Parents of French teenagers who took own lives sue TikTok over harmful content

Seven French families have filed a lawsuit against TikTok over its alleged failure to remove harmful content they say led two 15-year-olds to take their own lives, in the latest legal challenge facing the social media giant.


Issued on: 04/11/2024 -
By: NEWS WIRES

TikTok, like other social media platforms, has long faced scrutiny over the policing of harmful content on its app. © Bo Amstrup, AFP file photo


Seven French families have filed a lawsuit against social media giant TikTok, accusing the platform of exposing their adolescent children to harmful content that led to two of them taking their own lives at 15, their lawyer said on Monday.

The lawsuit alleges TikTok's algorithm exposed the seven teenagers to videos promoting suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, lawyer Laure Boutron-Marmion told broadcaster franceinfo.

The families are taking joint legal action in the Créteil judicial court. Boutron-Marmion said it was the first such grouped case in Europe.

"The parents want TikTok's legal liability to be recognised in court", she said, adding: "This is a commercial company offering a product to consumers who are, in addition, minors. They must, therefore, answer for the product's shortcomings."

TikTok, like other social media platforms, has long faced scrutiny over the policing of content on its app.

05:58  ENTRE NOUS © FRANCE 24

As with Meta's Facebook and Instagram, it faces hundreds of lawsuits in the US accusing them of enticing and addicting millions of children to their platforms, damaging their mental health.

Read moreUS states sue social media giant Meta, accusing it of harming mental health in youth

TikTok could not immediately be reached for comment on the allegations.

The company has previously said it took issues that were linked to children's mental health seriously. CEO Shou Zi Chew this year told US lawmakers the company has invested in measures to protect young people who use the app.

(Reuters)

RIP

Quincy Jones, music legend who worked with Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, dies at 91

Quincy Jones, a titan of American music who worked with artists ranging from Count Basie to Frank Sinatra and who then reshaped pop music by collaborating with Michael Jackson on "Thriller", died on Sunday at the age of 91, his publicist said.

 

Issued on: 04/11/2024 - By :NEWS WIRES

Quincy Jones receives the American Icon Award onstage at the American Icon Awards at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel on May 19, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. © Kevin Winter, Getty Images via AFP

Quincy Jones, the multi-talented music titan whose vast legacy ranged from producing Michael Jackson's historic "Thriller" album to writing prize-winning film and television scores and collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other recording artists, has died at 91. 

Jones' publicist, Arnold Robinson, says he died Sunday night at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, surrounded by his family. Jones was to have received an honorary Academy Award later this month.

“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing," the family said in a statement. “And although this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life that he lived and know there will never be another like him.” 

Jones rose from running with gangs on the South Side of Chicago to the very heights of show business, becoming one of the first Black executives to thrive in Hollywood and amassing an extraordinary musical catalog that includes some of the richest moments of American rhythm and song. For years, it was unlikely to find a music lover who did not own at least one record with his name on it, or a leader in the entertainment industry and beyond who did not have some connection to him.

Jones kept company with presidents and foreign leaders, movie stars and musicians, philanthropists and business leaders. He toured with Count Basie and Lionel Hampton, arranged records for Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, composed the soundtracks for "Roots" and "In the Heat of the Night," organized President Bill Clinton's first inaugural celebration and oversaw the all-star recording of “We Are the World,” the 1985 charity record for famine relief in Africa.

Lionel Richie, who co-wrote “We Are the World" and was among the featured singers, would call Jones “the master orchestrator.”

In a career which began when records were still played on platters turning at 78 rpm, top honors likely go to his productions with Jackson: “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad” were albums near-universal in their style and appeal. Jones’ versatility and imagination helped set off the explosive talents of Jackson as he transformed from child star to the “King of Pop.” On such classic tracks as “Billie Jean” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” Jones and Jackson fashioned a global soundscape out of disco, funk, rock, pop, R&B and jazz and African chants. For “Thriller,” some of the most memorable touches originated with Jones, who recruited Eddie Van Halen for a guitar solo on the genre-fusing “Beat It” and brought in Vincent Price for a ghoulish voiceover on the title track.

“Thriller” sold more than 20 million copies in 1983 alone and has contended with the Eagles’ “Greatest Hits 1971-1975” among others as the best-selling album of all time.

“If an album doesn’t do well, everyone says ‘it was the producers fault’; so if it does well, it should be your ‘fault,’ too,” Jones said in an interview with the Library of Congress in 2016. “The tracks don’t just all of a sudden appear. The producer has to have the skill, experience and ability to guide the vision to completion.”

The list of his honors and awards fills 18 pages in his 2001 autobiography “Q”, including 27 Grammys at the time (now 28), an honorary Academy Award (now two) and an Emmy for “Roots.” He also received France’s Legion d’Honneur, the Rudolph Valentino Award from the Republic of Italy and a Kennedy Center tribute for his contributions to American culture. He was the subject of a 1990 documentary, “Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones” and a 2018 film by daughter Rashida Jones. His memoir made him a best-selling author.

Born in Chicago in 1933, Jones would cite the hymns his mother sang around the house as the first music he could remember. But he looked back sadly on his childhood, once telling Oprah Winfrey that “There are two kinds of people: those who have nurturing parents or caretakers, and those who don’t. Nothing’s in between.” Jones’ mother suffered from emotional problems and was eventually institutionalized, a loss that made the world seem “senseless” for Quincy. He spent much of his time in Chicago on the streets, with gangs, stealing and fighting.

“They nailed my hand to a fence with a switchblade, man,” he told the AP in 2018, showing a scar from his childhood.

Music saved him. As a boy, he learned that a Chicago neighbor owned a piano and he soon played it constantly himself. His father moved to Washington state when Quincy was 10 and his world changed at a neighborhood recreation center. Jones and some friends had broken into the kitchen and helped themselves to lemon meringue pie when Jones noticed a small room nearby with a stage. On the stage was a piano.

“I went up there, paused, stared, and then tinkled on it for a moment,” he wrote in his autobiography. “That’s where I began to find peace. I was 11. I knew this was it for me. Forever.”

Within a few years he was playing trumpet and befriending a young blind musician named Ray Charles, who became a lifelong friend. He was gifted enough to win a scholarship at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out when Hampton invited him to tour with his band. Jones went on to work as a freelance composer, conductor, arranger and producer. As a teen, he backed Billie Holiday. By his mid-20s, he was touring with his own band.

“We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving,” Jones later told Musician magazine. “That’s when I discovered that there was music, and there was the music business. If I were to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two.”

As a music executive, he overcame racial barriers by becoming a vice president at Mercury Records in the early ’60s. In 1971, he became the first Black musical director for the Academy Awards ceremony. The first movie he produced, “The Color Purple,” received 11 Oscar nominations in 1986. (But, to his great disappointment, no wins). In a partnership with Time Warner, he created Quincy Jones Entertainment, which included the pop-culture magazine Vibe and Qwest Broadcasting. The company was sold for $270 million in 1999.

“My philosophy as a businessman has always come from the same roots as my personal credo: take talented people on their own terms and treat them fairly and with respect, no matter who they are or where they come from,” Jones wrote in his autobiography.

He was at ease with virtually every form of American music, whether setting Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” to a punchy, swinging rhythm and wistful flute or opening his production of Charles’ soulful “In the Heat of the Night” with a lusty tenor sax solo. He worked with jazz giants (Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington), rappers (Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J), crooners (Sinatra, Tony Bennett), pop singers (Lesley Gore) and rhythm and blues stars (Chaka Khan, Queen Latifah).

On “We are the World” alone, performers included Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen. He co-wrote hits for Jackson – “P.Y.T (Pretty Young Thing” – and Donna Summer – “Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger) – and had songs sampled by Tupac Shakur, Kanye West and other rappers. He even composed the theme song for the sitcom “Sanford and Son.”

Jones was a facilitator and maker of the stars. He gave Will Smith a key break in the hit TV show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” which Jones produced, and through “The Color Purple” he introduced Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg to filmgoers. Starting in the 1960s, he composed more than 35 film scores, including for “The Pawnbroker,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “In Cold Blood.”

He called scoring “a multifaceted process, an abstract combination of science and soul.”

Jones’ work on the soundtrack for “The Wiz” led to his partnership with Jackson, who starred in the 1978 movie. In an essay published in Time magazine after Jackson’s death, in 2009, Jones remembered that the singer kept slips of paper on him that contained thoughts by famous thinkers. When Jones asked about the origins of one passage, Jackson answered “Socrates,” but pronounced it “SO-crayts.” Jones corrected him, “Michael, it’s SOCK-ra-tees.”

“And the look he gave me then, it just prompted me to say, because I’d been impressed by all the things I saw in him during the rehearsal process, ‘I would love to take a shot at producing your album,’” Jones recalled. “And he went back and told the people at Epic Records, and they said, `No way — Quincy’s too jazzy.’ Michael was persistent, and he and his managers went back and said, `Quincy’s producing the album.’ And we proceeded to make ‘Off the Wall.’ Ironically, that was one of the biggest Black-selling albums at the time, and that album saved all the jobs of the people saying I was the wrong guy. That’s the way it works.”

Tensions emerged after Jackson’s death. In 2013, Jones sued Jackson’s estate, claiming he was owed millions in royalties and production fees on some of the superstar’s greatest hits. In a 2018 interview with New York magazine, he called Jackson “as Machiavellian as they come” and alleged that he lifted material from others.

Jones was hooked on work and play, and at times suffered for it. He nearly died from a brain aneurysm in 1974 and became deeply depressed in the 1980s after “The Color Purple” was snubbed by Academy Awards voters; he never received a competitive Oscar. A father of seven children by five mothers, Jones described himself as a “dog” who had countless lovers around the world. He was married three times, his wives including the actor Peggy Lipton.

“To me, loving a woman is one of the most natural, blissful, life-enhancing — and dare I say, religious — acts in the world,” he wrote.

Along with Rashida, Jones is survived by daughters Jolie Jones Levine, Rachel Jones, Martina Jones, Kidada Jones and Kenya Kinski-Jones; son Quincy Jones III; brother Richard Jones and sisters Theresa Frank and Margie Jay.

He was not an activist in his early years, but changed after attending the 1968 funeral of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and later befriending the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Jones was dedicated to philanthropy, saying “the best and only useful aspect of fame and celebrity is having a platform to help others.”

His causes included fighting HIV and AIDS, educating children and providing for the poor around the world. He founded the Quincy Jones Listen Up! Foundation to connect young people with music, culture and technology, and said he was driven throughout his life “by a spirit of adventure and a criminal level of optimism.”

“Life is like a dream, the Spanish poet and philosopher Federico Garcia Lorca said,” Jones wrote in his memoir. “Mine’s been in Technicolor, with full Dolby sound through THX amplification before they knew what these systems were.”

(AP)

Red All Saints' Day: Remembering the start of the Algerian War, 70 years ago

Issued on: 01/11/2024 - 

From the show

On November 1, 1954, when Algeria was still under French colonial rule, members of the pro-independence FLN carried out a series of attacks across the country. This date has come to be known as the beginning of the Algerian War. In France at the time, there was no talk of war; only attacks attributed to agitators and bandits. But in reality, it was the start of a long conflict that would lead to Algeria's independence in 1962. On the coattails of losing colonial Indochina, France never imagined that Algeria, home to nearly a million Europeans, had begun its march towards independence. A new chapter of this history has been opened as French authorities just recognized the execution of Larbi Ben M'hidi, one of the leaders of the FLN, 67 years after his death. FRANCE 24's Karim Yahiaoui, Nessrine Benzebbouchi and Lauren Bain take a look back at this pivotal date in Algerian and colonial history.

Macron recognises Algerian national hero Larbi Ben M'hidi 'killed by French soldiers' in 1957

Prix Goncourt: Kamel Daoud wins France's literary prize for Algerian Civil War novel ‘Houris’


French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud has won the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize, for his novel set during the bloody "Black Decade" that tore apart his native Algeria at the end of the 20th century.

Issued on: 04/11/2024 - 
By: NEWS WIRES

Algerian writer Kamel Daoud poses during a photo session at literature festival "Les Correspondances" in Manosque, southern France, on September 25, 2024. © Joël Saget, AFP


French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud on Monday won France's top literary prize, the Goncourt, for a novel centred on Algeria's civil war between the government and Islamists in the 1990s, organisers said.

The jury needed just one round of voting to award the coveted prize to Algeria-based Daoud for his novel "Houris" about what has become known as Algeria's "black decade".

Daoud's was already known internationally for his 2013 debut novel "The Meursault Investigation" -- a retelling of Albert Camus' "The Stranger" from the opposite angle -- for which he won the First Novel category of the Goncourt prize.

The writer, who has also worked as a journalist and columnist, has stirred controversy with his analyses of society in Algeria and elsewhere in the Arab world.

In 2016 -- following a mass sexual assault on women by Arab migrants in Cologne, Germany -- he wrote an op-ed piece published in the New York Times called "The Sexual Misery of the Arab World".

The prestigious Goncourt prize usually sparks book sales in the hundreds of thousands for the winning author.

Daoud's main rival for this year's edition was Gael Faye, a Rwandan-born writer, composer and rapper, whose novel "Jacaranda" deals with the rebuilding of Rwanda after the 1994 genocide.

While losing out on the Goncourt, Faye was Monday handed the Renaudot, another coveted prize awarded during the French literary competition season.

(AFP)

Fox News is the reason the race is close

Sabrina Haake
November 3, 2024 

RAW STORY

A panel on Fox News' "The Five" erupted into chaos on Wednesday when resident Democratic commentator Jessica Tarlov chided the rest of the group for echoing the Trump campaign's attacks on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's military service, following his selection as Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate. (Screengrab via Fox News)

This is my last column before the election. I am as tired of writing about politics as most Americans are tired of reading, thinking, and hearing about it. The stress of this make-or-break Democracy test feels cruel and unusual. Cruel because of what’s at stake, unusual because it is unrelenting.

For people who inform themselves through fact-based media outlets, the most commonly heard question is: how is this race even close? Of all the craziness we’ve seen and heard, the Nazi-adjacent rhetoric, the venomous threats, the crazed narcissist making the nation’s struggles all about himself, how can half the country still support him? How can half our fellow citizens vote for him, knowing what they know about him? Are they crazy? Are they hateful?

The short answer, IMHO, is no. Most Trump voters are not Nazis, voting for Trump because of who Trump is. MAGA mostly just wants to be entertained, they enjoy the carnival of camaraderie. They don’t know who Trump really is, what his policies really are, because Fox News, again, deliberately hides it from them

People who watch Fox News support Trump

Forty-three percent of the country watches Fox News, which correlates directly with the percentage of voters who support Trump over Harris.

ALSO READ: The 101 worst things about Trump's sham presidency

More telling, most Fox viewers don’t diversify the information they consume: Viewers with consistently conservative political views get them from a single outlet—Fox News—to a much greater degree than independents and liberals, who inform themselves from a variety of sources. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly half (47%) of consistently conservative Americans get their government and political news just from Fox News.

Fox News topped primetime viewership in August 2024. According to a recent Deadline Report, Fox News’ The Five was “the top regularly scheduled program in cable news, averaging 3.29 million viewers, followed by Jesse Watters Primetime with 2.97 million, Hannity with 2.61 million, Gutfeld! with 2.55 million and The Ingraham Angle with 2.44 million.”

Voters can’t act on what they don’t know

The high percentage of Americans hooked on Fox entertainment-sold-as-news escalates the risks inherent in Fox’s pro-Trump propaganda from fraudulent to dangerous to a national security threat. It elevates the stakes from “political speech,” protected by the 1st Amendment, to weaponized disinformation. The difference is substantive, and both the legislature and the courts need to deal with it in a meaningful way.

For now, whenever there’s a news cycle unfavorable to Trump, Fox hosts either spin it in the opposite direction to help him or, more frequently, they redirect their viewers to election topics deemed favorable to Trump, like the border. Over the past several months, Fox has focused obsessively on our broken immigration system, featuring dog whistles meant to frighten white people, but Fox hosts almost never mention how Trump intentionally killed the border bill just so he could campaign on it.

When Fox tires of showing black and brown people committing crimes, and lying about violent crime rates that have actually fallen, Fox programmers switch to pablum like popular hairstyles, dog breeds, and who eats ketchup on their omelets. Meanwhile, ominous and unprecedented national security warnings about the dangers of a second Trump administration, coming in from Trump’s own advisors, are hidden from Fox viewers.

Fox buried warnings from Trump’s own brass

Last week when news broke that John Kelly, Trump’s own Chief of Staff, wanted to warn Americans about Trump, including that Trump wanted generals more like Hitler’s and exhibited fascistic urges, Fox News redirected viewers to Trump’s publicity stunt where he cosplayed at McDonalds. Fox ran dozens of insipid articles about Trump at McDonalds (Trump standing at the fry counter, Trump claiming Harris never worked there, Trump charming the customers at the drive-through window, etc.) Meanwhile, they reported almost nothing about John Kelly’s warning.

In one of two articles I saw about Kelly’s statements, Fox packaged it as a Harris ploy, reporting last week that, “The Harris campaign on Friday put out a letter penned by 13 ex-Trump administration officials seeking to bolster claims made by former President Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly…” The article then identified 13 fairly low-level Republicans who signed a letter warning about Trump, instead of the hundreds of high-ranking Republican advisors issuing the same warnings. Fox focused on Trump smiling in an apron to bury dire statements from heavy hitters including Mark Milley, the highest-ranking military officer and Trump’s own Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Fox News articles about other Republicans against Trump, including former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, are mostly led with misleading headlines against Democrats and Harris because the vast majority of people- 70 to 80%- read only the headlines. Even after Trump said Liz Cheney should have 9 rifles pointed at her (execution squad style). Fox headlines spun the story against both Cheney and Harris.

Over 300 high-ranking Republicans, including military and political leaders, have issued warnings against another Trump administration. As the NYT reports, the list includes “former defense secretaries Chuck Hagel and William S. Cohen; Robert B. Zoellick, former World Bank president; ex-CIA directors Michael V. Hayden and William H. Webster; former director of national intelligence John D. Negroponte; and former Massachusetts Governor William F. Weld,” and former Trump administration officials Miles Taylor and Olivia Troye.

Or, as Fox described the letter from 13 Republicans, “Mike Pence who has signed multiple letters from Republicans attacking Trump, signed this letter, as well.”

No matter what happens Tuesday we need fairness in the news

One thing we know for sure about domestic politics is that when the pendulum swings, it always swings back. The question is when, and after what.

When the day finally comes that our Supreme Court isn’t ethically compromised—and that day will come— voters will challenge Fox News (and likely Elon Musk) for aiding and abetting election fraud, as Dominion did. The next time around, the outcome for Fox won’t just be the cost of doing business.

We’ve legislated truth in the news before, and we were better for it. In 1969, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the Fairness Doctrine, which required all news broadcasters to give fair coverage and opposing views on matters of public importance. Balancing publishers’ First Amendment rights against the right of the public to be well informed, the Red Lion Court ruled that the public’s right to access full information takes priority over the First Amendment concerns of broadcasters. “It is the purpose of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail, rather than to countenance monopolization of that market.” This is the same legal analysis that should be applied to today’s “political speech defense.” Bottom line: there’s a difference between free speech and weaponized speech, and the law needs to catch up with rapidly changing social media, AI, and monopolized town squares.

'Harbinger of chaos': Report reveals sophisticated effort to meet Trump loss with violence

Brad Reed

RAW STORY
November 4, 2024 

An explosion caused by a police munition is seen while supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

Far-right supporters of Donald Trump are better prepared than they were in 2020 to challenge the former president's potential election day defeat with violence, the New York Times reported Monday.

An analysis of right-wing Telegram channels revealed "a harbinger of potential chaos" should Vice President Kamala Harris emerge victorious on Election Day on Tuesday, according to the report.

"Nearly every channel reviewed by The Times was created after the 2020 election, highlighting the growth and increased sophistication of the election denialism movement," the report states.

Trump supporters are being encouraged closely watch polling locations on Election Day -- and be prepared to rise up if the election results come in strong for Harris, the Times reported.

“The day is fast approaching when fence sitting will no longer be possible,” read a recent post from the Ohio Proud Boys' Telegram channel. “You will either stand with the resistance or take a knee and willingly accept the yoke of tyranny and oppression.”

The Times found much more organization than was present four years ago, when Trump supporters made a desperate last-ditch bid to keep him in office by violently assaulting the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

"A New York Times analysis of more than one million messages across nearly 50 Telegram channels with over 500,000 members found a sprawling and interconnected movement intended to question the credibility of the presidential election, interfere with the voting process and potentially dispute the outcome," the paper writes.

Telegram channels in multiple states, including New Hampshire, Georgia, and New Mexico, recommended a multitude of ways that activists could cast doubt on the veracity of the election, while other channels explicitly told followers to be prepared for violent action after the votes are cast.

Katherine Keneally, a former intelligence analyst with the New York Police Department, told the Times that it would be dangerous to view these communications as merely Trump supporters blowing off steam.

"Telegram is very often central to actually organizing people to engage in offline activity," said Keneally, "very strategically to radicalize and recruit."

The 'Blue Wall' that will destroy Trump's 2024 dreams

D. Earl Stephens
November 4, 2024 

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a moderated conversation with former Trump administration national security official Olivia Troye and former Republican voter Amanda Stratton on July 17, 2024 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Harris is the new Democratic presidential nominee, according to FEC filings. (Photo by Chris duMond/Getty Images)

It was just about two years ago to the day ...

I had finished up a last-second voter canvas before the polls closed and started revealing how the 2022 midterm elections would fall.

It was a sporty, three-layer November evening in Madison, Wisconsin, featuring a nagging north wind that whipped at the fingers and toes, and turned the ears red, as Mother Nature boldly previewed what was sure to follow in the months ahead.

Ardent Democrats had done about all they could on the frontlines of this political battleground to stave off the nasty forecast of a terrible Red Wave that was going to rip through the countryside and tilt the balance of power of the world’s most flawed and formidable nation.

The pollsters assured us the outlook was plenty bleak for the blue army. These hucksters, who graciously allow themselves margins of error while conducting their diabolical work, were also informing anybody stupid enough to listen that they had done all they could to rejigger their numbers to account for all kinds of mysterious and unsavory statistical oddities that led ‘em to get things so damn wrong, so damn often.

This time it was going to be plenty bad for Democrats, they breathlessly warned us. Besides, the party in power always got slaughtered in the midterms, don’t you know.

Good thing we didn’t listen to them, and nevertheless persisted ...

As we collected at our Team Gold West Madison headquarters, downloaded our info, and told war stories about our forays through the neighborhoods, I was glad to see the incomparable Ben Wikler had stopped by to thank us, and just generally add some positivity and heft to the place.


Wikler is the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, and has ascended as the preeminent figure of the 50 other people who hold this position in the United States. Wikler is a mountain of a man, and a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, who patrols the Badger State top to bottom, planting the seeds of hope and change.

Shortly after the terrible blast in 2016, Wikler returned from Washington, D.C., to his home in Madison to help resuscitate our fortunes, and lead us out of the darkness that had descended on his beloved state.

Long story short, he got busy, we got busy, and all of a sudden we started winning up here again.


Before leaving the select gathering that evening — I’m not much for watch-parties and prefer taking my medicine in the privacy of my own home — I sauntered over to Ben to small talk (that’s a picture I found of the two of us at that very moment) to thank him for his leadership and get his professional take on just one pressing question:

Of all the races on the board that night, which ones did he reckon were the most important?

It took him no time at all to answer.


“I’d say the governors races here in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,” he said.

“The Blue Wall,” I said.

“Exactly,” he said.


Well, that made all the sense in the world.

Armed with the best political take I was going to get anywhere, I thanked him again, and headed home to brave what was coming at us as the polls closed East to West across America.

Turns out that Red Wave never happened, and all those pollsters proved yet again that getting it right isn’t in their job description. Just being in the vicinity of some mysterious plus-minus alibi would be enough to keep them employed, so they could screw things up next time, and give all these newspapers enough endless copy to completely scare the shit out of us in the months leading up to the next election.


Good work if you can get it.

Those governors races Wikler tipped me to all stayed Blue, and did so with surprising ease. None of them were even close.

Tony Evers won in Wisconsin. Gretchen Whitmer won in Michigan. And Josh Shapiro won in Pennsylvania.

The Blue Wall held again, just as it did in 2020 to help propel Joe Biden to victory, and it was months away from being fortified.


When a key Wisconsin Supreme Court election went blue later that spring the final brick in the wall fell neatly into place, and all three states proudly sported Democratic governors, attorneys generals, and liberal State Supreme Courts.

The miraculous rebuilding effort was complete, and ready for whatever anti-American Republican shenanigans were coming at us in 2024.

As I type this, voting is underway in these battleground states, and I don’t need any damn polls to tell you what is happening here in the present, and what has already happened in the past.


Early voting has been off the hook in these three states and we know a majority of the voters are women.

In the meantime, the dirty old man, Donald Trump, is leaking oil all over the campaign trail as he stumbles into garbage trucks and plays his tired, perverted lounge act to the same old, broken white people who were already voting for him no matter what.

He’s subtracting, not adding. He’s diminishing, not rising.


The majority of America is sick and tired of the foul-mouthed racist, and late-breakers are backing the woman, who is closing like a damn freight train.

Kamala Harris’s miraculous 100-day sprint to the finish line is now in its final kick, and the only one gasping for air is her pathetic opponent.

She is positively burying him.

Democrats are wary of saying these things out loud, because they have seen how bad it can get when they run on reputation instead of heart. The Year 2016 hangs over us like a dark cloud.

But I’m here to tell you that when the sun sets on Tuesday, it will be another winning night for Democrats, and another loser for Republicans and the pollsters. It’s been going in that direction for seven years now, and to think it will all of a sudden stop at the biggest election of our lives, is just plain dumb and illogical.

Bouncing around some of the likely spots, I’m incredibly bullish on Georgia, where the early numbers and Democratic energy have been inspiring. Sources I trust on the ground there, believe Democrats are doing more than enough to win. Women are a whopping +12 with the early vote in the Peach State.

Look, Jimmy Carter didn’t hold on this long, just to lose ...

North Carolina is 50/50 right now, and no matter what happens there, the fact Republicans are spending their time and resources defending the place are sure signs they are fighting on their heels and not from their toes.

Of Trump’s nine limping campaign stops before the polls close, four of them are in the Tar Heel State. If Republicans lose there, it is going to be a complete wipeout.

Arizona’s been stubborn, if we are to believe those polls (cough, cough …), but since I don’t, I put it right there with North Carolina. Democrat Ruben Gallego will win that key senate race over his ghastly opponent, Kari Lake Inferior, and I believe this helps Harris win the day there.

Florida, and its senate race got closer thanks to Trump’s bombardment of Puerto Rico last weekend, and Republicans are sweating a key senate race in Texas, where one of the most despicable men in politics, Ted Cruz, is oozing his characteristic slime.

I am telling you right now, it is going to be a very, very good night for down-ballot Democrats all across the country on Tuesday. I expect Democrats to take back the House, and win some surprising races at the local level.

I also expect a state or two we are not even talking about will be far closer than anybody thinks it will. Kansas, Iowa and Ohio come to mind. Nebraska’s senate race is terrifying Republicans right now.

Mark my words: Harris is going to throw a mighty scare at Trump in a state or two she has no right being being competitive in, and you can thank her stellar candidacy and Roe for that.

My distrust of white men, is the only thing keeping me from calling this a complete wipeout for Democrats. Too many will defend the indefensible, because they are weak, and long for a past they never lived in, instead of living in the present and longing for a better world for everybody.

We won’t be able to save everybody this election, but our defense of our Democracy will prevail.

No matter what happens anywhere else, though … when the Blue Wall holds again, Kamala Harris will be our nation’s 47th president.

We built that.

Now let’s finish strong, patriots.

ALSO READ: Not even ‘Fox and Friends’ can hide Trump’s dementia


D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

'The last we will see of Trump': Michael Moore makes bold prediction about Tuesday

Brad Reed
November 4, 2024 

Michael Moore (Shutterstock)

Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore is making a bold prediction about Tuesday's election, as he believes that not only will Vice President Kamala Harris be victorious but that she will "win and win big."

In fact, Moore goes so far as to say that Tuesday will be "the last that we will see [of former President Donald Trump] (unless Dr. Phil does a live special from Epstein Island a few years from now)."

Writing on his homepage, Moore points to an analysis written by political scientist Rachel Bitcofer, whom he describes as "the only pollster I respect."

Moore goes on to describe Bitecofer's analysis as her "very educated gut feeling about how happy we may end up feeling by the end of this week," despite the fact that polls currently show the race as a dead heat between Trump and Harris.

According to Bitecofer, Trump and his campaign have made a critical error in trying to juice up male turnout in the 2024 election without understanding the backlash that this could create among women voters.

"Now, to be clear, the gender gap we see in early voting and registration data is not dissimilar from what we saw in both 2020 and 2022," she writes. "But Democrats didn’t need an even bigger gap, it was already huge and Joe Biden won with that gender gap.

"What Democrats needed was to maintain that advantage in the face of 2 years and millions in investment from Trump and Republican super PACs to drive more men to the polls to maximize their own gender gap to offset ours. And there is not one iota of evidence that suggests they have been successful in this effort."

Bitcofer also points to efforts the Harris campaign has made in tearing college-educated white voters away from the GOP as increasingly bearing fruit.

"But there are strong signs that Democrats will continue to make inroads among college-educated White voters, as they have every cycle since Trump descended down his golden escalator to debut his special brand of hate politics," she contends.

"But in this cycle, the Harris campaign specifically targeted these voters with messaging designed to break their brand loyalty to the Republican Party. As far as the Selzer poll this weekend in Iowa shows, it’s working."

Read the full analysis here.

Opinion

Manhood is on the ballot

(RNS) — This final week is all about seizing control of the narrative about masculinity.

(Photo by Szilvia Basso/Unsplash/Creative Commons)
Joshua Hammerman
November 1, 2024

(RNS) — “The Cruelty Is the Point,” proclaimed Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer’s 2018 essay and subsequent book about the Trump era, and never has it been more apparent than during the waning days of the current campaign, and especially at Sunday’s rally in New York.

While Donald Trump himself often improvises as he spins his “weaves” of hate, the racist, vulgar diatribes spewed by his loyalists at Madison Square Garden were scripted, vetted and teleprompted. In other words: intentional. It added up to a symphony of scuzziness designed to intimidate, overwhelm and dominate, the verbal equivalent of Hulk Hogan ripping off his shirt (or trying to).

On social media, some commented that MAGA’s opponents shouldn’t be baited by the rhetorical histrionics because this verbal garbage was a cleverly laid trap designed to capture the news cycle during this final week. But even if it was, this is a battle worth fighting. If the meanness is the message — and it is — naming that meanness should be the message of Trump’s opponents, because everything else flows from that. Trump’s entire agenda, from abortion to xenophobia, emanates from the lack of empathy at the core of his being. The cruelty isn’t just the point, it’s the veritable DNA of his movement.

If this harshness is a strategy aimed at attracting young men, the MAGA world has a distorted view of masculinity. True manhood is not about dominance, it’s about kindness and taking responsibility. I should know. I wrote the book about being a mensch (or at least one of the books). For Jews, the ideal model of a man is not a musclebound intimidator. Incidentally, although in German the term mensch clearly refers to males and connotes masculinity (or, in the case of Nietzsche, uber-masculinity), for Jews it is not gender-specific — a woman can be a mensch, too.

As I wrote in “Mensch-Marks”:

In the Talmud, Hillel the sage states, “In a world that lacks humanity, be human.” In a world as dehumanizing as ours has become, simply being a kind, honest and loving person, a man or woman of integrity, has become a measure of heroism – and at a time when norms of civility are being routinely quashed, it may be the only measure that matters.

Leo Rosten, who wrote “The Joy of Yiddish,” defines mensch as “someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character.”

Saul Levine wrote in Psychology Today:

The admirable traits included under the rubric of mensch read like a compendium of what Saints or the Dalai Lama represent to many, or others whom you might think merit that kind of respect. These personality characteristics include decency, wisdom, kindness, honesty, trustworthiness, respect, benevolence, compassion, and altruism.

But one does not need to be a saint just to be a decent, thoughtful person. To be a morally evolved human being means in fact to be fallible and imperfect, but always striving to do better. It means to seek justice but never at the expense of compassion. It means to connect, to family, to one’s people and one’s home. It means to seek transcendence, to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, to love unconditionally, to serve a higher cause and live a life of dignity and integrity.

In other words, to be a man is to be the opposite of what the MSG-MAGA rally promoted. In truth, to be a real man is to be the opposite of Donald Trump.

And that needs to be the message, not only for the final week, but for all time. We can’t allow Americans of all genders to forget it. But especially men.

This election could be an inflection point, not only in the trajectory of U.S. politics, but also in how we perceive masculinity. The choice could not be starker: Hulk Hogan, the rip-off artist who failed to rip it off, or Doug Emhoff, the consummate gentleman, who’s already being called the “First Mensch.”

“I can’t wait to see him help her light the Shabbat candles,” said a DNC delegate from Long Island to The Forward.

Supporters of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump enter a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

This may, at long last, be the moment when it becomes fashionable for real men to eat quiche. But even if it’s not, we can’t let the hypermasculine cruelty that we saw last Sunday stand.

It’s like the story of the man outside the gates of Sodom, warning the people to stop their sinning, a legend popularized by Elie Wiesel:


He went on preaching day after day, maybe even picketing. But no one listened. He was not discouraged. He went on preaching for years. Finally, someone asked him, “Rabbi, why do you do that? Don’t you see it is no use?” He said, “I know it is of no use, but I must. And I will tell you why: in the beginning I thought I had to protest and to shout in order to change them. I have given up this hope. Now I know I must picket and scream and shout so that they should not change me.”

And, I would add, if we cultivate civility and integrity with dogged persistence, we will eventually change them, too.

That’s our task now. Highlight the hate and present a new model of love. Masculine love. Years ago, when I circumcised my own son, the first time I had ever performed a bris, it helped me to understand an essential lesson about fatherhood, that the knife transforms the father not into a sculptor, but, paradoxically, into a shield. I wrote, “The breast provides, but the knife protects. It channels a father’s natural anger and jealousy into one controlled cut. He takes off one small part in order to preserve – and love – the whole.”

I appeal to men not to fall for this Übermensch nonsense. America is better than that.

Now is the time to prove it, by taking back the mantle of mensch-hood. This final week is all about seizing control of the narrative about masculinity. If the meanness is the message, so is the menschiness.

(Rabbi Joshua Hammerman is the author of “Mensch-Marks: Life Lessons of a Human Rabbi” and “Embracing Auschwitz: Forging a Vibrant, Life-Affirming Judaism That Takes the Holocaust Seriously.” See more of his writing at his Substack page, “In This Moment.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

With Bible verses and Baptist zeal, Amanda Tyler offers how-to for dismantling Christian nationalism

(RNS) — In her debut book, 'How to End Christian Nationalism,' Tyler presents a roadmap to building multiracial interfaith coalitions and fostering what she calls 'uncomfortable' but necessary conversations — especially for white Christians.

"How to End Christian Nationalism" and author Amanda Tyler. (Courtesy images)
Fiona Murphy
November 1, 2024


(RNS) — On a Saturday morning in 2009, Amanda Tyler was in a grocery store parking lot in Austin, Texas, setting up for Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett’s “neighborhood office hours,” when a large crowd of conservative protesters swarmed the congressman and his staff, waving “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and holding signs with Rep. Doggett’s face, drawn with devil horns, printed on tombstones and written with messages like “No Socialized Healthcare.”

Tyler, who was Doggett’s district director at the time, recalls this moment as the most intimidating of her career. The same protesters, she said, stalked the congressman for months afterward, attending different events, brandishing assault rifles and shouting about evil.

“It gave me a very close-up experience with the political tactics that could be used and how violent they could be,” Tyler said. “They had distorted the congressman’s face to look like a demon — so dehumanizing — and used symbols that felt like spiritual warfare.”

The event in Texas was a turning point for Tyler, who would a decade later launch the initiative “Christians Against Christian Nationalism” in 2019, and in 2021, become the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, where she advocates for religious liberty and the separation of church and state.

The chaos and hostility of that Saturday morning in Texas, Tyler says, served as a prelude to the political intimidation tactics seen on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Christian nationalism was not the sole cause of explanation for the events of January 6, but it played a vital role in the events leading up to the siege and provided a unifying ideology for many disparate groups that day,” Tyler writes in her debut book.

“How to End Christian Nationalism,” published Oct. 22, presents itself as a roadmap to building multiracial interfaith coalitions and fostering what Tyler calls “uncomfortable” but necessary conversations — especially for white Christians. The task of dismantling Christian nationalism, Tyler warns, is generational work.

“It is up to us to confront and call out the destructive ideology that it is and … the damage that it is causing our country.”

In her view, Christian nationalism is not just a theological distortion but a dangerous ideology with real-world consequences. It’s a movement, she argues, that undermines the core principles of both Christianity and democracy. According to Tyler, the ideology promotes the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation, and to be an authentic American, one must subscribe to a conservative, often Protestant, expression of Christianity. She argues that Christian nationalism distorts the gospel of Jesus, which represents to her a message of lovingkindness “beyond recognition.


“Jesus eschewed political power in favor of a ministry aligned with those who were oppressed, marginalized, and otherwise harmed by that power,” Tyler writes. “It (Christian nationalism) points not to Jesus of Nazareth but to the nation, as conceived by a dangerous political ideology, as the object of allegiance.”

Her experiences as a lawyer and activist in Texas and Washington, D.C., buttress an argument that links Christian nationalism to the violent events of Jan. 6, white supremacy and xenophobia. Her religious background, a Baptist from Austin, lends an urgency to the stakes at play.

“It is not a memoir, but there is a lot of my personal story in it,” Tyler told RNS.

As Tyler describes it, her journey to end Christian nationalism began 40 years ago when she “made my profession of faith in the baptismal waters at Riverbend Baptist Church in Austin, Texas,” she writes.

“This is just who I am,” Tyler said. “Learning about Jesus, trying to become a better Christian … This work trying to end Christian nationalism now as a lifelong calling. I didn’t know that at the time, I was only 7, but that started me on this path.”

While her faith was developing, so were her political aspirations. At 6, Tyler recalls studying local city council candidates and pestering her politically inactive parents about who they would vote for. “I was a bit of an outlier, even in my own family,” she said. After hearing a Texas state senator speak at career day, she knew she was destined to become a lawyer.

“I raised my hand and asked him, how does one become a senator?” Tyler said. “He suggested that I go to law school.”

Tyler’s book takes a systematic approach, organized into eight sections titled “Step One” through “Step Eight.” Many end with a reading and reflection exercise that incorporates biblical Scripture. “I pray that it is a hopeful resource for people in growing the movement against Christian nationalism,” Tyler said.

In “Step One,” she introduces a sociological survey designed to help readers orient themselves to Christian nationalism. Some of the questions read, “The federal government should advocate Christian values” and “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan.”

“I hope people see that this is not something that impacts a select part of the population,” Tyler said. “It’s something we all have a stake in.”

Christian nationalism is an ideology that exerts its influence along a spectrum, according to Tyler. She notes instances in American history: from the Naturalization Act of 1790, which was the first law in the United States outlining rules for granting citizenship, to the rapid growth of the Ku Klux Klan to the Red Scare of the 1950s when “In God We Trust” became a national motto.

In essence, Tyler argues that Christian nationalism relates to white supremacy in its promotion of exclusionary visions of power — one through race, the other through religion — and how they often overlap in rhetoric, goals and supporters.

“Since Christian nationalism perpetuates both white supremacy and Christian supremacy,” Tyler writes, “white Christians are still at the top of the caste system created in part by Christian nationalism.”

Tyler’s advocacy is rooted in personal experience and spiritual conviction — but she is not interested in doing this work alone. In January of 2023, she launched the podcast “Respecting Religion” with co-host Holly Hollman. They often discuss the intersection of faith, politics and social justice with guests like Jemar Tisby, the Rev. Jay Augustine and the Rev. Joseph Evans. Tyler emphasizes the need to center people of color in the work of dismantling Christian nationalism.

“There’s a tendency sometimes for white people to think that we have to run and invent everything,” Tyler said. “But there are already groups who are doing this work — whether or not they’ve called it Christian nationalism.”

Frequently addressing her readers using “we,” Tyler suggests that her readers are likely white, Christian and concerned. She avoids labeling individuals as Christian nationalists. Like a few studies she cites, Tyler says she wants to focus on the dynamics of the ideology rather than assigning the label to a group of people.

It isn’t difficult, however, for readers to imagine the contemporary Christian nationalist Tyler neglects to describe: Images of those who stormed the capitol on Jan. 6 were rife with Christian flags and Bible verses. However, in her book, Tyler is clear the messaging has reached far more than the most extreme ends of the spectrum. She warns that many of “our friends, relatives and colleagues” may be “falling prey” to Christian nationalist messaging.

“They need people in their lives — people like you and me,” Tyler writes, “who can help them understand Christian nationalism well enough to reject it.”

This article was produced as part of the RNS/Interfaith America Religion Journalism Fellowship.

Charlie Kirk's TPUSA opens a new front in 'spiritual warfare' on Christian campuses

(RNS) — Since 2020, TPUSA chapters have appeared at over 45 Christian colleges or universities, though only 21 of those chapters appear currently active.

People attend Turning Point USA's Young Women’s Leadership Summit in San Antonio, Texas, in June 2024. (Courtesy photo)

Kathryn Post
November 1, 2024

RNS

(RNS) — Just eight days shy of Election Day, 31-year-old political activist Charlie Kirk addressed a sea of college students in glaring-red MAGA hats at Grand Canyon University, near downtown Phoenix.

Sporting a black T-shirt emblazoned with “xy = man” — a confirmation of where he stands on the GOP’s 2024 litmus test issue — Kirk, who founded Turning Point USA as a college student in 2012, was interrupted as his audience erupted into a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Afterward, students grabbed up TPUSA swag that said “Republicans are hotter” and “dump your socialist boyfriend.”

“Gen Z is waking up … and voting,” Kirk posted on X later that day. “WATCH.”

Kirk’s fall 2024 “You’re Being Brainwashed” tour is an effort advertised as a way to help students “challenge left-wing indoctrination on college campuses.” TPUSA has already signed up nearly 800 college chapters, but the event at GCU, established by Baptists but now calling itself interdenominational, is part of Kirk’s recent push to populate evangelical Christian campuses with TPUSA chapters.

Since 2020, TPUSA chapters have appeared at more than 45 Christian colleges or universities, at least 35 of them affiliated with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the largest association of Christian schools. Only 21 chapters at Christian universities appear currently active, however, with even fewer officially recognized by the universities themselves.

Expanding to Christian colleges, some scholars warn, may divide their campuses. The group, whose website says it plays “offense with a sense of urgency to win America’s culture war,” gained notoriety in 2016 for its professor watchlist, which prompted harassment of faculty at secular as well as Christian colleges, who, TPUSA said, “advance leftist propaganda.”

Kirk has disputed the results of the 2020 election, questioned the qualifications of Black pilots, called George Floyd a “scumbag” and said a Bible verse about stoning gay people to death is “God’s perfect law.”

“The Democrat Party supports everything that God hates,” Kirk said at a recent campaign event he organized for Donald Trump. TPUSA did not respond to requests for comment.

Students at Christian colleges who have launched or joined TPUSA chapters said in interviews this fall that the group helps build community and gives them a place to discuss conservative values

“They say that we are racist and homophobic,” said Payton Stutzman, president of the TPUSA chapter at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, without specifying who “they” referred to. “We’re really not. We really just want to get together and have a good time. The main things we support is a secure border, a good economy, and the freedom to raise our family the way we think is right. We are not here to push anybody’s beliefs down their throats.”

Gary Bruce and Brittany Kemper dance before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a Turning Point Action campaign rally, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024, in Duluth, Ga. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Sarah Stock, a junior political science major at Vanguard University, a Christian university in Orange County, California, started a TPUSA chapter last fall as an outlet, she said, for political dialogue in what she described as an otherwise apolitical campus.

Last year at a screening of Matt Walsh’s “What Is a Woman,” a film in which Walsh, a controversial podcast host, talks about transgender issues, approximately 100 students attended. Among them was a group of friends who came up to debate the TPUSA members during a Q&A session.

“We all were like, I respect you have this opinion, and it’s great that we can talk about it,” said Stock, who said that after momentarily growing tense, the two groups ended up laughing together. “It was just this mutual understanding that you can love other people and still disagree with them.”

Generally operating in more conservative environments, TPUSA chapters on Christian campuses face less opposition than peers at secular universities but aren’t exempt from controversy. In 2023, Whitworth University put their TPUSA chapter on probation after a free speech event encouraged students to write whatever they wanted on a beach ball, vulgarities included. A year earlier, a now-defunct TPUSA chapter at Calvin University in Grand Rapids drew backlash after advertising a Kanye West-themed event in the wake of West’s antisemitic comments

“The tone of TPUSA social media, and the tone of Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric, to me, it seems there’s a conflict there between kind of that brand, and the more thoughtful political discourse that Christian colleges historically have been working to cultivate,” said Kristin Kobes Du Mez, professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University.

Since TPUSA launched its Faith Initiative in 2021, which partners with churches to host religious conferences, Kirk’s rhetoric about “reclaiming the country for Christ” has grown more bold, earning Kirk the label of Christian nationalist.

“If the church does not rise up at this moment, if the church does not take its proper role, then the country and the republic will be gone as we know it,” Kirk said at a May 2021 TPUSA Faith event at Dream City Church in Phoenix.

Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk speaks before Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at the Turning Point Believers’ Summit, Friday, July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Kyle Spencer, whose 2024 book “Raising Them Right” chronicles America’s conservative youth movement, is unequivocal in describing Kirk as a Christian nationalist, but political commentator Isaac Willour, a graduate of the Christian Grove City College, called it an “obvious jump” to conflate “those who have a pop interest in TPUSA talking points” with “the actual radical right.” TPUSA, he noted, has distanced itself from radical conservatives such as Nick Fuentes and Morgan Ariel.

“There’s a very easy trap to fall into … that advocating for Christians who meaningfully use any kind of political process, anything that’s not really quietism, is Christian nationalism,” said Willour.

Stock said, “It seems like there’s a high demand for Christian nationalism in the media, but I think there’s a pretty low supply of it.”

Before TPUSA Faith, there was the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty, a think tank located at the evangelical powerhouse Liberty University in Virginia. The brainchild of Kirk and then-Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr., the center, founded in 2019, brought Trump allies such as Eric Metaxas and Rudy Giuliani to campus but ultimately lost steam as Falwell encountered scandal and eventually resigned.

Kirk’s legacy lives on in the school’s TPUSA chapter, which ballooned from 175 members over the summer to over 600, according to Stutzman, crediting the election. (He also touts its pickleball, trivia and Shrek-themed “drain the swamp” movie nights.) Voter registration has been a top priority.

“Right now, Virginia is in a spot where it could flip,” said Stutzman, who was doorknocking for the Trump campaign as he spoke to RNS. “While we can’t endorse anybody, we can support our values, and we can work with college Republicans and other clubs that can endorse people, and we can provide them resources.”

Many TPUSA Christian college chapters have hosted debate watch parties and have plans for election night gatherings. At Liberty, local and federal politicians are expected to attend the chapter’s formal election night gala.

JJ Glaneman, a sophomore at Duquesne University, a Catholic university in Pittsburgh, told RNS he’d also recently been doorknocking for Trump and GOP Senate candidate David McCormick.

Duquesne’s TPUSA chapter is unofficial. After attending TPUSA’s multi-day AmFest event in Arizona in December 2023, Glaneman filed to start a formal chapter in January but was denied by student government, who, Glaneman said, cited TPUSA’s values. Instead, Glaneman has co-founded a chapter of the 132-year-old College Republicans that they use as a “shield,” he said, to host conservative events on campus.

RELATED: With Turning Point Faith, pastors use politics as a church-growth strategy

According to Matt Boedy, a professor of religious rhetoric at the University of North Georgia, TPUSA’s “star-studded” conferences, big-name speakers and viral political debates make TPUSA a more attractive option than a College Republicans chapter.

There’s also TPUSA’s funding. Tax filings from June 2023 showed that TPUSA took in $81.7 million, up from $2.05 million in 2015. Stock said that while her group could apply for “like $50 a year” from Vanguard, “we just get everything from Turning Point.”

Claire Bettag. (Courtesy photo)

Claire Bettag, a senior at St. Mary’s Notre Dame, said the Indiana Catholic school denied her attempt to found a chapter in 2022 due to TPUSA’s messaging on LGBTQ+ issues. Despite the rejection, Bettag has maintained an unofficial TPUSA chapter and a College Republicans club at the school and said TPUSA encouraged her to speak out when St. Mary’s decided to offer open enrollment to applicants “who consistently live and identify as women,” which included transgender students.

“We had met with the school board, the president, the vice president of the college, and we started multiple protests and did a lot of activism to get this policy reversed,” said Bettag. “I have confidence now to speak out about my conservative values that I never thought that I could ever have, and it’s because Turning Point really backed me up along the entire process.”

Saint Mary’s reversed its decision a month later, by which time, Bettag said, her unofficial TPUSA chapter had grown to 75 members.

Catholic University of America has also been hesitant to welcome TPUSA to its campus, as have some Protestant colleges. In 2021, Point Loma Nazarene University, a Church of the Nazarene school in San Diego, and Taylor University, an evangelical school in Upland, Indiana, said the national group conflicts with their mission statements.

The Grand Canyon University event shows that TPUSA’s efforts to enroll Christian students aren’t slowing down, and while Spencer said it’s still a question whether the campaign will translate to votes, Stutzman, at Liberty, said not all gains are political.

“Ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s not just political warfare,” he said. “It’s spiritual warfare that we’re fighting as well.”

RELATED: How America’s conservative youth movement grew a powerhouse on the cult of rage

Opinion

Once a beneficent King Cyrus, Trump has lately been cast as a biblical avenger

(RNS) — Charismatic 'prophets' have long compared Trump to Bible characters to justify their support for the former president. But the latest iteration, as King Jehu, may signal tacit acceptance of political violence.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives for a campaign rally at Lee's Family Forum, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024, in Henderson, Nev. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Matthew D. Taylor
November 1, 2024


(RNS) — He’s a type of a Cyrus, the ancient Persian emperor. Or a modern Job, defiantly enduring devilish persecutions. He’s Esther, positioned by providence “for such a time as this.” Now he’s a David, a flawed but anointed man of God …

Meet Donald Trump, biblical paragon.

In the past decade, Trump’s Christian theologizers, whom I write about in my new book, have made a hobby of connecting the famously profane, philandering, greedy real estate mogul to biblical heroes and quotable Bible verses. The medley of Bible characters, all mirrors of Trump and his cosmic destiny to lead America, are a pillar of his appeal to evangelical Christians

More recently, however, these biblical allusions and correlations have taken a menacing turn. The latest iteration of this trope is Trump as the obscure Hebrew Bible character King Jehu, an equivalence that may signal tacit acceptance that Trump is bringing in a tide of violence.

RELATED: Lance Wallnau, first to ‘prophesy’ Trump’s presidency, is back to vanquish anti-Trump demons

Almost as soon as Trump entered the political scene in earnest, charismatic prophets, whose evangelical followers believe they literally speak the word of God today, have cast Trump as a figure of biblical prophecy. The original and perhaps still the most iconic such comparison was put forward by Alabama pastor Jeremiah Johnson just a month after Trump became a presidential candidate in 2015, matching Trump with the Persian King Cyrus the Great.

After Cyrus and his Persian armies conquered the Babylonian Empire, Cyrus sent the Israelites, then captive in Babylon, home to rebuild Jerusalem. The prophet Isaiah refers to Cyrus as God’s “anointed,” noting that the gentile king does not acknowledge the Hebrew deity. In Isaiah’s vision, Cyrus is a secular deliverer, an instrument in the hand of God.

This Cyrus-Trump comparison became one of the key evangelical rationalizations for supporting Trump in 2016: He’s not a believer, or even a good man, but he’s God’s man. Johnson and the handful of other prophets who wagered big on Trump’s win became celebrities in evangelical media. Charismatic prophets such as Lance Wallnau and Paula White then brokered the porcupine-hugging partnership between Trump and his ever-loyal evangelical voter base by casting Trump as the pseudo-biblical, God-selected instrument for restoring American Christianity.

Thus started an avalanche of such prophecies. Incentivized to feed the ravenous demands of his Christian supporters for more and more positive messages about Trump, hundreds — perhaps thousands — of charismatic evangelical prophets have jumped into the pro-Trump prophecy marketplace.

But since Harris became Trump’s opponent, the dominant biblical figure invoked in these prophecy circles has begun to shift away from Cyrus (or Job, Esther or David) and toward Jehu, a chilling model for the post-election season.

Jehu ascended to the throne of Israel after the infamously wicked rule of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, two of the most loathsome characters in the biblical narrative, who had led the people of Israel into worshipping false gods, persecuted the godly Israelite remnant and squared off against the famed prophets Elijah and Elisha.

Jezebel’s name was once a common byword for a scheming woman, but in charismatic circles, where the Hebrew Bible’s imagery looms larger than life, it still has force as a description of sexual promiscuity, abortion, LGBTQ+ rights and other attributes of what they view as malign feminism. Charismatic prophets have, for decades, lamented how the “spirit of Jezebel” has taken over American culture, and Harris, upon becoming the Democratic nominee, was almost instantly tagged with the name.

Jehu, anointed king after Ahab’s death, presides over Jezebel’s annihilation. He demands her servants cast her out of a high tower, then tramples her body with his horse. Wild dogs come and eat her corpse. The message of the story: Jezebel was so profane, so heinous, that all memory of her was eradicated.

“Queen Jezebel Being Punished by Jehu” by Andrea Celesti, late 17th century. (Image courtesy Wikimedia/Creative Commons)

A few weeks ago, tens of thousands of evangelicals gathered on the National Mall for a day of prayer, worship and prophecy to sway the election. At the culmination of 10 hours of politicized religious fervor, one of the most respected charismatic Christian leaders in the country, a California pastor and apostle named Ché Ahn, who this week was photographed at the center of a circle of Christian leaders laying hands on and praying over Trump, got up to declare the will of God: “Donald Trump is a type of Jehu, and Kamala Harris is a type of Jezebel. As you know, Jehu cast out Jezebel. … I decree in Jesus’ mighty name, and I decree it by faith that Trump will win on November the 5th, he will be our 47th president, and Kamala Harris will be cast out, and she will lose.”

RELATED: Lance Wallnau, first to ‘prophesy’ Trump’s presidency, is back to vanquish anti-Trump demons

Linking the vice president — herself a Baptist Christian — to Jezebel in our political violence-charged moment verges on a threat on her life.

Another provocation came as Trump gathered with his National Faith Advisory Board, his formal circle of evangelical advisers, on Oct. 25, and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, author of bestselling books about prophecy, uttered this pronouncement over Trump from the stage:

President Trump… God called you to walk according to the template of Jehu, a warrior king. He called Jehu to make his nation great again. Jehu came to the capital city with an agenda to drain the swamp … If (God) should now bring you to the height of power, it will be for his glory. It will be the last act and maybe America’s last chance of redemption.

Cahn and the other prophets employing this image are not merely noting interesting parallels between Trump and Jehu. Rather, they are directing Trump to operate according to the template of Jehu, a biblical script that must be fulfilled.

Note, for instance, how Jehu “drained the swamp” of Israel, a story related in the Bible’s second Book of Kings. The execution of Jezebel pales in comparison. After Jezebel’s defenestration, Jehu goes on a rampage, slaughtering all of Ahab and Jezebel’s children, piling up their heads at the city gates. He goes on to murder hundreds of Israelite citizens, including religious leaders who backed Jezebel. One of the most brutal and vindictive scenes in the Bible, Jehu’s vengeance is being offered as the divinely ordained template for a second Trump term.

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We might dismiss the comparisons to Jehu as metaphor if we had not listened to Trump’s recent rally speeches. These biblical citations echo Trump’s own campaign rhetoric, which itself has taken a more vengeful, violent turn. He launched his 2024 campaign by declaring, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.” He’s closing it with promises to eradicate “the enemy within” and calling his American opponents “vermin.”

Like Jehu’s rampage against the old regime, Trump promises to purge the government and society (with violence if necessary) of the malign forces his people hate and fear.

These biblical invocations reveal the accommodations Christians have made to embrace a populist authoritarian vulgarian. As the sourcebook for all truth and guidance in evangelical belief, the Bible shapes evangelical Christians’ imaginations. Casting Trump as a Jehu creates theological permission for Christians to embrace Trump’s promised violence.

If he wins in this election, the Jehu image tells Trump’s Christian supporters that some real-world violence may be needed to purge America of her demons. If he loses, particularly to Kamala Harris, the Jehu template prescribes vengeance and violence until the Harris regime is annihilated.


(Matthew D. Taylor is a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore and is the author of “The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)