Roger Stone and Michael Flynn two sycophants that Trump pardoned
for their crimes are now peddling religion as a way to get Trump and them back
in power with their far out wild speeches as reported on here in this head-turning
article from Yahoo.News with this headline:
“Why top Trump allies like Roger Stone are using apocalyptic religious
rhetoric”
Roger Stone has been in and out of Trump’s orbit for more than four
decades.
Ever since Trump commuted Stone’s three-year prison sentence for lying to federal
investigators, the self-proclaimed specialist in political “dirty tricks” (ever
since Nixon’s days) has been preaching the gospel of Trumpism to the former
president’s most fervent religious supporters.
Stone converted to Christianity shortly after his 2019 conviction.
He announced at a meeting of Pastors for Trump at Trump’s Doral resort in Miami
saying: “I am a soldier in the army of the Lord.”
That meeting was organized by a failed Senate candidate from
OK and a MO couple named David and Stacy Whited, who have a multi-level
marketing background and they host the Flyover Conservative podcast.
The 2024 election, Stone said, will be “a fight between
light and dark…a struggle between good and evil…an epic fight between the godly
and the godless” while speaking alongside Flynn, Trump’s former national
security adviser, as well as Stacy Whited, who promised the crowd that Trump
will be elected president again in 2024.
Stone & Flynn are using more religious and apocalyptic rhetoric:
Like Flynn, Stone has been
using more explicitly religious language over the past few years, especially
when attending the Reawaken America tour events that mix evangelical
church services with speeches promoting QAnon conspiracy theories and
Trumpism.
The events combine a devotion to Trump with an apocalyptic religious view of politics. Flynn and Stone, over the past two years, have joined pastors and podcasters from a particular stream of American evangelicalism in calling their political opponents evil and even demonic.
Flynn said last year, with
Stone standing behind him: “This is a war that we’re in,
this is a big spiritual war. I mean people like Nancy Pelosi, she’s a demon.”
Stone too has added a
religious component to the type of anti-establishment political rhetoric he’s
used for years saying last year: “The two parties are dominated by neocons,
by globalists, by those who have turned from the Lord.”
Stone has become a regular guest on an internet show called “Elijah Streams,” which caters to those who believe in modern-day prophets and seers. Last year Stone told the host of the show: “A Satanic portal was physically right above the White House” a claim he has reiterated in appearances with other right-wing Christians.
Matthew D. Taylor has studied the world of “independent charismatic” evangelicals, the specific stream of Christianity that Stone and Flynn are catering to with their political and religious rhetoric.
Taylor is
the Protestant scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish
Studies in Baltimore, and is publishing a book on their
ties to the January 6 insurrection.
Taylor believes that Stone and Flynn are: “Looking to have
much more direct influence in that world, not mediated by pastors and prophets
and rabbis but by their own speaking of charismatic language,” and adding: “My
sense is Stone has recognized how important this sector of Christianity is for
the ongoing radicalized Trump base. I think he's been cultivating his own
ability to speak to that world and his own credibility in it, in hopes of him
having some sway with it.”
Stone has long been interested in bypassing traditional
media to reach people directly. Taylor’s theory is that Stone is trying to go
around established authorities inside the Charismatic evangelical world as well
to gain more influence. (Note: Stone did not respond to a request for comment).
The danger of dehumanizing rhetoric:
Noteworthy: Trump’s hold on
evangelicals has shown some signs of slipping
and numerous leaders have so far declined to support him.
So these efforts by Stone
and Flynn to keep the most hardcore base of Christian Trumpists engaged make
political sense.
But the rhetoric of
violent spiritual warfare that permeates this world has already played a
role in sparking real world political violence once on January 6, Taylor said
on his Charismatic Revival Fury podcast.
The violent rhetoric has not abated.
Stone often appears on Elijah Streams alongside a man named Robin Bullock, a full-length leather-jacket wearing religious leader who claims he’s “been to heaven a few times and watched God create the world one time.”
Bullock may
be controversial among other Charismatic evangelicals, but his YouTube
channel has 201,000 subscribers.
He said: “I will tread them in mine anger and trample them
in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled on my garments.”
“Yes!” exclaimed a smiling Stacy Whited.
Taylor is concerned that this ongoing dehumanization
of opponents by comparing them to demons, and violent spiritual rhetoric that
sometimes spills into hints of actual physical violence or predictions of sudden deaths among
Trump opponents is creating an early-on, groundswell rationalization for
the next January 6.
My 2 Cents: How many more loons are out there for 2024 like Strone and Flynn?
I ponder what that number could actually be. Scary thought isn’t it?
Thanks for stopping by.
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