo XIV was uploaded in a video that was explicitly labeled as generated by AI tools.
When Pope Leo XIV did not speak up for liberal social values, liberal Christians seized upon fake quotes in order to avoid confronting the brutal reality that the Catholic Church is an anti-liberal organization.
What Pope Leo XIV Actually Has Said
In a previous episode of this podcast, I noted Pope Leo XIV’s verbal attack against atheists, accusing them of causing all of the problems that have in fact been caused by Christian Nationalists. Pope Leo XIV said:
"A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society."
Now, Pope Leo XIV has issued a new statement criticizing LGBTQ marriages, saying that governments around the world should only support families that are “founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman”. Pope Leo XIV has also criticized what he calls the “homosexual lifestyle”.
Pope Leo XIV has not made a single statement or gesture that criticizes Donald Trump. At the same time, Pope Leo XIV is criticizing the acceptance of non-Christians and LGBTQ people.
People are spreading false quotes from Pope Leo XIV because the real statements the new Pope is making are unpalatable. Pope Leo XIV is not a liberal. Like every other Pope before him, Pope Leo punches down.
Pope Leo XIV is turning a blind eye to the abuses of Christian Nationalism. He won’t be coming to the rescue of an America that is falling into Christofascism.
The Idiocy Of Christian Nationalist Magic
Season 6 · Episode 17
Monday, May 12, 2025 • Duration 11:49
The traditional American view of politics is that the population chooses leaders who represent their interests, and manage a government that meets their needs. The government is organized into different departments, which are staffed by people who have studied their areas of expertise, and deliver specialized services for the good of the country.
The Christian Nationalist view of politics is quite different from that. Under Christian Nationalism, people hope that their needs will be met through the magical services of spirits whose powers can be summoned through ritual incantations.
Consider the following prophecy made by Christian Nationalists in July, 2020. The prophecy said that Democrats seek to destroy the United States through spellcraft, political assassination, and allegiances with monsters.
“The goal is to put an evil black Communist woman in the White House, who is dedicated to the tearing down of America and the shredding of the Constitution. If she is a real witch, so much the better, since the Democrats have been using witches and wizards against Trump since he became president. Satan wants to control the White House. She will be the Vice President for Biden, and immediately after he is inaugurated, there will be a fatal accident and Biden will become history. Biden has committed himself to the Marxist agenda of Communist Bernie Sanders, so that is already the goal of the Democrats. And once this poor, senile, incompetent is vanished, freedom in America will be banished.”
In hindsight, we can see that this Christian Nationalist prophecy was not true.
Joe Biden did not advance a Communist agenda while in the White House.
Joe Biden was not assassinated by Kamala Harris.
Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris destroyed the Constitution. Neither did they banish freedom.
I shouldn’t have to say this, but wizards are not real. Witchcraft is not real. Demons are not real.
That this prophecy is nonsense should be obvious. The tragically absurd reality is that it isn’t obvious to many Americans.
In El Salvador and Texas, Brutal Christian Nationalism Is Taking Control
Season 6 · Episode 9
Friday, March 21, 2025 • Duration 16:06
Donald Trump has seized power, thrusting the United States into a constitutional crisis where absolute power rests in the hands of one man. This totalitarian brutality is inspired by the Christian Bible, where one magical dictator sets the rules for the entire world, and nobody else has any right to say no. In Texas, posters of the Ten Commandments in public schools are teaching children that slavery must be respected, that women are objects, and that freedom of religion is sinful. In West Virginia, a proposed constitutional amendment declares that the Bible is scientific truth and an inerrant historical document, while imposing Christianity on all citizens. These three places share the same despotic ideology of Christian Nationalism.
Christians Want A More Cruel America Survey Data Shows
Season 6 · Episode 8
Friday, March 7, 2025 • Duration 17:23
In a confirmation of exit polls from November 2024, The Pew Research Center data shows that Christian Americans are the group that most strongly identifies with the cruelty and chaos of Donald Trump.
This podcast episode starts out with Christian Nationalist preacher Andrew Isker explaining that in the new America controlled by Donald Trump, there will be no room for Jews. Even a Judeo-Christian theocracy would be too secular for him. Isker wants to replace American democracy with a Christian monarchy.
And what would that Christian monarchy look like?
Let’s not speculate. Let’s see what social scientific survey data shows American Christians want for the USA.
According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center:
First of all, the more religious you are in America, the more likely you are to identify with the Republican Party.
Confirming exit polls from the 2024 presidential election, among highly religious Americans, this new survey shows that 61% support the Republican Party of Donald Trump. Among Americans who are not very religious, only 27% support Donald Trump and the GOP.
Atheists are the least likely group in America to support Republicans – only 15% of atheists do. The majority of Christians, the survey found, support Republicans and Donald Trump. That’s not just Christian Nationalists, by the way. That’s Christians in general.
Donald Trump is a particularly Christian problem for America, not just a generally religious phenomenom.
Only 31 percent of Jews, 29 percent of Hindus, and 42 percent of Muslims support Donald Trump’s Republican Party. The majority of Christians do.
The survey found that 67 percent of atheists say they’re liberal.
Only 14 percent of Christians said that they’re liberal.
Being kind to others is mostly an atheist value. When it comes to welcoming of outsiders, for example only 27% of highly religious Americans in the survey said that immigrants make America better.
The Cruel Christianity of the GOP Cuts Into America
Season 6 · Episode 7
Tuesday, February 25, 2025 • Duration 25:22
A few days ago, The New York Times released a podcast episode reviewing a book written by its most extreme right wing columnist, Ross Douthat (pronounced, “dow that”). Douthat was featured on the episode, but was joined by two other New York Times writers, Michelle Cottle and Carlos Lozada.
The subtitle of the book expresses its central idea: “Everyone Should Be Religious”. Carlos Lozada expanded on that assertion, explaining that the goal of Douthat’s book is “to make this rational, empirical, intellectual case for religious belief.”
The odd thing is that the author, Ross Douthat didn’t make a single rational argument for being religious in the entire podcast episode. He merely stated,
“There probably is a God. The universe is probably made with you and with you, Carlos, and you, Michelle, and maybe even me in mind.”
Not once in the entire episode does Douthat provide any rational argument or source of empirical data to justify the belief that the entire universe, with its quasars, black holes, mostly consisting of a vast cold emptiness, was constructed specially for him. He simply states that it’s true, and expects the podcast audience to agree with him as a matter of faith.
Faith, devoid of facts and reason, was a perspective that Michelle Cottle got right on board with. She declared:
“Look, I’m a big fan of faith, and generally, it might surprise Ross, of organized religion. I do think people have this innate longing for a sense of purpose and order to the universe, and if you’re not believing in a divine power, you tend to gravitate toward less savory options, like political messiahs, whack job conspiracy theories, but look, I grew up Southern Baptist.”
Yes, Michelle Cottle is a Christian, and a big fan of religion. All three of the people participating in the podcast episode are Christians. They didn’t think to invite a non-religious person, or even one person from a non-Christian religion, to participate in the conversation. In New York City, that wouldn’t have been difficult to do, but the editors at the New York Times seem to have decided that non-Christian viewpoints are no longer appropriate for broadcasting and publication.
Trump and Musk Push A Return Of Nazis To Germany
Season 6 · Episode 6
Saturday, February 15, 2025 • Duration 19:43
Immediately after his victory in the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump met with representatives of Alternative For Germany. Then, Elon Musk, who has become a kind of unelected Chancellor of the United States of America, appeared as an official speaker at a Alternative For Germany convention, declaring that Germany must stop trying to distance itself from its Nazi past. Now, this weekend, Vice President JD Vance made a speech in the German city of Munich in which he announced that the German government must allow for political parties to promote Nazi ideology again, in the name of “free speech”, and urged the German parliament to stop trying to prevent the Alternative For Germany Party from taking power.
Vice President JD Vance was, in essence, calling for a return of the Nazis to power in Germany.
In case there could be any doubt at the pro-Nazi agenda of the Musk-Trump government’s delegation in Germany this weekend, the new American Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who has longstanding ties to American Nazi organizations, came along with JD Vance to Germany. Hegseth brought his own entourage to the event, which included a man named Jack Posobiec. Hegseth appointed Jack Posobiec as an official Trump White House media representative for the American delegation to Germany.
Jack Posobiec is an American Nazi has repeatedly used Nazi symbols and language in his communications, including the code 88, which stands for “Heil Hitler”, and the infamous Fourteen Words mantra, which is derived from Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf, and declares, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
One year ago, Jack Posobiec appeared as a speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference, and announced that it is the intention of the Republican Party to destroy American democracy forever. Listen to his words for yourself:
“Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it, and we will replace it with this. That’s right, we will replace it with this, because all glory is not to government. All glory is to God!”
With his words “replace it with this,” Jack Posobiec raised his hand in the air, to display a necklace with a Christian cross. At another microphone, Trump strategist Steve Bannon bellowed, “Amen!” The point was obvious. Jack Posobiec wants to end democracy, and replace it with Christian power.
Christian Leaders Applaud Fascism At National Prayer Breakfast
Season 6 · Episode 5
Tuesday, February 11, 2025 • Duration 23:27
At the National Prayer Breakfast, Donald Trump envisioned an America in which Christianity controls every aspect of life. He promises to make the United States a nation where nobody can escape the power of Christianity.
Donald Trump announced that he is creating a White House office dedicated to imposing Christian Nationalism, and that the Attorney General of the United States will form a task force to identify ways to impose Christianity through the American legal system. He bragged about his power, and praised the Christian god as a god of power.
He did these things having just ordered an end to US government spending on food for the hungry, medicine for the sick, and shelter for the homeless. He did this right after breaking the law to impose his power as an absolute fascist leader of the United States.
Over and over again, Christian leaders applauded the new fascist leader. They clapped and cheered for the man who gleefully made others suffer as a demonstration of his power.
At the National Prayer Breakfast, American Christian leaders showed their adoration for the raw power of fascism. They did so because they know that as Donald Trump’s power grows, the power of Christian leaders to enforce their religion across America will grow as well.
Christian Nationalism in a nation where the law is defined by one unchecked strongman is nothing more than a cult of power.
Christian Nationalists have sacrificed compassion to seize power, and in doing so, they have brought with them the worship of the Jesus of the Book of Revelation, a messiah of fury and vengeance. Theirs is a Jesus who lets the hungry starve, who treats the homeless as despicable plague, and who withholds medicine from the sick, all the while blaming them for their lack of faith.
Their Jesus is cruel and cold, and is ready to punish all those who refuse to accept his Almighty authority. Their Jesus is like their Trump. Their Trump is like their god. Theirs is a worship of power.
Trump Announces USA Will Own The Gaza Strip
Season 6 · Episode 4
Wednesday, February 5, 2025 • Duration 15:34
Donald Trump:
“It should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there and lived a miserable existence there. Instead, we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza. This can be paid for by neighboring countries of great wealth. It could be one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, twelve. It could be numerous sites or it could be one large site. The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative. It's right now a demolition site. This is just a demolition site. Virtually every building is down.
The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too. We will own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.”
Reporter:
“Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Prime Minister. You are talking tonight about the United States taking over a sovereign territory. What authority would allow you to do that? Are you talking about a permanent occupation there? Redevelopment? And Mr. Prime Minister, do you see this idea as a way to expand the boundaries of Israel and to have a longer peace, even though the Israeli people know how important that land is to you and your citizens, just as the space is inherited by the Palestinians as well?”
Donald Trump:
“I do see a long-term ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East and maybe the entire Middle East. And everybody I have spoken to, this was not a decision made lightly, everybody I've spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent in a really magnificent area that nobody would know, nobody could look, because all they see is death and destruction and rubble and and demolished buildings falling all over. It's just a terrible, terrible sight. I've studied it. I've studied this very closely over a lot of months, and I've seen it from every different angle, and it's a very, very dangerous place to be, and it's only going to get worse. And I think this is an idea that's gotten tremendous and I'm talking about from the highest level of leadership, gotten tremendous praise.”
Christian Nationalist Violence and Scams For a Such a Time as This
Season 1 · Episode 3
Friday, January 31, 2025 • Duration 23:31
A week and a half into Donald Trump’s new term as President of the United States, and already we he is opening a huge concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay. Trump has signed a law that forces all non-citizens to be taken away to Homeland Security prison camps if they have merely been accused of a crime. Pete Hegseth, who has called for the murder of all Muslims and wants to make the United States a Christian theocracy, has been confirmed as Secretary of Defense. Donald Trump is taking a wrecking ball to scientific and medical research and is issuing executive orders forcing public schools to teach a false version of American history. Across the US federal government, career civil servants are being fired and replaced with people who have few professional qualifications other than absolute loyalty to Donald Trump.
At the center of the chaos and destruction from Donald Trump is the ideology of Christian Nationalism, a belief system that rejects the validity of objective reality and demands that everybody and everything in the United States submit to a draconian version of Christianity. Some Americans have a difficult time understanding the relationship between fascist political power and Christian Nationalism. They think of Christianity as something meek and mild, set apart from the crude manner and ruthless agenda of Donald Trump.
In holding to this vision of what counts as Christianity, hopeful liberals ignore what Christianity has come to mean for most American Christians. They pretend that Christian Nationalists are somehow “fake Christians”, even though the majority of American Christians now ascribe to the ideology of Christian Nationalism and voted for Donald Trump in 2024 on the basis of that ideology. While Christianity as a whole is on the decline in the USA, the ranks of American Christian Nationalists are rapidly growing.
The ideological roots of Trump’s fascism in Christian Nationalism are clear to see, if you care to look for them. The religious nature of Donald Trump’s new fascist hold on power were made clear at the 2025 inauguration. At the height of the inauguration ceremony, Christian preacher Lorenzo Sewell delivered a prayer claiming that Donald Trump was chosen by the Christian god to be President of the United States. Sewell said:
“Heavenly Father, we're so grateful that you gave our 45th and now our 47th President a millimeter miracle. We are grateful that you are the one that have called him
A Concentration Camp for Christian Nationalism
Season 6 · Episode 2
Thursday, January 30, 2025 • Duration 16:54
The imprisonment of people in a gigantic military-run prison in a place that has been declared to be outside the reach of both international and American law, a place with an infamous history of torture, can only be described as a concentration camp. One week into his second term in office, Donald Trump has taken the United States of America into full fascism, and he’s doing it with the cooperation of Christian Nationalists like Ryan Walters in Oklahoma.
When I was a kid, if you asked me about what life would be like for an American in the year 2025, I would have predicted that our world would be defined by astonishing technological advancements.
I would not have predicted that the person who became President of the United States in 2025 would be elected by people who believe that secret societies of wizards and witches control use magic spells to control the American political system. I would not have predicted that fear of Satanic plots motivated Americans to elect a Christian Nationalist fascist with ambitions of becoming the first dictator of the United States of America.
When I was a child, I believed that the political culture of the United States would continue to improve, that Americans would learn from the mistakes of the past and find new ways to live with each other in an enlightened peace with respect for differences. Instead, America has reverted to the superstitions of the medieval Puritans.
In medieval times, people had some excuse for believing in magic, monsters, and evil spirits. Many people were not literate, and did not have access to formal education. Science was just beginning to emerge as a beacon of light in the darkness of religious conformity.
There is no excuse for believing in wizards and witches and demons today. Americans have access to scientific knowledge. They have schools in which they have the luxury of learning how to think clearly over years free from the burden of childhood labor.
32 percent of Americans have chosen to believe in absurd magical nonsense. They have thrown away the opportunities of democracy in favor of idiotic conspiracy theories that don’t even have any internal logic.
32 percent of Americans have voluntarily given their government into the hands of Christian Nationalists who believe that worshipping a prophet who has been dead for two thousand years is more important than feeding and educating children today.
32 percent of adult Americans voted for Donald Trump.
31 percent of adult Americans voted against Donald Trump.
34.7 percent of adult Americans chose not to vote in the 2024 presidential election at all.
34.7 percent of adult Americans could not bring themselves to oppose a campaign that was blatantly fascist and Christian Nationalist.
Because of them, and because of the 32 percent of adult Americans who voted for Donald Trump, we now have a US federal government organized around the belief that an ancient magical incarnation of a vengeful cosmic spirit could return to the Earth at any moment. The USA is under control of people who believe that the return of this ancient cosmic spirit is the foundation of what America stands for.
I shouldn’t have to explain why that’s an absurd basis for a national identity in the year 2025, but I do.
In the year 2025, America is being run by people who are obsessed with a fear of dark wizards and demons.
It is difficult to hold out any hope for a country this moronic.
Christian Nationalism is the ideology of a new Dark Age.
Twice as many Americans with a low level of religious identity believe that immigrants strengthen America. What’s more, a whopping 89 percent of Atheists say that America’s openness to people from around the world is essential to America’s identity as a nation, a much higher level of acceptance of strangers than is found in any religious group in the USA.
Only 27 percent of Christians say that immigrants make America better.
When it comes ideological diversity, the same pattern holds. Only a minority of Christians said that religious diversity strengthens American society, while 75 percent of Atheists agreed that religious diversity is good for America.
What about helping people in need? If you’re in need in America, who should you go to - Christians or atheists?
Two thirds of Christians said that the government should NOT do more to help people in need.
The opposite is true for atheists. Two thirds of atheists said that the government SHOULD do more to help people in need.
Christian America elected Donald Trump. Christian America helped Republicans install a Christian Nationalist majority on the Supreme Court. Christian Nationalists likewise control both houses of Congress.
The results are not a mystery. The cruelty and chaos that we see, and the destruction of American democracy, is not an anomaly. It’s not a mistake.
The cruelty and chaos are what Christian Nationalists have been working for all this time.
The decision to exclude non-Christian voices from the New York Times, in order to make Christian faith seem like the obvious, and default choice, is especially disturbing when one considers that Michelle Cottle isn’t just a podcast contributor at the New York Times. Michelle Cottle occupies the US Politics seat on the New York Times editorial board.
Occupying that position, Cottle should know better than to claim that atheists are more likely than religious believers to support demagogues and conspiracy theories. Listen again to what she said.
“If you’re not believing in a divine power, you tend to gravitate toward less savory options, like political messiahs, whack job conspiracy theories.”
A genuinely empirical consideration of the value of religion would acknowledge that social research and other sources of data have consistently shown Michelle Cottle’s claim to be false. The facts:
In 2021, sociologists analyzing Gallup survey data found that “religious belief, religious identity and religious participation are all positively and strongly correlated with believing in popular contemporary falsehoods.”
The results of a 2022 meta-analysis published in the Journal of Research in Personality showed that “people who believe in conspiracy theories are more likely than other people to hold pseudoscientific beliefs, exhibit paranoid ideation, suffer from schizotypy, be narcissistic, be religious/spiritual and have lower cognitive ability.”
A 2022 study in the journal Environmental Research and Public Health concluded that “people with high religious fundamentalism are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories”.
In 2022, a study published in the journal Political Psychology described a “significant positive correlation between religiosity and conspiracy mindset and a slightly stronger correlation between religiosity and the tendency to endorse specific conspiracy beliefs”. The authors explained that, “The positive correlations suggest that similarities in the cognitive and explanatory style—like assuming hidden powers behind events—speak to the same persons and dominate the relation between conspiracy theory endorsement and religiosity”.
In June of last year, an academic analysis published in the journal Politics And Religion found a “relationship between religious attitudes, spirituality, and conspiracism”.
If you’re looking for a “political messiah” in the United States, that’s Donald Trump. Donald Trump has been the only presidential candidate since George W. Bush to claim that he was chosen by God and divinely anointed to become President of the United States. There is no alternative messianic politician on the Democratic side of the aisle. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris never even hinted that they believed they had been chosen by spiritual beings as the rightful occupants of the White House, and Democratic voters did not promote any such nonsensical beliefs.
Exit polls in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections consistently showed both that the majority of Americans voting for Donald Trump were Christian and that the majority of American Christian voters supported Donald Trump.
Exit polls in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections show that non-religious Americans were the most reliable group of supporters for candidates opposing Donald Trump.
There is no empirical source of information that supports Michelle Cottle’s claim that lack of religious faith in gods is associated with belief in conspiracy theories and support for “political messiahs”. All the data points strongly in the opposite direction. Religious people are the most likely to indulge in conspiracy theories and messianic nationalism.
When Michelle Cottle insulted non-religious Americans, she didn’t bother to check the facts. She spoke from her faith, and she got it dead wrong. That’s the kind of mistake we might expect from a YouTube influencer or a member of Moms For Liberty. To see this kind of sloppy failure of all journalistic ethics from the editor of national politics for the New York Times is alarming.
It’s alarming because conspiracy theories and a Christian Nationalist messianic cult of personality are tools that Donald Trump is using to attack the very foundations of democracy in the United States of America. Donald Trump has placed extremist Christian Nationalists in almost every corner of the US federal government, and it’s these Christian Nationalists, using conspiracy theories and weird stories about Donald Trump’s special relationship with God, who are rapidly destroying American society from the inside out.
Yes, Elon Musk is getting a lot of attention for his administrative coup d’etat, and rightfully so. Just as active in the fascist takeover of the USA, though much more quiet in his assault, has been Russ Vought, architect of Project 2025 and White House Director of Management and Budget. Elon Musk is doing dramatic poses with a chainsaw in front of the cameras, but behind the scenes, it’s Russ Vought who is directing the collapse of American democracy through criminally defunding government agencies in defiance of laws passed by the US Congress.
Russ Vought is also one of the most powerful leaders of the Christian Nationalist movement. Vought has explicitly called for an end to freedom of religion in America, in favor of forcing all Americans to obey the harsh religious laws of Christian extremism.
In 2023, Russ Vought appeared on The Sword And The Trowel, a podcast hosted by Tom Ascol, a preacher who has called for homosexuality to be made a crime for which the punishment is death. This is explicitly Nazi ideology, along with the violent Christian Nationalism that the Third Reich used to keep the gullible German public in line. In that podcast episode, Vought said the following:
“We talk about being a nation that's for God. That's a consensus that we want to renew in this country. That we have religious liberty, but it cannot come from this notion that a country isn't understanding the reality that it has to obey God and there is only one true god and that is Jesus Christ our lord.”
The Orwellian doublespeak coming out of Russ Vought’s mouth is astonishing. In one breath he declares that America has religious liberty, but in the next breath goes on to explain that religious liberty should only exist to the extent that the entire nation are forced to obey Christianity, which all Americans will be compelled to accept as the only valid religion.
Russ Vought wants to force all Americans to become Christians. So why is he working as Donald Trump’s Director of Management and Budget?
Christian Nationalists have declared that their goal is to take over every aspect of American society to compel Americans to worship Jesus in every aspect of their lives. The US federal government has been most significant barrier to them achieving that goal. The US federal government has upheld the Constitution, which provides all Americans with equality, regardless of their religion.
When Americans are able to provide for themselves economically, free from all forms of discrimination, they have no need of going to church. Year after year, Americans have been abandoning Christian churches, choosing to live free of abuse by Christian leaders.
Russ Vought wants to herd Americans back into church by destroying civil society. Vought has explicitly said that he wants to “traumatize” Americans so that they won’t want to work with the US government, and won’t be able to expect any help from the government. In the wake of this nationwide destruction, with their economic and social independence smashed to pieces, the plan is for Christian churches to swoop in and regain control.
With public schools destroyed, publicly-funded church-run Christian schools will take their place. With public health infrastructure devastated, publicly-funded Christian hospital networks will take their place. Christian Nationalists plan to do this to every sector of American society, until there is no place left that is not under the control of Christian leaders, who will become wealthy and powerful as the administrators of kind of neo-medieval unelected government under which the will of God and the will of the priestly ruling class will become one and the same.
To achieve the goal of Christian supremacy, Russ Vought is overseeing the destruction of every part of the US federal government that cannot be easily brought under the sway of the Christian Nationalist extremists Donald Trump has appointed in every cabinet department.
As for their Christian values, we can judge them by their works.
They are cutting off medical care for the sick.
They are allowing food to rot in storage rather than giving it out to feed the hungry.
Medical research projects that were saving lives have been shut down.
There is no compassion in Christian Nationalism. There is only the worship of absolute, totalitarian power, with a cruel pyramid of domination that starts with the all-powerful God, then goes down to the all-powerful President, in a structure of religious authoritarianism that ensures obedience through fear.
The Christian Nationalists don’t care how many Americans are being hurt in the process. They are willing to destroy the lives of anyone that gets in the way of their accumulation of power.
So it is that last week, U.S. Representative Mark Alford told fired federal workers at a town hall meeting in Kansas City, Missouri that they shouldn’t worry about losing their jobs because, “God has a plan and purpose for your life.”
This is the Republican plan for America: Take away people’s jobs. Take away their medicine. Take away their food. Take away their democracy. Then, tell Americans not to worry about it, because a magical spirit from the sky has a plan for them.
What is God’s plan for the huge numbers of Americans who are out of work, out of food, losing their homes under the destructive chaos of Christian Nationalism? Well, of course, there is no plan. There’s only, as Donald Trump put it, a concept of a plan.
So we’re all just supposed to pray to Jesus, and hope that some kind of magical power is going to turn it all around, is going to make it all okay, somehow.
Of course, it’s not going to be okay, if all we do is pray about it.
We need to take action.
Take action:
This Friday, February 28, is a nationwide economic blackout. Don’t buy anything on Friday. Don’t go to the store. Don’t fill up your car with gasoline. Keep your money in your pocket.
Take action:
Next Tuesday, March 4, is a day of nationwide protest, with anti-fascist demonstrations in every city across the nation.
Take action! March forth!
Jack Posobiec doesn’t just talk about smashing democracy. He takes action. In 2017, Posobiec organized an event by a group of neo-Nazis that had a history of bombing Jewish homes in Poland. To anyone who knows the history of Polish Jews under the German occupation during World War II, this action should be shocking. Poland was the home to some of the most horrific concentration camps of the Holocaust.
The link between American Christian Nationalists and German Nazis has become undeniable. They aren’t even attempting to conceal what they’re doing anymore.
Elon Musk, Donald Trump and their minions are openly promoting the new German Nazi Party. They’re doing it as an expression of their Christian Nationalism.
Just think about this in terms of what’s happening in the United States. Elon Musk and Donald Trump are scapegoating and persecuting immigrants in order to “purify the blood” of America. They’re opening up a 30,000 person concentration camp in Guantanamo Bay to do it. They’re attacking freedom of the press, and they’re consolidating power in the Executive Branch through a plainly criminal seizure of power.
They’re purging the government of everyone who refuses to pledge absolute loyalty personally to Donald Trump, and they’re doing it in the name of eliminating DEI. DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion used to be bedrock American values, but now, Christian Nationalists are treating these values as if they are something evil. In their hatred of ethnic and cultural diversity, equity, and inclusion, Christian Nationalists are following in the footsteps of the Third Reich.
The goal of American Christian Nationalism is to restore Nazi ideology to Germany, and to do what Adolf Hitler failed to do: To impose Nazi power on the United States of America, and do it in the name of Jesus.
In the name of Jesus, they are replacing DEI with NAZI.
After everything that this country went through to stand up to the Nazis the first time around, are you going to sit still while they try to take power again?
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This announcement will utterly delight Christian Nationalists for the very same reason that it will terrify everyone else.
For decades, Christian Nationalists have been agitating for the United States to get involved in a massive military conflict in order to expand the borders of Israel. The reason for this is that Christian Nationalists believe that their divine prophet Jesus can only return to Earth after Israel takes over more land, returning the country to the full territory it occupied in ancient times.
Christian Nationalists believe that the United States is destined to get involved in an enormous war, during which Jesus will return to lead America’s armies in a global bloodbath that slaughters everyone who refuses to convert to Christianity, and then be made king of the entire world.
Christian Nationalists don’t think that a bloody global war of religion would be a tragedy. They eagerly anticipate it, and they want American politicians to engage in belligerent actions that will provoke such a war, because they’re tired of waiting for Jesus to come back. They want to see Jesus as soon as possible, and they’re happy to start a big war in the Middle East in order to make it happen.
It’s obvious to anybody who understands the history of the two Gulf Wars that any attempt by the United States to permanently own and militarily control any territory in the Middle East will lead to disaster. The First Gulf War under George H.W. Bush was itself brief, but led to a long-term presence of the US military on bases in Saudi Arabia and in the air over Iraq. This military presence is what motivated Osama Bin Laden and his followers to attack the United States on September 11, 2001. That attack that led to the longest wars in American history, with a supposed “War On Terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan that lasted for over twenty years.
It’s been just a few years since America’s military has been home from Iraq and Afghanistan, and now, Donald Trump wants to begin the cycle of war all over again. Donald Trump says that everyone he’s spoken to tells him that a permanent American military occupation of the Gaza Strip is a great idea, but that’s only because Trump has surrounded himself with people who tell him what he wants to hear.
No serious historian or military leader can say that an American occupation of the Gaza Strip that begins with a forced ethnic cleansing of the land can be accomplished without massive bloodshed and a destabilization of the region leading to death and despair for the people in the area and any American soldiers unlucky enough to be sent on the insane mission.
for such a time as this.
”
This wasn’t the first time Lorenzo Sewell had performed for Donald Trump. It wasn’t the first time that Lorenzo Sewell told a national audience that Donald Trump is a magically selected prophet of the Christian god. Last summer, at the Republican National Convention, Sewell told an auditorium of wealthy Republican elites:
“If you believe that Jesus still changes lives, come on, put your hands together and give our great god great glory! I believe that prayer is preventative and prayer is proactive. I believe that praying in the name of Jesus changes everything, and when we prayed for President Trump, only God knew that thirty days later, there would be a miracle by a millimeter. Only God knew that if we prayed for him during his birthday, there would be a miracle by a millimeter. If President Trump had moved one millimeter, he wouldn't have been here on Monday to talk to us about how America was going to be made wealthy again... Before I take my seat, I just got to talk to you about something called providence and something called sovereignty. God's sovereignty is his ability to be able to do what he wants when he wants, because he's God. And God's providence, it's when he does what he wants, when he wants for all of you. Did you know that President Trump was shot on 6/11, and do you know that Ephesians chapter number six, verse number 11 says, 'Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.'
So all my Democrat friends, I want to ask you one question. Do you know anybody that was the 45th president? He was convicted of 34 accounts, he raised $53 million in 24 hours and could be the 47th president of the United States in America, and he was shot one time? Do you know anybody like that? To all my friends back in Detroit who are Democrats, I'm going to ask you just one simple question. You can't deny the power of God on this man's life. You can't deny that God protected him. You cannot deny that it was a millimeter miracle that was able to save this man's life. Could it be that Jesus Christ preserved him forsuch a time as this? Could it be? Could it be that when we prayed for him, when he came to the roundtable in Detroit, that Jesus asked and he received that we sought him and then he found protection? Could it be that the King of Glory, the Lord God strong and mighty, the God who is mighty in battle protected Donald Trump because he wants to use him for such a time as this? If you believe that, come on and put your hands together and give our great god great glory!”
If you’re listening closely, you have noticed a phrase that Lorenzo Sewell used both at Trump’s inauguration and at the 2024 Republican National Convention: “for a time such as this”. Sewell preached last summer that “the God who is mighty in battle” chose Donald Trump “for a time such as this”, and repeated that assertion at the inauguration last week.
It’s a strange phrase, because it’s rooted in the archaic language of the Christian Bible. When Christian Nationalist preachers use the phrase “for a time such as this”, they are making a reference to a specific passage in the Bible. Specifically, this phrase is used as a reference to the belief that Christianity has a rightful claim to totalitarian political power, and that violence is an acceptable tool to achieve Christian political domination.
The phrase “for a time such as this” appears only once in the Bible, in the Book of Esther. It is spoken at the dramatic peak of the book, as Mordecai tells Esther that she has been placed through the magical powers of the god Jehovah in the court of the Persian king for no other purpose than to enact Jehovah’s political will.
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