Evangelicals see Trump as God’s warrior in their battle to win America from satanic forces

The Conversation
November 9, 2024 7

Chris Straub, prays with the congregation during an ‘Election Eve Service of Prayer,’ in support of Republican Presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump at Suncoast Liberty Fellowship in Largo, Florida, U.S., November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Octavio Jones

A growing movement believes President-elect Donald Trump is fighting a spiritual war against demonic forces within the United States. Trump himself stated in his acceptance speech on Nov. 6, 2024, that the reason that “God spared my life” was to “restore America to greatness.”


I have studied various religious movements that seek to shape and control American society. One of these is the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR, whose followers believe that they are waging a spiritual battle for control of the United States. NAR is an offshoot of Protestant Christian evangelicalism.

NAR advocates claim they receive divine guidance in reconstructing modern society based on Christian spiritual beliefs. In 2015, an estimated 3 million adult Americans attended churches that were openly part of NAR. Some scholars estimate that the number of active NAR adherents may be larger, as the movement may include members of Protestant Christian churches that are not directly aligned with the NAR movement.
The beginning of the movement

NAR emerged in the late 1990s when theologian C. Peter Wagner popularized the term “New Apostolic Reformation.” Wagner argued that God was creating modern-day apostles and prophets who would lead Christianity in remaking American society.

The roots of the New Apostolic Reformation can be traced to the broader charismatic movement that sees spiritual forces as an active part of everyday life.

This view does not separate sacred experience from regular everyday life. For the much larger network of charismatic Christians and Pentecostal movements that emphasize a personal relationship with God, the world is full of the active presence of the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts and direct divine experiences.
Core beliefs

Central to NAR is the belief that Christian religious leaders should be the main source of cultural and political authority in America.

NAR proponents argue that select leaders receive direct revelation from God, guiding the direction of churches and fighting spiritual warfare against demonic influences, which they believe corrupt the behavior of individuals and nations.

NAR advocates for a hierarchical structure in which religious leaders and their political allies hold authority in society.

They believe in “The Seven Mountains Mandate,” a way to represent Christian control of society through a strategy that Christians should infiltrate, influence and eventually control seven key areas in society – business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, family, and religion – to bring about cultural transformation.

By doing so, NAR proponents believe they can establish a pure and true form of what they believe is a society ruled by divine guidance and strict adherence to biblical ideas.

Lance Wallnau, a prominent Christian author, speaker, social media influencer and consultant associated with NAR, has promoted the idea that such engagement where NAR Christian leaders hold authority through a government tied to divine will is essential for advancing societal transformation.

Wallnau has been a vocal supporter of Trump, viewing him as a significant figure in NAR’s vision.
Spiritual warfare

Followers of the NAR believe that they must engage in spiritual warfare, which includes prayers and actions aimed at combating perceived demonic influences in society. 

Evangelist Lance Wallnau speaks during a September 2022 rally for Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in Chambersburg, Pa. Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

This practice often involves identifying “strongholds” of evil, around cultural issues, such as gay marriage, transgender rights and LGBTQ+ activism, and working to dismantle them. An example of this is a recent series of religious-based political rallies led by NAR leaders known as “The Courage Tour” that advocated directly for Trump’s second election.

The NAR emphasizes that Christians should expect to see miraculous signs, where extraordinary events, such as Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt, are interpreted to be explained only by divine or spiritual intervention.

The movement’s adherents also believe in faith-based healing and supernatural experiences, such as prophetic utterances and speech.
Trump as divinely ordained

Many NAR leaders and followers support Trump, viewing him as a divinely appointed figure who would facilitate NAR’s goals for societal reconstruction, believing he was chosen by God to fulfill a prophetic destiny.

They position Trump as a warrior against a so-called demonically controlled – and therefore corrupted – “deep state,” aligning with NAR’s emphasis on spiritual warfare and cultural dominion as outlined in the “Seven Mountains” mandate. NAR leaders followed Trump’s understanding of a corrupt government.

The NAR led a “Million Women” worship rally on Oct. 12, 2024, to Washington, D.C., in which the organizers sought to encourage 1 million women NAR adherents to come to pray, protest and support Trump’s campaign. The event was promoted as a “last stand moment” to save the nation by helping Trump win the election as a champion against dark, satanic forces.

Several prominent politicians, legislators and members of the judiciary, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, have flown the NAR-based “Appeal to Heaven” flag.

For NAR evangelicals, the presidential election is interpreted through a Christian apocalyptic rhetoric. In this rhetoric one candidate is a force for good, a warrior for God – Trump – and the other is led by demonic forces such as Harris. Trump’s 2024 win is seen as a critical moment of spiritual warfare where the forces of God defeat the forces of evil.
Criticism from many Christian denominations

Despite its growing popularity, NAR faces substantial criticism. Many mainstream Christian churches argue that the movement’s teachings deviate from traditional Christian orthodoxy.

Critics highlight abuse of authority by people who claim God is directing their actions and the potential for abuse of authority by those claiming apostolic roles. The embrace of Trump raises concerns about blending evangelical faith and political ambition.

Critics argue that the NAR’s support for Trump compromised the integrity of the gospel, prioritizing political power over spiritual integrity. The events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol further complicated this relationship, exposing the potential dangers of conflating religious beliefs with partisan politics.

Moreover, the NAR’s emphasis on spiritual warfare and the idea of taking control over society has raised other Christian groups’ concerns about its potential to foster an “us versus them” mentality, leading to increased polarization within society.

The New Apostolic Reformation represents a significant development, blending charismatic practices with a strong emphasis on politics and cultural transformation.

However, a large majority of Americans disagree that society should be remade based on religious theology. Thus, for now, the NAR movement’s fundamental views about religion and government are starkly at odds with most Americans.

Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2024/11/time-to-read-mikhail-bakunin-god-and.html

Fighting demons: The New Apostolic Reformation is waging a holy war against democracy

Paul Rosenberg

SALON
Sun, October 20, 2024 

Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump pray outside the U.S. Capitol January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Win McNamee/Getty Images

“You do not attack the enemy — you attack the enemy’s strategy,” and the strategy of the Christian right “has always been to master the tools of electoral democracy in order to erode and to end it.” That advice, quoting Sun Tzu, came from Frederick Clarkson, a senior researcher at Political Research Associates (and Salon contributor), in a recent webinar, "The New Apostolic Reformation and the Threat to Democracy In Pennsylvania."

Unlike earlier incarnations of the Christian right, the explicit goal of the widely-discussed but little-understood NAR is to install theocracy with a democratic facade, approximately on the Iranian model. They call it “theonomy.” The movement is led by mutually recognized “apostles” and “prophets” who purport to receive direct guidance from God and see themselves engaged in spiritual warfare — literally, as in fighting actual demons — to gain dominion over the “seven mountains of culture”: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business and government. As in Iran, they wouldn’t just control government but every aspect of society, but would still call it democracy and claim, in the face of America’s "Godless Constitution," that this was what the founders wanted all along. It’s gaslighting in the name of God.

Understanding the NAR’s goals and strategy is crucial in exposing what the movement really wants, most of which is broadly unpopular. And how they want to get there — boosting turnout among a minority base by demonizing their fellow citizens — is highly corrosive to democracy itself. “The left is loaded with demons,” NAR apostle Lance Wallnau has said (according to Clarkson). “I don’t think it’s people anymore; I think you’re dealing with demons talking through people.”


Pennsylvania plays a key role in the NAR’s plans, and reinventing the state’s eponymous founder, William Penn, as a like-minded forebear — rather than the champion of religious diversity and secular government he actually was — is a core part of their strategy, as advanced by NAR apostle Abby Abildness.

The webinar came three days after Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance appeared at an NAR-sponsored event in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, where he stood the biblical teaching to love the stranger on its head, without even trying to quote scripture. That event was part of the Courage Tour, targeting 19 counties in seven swing states “where demonic strongholds have corrupt control over the voting," according to Wallnau, who has recently described Kamala Harris as "the spirit of Jezebel" and "the devil's choice."

Wallnau’s partner in planning his tour is the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank. Vance’s appearance was perfectly in keeping with a whole web of NAR-GOP collaboration, high-level examples of which were provided by researcher Peter Montgomery of People for the American Way during the webinar.

The event kicked off with two presentations on how best to understand the NAR, from former PRA researcher Rachel Tabachnick and religion scholar Julie Ingersoll, author of “Building God’s Kingdom” (Salon author interview here), a study of Christian Reconstruction, which informs most of NAR’s theology.

“This movement has been building in Pennsylvania for more than 20 years,” Tabachnick said. “There is the belief that Pennsylvania is key to taking the rest of the country, a theme that has been repeated in campaigns and media for more than a decade.”

Two Pennsylvania researchers provided research under pseudonyms, focusing first on six key NAR figures explaining the state’s significance, and then on NAR power and influence in Lancaster Country, which has seen a dramatic shift away from its historical Anabaptist tradition.

Collectively, these presentations delivered a chilling portrait of a potent but under-recognized threat to democracy that’s MAGA-affiliated but operates on a much longer timeline, and demands a thoughtful strategic response, as outlined by Clarkson in his closing remarks.
Tearing down the religious establishment

The NAR “predates Trump and it will outlast him,” Tabachnick said. It’s a movement dedicated to “tearing down the establishment, not just in D.C., not just in Harrisburg, but also, and perhaps most importantly … tearing down the traditional religious establishment…. This is not just a religious versus secular movement,” she continued, and should not be framed that way. “This is a movement about reorganizing Christendom under their dominance.”

This entails conflict not just with liberal or moderate Christians, but also with evangelicals, Pentecostals and charismatic Christians who do not share the NAR's theology or worldview. In fact, both the NAR and its predecessor fringe movements going back to the 1940s have been formally denounced by other Christians, along lines that echo Paul’s denunciation of the Colossian heresies: “Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind.”

For many Christians, the NAR’s focus on fighting demons is inherently heretical, since it implies that salvation through Christ is insufficient. Indeed, orthodox critics have accused the NAR and its predecessors of practicing the same sort of pagan ritual magic they claim to be fighting against.

For example, NAR father figure C. Peter Wagner, who first named the movement and did more than anyone to give it coherence, specifically developed and promoted forms of “spiritual warfare,” that have little if any Christian precedent. This began with “spiritual mapping” to identify “demonic strongholds,” which has more in common with the practices of various pagan traditions than anything adjacent to mainstream Christianity.

“This is the same movement that led many of the Jericho Marches around the [state] Capitol building in Harrisburg and other states around the country, and organized and led many of the events in D.C. and on the U.S. Capitol grounds in December 2020 and on Jan. 6,” Tabachnick said, events at least arguably informed by the practice of spiritual mapping.

It’s good to keep this context in mind when confronted with the NAR’s claims to speak for all Christians, much less to have a personal download from God. But while it’s easy to dismiss a movement that blows shofars and talks about spiritual warfare, Tabachnick noted, the NAR “is simultaneously mastering the mundane nuts and bolts work of legislative work,” and as head of the state prayer caucus, Abby Abildness has worked with legislators for years, drawing on the Project Blitz playbook that was exposed by Clarkson and reported here in 2018. It starts out with benign-sounding bills and then works up to attacking reproductive freedom, LGBTQ equality and more.

As with Project 2025, “we have playbooks and we need to expose them,” Tabachnick said. NAR strategy is “not meant for public consumption,” she continued, “and a little sunshine goes a very long way. The American people don't want this.”

The outraged nationwide response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade is a striking example, but far from the only one. The NAR has long been interested in denying women the vote, as Ingersoll has tracked for more than a decade.

“This is a media-savvy movement, filling the airwaves with claims that those opposed to them are cutural Marxists, communists and, in the words of Wallnau, demons that have to be removed from the high places of culture and society,” Tabachnick said. While it’s impossible to say how many deep NAR support runs, she said research indicates that about 30 percent of adult Christians support the “seven-mountain mandate.”

NAR is one of “two significant sources of dominionism,” having cross-pollinated with Christian reconstructionism, whose founders “produced thousands upon thousands of pages of blueprints for reconstructing the U.S. in accordance with biblical law,” Tabachnick continued. This “Project 2025 for dominion theology” is against taxation, regulation and labor unions, and its theorists “were fellow travelers with states’ righters, the John Birch Society and, later, the Tea Party movement.”

From its neo-Pentecostal roots, the NAR inherits “a strong supernatural component,” including the “belief that individuals receive supernatural gifts, that these apostles and prophets are given direction from God and have been chosen to be God’s government on earth in all the seven mountains.”

While Doug Mastriano’s losing gubernatorial campaign in Pennsylvania in 2022 brought the movement to the surface, Tabachnick said, he wasn’t the first NAR-associated political candidate, only “the first to launch it with blowing a shofar” — a Jewish ritual ram’s horn that Christian Zionist groups have appropriated. It’s an example of how NAR readily gobbles up elements of other faiths. For the NAR, she concluded, Mastriano’s campaign was a major step forward in mastering the tools of electoral democracy than an electoral defeat.
The NAR's widening influence and long-term goals

Ingersoll’s presentation was largely about understanding the NAR and cutting through the confusion around it. Asking if someone is a member is “actually the wrong question,” she said, “based on a misunderstanding about how ideas and social movements work. The NAR is incredibly diffuse by design.”

In part, that’s because of a problem mentioned above: From a traditional Christian point of view, the NAR and its leaders are ungodly. “There are massive egos involved that don't want to be in coordination, let alone under the authority of other people,” Ingersoll explained. But they also fail a basic test of democratic leadership: “They like to preserve a level of deniability. They want to be able to make outrageous claims in some contexts, but not be held accountable for them in other contexts,” she said. Some people who clearly fit in with the NAR will “deny the label, because they don't want to carry around some of the baggage.”

Abstract questions about membership don’t much matter, Ingersoll stressed. What’s important is what people actually do. “People don't live articulated theological systems,” she said. “They assemble components of the systems that work for them in any given context. … Dominionism in the NAR is a fluid assemblage of ideas, traditions and practices that are invoked as they seem applicable.”

For example, the movement simultaneously embraces two incompatible eschatologies, to use the theological term. On one hand, there’s the pre-millennial interpretation of the Book of Revelation shared by most evangelical Christians: The world gets worse and worse until the day of Rapture and the last judgment. On the other is the Christian Reconstructionist post-millennial interpretation: “The kingdom of God was actually reestablished at the resurrection [of Christ], and it’s the job of Christians to build it.” (Hence the title of Ingersoll’s book.) Logically, you can’t believe both at once, but situationally, Christians of the NAR variety choose to believe whichever one seems to fit the moment.

One result is NAR’s long time-horizon. “They think in a thousand years,” Ingersoll said. One home-school movement has developed a package for families to build “a 200-year plan for family dominion.” When she began writing about the push to roll back women’s right to vote about 15 years ago, “People would say, ‘That's crazy. That could never happen.’ I don't know that it can't happen, and among Christian nationalists there is a big discussion now about whether or not it's biblical for women to have the right to vote. If we don't think in the long term, we miss where they're going with all these things.

“When we’re thinking in terms of the election or a current crisis or one particular leader, we are missing the long-term horizon with which these these efforts are made,” she continued. One way to shift focus, Ingersoll argues, is to track the use of terms that circulate in NAR circles, many of which (thanks to her) appeared in the glossary Salon published in May. These include “dominion,” ”biblical worldview,” “patriarchy” (as a positive), “government schools” instead of public schools, “civil government” instead of just government, “lesser magistrates,” “biblical spheres of authority” and “covenant marriage.”

Another complementary focus is to track known pro-NAR individuals and their associates, as Peter Montgomery did in his presentation. He began with high-level examples such as House Speaker Mike Johnson “and a couple dozen members of Congress” who have “gathered with NAR leaders for prayer and spiritual warfare.” His second example cited this year’s Republican convention in Milwaukee, where “spiritual warfare rhetoric was everywhere,” specifically “the idea that the American political scene is not about right or left … but an actual spiritual battle between good and evil, between the forces of God and the agents of Satan.”
The NAR's reinvention of William Penn

“Each state has a specific NAR name and NAR purpose,” explained the researcher introduced under the pseudonym Kira Resistance. “Pennsylvania is not only ‘seed of a nation’ state, but it's also the ‘government-shift state.’” NAR leaders see Pennsylvania as “the holy seed of a government,” not just for the United States but “a holy governmental example to the entire world,” which is one reason, Kira said, why she avoids the term "Christian nationalism."

Kira discussed six key Pennsylvania figures, beginning not with Doug Mastriano but Abby Abildness, who has been a leader in developing, articulating and spreading the vision of Pennsylvania’s special role, with a reverse-engineered, NAR-friendly version of William Penn at its core. To carry out the vision of this imaginary Penn, “You have to elect righteous leaders,” which of course means those who share NAR’s vision.

Abildness once said that God had told her that he wanted to claim the state capital of Harrisburg, Kira recounted, after which Abildness released a video “showing dozens of people on a hill right before the Harrisburg Capitol, bending the knee.”

This kind of ritual performance is typical of the ways NAR seeks to rewrite history and redraw boundaries to suit its vision, sweeping aside inconvenient facts or counter-arguments. In terms of actual history, William Penn’s vision was almost exactly the opposite of the NAR fantasy. As noted on the website of Penn’s country estate, his “belief that ‘Religion and Policy … are two distinct things, have two different ends, and may be fully prosecuted without respect one to the other’ took hold and became one of America’s most important ideals.” In that sense, Penn’s vision really can be seen as the “seed of a nation” in which religious diversity, rather than unanimity, was a hallmark from the beginning.

Like many early colonial leaders and many of America’s founders, Penn was a slaveowner, a fact that has led liberal Quakers to expunge him “from our Friendly pantheon,” as Quaker activist Chuck Fager wrote in 2022. But as he continued, if liberal Quakers didn’t want Penn anymore, Doug Mastriano and his allies surely did:



[I]n Penn there are 340 years worth of — in plain worldly language — overwhelmingly positive branding for Quakers and the liberating aspects of our testimonies.

Christian nationalists now want to turn him and them into their opposite….

Penn had his faults; but a theocrat he never ever was.

Doug Mastriano and his wife, Rebbe, are often referred to as “spiritual parents of the state” in NAR-world, Kira continued. At Mastriano's 2022 campaign kickoff, Abildness said “that Penn's heart was bringing forth the godly foundation to our nation” and that “Mastriano's heart is like Penn's heart.”

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Rebbe Mastriano stirred up the faithful with fighting words: "When the Israelites came into their promised land, they didn't just march in and take it. God had to move in mighty ways to remove their enemies. Our promised land is Pennsylvania, and we're taking it back."

After Mastriano’s defeat, Kira noted, he literally compared himself to Abraham Lincoln, saying, “We are in it for the long haul. We often hear about Lincoln losing important races in his time. In the end God gave him the great victory because of perseverance. This movement is going to stay influential in this state.”
Lancaster County: Microcosm, harbinger or bellwether?

The next pseudonymous presenter, who called himself the Lancaster Examiner, took a hyper-local focus on how NAR power gets built from the ground up. First, the apostolic networks are present in the county, then they attract “big-name visitors” for special events, and then “the local growth of these communities and networks” begins to impact local politics.

At least five or six apostolic networks have been active in Lancaster County and devoted to the mission of “taking over churches,” mostly within “historically Anabaptist communities” such as the Mennonites, the Amish, the Brethren, the Hutterites and similar Christian traditions.

In a follow-up email, the Examiner explained that as with “the NAR's retelling of the William Penn narrative, local Anabaptist-turned-NAR churches have massaged their own history,” citing one sermon in which a local pastor “twists the narrative a quarter-turn or so to frame south central Pennsylvania's NAR community as uniquely called by God for such a time as this.”

It’s quite a historical twist, since “religious freedom is absolutely a core value of Anabaptists,” the Examiner wrote. “But as you've seen, the NAR and similar charismatic evangelical movements engage in the language of diversity and ‘come as you are,’ but all of that is in dissonance with what comes next in their agenda.”

For several decades, he continued, “Local leaders have cultivated communities that are involved in dominionist activities and behavior, knowingly and not. What’s noteworthy is arguably not that it’s happened but that such incredible growth has gone unnoticed. So while Mastriano lost, this movement predates him and will outlive his moment in the spotlight.”

Lancaster County should be seen as a harbinger of sorts, he suggested. "The number of networks that have emerged here feels atypical and significant to me in comparison to other parts of the state," the Examiner said, adding that "Lancastrians have a penchant for reinventing the wheel — or even inventing the same wheel by different people at the same time."

Lancaster County is "different from the rest of the country only in degree," Ingersoll added. "Dominionist Christians have worked for decades to establish a beachhead in culture, whether you're thinking in terms of reconstructionists or the NAR. In some places they've been more successful than others, and they have particularly targeted Pennsylvania because it's such a key state in the election.”
Fighting back: "A quiet call to action"

In the final presentation, Clarkson laid out a broad overview of one key aspect of the NAR strategy “to master the tools of electoral democracy in order to erode and to end it.” The group seeks to “embolden reluctant conservative evangelicals in blue suburbs and make them feel part of a religious and political cause far greater than themselves,” he said.

“Beyond their efforts at electoral mobilization and possible monkey-wrenching is something far more concerning,” Clarkson continued. “NAR leaders are increasingly teaching that normal religious, political and gender differences are to be seen as supernatural evil, as demonic.” Such demonization, as we should know by now, can readily lead to violence.

Clarkson ended with what he called “a quiet call to action,” but “not a call to do things we have done before that haven’t worked, but this time with more energy.” Instead, activists who hope to battle the NAR’s political influence “need to know more than we do now about who they are and what they are about. If knowledge is power, we need more knowledge — and we need to spread it more widely.”

Along with that, Clarkson concluded, NAR opponents “need some agreed-upon vocabulary in order to be able to discuss the knowledge we acquire. This is how good strategy is made. We also need to deepen our knowledge of the rules and practices of electoral democracy. We should not be content to leave these things to political professionals. Democracy belongs to all of us, and we need to act like it.” That was what the real William Penn, flaws and all, actually believed. He wasn’t interested in fighting demons.

Trumper Doug Mastriano sues Oklahoma historian for defamation

OVER HIS UNIV. OF NEW BRUNSWICK, CANADA, PHD THESIS

Emma Murphy, Pennsylvania Capital-Star
September 21, 2024 

Doug Mastriano Yong Kim/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma historian being sued for defamation by a Pennsylvania state lawmaker is seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed on the grounds that the legislator is trying to curtail free speech rights.

James Gregory Jr., a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oklahoma, is being sued by Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, (R-Franklin), for defamation after Gregory criticized Mastriano’s academic research and raised concerns about its integrity.

Mastriano sued Gregory and nearly two dozen other defendants in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma in May, but the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on Thursday. The organization, which advocates for free speech and free thought rights, is representing Gregory.

“The First Amendment means all Americans have the right to criticize public officials, no matter how angry that criticism makes them,” said Greg Greubel, FIRE senior attorney, in a statement. “Politicians should be concerned about legislating for the people, not suing critics when their feelings get hurt.”

The lawsuit alleges that Mastriano is “the victim of a multi-year racketeering and antitrust enterprise” that seeks to steal, use and “debunk his work” that is worth at least $10 million in “tourism-related events, validated museum artifacts, book, media, television and movie deals.”

Mastriano is a decorated military veteran and a well-respected academic, who has published three books, two multinational studies and over 30 articles on “historic, military or strategic matters,” according to the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, Mastriano alleges a conspiracy to try to “steal” his Ph.D. in U.S. military history, his book sales, lucrative speaking engagements and other professional opportunities.

The lawsuit alleges that Gregory began to attempt to debunk Mastriano’s archeological research in 2019 and claimed the work was a “fraud.” The complaint prompted an investigation into Mastriano. Gregory, meanwhile, released his own book entitled “Unraveling The Myth of Sgt. York: The Other Sixteen.”

Mastriano and his Tulsa-based attorney did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.

According to Gregory’s motion to dismiss, Gregory first read Mastriano’s published work on World War I hero Sgt. Alvin York while he was an undergraduate student at OU.

Gregory reported over 200 concerns of academic fraud and inaccuracies to the University of New Brunswick in Canada, where Mastriano earned his Ph.D., in 2022, according to the lawsuit. Gregory said he had no knowledge of Mastriano’s political ambitions at the time and was simply doing his duty as a historian “to seek out the truth and correct the record.”

The motion to dismiss the case against Gregory argues that criticizing the work of a fellow historian is not defamation or racketeering and that the First Amendment and Oklahoma law are meant to protect Gregory’s right to question a public official’s scholarship.

“Historians arrive at the truth by debating ideas, inviting skepticism, and challenging assumptions and sources,” Gregory said in a statement. “By trying to silence that debate, Mastriano is literally on the wrong side of history — and history will prevail.”

In a statement, FIRE said Mastriano’s lawsuit is “intended to chill speech by forcing the speaker to defend themself against costly and time-consuming litigation.”

The group argues that the defamation claim should be dismissed in part because of Oklahoma’s Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or anti-SLAPP, law and because public debate among historians is not a violation of antitrust law.

FIRE said the Oklahoma Citizens Participation Act, passed in 2014 allows quick dismissals of lawsuits targeting free speech and holds the plaintiff responsible for paying the defendant’s legal fees.

“James’ plight is a perfect example of why robust anti-SLAPP protections are vital to expressive freedom,” Greubel said in a statement. “Otherwise, the First Amendment is nothing more than a luxury for those who can afford to fight off an expensive lawsuit.”

Gregory is also the director of the William A. Brookshire Military Museum at Louisiana State University and an adjunct at that university, FIRE said.

Mastriano went on to run for governor of Pennsylvania in 2022. He was not elected. In his lawsuit he alleges that Gregory’s criticisms of his scholarship led to Pennsylvanians deciding not to vote for him.

FIRE’s motion to dismiss argues Mastriano’s lawsuit should be thrown out as he failed to act within the one year statute of limitations, which would have expired in April, as required by Oklahoma law for defamation claims, among other rebuttals of the lawsuit.


Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on Facebook and X.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and X.

Amid campaign, Mastriano's disputed dissertation made public

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for Doug Mastriano 

AS AMERIKAN AS APPLE PIE

White nationalism is a political ideology that mainstreams racist conspiracy theories

Sara Kamali, Visiting Research Scholar at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

Sun, September 24, 2023

THE CONVERSATION

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers a prime-time speech on Sept. 1, 2022, in Philadelphia. Alex Wong/Getty Images

In September 2022, President Joe Biden convened a summit called United We Stand to denounce the “venom and violence” of white nationalism ahead of the midterm elections.

His remarks repeated the theme of his prime-time speech in Philadelphia on Sept. 1, 2022, during which he warned that America’s democratic values are at stake.

“We must be honest with each other and with ourselves,” Biden said. “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

Former President Donald Trump embraces Kari Lake, the Arizona GOP candidate for governor, at a rally on July 22, 2022. Mario Tama/Getty Images

While that message may resonate among many Democratic voters, it’s unclear whether it will have any impact on any Republicans whom Biden described as “dominated and intimidated” by former President Donald Trump, or on independent voters who have played decisive roles in elections, and will continue to do so, particularly as their numbers increase.

It’s also unclear whether Trump-endorsed candidates can win in general elections, in which they will face opposition not only from members of their own party but also from a broad swath of Democrats and independent voters.

What is clear is that this midterm election cycle has revealed the potency of conspiracy theories that prop up narratives of victimhood and messages of hate across the complex American landscape of white nationalism.
Campaigning on conspiracy theories

In my book, “Homegrown Hate: Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists Are Waging War on the United States,” I detail how the white nationalist narrative of victimhood and particular grievances have gained traction to become ingrained in the present-day Republican Party.

I also examine four key strands of white nationalism that overlap in various configurations: religions, racism, conspiracy theories and anti-government views.

Conspiracy theories allow white nationalists to depict a world in which Black and brown people are endangering the livelihoods, social norms and morals of white people.

In general, conspiracy theories are based on the belief that individual circumstances are the result of powerful enemies actively agitating against the interests of a believing individual or group.

Based on the interviews I conducted while researching my book, these particular conspiracy theories are convenient because they justify the shared white nationalist goal of establishing institutions and territory of white people, for white people and by white people. While conspiracy theories are not new, and certainly not new to politics, they spread with increasing frequency and speed because of social media.

The “great replacement theory” is one such baseless belief that is playing a role in the anti-immigration rhetoric that is central to the 2022 strategies of many Republican candidates who are running for seats at all levels of government.

That theory erroneously warns believers of the threat that immigrants and people of color pose to white identity and institutions.

For months on the 2022 campaign trail, Republican Blake Masters, a venture capitalist who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona, has portrayed immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border as part of an elaborate plot by Democrats to dilute the political power of voters born in the United States.

“What the left really wants to do is change the demographics of this country,” Masters said in a video posted to Twitter last fall.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is another Republican leader who decries what he calls “the invasion of the southern border.”
The lie of the ‘Big Lie’

Aside from the inflammatory anti-immigration rhetoric, the conspiracy theory currently having the biggest impact on local, state and federal political campaigns across the country is Trump’s “Big Lie” that he won the 2020 election.

Donald Trump greets Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano on Sept. 3, 2022. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Of the 159 endorsements Trump has made for proponents of the Big Lie, 127 of them have won their primaries in 2022.

In addition, Republican candidates who align themselves with the Big Lie are also emerging victorious in races for state- and county-level offices whose responsibilities include direct oversight of elections.
The continuation of QAnon

On his social media site Truth Social, the former president quotes and spreads conspiracy theories from the quasi-religious QAnon. A major tenet of QAnon is the belief that the Democrats and people regarded as their liberal allies are a nefarious cabal of sexual predators and pedophiles.

Trump is not the only Republican politician who welcomes and spreads such disinformation.

Two of the most prominent politicians who have been linked to supporting QAnon are U.S. Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, both of whom have been resoundingly endorsed by Trump.
Democracies under threat

The blatant use of conspiracy theories for political gain reflects the open embrace of white nationalism in not only the United States but also throughout Sweden, France, Italy and other parts of the world.

In my view, the conspiracy theories that drive the 2022 midterm campaigns reflect the global threat of hate around the world.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Sara Kamali, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Read more:

Former Oath Keeper reveals racist, antisemitic beliefs of white nationalist group – and their plans to start a civil war

Trump’s time is up, but his Twitter legacy lives on in the global spread of QAnon conspiracy theories

A growing mistrust in democracy is causing extremism and strongman politics to flourish

How Texas became the new "homebase" for white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups

Areeba Shah

SALON
Sat, September 23, 2023 

Greg Abbott Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Texas has seen a sudden surge in extremist activity within the past three years, with white supremacist and anti-LGBTQ+ groups making the Lone Star state its base of operations.

According to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League, there has been an 89% increase in antisemitic incidents in Texas from January 2021 to May of this year. Along with six identified terrorist plots and 28 occurrences of extremist events like training sessions and rallies, Texas also saw an increase in the frequency of propaganda distribution.

"Texas has a long history of white nationalist activity and for many years has had a very active presence of white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups in the state, but the report's findings really do paint a very troubling picture of the current situation," Stephen Piggott, who studies right-wing extremism as a program analyst with the Western States Center, a civil rights group, told Salon.

"Texas is the homebase for a number of really active white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups, such as the Patriot Front and the Aryan Freedom Network."

This is one of the main factors driving extremism in the state. Patriot Front has contributed to Texas experiencing the highest number of white supremacist propaganda distributions in the United States in 2022, the report found.

The group has a "nationwide footprint," with members all around the country and their messaging contributing to 80% of nationwide propaganda in 2022 – a trend replicated every year since 2019, according to the report.

Patriot Front has also held rallies in major cities across the country, including Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia and Indianapolis, where the events are frequently the largest public white supremacist gatherings.

Texas' close proximity to Mexico also makes it a hotbed for anti-immigrant activity, Piggot added, pointing to a growing number of nationalist and neo-Nazi groups focusing on immigration issues.

"They'll have rallies where a lot of the rhetoric is focused on demonizing immigrants and using dehumanizing rhetoric about immigrants," he said. "They're focused on the issue of immigration because Texas is a border state, but also an avenue for getting more recruits."

The political context further amplifies this phenomenon, Peter Simi, a sociology professor at Chapman University and an expert on white supremacists in the U.S., told Salon.

"When you look at the political context of what's happening in Texas as far as [the movement of] anti-CRT, anti-reproductive rights, anti-gay… that is extremely conducive and consistent with groups like the Patriot Front, so they kind of thrive," Simi said.

Last year, 31 members of Patriot Front were arrested near Idaho after police stopped a U-Haul truck near a "Pride in the Park" event and found members dressed uniformly and equipped with riot shields. Every present Patriot Front member was charged with criminal conspiracy to riot.

But this hasn't deterred the group from putting on public demonstrations and in many cases, even documenting them. In July, close to 100 masked group members recognized Independence Day by holding a flash demonstration in Austin while carrying riot shields, a banner reading "Reclaim America" and upside-down American flags.

"Whenever they have a gathering or any type of kind of public demonstration, they have folks filming and they put out really kind of flashy videos on social media, especially on places like Telegram and it's all designed to make it look cool and edgy," Piggot said.

Extremist groups often use online platforms to recruit and spread their ideology. Over the past year, ADL found that online hate and harassment rose sharply for adults and teens ages 13-17.

Among adults, 52% reported being harassed online in their lifetime, the highest number we have seen in four years, up from 40% in 2022, ADL spokesperson Jake Kurz said.

"Many online platforms either recommend more extreme and hateful content or make it easier to find once searched," Kurz said pointing to the report's findings. "For some, this could lead to a dark spiral into hate and extremism."

Patriot Front has emerged as one of the most aggressive groups in terms of distributing propaganda, Simi pointed out. They often even post pictures of the propaganda they've distributed online and circulate those images more broadly.

"In a nutshell, they're trying to really be aggressive in establishing a physical presence through [distributing] flyers as well as through actual demonstrations," Simi said. "They've also been known to do these flash mob style demonstrations and sometimes more coordinated demonstrations where they've shown up in places, like our nation's capital."

As a part of their recruitment strategies, white supremacist groups have consistently targeted the LGBTQ+ community, disrupting drag shows, targeting pride events and even going after businesses that support LGBTQ+ events. They have used slurs like "groomers" when talking about the LGBTQ+ community to draw more individuals to their movement.

"The anti-LGBTQ+ animus is probably the single greatest driver of white nationalist and anti-democracy activity that we're seeing across the country right now," Piggot said.

ADL tracked 22 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents in 2022 across Texas. While some actions involved extremists, others engaged more mainstream anti-LGBTQ+ entities, offering extremists opportunities to expose new audiences to different forms of hate.

"Hate and extremism seem to be a growing issue across the United States," Kurz said. "The number of antisemitic incidents across the country are the highest we have ever measured. Instances of white supremacist propaganda are high and we are seeing an alarming amount of violence motivated by hate and misinformation."

Kurz added that people should look at the Texas report and recognize that while some of the types of extremism are different, extremism is a problem in every community in the country.

The communities that are being targeted in Texas mirror those targeted nationwide, said Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director for research, reporting and analysis at the SPLC.

"Some of the real intense false conspiracies that circulate around QAnon are resulting in an increase in the sovereign citizen movement – a conspiratorial movement that is not followed and and even recognized a lot in the U.S.," Carroll Rivas said.

Other trends in Texas that are indicative of broader extremism patterns in the country include the targeting of school curriculums, she added.

The reason why these groups feel comfortable operating in Texas is because of the role that elected officials in the state are playing in "echoing white nationalist talking points," Piggot said.

He pointed to Texas Governor Greg Abbott's extreme anti-immigrant actions, putting up barbed wire across the Rio Grande and a chain of buoys with circular saws.

"Governor Abbott is essentially doing the work for white nationalists by echoing and then amplifying their dehumanizing rhetoric," Piggot said. "Just this week, he declared an invasion [at the border]. That's a phrase that white nationalists have used to describe what's happening on the U.S. [and] Mexico border for decades."

In both Texas and Florida, neo-Nazis and white nationalists are "feeling energized" and have increased their activities due to seeing this type of messaging from Abbot and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, he added.

"We need elected officials to be closing the political space for these groups and denouncing them instead of amplifying their messages for them," Piggot said.

‘Strange Fruit on Display In Houston’: Activists Remove Bizarre, Racist Halloween Decorations Depicting Black Bodies Hanging from Trees In Black Neighborhood

Yasmeen Freightman
Sat, September 23, 2023 

Public outcry brought Houston-area activists to one predominantly Black neighborhood to remove a very bizarre and offensive set of Halloween decorations that resembled Black bodies hanging upside down from trees.

The Houston Chronicle reported that the decorations were hung from a tree in front of a home in the Third Ward community. Community members called for the removal of the decorations, stating their imagery mimics public lynchings.

Community activists removed a bizarre and “racist” set of Halloween decorations that one Houston-area homeowner put up outside his home on trees on city property. (Photo: Instagram/candicematthewsdr)

A neighbor told the Chronicle they were put up last week by one homeowner. Many neighbors know the homeowner puts up Halloween decorations every year, but they called this year’s display “immeasurably insensitive and racist.” Community activists and city officials were notified the Saturday that followed.

Related: ‘Makes Me Sick’: Nebraska School District Condemns Racist Homecoming Proposal That References Cotton-Picking

Houston City Council member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz visited the home to speak with the homeowner and tell him the display was hanging from trees that were on city property. He told her they were merely “Halloween decorations.”

“I told him they were offensive. He did not care,” Evans-Shabazz said. “I told him he’s in a predominantly African-American neighborhood, and when people are offended, sometimes things happen. But he didn’t seem to care. He was very abrasive.”

Community activist Quanell X also tried to speak with the homeowner but was unsuccessful in his attempts. He went to the home accompanied by another popular Houston activist, Candice Matthews. Both characterized the display as “racist.”

Before the decorations were cut down, Quanell X brought a lawyer to confirm that the decorations were on city property. The Houston Police Department also confirmed they were hung from trees on city property.

Watch video of the decorations here.

“Every Houstonian, Texan and American should be outraged by the ‘strange fruit’ displayed in Houston,” Houston NAACP president James Dixon said.

The NAACP Houston Branch also released a statement denouncing the display.

“It is our position that leading citizens in our city should join us in condemning this behavior whenever it arises, emphasizing that this doesn’t reflect the spirit of Houston’s respect for all people of every race,” the statement read.

“I don’t know what his intentions were, but they were cut down, so to speak,” Shabazz told the Chronicle. “I assume that if he puts them back up, they’re going to get cut back down

HE RAN FOR PENN GOVERNOR

Republican Doug Mastriano told supporters he didn't get any money from Ohio derailment train operator Norfolk Southern

Records show he took $1,000

Charles R. Davis
Tue, February 21, 2023 

Pennsylvania Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano

Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano is holding a hearing Thursday on the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment.

Mastriano, a Republican, recently denied receiving any money from train operator Norfolk Southern.

But campaign records show he accepted $1,000 from the company's political action committee.

On social media, state Sen. Doug Mastriano — a Pennsylvania Republican who last year ran for governor with the backing of former President Donald Trump — has gone after "radical environmentalists" and Democrats over this month's train derailment just across state lines in East Palestine, Ohio, suggesting both have neglected the crisis.

In one meme he shared Monday with his nearly 170,000 followers on Twitter, a parent, labeled "US government," is depicted in a pool lifting up one child dubbed "Ukraine" while another, "Ohio," struggles to stay afloat. Another comment he shared attacked President Joe Biden and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who defeated Mastriano in the 2022 election. "Biden's in Ukraine and Shapiro's MIA," the user wrote, praising Mastriano for visiting East Palestine over the weekend.

As chairman of the state Senate committee charged with overseeing Pennsylvania's emergency preparedness, Mastriano is hosting a hearing on Thursday where he will seek testimony from state officials as well as representatives from Norfolk Southern, the company whose rail cars crashed and contaminated local waterways with toxic chemicals, killing thousands of fish and sparking concerns for the long-term health of nearby residents.

Mastriano has positioned himself as a truth-teller who bucks the establishment in both parties. But in a Facebook live stream last week in which he addressed the derailment, the senator misrepresented his own financial connection to the disaster.

When the lawmaker — who campaigned for governor on a platform of deregulation and expanded oil and gas development — told viewers "we can probably use our imagination" to explain the alleged neglect of East Palestine, one viewer, Paulette, offered up this response: "Norfolk rail donates to politicians" ("Donating to Democrats I'm sure!" another viewer, Karen, added in the comments).

"Yeah, Paulette, I heard on one of the news stations last night that that rail network is heavy into donating to politicians," Mastriano replied during the February 16 stream. While Mastriano said he couldn't confirm that was the case, "I know my own finances. I didn't get any money from that train network."

That's not true, according to campaign finance records. Since 2019, Mastriano has in fact received $1,000 from Norfolk Southern's political action committee, the Good Government Fund, per filings with the Pennsylvania Secretary of State. The last contribution, amounting to $500, came in 2020 when he was running for reelection to the state Senate.

Mastriano did not respond to a request for comment.

Norfolk Southern has also donated to Democrats. Indeed, in the 2022 election cycle, at the federal level, it gave a total of $725,000 to candidates from both parties, with roughly 51% of its contributions going to members of the Democratic Party. That was the first time since 2010 that a majority of its support did not go to the GOP, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics.

The company has been criticized for lobbying against stricter regulation of the rail industry, including a rule proposed during the Obama administration — and rescinded by the Trump administration — that would have required trains carrying hazardous chemicals to be outfitted with more advanced brake technology, The Washington Post reported.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, assured East Palestine residents that their drinking water is safe. Earlier in the day he and EPA Administrator Michael Regan toured the area and drank tap water from residents' homes.

Joining them was Pennsylvania's Shapiro, a Democrat, who last week ordered his own state's environmental regulators to conduct independent monitoring of water supplies. He lauded the EPA for ordering Norfolk Southern to cover the cost of cleaning up the accident.

"It was my view that Norfolk Southern wasn't going to do this out of the goodness in their heart," he said, CBS affiliate KDKA reported, adding: "There is no goodness in their heart."

Business Insider

AMERIKA

If you care about your country and your rights, don't vote for any Republicans in 2022

Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY
Tue, January 24, 2023 

Now that primary season is over there is a simple test for voters, especially Republicans and independents: If you care about the future of America, democracy and your own rights, don’t vote for Republicans. Any of them. Even the officeholders who have stood up to Donald Trump and the newcomers who pitch themselves as reality-based and results-oriented.

I feel terrible thinking this, much less writing it. I’ve covered many Republicans whom I admired. I spent months reporting on political negotiations and how deals get made in Congress. I believe policy debates and compromises are healthy, and the Democratic-led Congress has produced solid bipartisan results this year in gun safety, infrastructure, industrial policy and other areas.

Even so, the Republican Party is on a dark path and should not hold power anywhere until it comes back into the light. That’s especially true on Capitol Hill.

Congressional math is unforgiving. If there is just one more Republican than Democrat in the House or Senate, a power-obsessed party in thrall to election deniers and conspiracists will control committees, agendas, investigations and leadership positions.

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The Trump-MAGA threat is real

Republican voters are key to the outcome. About 8% of them voted for Democrats in 2018, TargetSmart CEO Tom Bonier, a Democratic data and polling expert, told me in an email. If that rises to 15% this year, he added, “the GOP has no chance of taking back either the Senate or the House.”

That’s not an unrealistic goal given the percentage of Republicans who voted for abortion rights last month in Kansas (roughly 30%, Bonier said Wednesday at a New Democrat Network webinar) and the chunk of GOP voters alarmed by Trump and his "Make America Great Again" loyalists. A new poll found a quarter of Republicans agree that Trump's MAGA movement threatens democracy.

President Joe Biden accurately summarized that threat in a recent speech: “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.”

As national security expert Tom Nichols wrote afterward in The Atlantic, “We should be deeply troubled that Joe Biden had to give this speech at all.” And he had to. Because even now, after the Trump mob’s insurrection attempt on Jan. 6, 2021, two impeachments, years of election lies, escalating legal problems and the FBI recovery of top secret government documents from Mar-a-Lago, Trump is not a spent force.

Former President Donald Trump and ally Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee for Pennsylvania governor, at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on Sept. 3, 2022.

Hours after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on their deadly quest to block Congress from finalizing Biden’s win, 147 Republican lawmakers went ahead and objected to certified election results from Arizona, Pennsylvania or both. Over 18 months later, the party is still with Trump. Polls show roughly 70% of Republicans don’t view Biden as the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, and most Republicans want Trump as their 2024 nominee.

In fact, Maggie Haberman reports in her upcoming book, “Confidence Man,” Trump never intended to leave the White House – though he lost to Biden by more than 7 million votes.

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Believers of Trump’s Big Lie that he was the true winner have elevated so many delusional Republicans that 60% of voters will find election deniers on their 2022 ballots, according to FiveThirtyEight. Its analysis of GOP nominees for House, Senate, governor, secretary of state and attorney general found at least 200 of 552 say the 2020 election was illegitimate. If they win, they could influence and possibly even overturn elections in 40 states.

Some of these races are out of reach for Democrats. In U.S. House contests, FiveThirtyEight found that “118 election deniers and eight election doubters have at least a 95 percent chance of winning.”

At the same time, Real Clear Politics counts eight toss-up Senate races, 11 toss-ups for governor and 34 in the House. Concerned conservatives and moderates could make the difference in these contests – particularly if they vote Democratic no matter what kind of Republican is running.

This seems unfair to Republicans who have shown principled independence. By my count, 20 in the House made it to the fall ballot despite voting for an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the violent Capitol riot. Two of them, California's Rep. David Valadao and Washington state’s Rep. Dan Newhouse, also voted to impeach Trump for inciting the rioters.

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Alarmed GOP voters are the fail-safe

Valadao’s tight race could be one of the few that determine House control. Does he deserve to be reelected? Maybe. But could America survive a GOP-controlled House unscathed? Also maybe, and that’s not good enough.

The same argument holds for candidates like Senate nominee Joe O’Dea in Colorado, who says he'd be an "independent-minded" senator, and House nominee Allan Fung in Rhode Island, who says he’d work with Democrats to solve problems. That’s commendable, but voting for them could produce a Republican House or Senate.

I wouldn’t even bet on fact-based Republican governors. Some could face veto-proof legislatures dominated by MAGA fantasists. And some could fold. Look at New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who a month ago declared that “Trump won the election. … I'm not switchin' horses baby. This is it." Sununu called Bolduc a “conspiracy theorist-type” and “not a serious candidate” for the GOP Senate nomination. But right before Tuesday's primary, Sununu said he'd endorse Bolduc if he won.

The upshot: Bolduc won, he and Sununu shared a public hug at a post-primary GOP unity breakfast, and then – in a shocking plot twist – Bolduc went on Fox News and said he had concluded that “the election was not stolen.”

A MAGA-driven America is a grim prospect. Would future Republican candidates admit defeat if they lost, or would they make sure, through legislation and manipulation, that they'd win? Would they cement minority rule and further restrict fundamental rights like voting and abortion?

Biden has correctly distinguished between “mainstream Republicans” and Trump’s extreme “MAGA Republicans.” They are different, and mainstream GOP politicians holding the line deserve credit. Nevertheless, when it comes to who controls Congress and the levers of power in states across the country, all that counts right now is the “R” after their names.

Jill Lawrence is a columnist for USA TODAY and author of "The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock." Follow her on Twitter: @JillDLawrence