Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Note those headlines. They are unusually … direct. Paul Campos at LGM notes this phenomenon as well, taking a look at one of the most jarring from Tom Edsall in NY Times today headlines “The Roots Of trump’s Rage::

Edsall specializes in long think pieces for the NYT, in which he interviews experts who try to understand the Trump phenomenon in, what up until now, has been a kind of “even handed” way, i.e., yes Trump is a disturbing figure, but let’s try to understand why nearly half the country elected him and wants him to be president again. Today’s edition of this series, published on a notable anniversary in American history, goes in a different direction right from the top:

Brian Klaas, a political scientist at University College London, captures the remarkable nature of the 2024 presidential election in an Oct. 1 essay, “The Case for Amplifying Trump’s Insanity.”

Klaas argues that the presidential contest now pits

A 77-year-old racist, misogynist bigot who has been found liable for rape, who incited a deadly, violent insurrection aimed at overturning a democratic election, who has committed mass fraud for personal enrichment, who is facing 91 separate counts of felony criminal charges against him, and who has overtly discussed his authoritarian strategies for governing if he returns to power

against “an 80-year-old with mainstream Democratic Party views who sometimes misspeaks or trips.”

“One of those two candidates,” Klaas notes, “faces relentless newspaper columns and TV pundit ‘takes’ arguing that he should drop out of the race. (Spoiler alert: it’s somehow *not* the racist authoritarian sexual abuse fraudster facing 91 felony charges).”

This is a long piece, but there’s never any gesture towards “on the other hand” at any point within it. The whole thing is a brutally straightforward indictment of Trump as a literally insane aspiring autocrat, based on interviews with mental health experts, who document Trump’s ongoing deterioration into pure grandiose narcissism and psychopathy:

I asked Joshua D. Miller, a professor of psychology at the University of Georgia, whether he thought Trump’s “vermin” comment represented a tipping point, an escalation in his willingness to attack opponents. Miller replied by email: “My bet is we’re seeing the same basic traits, but their manifestation has been ratcheted up by the stress of his legal problems and also by some sense of invulnerability in that he has yet to face any dire consequences for his previous behavior.”

Miller wrote that he has

long thought that Trump’s narcissism was actually distracting us from his psychopathic traits. I view the two as largely the same but with psychopathy bringing problems with disinhibition (impulsivity; failure to delay gratification, irresponsibility, etc.) to the table and Trump seems rather high on those traits along with those related to narcissism (e.g., entitlement, exploitativeness), pathological lying, grandiosity, etc.).

I asked Donald R. Lynam, a professor of psychology at Purdue, the same question, and he emailed his reply: “The escalation is quite consistent with grandiose narcissism. Trump is reacting more and more angrily to what he perceives as his unfair treatment and failure to be admired, appreciated and adored in the way that he believes is his due.”

Grandiose narcissists, Lynam continued, “feel they are special and that normal rules don’t apply to them. They require attention and admiration,” adding “this behavior is also consistent with psychopathy which is pretty much grandiose narcissism plus poor impulse control.”

Again, the whole thing is like this, with no equivocation or on the other handing or Joe Biden is really old.

This kind of accurate unflinching coverage is also reflected in a NYT story from earlier this week, that reported on Trump’s fascistic rhetoric about “vermin” and “poisoned blood” while pulling no punches.

Edsall again:

Most of the specialists I contacted see Trump’s recent behavior and public comments as part of an evolving process.

“Trump is an aging malignant narcissist,” Aaron L. Pincus, a professor of psychology at Penn State, wrote in an email. “As he ages, he appears to be losing impulse control and is slipping cognitively. So we are seeing a more unfiltered version of his pathology. Quite dangerous.”

In addition, Pincus continued, “Trump seems increasingly paranoid, which can also be a reflection of his aging brain and mental decline.”

This was not followed by any temporizing comments about Joe Biden’s mental deterioration, real or imagined.

What may be happening here is that the elite media are finally beginning to come to terms with what is actually happening in this country at this historical moment.

A society and its political and legal systems are not suicide pacts. Donald Trump cannot be allowed to become president again, for reasons laid out cogently by Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies. His re-election would be a fundamental revocation of liberal democracy.

A dictator is trying to break into the White House, and liberal democracy has both the right and the duty to stand its ground.

Have they finally realized that the threat isn’t just to immigrants and hippies? They’re personally at the top of the list.

They have to keep it up constantly for the next year for it to truly penetrate. The media needs to absorb this deeply into their consciousness as part of their responsibility.

Tim Noah at TNR:

Republican-dominated states are pushing out young professionals by enacting extremist conservative policies. Abortion restrictions are the most sweeping example, but state laws restricting everything from academic tenure to transgender health care to the teaching of “divisive concepts” about race are making these states uncongenial to knowledge workers.

The precise effect of all this on the brain drain is hard to tease out from migration statistics because the Dobbs decision is still fairly new, and because red states were bleeding college graduates even before the culture war heated up. The only red state that brings in more college graduates than it sends elsewhere is Texas. But the evidence is everywhere that hard-right social policies in red states are making this dynamic worse.

The number of applications for OB-GYN residencies is down more than 10 percent in states that have banned abortion since Dobbs. Forty-eight teachers in Hernando County, Florida, fed up with “Don’t Say Gay” and other new laws restricting what they can teach, resigned or retired at the end of the last school year. A North Carolina law confining transgender people to bathrooms in accordance with what it said on their birth certificate was projected, before it was repealed, to cost that state $3.76 billion in business investment, including the loss of a planned global operations center for PayPal in Charlotte. A survey of college faculty in four red states (Texas, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina) about political interference in higher education found a falloff in the number of job candidates for faculty positions, and 67 percent of the respondents said they would not recommend their state to colleagues as a place to work. Indeed, nearly one-third said they were actively considering employment elsewhere.

Read the whole article if you can. It is full of individual stories of doctors, teachers, scientists etc making the tough decision to leave because of the restrictions on them personally and professionally.

I doubt the red state Republicans have regrets about this. Their survival in office depends upon the voters being under-educated and easily exploited. It remains to be seen how much they miss having businesses which depend upon an educated workforce as a tax base. But maybe they don’t really care about that either.

A few years back on Thanksgiving eve I ran this recipe for Pumpkin Cake and received a very nice note from journalist Karen Tumulty saying that she’d been tooling around the web for something to bake and tried it and liked it very much. Ever since then I’ve called it Karen Tumulty Cake.It’s easy even for non bakers and it really is very good.

Karen Tumulty Pumpkin Cake 

For cake


* (3/4 cup) softened unsalted butter.
* 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting pan
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
* 2 tablespoons crystalized ginger, finely chopped
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin
* 3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk 
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
* 3 large eggs


Icing


* 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons well-shaken buttermilk
* 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar, 
* 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
* a 10-inch nonstick bundt pan 


Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter bundt pan generously.


Sift flour (2 1/4 cups), baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and salt in a bowl. Whisk together pumpkin, 3/4 cup buttermilk, ginger and vanilla in another bowl.


Beat butter and granulated sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, add eggs and beat 1 minute. Reduce speed to low and add flour and pumpkin mixtures alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture, just until smooth.


Spoon batter into pan, then bake until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool cake in pan 15 minutes, then invert rack over cake and reinvert cake onto rack. Cool 10 minutes more.


Icing:
Whisk together buttermilk and confectioners sugar until smooth. Drizzle over warm cake, sprinkle with chopped walnuts (keep a little icing in reserve to drizzle lightly over walnuts) then cool cake completely. Icing will harden slightly.


Easy as pie (easier, actually.) 

This country is insane

Sometimes I think that if I were young I’d vote with my feet and go somewhere else. This is lunacy:

More than half of American voters — 52% — say they or someone in their household owns a gun, per the latest NBC News national poll.

That’s the highest share of voters who say that they or someone in their household owns a gun in the history of the NBC News poll, on a question dating back to 1999.

In 2019, 46% of Americans said that they or someone in their household owned a gun, per an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. And in February 2013, that share was 42%.

“In the last ten years, we’ve grown [10 points] in gun ownership. That’s a very stunning number,” said Micah Roberts of Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm that co-conducted the poll with members of the Democratic polling firm Hart Research.

“By and large, things don’t change that dramatically that quickly when it comes to something as fundamental as whether you own a gun,” Roberts added.

Gun ownership does fall along partisan lines, as it has for years, the poll finds.

This month, 66% of Republican voters surveyed say that they or someone in their household owns a gun, while just 45% of independents and 41% of Democrats say the same.

In 2004, a March NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 57% of Republicans said that they or someone in their household owned a gun, while just 41% of independents and 33% of Democrats said the same.

Meanwhile gun deaths are soaring. I wonder why?

By the way, Democrats are arming too at a very fast rate. I can’t say why that would be but it’s a fair guess that at least some are worried about the rest of these gun nuts. It’s a vicious circle.

Here’s one to make your hair stand on end

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) bashed President Biden Tuesday for the recently negotiated hostage deal between the militant group Hamas and Israel.

“No, because we have nine Americans held hostage right now by Hamas, [who] have been there for six weeks, including at least one child.” Phillips, who is also challenging Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination for president, said on CNN when asked about if he would accept the current hostage deal.

“And by now, I would have expected American special forces to perhaps play a hand in extracting them,” Phillips continued. “I think it’s absurd, shocking and dismaying, that six weeks later, we still have American hostages held by a terror organization in Gaza.”

He wants to send American troops into Gaza. I don’t think I’ve heard even Republicans suggesting that (yet.)

This is super hero comic crapola and it says everything about this fool who really shouldn’t even be quoted anywhere because he’s just a silly gadfly with some kind of personality defect. Both parties have their share of these types, unfortunately.

Via The Hill

It’s all part of the Republicans’ cunning plan

At this point in election season the political press starts making forays into the wilds of Real America to try to find out what the voters are thinking. It can be an interesting exercise in the hands of journalists who have a feel for more than the usual “breakfast crowd at the diner” type of stories and find some insight that’s helpful to understand the cross currents that shape the electorate in a particular cycle. All too often, however, it’s just a series of cliches and conventional wisdom, unfortunately. 

We always see tons of coverage of Iowa and New Hampshire, for obvious reasons. But when it comes to picking the brains of swing voters they always seem to head up to Wisconsin, the quintessential swing state. Back in 2020, just before the election, the NY Times sent a couple of reporters there to take the temperature of voters in the state that former president Donald Trump barely won in 2016 to see what undecided swing voters were thinking four years later. They encountered people like this:

Ellen Christenson, a 69-year-old Wisconsinite, said she voted for former President Barack Obama twice before backing Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, in 2016. Now Ms. Christenson said she was torn between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden and “could go either way.”

She said she was upset that Joe Biden hadn’t denounced the Black Lives Matter protests strongly enough. As you can see, this is not a person who had what you might call a consistent political worldview.

The consensus was that though Biden was leading at that moment, people were moving toward Trump’s law and order message. In the end, Biden barely won by 20,682 votes, almost exactly the same margin that Trump had sneaked in with four years before.

Twelve years before that, a young up and coming journalist by name of Chris Hayes wrote a fascinating piece for the The New Republic describing his experience as a canvasser for the League of Conservation Voters’ Environmental Victory Project in the race between Sen. John Kerry and President George W. Bush. His insights from that unique perspective were very astute, ranging from the recognition that most undecided voters don’t approach politics rationally, making it very difficult to appeal to them with the usual persuasion strategies, to the fact that a disturbing number of them were “crypto-racist isolationists.” Remember, this was 2004, long before MAGA was a twinkle in Donald Trump’s eye.

But he also found that these folks were very interested in politics but they didn’t “enjoy” them and neither did they seem to be able to connect them to their own lives in ways that made sense. And he saw that the worse things got with the war in Iraq, the better George W. Bush seemed to do with these people. He explained:

 I found that the very severity and intractability of the Iraq disaster helped Bush because it induced a kind of fatalism about the possibility of progress. Time after time, undecided voters would agree vociferously with every single critique I offered of Bush’s Iraq policy, but conclude that it really didn’t matter who was elected, since neither candidate would have any chance of making things better. 

He noticed that this same logic applied to other issues, such as health care and the deficit. It’s not that they didn’t believe John Kerry could actually fix things. They didn’t believe anyone could. They blamed politicians in general, so “Kerry, by mere dint of being on the ballot, was somehow tainted by Bush’s failures as badly as Bush was.”

John Kerry ended up winning Wisconsin that year —- by 11, 484 votes. You can see why the state is considered such a perfect petri dish to examine the polarization of American politics and the mind of the swing voter.

The Washington Post recently sent two reporters to Door County, which they describe as “the swingiest place in the perennial battleground of Wisconsin” which has backed every presidential election’s winner since 2000. What they found is that voters are “tired of the turmoil” and chaos in our politics and don’t see any improvements on the horizon:

The pandemic and inflation have already rattled folks, and the broader political backdrop — the impeachments, Trump’s torrent of falsehoods about the 2020 election, the Capitol insurrection, the band of hard-right Republicans ousting their speaker — has blocked out notice ofwhat both sides cast as accomplishments, such as the billions of dollars poured into updating the nation’s roads, bridges and ports.Even as the economy grows at the strongest pace in two years, and jobs continue to proliferate, signs of progress are easy to miss amid what voters see as screaming matches.

Right wing pandemonium is drowning out the normal politics these people yearn for. And much like people holding Kerry as responsible as Bush for the debacle of the Iraq war, Biden is being held equally responsible for the nightmare that Trump has created of our political culture over the past six years. This is a feature of right wing politics and it works like a charm.

It should also have been noted that of all the states in the country, this Wisconsin electorate is not only inundated with national political bedlam, their state politics are just as crazed. The last few years have featured wild gerrymanders, recalls, radical governance by a legislative minority and more. No wonder they’re exhausted.

The article says, “They long for compromise. They want to feel heard and understood. Most Americans, for instance, desire access to abortion, tighter restrictions on guns and affordable health care. Many wonder why our laws don’t reflect that.”  There is a reason. Democrats back all those things and Republicans block them. But because they are tuning out due to the disorienting cacophony of right wing lunacy, they don’t know that.

As David Roberts wrote in this excellent analysis on twitter, this article could have been framed as “the right’s quest to make politics toxic & to destroy citizens’ trust in basic political & media institutions is working” and that would have made it more clear. But in the end there’s no way to ignore what Trump and his henchmen have done, are currently in the process of implementing in the states and are planning to do in the future. It would be total malpractice to ignore it. But there’s something deeper going on here and clearly has been going on for some time.

Trump may have taken it to another level but for years Republican politicians have been cultivating cynicism about government so that they can carry out their toxic agenda without being held responsible for it. They make politics ugly and uncomfortable so that people will see the whole endeavor as something inherently negative and unworkable. In this polarized environment all they have to do is convince a small sliver of the electorate that this is the natural order of things and they can win it all. The Democrats and the press can’t shirk from exposing the right’s craven agenda but they need to ensure that in the process they remind people that it doesn’t have to be that way.

Salon

Hold fast

We’ve reached “the end justifies the means” chapter of our American experiment. Peter Wehner runs down in The Atlantic a by-now familiar accounting of the fascistic things Donald Trump says and his MAGA audience applauds.

Trump’s rise to the presidency began with, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best.” (The Republican Party took that as candidate recruiting advice.) He’s gone from declaring Mexicans drug dealers, rapists and criminals in 2015 to telling crowds today that immigrants from south of the border are terrorists and escapees from mental institutions who are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

Wehner pointedly begins by sketching out the dehumanizing rhetoric that prededed the Rwandan genocide in 1994. I still remember just where I was when I heard that news on the radio.

But this sample from Wehner’s in-box and a personal interaction was particularly arresting:

As one Trump supporter put it in an email to me earlier this month, “Trump is decidedly not good and decent”—but, he added, “good and decent isn’t getting us very far politically.” And: “We’ve tried good and decent. But at the ballot box, that doesn’t work. We need to try another way.”

This sentiment is one I’ve heard many times before. In 2016, during the Republican primaries, a person I had known for many years through church wrote to me. “I think we have likely slipped past the point of no return as a country and I’m desperately hoping for a leader who can turn us around. I have no hope that one of the establishment guys would do that. That, I believe, is what opens people up to Trump. He’s all the bad things you say, but what has the Republican establishment given me in the past 16 years? First and foremost: BHO,” they said, using a derogatory acronym for Barack Obama that is meant to highlight his middle name, Hussein.

Some Americans’ embrace of American ideals and Constitutional principles has forever been a mile wide and an inch deep.

Trump is not speaking his plans in code. He and his acolytes speak bluntly of them. Republicans who gained control of state legislatures gerrymandered themselves into safe districts and boldly dismiss the will of voters are not just talking. They are showing us, plainly, and have in Wisconsin, in Ohio, in North Carolina. And on the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The end justifies the means. Might makes right. If they cannot get their way democratically, they’ll burn the republic to the ground and replace it with something, very, very different.

Wehner continues:

If I had told this individual in 2016 what Trump would say and do over the next eight years, I’m confident he would have laughed it off, dismissing it as “Trump Derangement Syndrome”—and that he would have assured me that if Trump did do all these things, then of course he would break with him. Yet here we are. Despite Trump’s well-documented depravity, he still has a vise grip on the GOP; he carried 94 percent of the Republican vote in 2020, an increase from 2016, and he is leading his closest primary challenger nationally by more than 45 points.

The first time I ran across the phrase “might makes right” was in a comic book I saw as a kid. It was the one atop this post, I think, and referenced the philosophy of Nazi Germany again and again: MIGHT MAKES RIGHT! MIGHT MAKES RIGHT!

The jingoistic lesson, of course, illustrated with images of air combat, was that the Allies eventually defeated fascism because, as Abraham Lincoln proclaimed at the end of his Cooper Union address, right makes might.

LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

“Unrelenting, top-to-bottom negativity”

Philosopher Linus van Pelt famously lamented, “There’s no heavier burden than a great potential!” It’s a burden Democrats carry too. Supporters and leaners are easily upset. Not so with Republicans. They anger us, sure, but because we expect so lttle of them they cannot disappoint us the way our friends can.

It is a dynamic David Roberts, a.k.a. Dr. Volts, wrote about in a thread on Sunday. A Washington Post profile of voters in Door County, Wisconsin (pop. 30k) finally pegged his P.K.E. meter.

Roberts writes (bolding mine):

This article is worth examining closely. It’s a classic “visit a swing county to hear about politics” piece, so it forces itself to be even-handed & “pox on both houses,” but if you read closely you can glimpse something else. washingtonpost.com/nation/interac…

Why are they upset? “the broader political backdrop— the impeachments, Trump’s torrent of falsehoods about the 2020 election, the Capitol insurrection, the band of hard-right Republicans ousting their speaker —has blocked out notice of what both sides cast as accomplishments…” 

Hm… what do all those things have in common? Oh, they’re all about Republican extremism! It’s relentless GOP agitprop & anger & corruption & hysteria that is making politics so draining. Because making people sick of politics *serves the right’s interests*. 

Here you see what might have been an alternate framing of the article: “the right’s quest to make politics toxic & to destroy citizens’ trust in basic political & media institutions is working.” The lead anecdote is about a woman seeing a *psychic* for answers. 

Then there’s this: “They long for compromise. They want to feel heard and understood. Most Americans, for instance, desire access to abortion, tighter restrictions on guns and affordable health care. Many wonder why our laws don’t reflect that.” 

There’s a party that talks constantly about compromise & making sure everyone’s heard. It supports access to abortion, tighter restrictions on guns, & more affordable health care. It’s the Democratic Party. It borders on performance art to refrain from saying so in that graf! 

Tell me again why Joe Biden’s approval ratings are so low. Rather, let Roberts tell us why Joe Biden’s approval ratings are so low. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes invited Roberts to explain it to viewers.

.@drvolts breaks down why it's unpopular to cheer on the Democratic Party:

"Everyone has incentive to criticize them. No one has the incentive to defend them." pic.twitter.com/qVahTS698I

— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) November 22, 2023

An then this, from a swing voter:

“I can’t really speak to anything [Biden] has done,” he said, “because I’ve tuned it out, like a lot of people have. We’re so tired of the us-against-them politics.”

[sound of Dave becoming the Joker] 

So what we really have here is an article about swing voters pining for calmer, more sensible politics & a range of moderate policies–EXACTLY THE SHIT THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY STANDS FOR. But when they tune in, all they see is madness & ugliness & fighting & claim & counter-claim… 

… so they “tune out” & thus do not hear about Biden saying/doing exactly the f’ing things they want someone to say/do. That is the right’s mission, accomplished. That is the core US political dynamic. That’s what these articles should be about. 

Everywhere, reactionaries in politics are the same: they try to blur truth, increase bile & anger, exhaust everyone, and convince the public that no one can be trusted (ie, only a Strong Man can fix it). Those are the circumstances in which reactionaries flourish. 

That’s what the right is doing in the US & the media is helping them by rewarding them with endless attention when they act out. The public is telling the WaPo here, as clearly as it can: we care about calm, deliberation, substance, policy, but all we get is spectacle. 

This is been a head-f’ing aspect of US politics as long as I’ve paid attention: centrists & swing voters pining for someone to do/say exactly what Democrats are doing/saying. They just don’t know Democrats are doing/saying it, because the view they get of politics obscures it. 

But then obscuring Democrats’ accomplishments is the idea. Both-sidesing by the press contributes to clouding the view, not clarifying it. Plus, shitting on Dems is the business model of the right-wing noise machine. Roberts notes in an earlier thread that Hayes spotlights (my bolding again):

If you’re on the right, shitting on Dems is how you demonstrate the shared hatreds that make you part of the tribe.

If you’re on the center-left, shitting on Dems is how you demonstrate the above-it-all independence that earns the admiration of peers.

If you’re on the left … 

… shitting on Dems is how you demonstrate the moral & ideological purity that are the price of membership.

If you’re in the media, shitting on Dems is how you fight off accusations of bias & establish your “objectivity.” 

There is no faction in US politics — barely even elected Dems! — for whom praising Dems is socially advantageous. There’s no approbation waiting, no repetitional [reputational] boost, for anyone. It is, from almost every vantage point, uncool. (Just try it on Twitter to see for yourself.) 

Thus we get today’s information environment, which responds to a transition from four years of violent irrational madness & mass death to three years of relative scandal-free sanity & economic recovery with … unrelenting, top-to-bottom negativity. 

No faction — far as I can tell, not a single individual — wants to reckon with their role & responsibility in this state of affairs, so I guess we’re just going to talk ourselves into outright fascism and it’s gonna be no one’s fault. 

Roberts almost gets at the fact that this dynamic programs our brains (yours and mine) with the notion that Democrats are hopelessly disappointing. Gaslighting on a societal scale [timestamp 43:55]. Through endless repetition we are all gaslighted (the word of the year in 2022). Being told repeatedly by people we trust — pundits, friends, allies, the “news” — that Democrats are feckless, “half a loaf,” etc., leaves glass-half-empty progressives who endlessly accuse conservatives of voting against their best interests considering staying home or voting third-party. That is, as Roberts suggests, talking ourselves into outright fascism out of pique.

“It was a magical evening”

Trump doesn’t believe in any of this religion stuff. But he believes in MAGA and if they love him, he loves them. They can have whatever they want as long as it benefits him personally. It works out great for everyone — except the sane, decent people of this country and the world:

CHRISTIAN NATIONALISTS WERE out in force at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night, once again demonstrating their proximity to MAGA power.

Lance Wallnau — the chief promoter of a “Seven Mountains Mandate” for right-wing Christians to seize control over government and culture — was dressed in a tux and streaming live to his 1 million Facebook followers. The black-tie event was the America First Policy Institute gala at Trump’s Palm Beach estate, where the former president was soon to speak.

As he filmed with his cell phone, Wallnau grabbed co-religionist Jim Garlow — the MAGA pastor with whom now-House Speaker Mike Johnson recently prayed to spare a “depraved” America from the “judgment that we clearly deserve.” Both religious figures are associated with an evangelical movement called the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR, which has an unusual obsession with earthly power. The duo engaged in jocular banter during the stream on Friday: “You can read about you in the news lately,” Wallnau ribbed Garlow, referring to Rolling Stone’s coverage of the pastor’s prayer call with Johnson. Garlow rejoined: “It’s because we’re dangerous — what do they call us? — ‘Christian nationalists.’”

Garlow at first mocked the media attention, saying he was “disappointed they didn’t call us Christian internationalists” — reflecting the global ambition of his quest for right-wing Christian dominion. But then Garlow played the victim: “The phrase ‘Christian nationalist’ has one purpose,” he insisted. “And that is simply to bully Christians — to intimidate, silence them so they will not be involved governmentally.” Garlow then claimed that this was done in the service of satanic forces, “so The Enemy can have his way and destroy the country.”

The fact that Garlow and Wallnau were palling around in tuxedos at Mar-a-Lago the same week that their religious movement made national news for its troubling reach into the highest ranks of elected Republican politics, was itself another remarkable sign of that influence. Wallnau shared that Garlow’s online prayer partner — who has credited the pastor as a “profound influence” on both his life and his “walk with Christ” — was also in attendance. “Mike Johnson is here tonight,” Wallnau said. “I want to hear Mike Johnson. He’s under attack because he’s such an outspoken Christian.” (Rolling Stone could not independently confirm Johnson’s attendance at Mar-a-Lago. The Speaker’s spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests.) 

In his banter with Wallnau, Garlow certainly did not distance himself from a Christian nationalist ideology. In fact, he underscored his belief that Christians are meant to be in control — to advance the Kingdom of God across the planet. Garlow even advised Americans to break up with their pastors if the religious leaders don’t use the pulpit to advance “the issues that God has commanded us to.” Garlow explained: “We don’t just ‘preach Jesus.’ We preach what Jesus preached. He preached the Kingdom … What’s the King over? Everything. Everything. Including the governmental and political realm.”

The Friday evening gala at Mar-a-Lago was the culminating party of a three-day conference held by America First Policy Institute. AFPI exists to formulate policy for what MAGA-world anticipates will be a second Trump term. AFPI’s leaders include past bigwigs from the Trump administration like chair Linda McMahon, a former Trump cabinet member, and CEO Brooke Rollins, who served as Director of the Domestic Policy Council in the Trump White House. 

Other AFPI leadership include executive director Chad Wolf, who was the illicit acting Homeland Security chief when the Trump administration battled protestors in the streets of Portland; far-right economist Larry Kudlow; and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who addressed the AFPI conference on day one.

AFPI’s gathering featured a strong Christianist undercurrent. Paula White Cain — a top religious influencer in Trump’s circle — led prayer and scripture at an AFPI “Ladies” event, later posting on Instagram: “God moved at our prayer breakfast 🙏🏻.” Televangelist Jentezen Franklin, whose broadcast is called Kingdom Connection, was honored, along with his wife, with AFPI’s 2023 Patriot award.

In fact, right-wing religion seems to be woven through the DNA of AFPI. The group’s chief digital officer is Adam W. Schindler. Schindler is also a pastor who works closely with Garlow; they co-founded the World Prayer Network, which hosted the call where Mike Johnson decried the rise of LGBTQ children as evidence of America’s “dark” and nearly “irredeemable” culture. AFPI has also championed Johnson’s rise to speaker. Rollins, the CEO, wrote a Newsweek op-ed praising Johnson’s selection, calling him “indefatigably optimistic.” Rolling Stone sought interviews with Garlow, Wallnau, and Rollins; none responded. Schindler emailed that he is “proud to work at AFPI and support the work we do there.”

As the MAGA movement seeks a return to the White House, religious extremism is no longer marginalized. It is now baked into the cake. The AFPI conference proceedings included an appearance from Christian nationalist Charlie Kirk, of Turning Point USA. Self-proclaimed Christian nationalist congress member Marjorie Taylor Greene was also in attendance at the gala.

There were secular elements, too, including a performance by country star Wynonna Judd. Boldface MAGA names included former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz, former Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway, and former acting attorney general (and well-endowed-man toilet promoter) Matt Whitaker. Rollins described the gala night as “The most magical evening … with 700 closest friends, supporters, and partners.” 

The whole coalition gathered together at the scene of Trump’s theft of America’s nuclear secrets. And it was magical.

Johnson did turn up on Monday night for a fundraiser and met with Trump after fervently endorsing him just last week. He’s come a long way since 2015 when he wrote this:

“The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House,” Mr. Johnson wrote in a lengthy post on Facebook on Aug. 7, 2015, before he was elected to Congress and a day after the first Republican primary debate of the campaign cycle.

Challenged in the comments by someone defending Mr. Trump, Mr. Johnson responded: “I am afraid he would break more things than he fixes. He is a hot head by nature, and that is a dangerous trait to have in a Commander in Chief.”

Mr. Johnson, then a state lawmaker in Louisiana, also questioned what would happen if “he decided to bomb another head of state merely disrespecting him.”

“I am only halfway kidding about this,” he wrote. “I just don’t think he has the demeanor to be President.”

Apparently, his discussions of golden showers and calling his rivals fat pigs and drug addicts on the campaign trail are no longer characteristics of someone who doesn’t have the demeanor to be president. Certainly no one could say the man who wants to deport half the country doesn’t have a moral center.

I have been saying for years that the good news about all of this is that we no longer have to believe these self-appointed moral guardians have any morals or principles. Clearly they don’t. On the other hand, these people are no longer in the fringe. They have cast their lot with Donald Trump and he owns the party.

Judd Legum’s great newsletter featured this look at Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a dedicated MAGA warrior who gladly does Stephen Miller’s bidding:

Stephen Miller, the notorious advisor to former president Donald Trump, suggested on X yesterday that a “conservative state Attorney[] General” should pursue civil and criminal charges against Media Matters. Miller claims that Media Matters committed “fraud” by reporting that X was displaying ads from major brands next to white nationalist and neo-Nazi posts. X has accused Media Matters of “completely misrepresent[ing] the real user experience on X.” But, according to X’s own statement, all Media Matters did was create an account, follow some users, and observe what ads were displayed. 

Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” responded favorably to Miller’s proposal to subject journalists to criminal prosecution, declaring it “interesting.” But the idea that Media Matters’ conduct is legally actionable is absurd, especially since X has already admitted that ads were displayed next to the posts identified by Media Matters.  

Nevertheless, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) took Miller up on his suggestion. “My team is looking into this matter,” Bailey posted in response to Musk. 

Bailey expanded on his investigation of Media Matters’ reporting in an interview on Newsmax, a far-right cable channel: 

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office is tasked in statute with protecting Missouri consumers. That means consumers that participate on social media platforms as well. And so if we have an instance where there was a deceptive or fraudulent business practice where Media Matters was using some sort of coercive or fraudulent algorithms or advertising, that’s going to be problematic on the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. 

It does not appear that Bailey gave this “investigation” much thought. Media Matters’ conduct did not involve “fraudulent algorithms” or “advertising.” And the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act only applies to “the sale or advertisement of any merchandise in trade or commerce.” Media Matters was not selling anything. 

But Bailey’s announcement should not come as a surprise. Bailey has never been elected by the people of Missouri. He was appointed to his position in January by Missouri Governor Mike Parson (R). Since then, Bailey has brazenly exceeded the legal authority of his office to grab headlines. Bailey is running for a full term in 2024 and is seeking to make sure he is not outflanked from the right in the Republican primary. 

Read on for more about Bailey. He’s a real piece of work. And unfortunately, there are a lot more like him. For instance, massively corrupt Texas Attorney general Ken Paxton who recently survived and impeachment run by his fellow Republicans. He too says he will be “investigating” Media Matters. (That’s, of course, when he’s not chasing down pregnant women, trans kids and banning books. ) The MAGA movement is fully enmeshed in the right wing legal system now. Even the Federalist Society is a bunch of squishes in their minds. And they’re prepared to go for it.