Trump Leans In On Crazy Scary

They say one is a clue, two is a sign and three becomes a pattern. That’s why three different news stories this week have me more than convinced that Trump’s embrace of Christian Nationalism and fascist ideology is near complete. And that is very worrisome.

In the course of one week:

• Trump delivered a special address to CPAC in Hungary, cementing Christian Nationalist President Viktor Orbán’s role in shaping American extremism; 

• The Trump National Doral resort in Miami will host the QAnon-heavy “ReAwaken America” conference, where key members of the Trump family and former administration will speak alongside pro-Hitler, antisemitic conspiracy theorists; and

• A new Christian Nationalist group called “Pastors for Trump,” with strong ties to Roger Stone and Michael Flynn and boasting some 7,000 members, will unveil its national plans this weekend, at the same QAnon conference in Miami, and will announce a swing-state tour of evangelical churches.

Trump’s hard shift to the Christian Nationalist and conspiracy-consuming right was in many ways inevitable and predicted from his earlier open courting of QAnon adherents over social media, many of whom are also within MAGA. After being rebuked for hosting white supremacist Nick Fuentes and antisemite Kanye “Ye” West, at Mar-a-Lago, Trump appears now to have doubled down, perhaps knowing that most of the energy and small dollar donations for his reelection bid come from the fringes of his own base.

Let’s take a quick horror tour of these three developments—Viktor Orbán, the “ReAwaken America” tour, and Pastors for Trump—to see what it is they’ve been doing and saying that still has the Trumps and their allies ready to stand with them publicly.

Orbán: the official voice of Christian Nationalism

Hungary’s president is open about his far-right plans and views. He has consistently condemned liberal democracy, saying it has destroyed conservative, Christian values including the family and the purity of the European race. Back in March, I wrote about his support of “illiberal” values in The Big Picture substack, published by George Takei. Said Orbán at a speech in 2018:

Liberal democracy is in favor of multiculturalism, while Christian democracy gives priority to Christian culture; this is an illiberal concept. Liberal democracy is pro-immigration, while Christian democracy is anti-immigration; this is again a genuinely illiberal concept. And liberal democracy sides with adaptable family models, while Christian democracy rests on the foundations of the Christian family model; once more, this is an illiberal concept.

Orbán also openly espouses racist views. Last July, he decried “race mixing” in a speech that drew widespread condemnation. “We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race … and we do not want to become a mixed race,” said Orbán, adding that countries where European and non-Europeans mingle were “no longer nations.”

American extremists were so enamored with Orbán that they asked Hungary to host CPAC in 2022 and then made him the opening headliner in CPAC Dallas later that year. To drive the point home, CPAC again held a conference in Hungary just this past week. There, Donald Trump delivered a video message to attendees on the closing day. He praised Orban as a “tremendous leader” and continued, “As you know, we are now engaged in a historic battle with the Marxist globalists and communists all over the world. We’re fighting against barbarians who want to demolish our liberty and our traditions and everything we hold dear.”

ReAwaken America makes Orbán look sane

In their excellent reporting, the folks at Media Matters have had the unenviable task of covering the ReAwaken America tour. Here is what they have discovered.

Two of the people who will be headlining the event are overt antisemites who have promoted pro-Hitler propaganda alongside completely wacko conspiracies. There’s just no other way to put it.

Speaker Scott McKay has a streaming show on Rumble where he has blamed Jewish people for 9/11 and the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Kennedy and McKinley. He also claims, harkening back to conspiracies from the Middle Ages, that Jews routinely torture children and eat their hearts. He has praised Hitler for “actually fighting the same people that we’re trying to take down today”—referring to the banking system supposedly run by the Jews.

Speaker Charlie Ward, also with a show on Rumble, has praised Hitler for “warning us” about Judaism and has claimed that “VIRUSES are Man(Jew)made,” while attacking Jewish media for supposedly lying about the Holocaust.

That these two featured speakers are appearing at the conference stop in Miami is not surprising, given the QAnon-themed nature of the tour. It is the roster of Trump family members and former Trump officials, who are appearing before or after these two extremists, that should concern everyone. As Media Matters notes,

Scheduled to speak alongside McKay and Ward are numerous members of Trump’s orbit, including: Eric Trump, Lara Trump, former Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former senior Department of Defense official Kash Patel, former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes, and Trump ally Roger Stone.

Pastors for Trump

The Guardian has had its eye on a different group. Per its reporting, an organization calling itself Pastors for Trump, based out of Oklahoma, is fairly new, but it is already creating controversy within mainstream Christian leadership. Pastors for Trump has been promoting Christian Nationalist ideals and attacking political leaders, often using Biblical references, in a quest to form a Christian theocracy in America.

The head of the group, Jackson Lahmeyer, has called Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “demon” and Anthony Fauci a “mass-murdering Luciferian.” He also promotes the belief that January 6th was an “FBI inside job.” He regularly features chief election denier and QAnon adherent Michael Flynn at his revival-style conferences, which typically last two days.

Now this act is coming to Miami to converge with the ReAwaken America tour over the coming weekend. Roger Stone, a top political advisor to Donald Trump with close ties to right-wing militia groups including the Proud Boys, will appear along with Lahmeyer on May 11.

Miami is just a kick-off of a larger tour, however. Pastors for Trump has planned events in key swing states throughout the summer in the hopes of securing votes for Trump from the hardcore Evangelical base as he continues his campaign for the GOP primary nomination for president.

Out in the open

For all the scariness of these developments, there is a plus side to them. Trump’s embrace of Christian Nationalism, along with racist, anti-LGBTQ and antisemitic views, is near complete and obvious to anyone who is now looking. He may have been able to explain away white supremacist and antisemitic dinner guests at Mar-a-Lago, but he and his allies cannot wash himself of the stain left by men like Victor Orbán, Scott McKay, Charlie Ward or Jackson Lahmeyer, whom he and his family and allies have openly praised and stood beside.

For Trump world, Christian Nationalists and fascists are a means to an end. They are easily riled up, gullible rubes who will open their wallets, fill their rallies, and pull the lever for them at the ballot box. In some cases, they are dangerous sociopaths who will fulfill their entirely predictable role of spreading terror and death, all to help perpetuate the idea that America is a place of carnage and decline that requires a strong, authoritarian leader to fix it.

Mainstream media needs to do a better job of connecting the dots and calling out these close and non-accidental ties between the Trump campaign and Christian Nationalist nutjobs. I was heartened to see that Rachael Maddow spoke about this last night on her show, but more voices are needed.

If there is no political cost from middle-of-the-road voters to this kind of cozying up to fascism, then there is only political upside, and wily politicians will take note. It is incumbent on all of us to help make these connections known, keeping the pressure up and the condemnations crystal clear.