The Daily Beast Podcast - Trump Is Going Even Further Down the QAnon Rabbit Hole

Episode Date: October 15, 2023

On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal co-hosts Danielle Moodie and Andy Levy call out the former president for his latest rallying cry to white supremacists. Plus, Katherine Stewart details her observations since publishing The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedden, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

Hello and welcome back to another bonus episode of The New Abnormal, and we thank you so much for being here. We're going to be joined today by journalist and author Catherine Stewart to talk all about her book, The Power Worshippers, inside the dangerous rise of religious nationalism. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready for clips? Clips. Clips with Jesse.

Okay, well, actually, when Jesse told me that I was doing clips, this week. He actually gave me notes. And the first one was that I'm not allowed to pretend to be him. So hi, it's me, Shamus. Oh, okay. Oh, all right. Hey, Shamus. I'm Shamus. I'm the other, the other one that you never hear from. The other guy. Yeah, he did give me some notes. He said, I can't play any clips from The Simpsons because that was my first idea. Oh. And then he said that if it's too upsetting and that I think it's going to make you guys sad, I should absolutely 100% play it. Wow. Live on air, because that is the content that our listeners are here for. Damn, Jesse. Direct quote of producer Jesse Cannon. So anyways, following that, I guess, here's Donald Trump saying something that I guess sounds a little Hitlery.

Oh, hitlery. That's nice. Not to be confused with glittery. Got it. Nobody has any idea where these people are coming from. And we know they come from prisons. We know they come from mental institutions and Sainless Islands. We know they're terrorists.

Nobody has ever seen anything like we're witnessing right now. Now, it is a very sad thing for our country. It's poisoning the blood of our country. It's so bad. And people are coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you can have. The racism came through crystal, you know, like infecting the blood. And I know that that motherfucker doesn't read.

He only likes to hold up books that he's never read, aka the Bible. Upside down. There is literally no way to. to listen to that and not hear white supremacy. Yeah. I don't know what pretzel Republicans would try and put themselves into, but again, we can go back to earlier, they just nominated a man who said, I'm David Duke without the baggage. So, right, I'm not racist.

I just appoint, elect, and stand with racist. So that, I mean, that's, that's some wild shit. Look, they're not racist. They just don't want their blood poisoned by Brown. people. Yeah, totally fine. How? Why can't you understand that, Daniel? I don't know. You know, I don't know.

This really is, though. I mean, he has gotten over the past, I don't know if it's six months or so or whatever. His illusions have gotten more and more straight up, like, alt-right Q-Anon. It's unreal. Poisoning the blood? Yeah. Look, everything he said in that thing sucked, but poisoning the blood? Mm-hmm. Jesus Christ.

Just, you know, Hitlery. Yeah. Like you said, Seamus. It's not glittery at all. No. No. Okay, that felt bad. Like, I honestly do not understand how Jesse, my fellow producer, Jesse Cannon,

could derive so much pleasure from just making you two lists. It seems like just such vile and upsetting content. He lives for it. I know. He lives for it. He looks like he laughs like Tim Curry and legend every time he plays one of these clips. God. Okay.

I need a pallet cleanser because I feel. So how about we listen to something positive? This is up-and-coming Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost talking to Stephen Colbert about his Republican colleagues. Let me ask you this, and I think this is a fair question. Why didn't you Democrats save Kevin McCarthy? Because, you know, you're young. You may not understand that everything the Republicans do to each other is the responsibility of the Democrats to fix. Has that been explained to you by the press?

Yeah, yeah, enough, right? Okay. I'd say two things. Number one, the Republicans need a lot more than me to fix what they have going on. And number two, and I'd say number two, which is very important, is, look, we've been fighting to save food stamps, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, this entire year as the Republicans have been working to take it away and take away that funding. And so I'm just, you know, letting them pull themselves up by their bootstraps. You know what I mean? I don't want to give them any of that socialism, you know what I mean?

Bravo, Maxwell. That was awesome. Yeah, that was really great. I'm really sorry because it says you guys seem to really have enjoyed that. And it says that if you guys seem elated at any point, I have to play a clip of Greg Godfeld. Oh, come on. I hate these new rules. But only certain people get criminal molligans.

And January 6 protesters, they don't get criminal molligans. And here's why. They're the oppressor, right? So the oppressed get criminal molligans. The people that are complaining, like, us, we're actually oppressors and we're losing power. So that's why we're upset. I just got a job at MSNBC. So let's compare the rights between criminals and victims. Okay, the criminals, they get a mulligan. They get to steal up to $800 worth of stuff. They can loiter sleep and

shoot up in public areas, including playgrounds. They can loot and burn and call it social justice. They can pile up dozens of arrests and never do time. Meanwhile, what about us? Well, we have to to change our lives to accommodate risk wherever we go. We have to move out of cities for the sake of the safety of our families and our own safety. That's what's happening. We're being driven out of cities by the oppressed. So I returned to my imperfect analogy from yesterday. We had a war over slavery.

We knew slavery was inhumane and immoral, but somehow we couldn't solve slavery peacefully. It was an evil. But one side refused to acknowledge that it was evil because it was. was too big of an admission for them to make. Doesn't that feel that way now that this defiant refusal to reverse this decline argues against the survival of a country? What does that leave you with? It leaves you with you need to make war to bring peace because you have a side that cannot

change because then that means an admission that their beliefs have been corrupt all the time. So in a way, you have to force them to surrender. Or we could make love not war. I tried that once. Or we have an election. I had to go to a doctor. Elections don't work.

We know that. We know they don't work. Look what we have. Look what we have. We had a moderate president. Can we stop? That made me upset. Elections don't work.

Again, just everyone needs to listen to what they're saying and stop trying to part and parcel out what they are saying. elections don't work because they don't want elections to work because they want authoritarianism. Also, piles and piles of, what did he say, crimes and criminality? Was that projection? And talking about Donald Trump? Because you're talking about piles and piles leading up to 91 charges. But you don't want to talk about how that is what you all are corraling around.

I'm just so sick and fucking tired of their lies. We live in the middle of a city. Do you guys feel unsafe? Do you feel unwell? No. I don't. But I know that when I see a bunch of fucking white people in red hats that I feel unwell and unsafe. And I know that that's not marching down the streets of Brooklyn.

So miss me with it. Yeah, he's talking about looters in Philly. But he's comparing them to January 6 rioters, which is insane. It's insane. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, what he's doing is what he does now, which is he's saying, what he knows his audience wants to hear.

That's sad. Was he fun at parties, Andy? I'm going to do a Nancy Mace on this one. I don't know what you're talking about. Are you going to wear a scarlet letter? No, I'm just not familiar with him. Oh, you're not familiar. Yeah.

Damn, Andy, you just set up a perfect segue. Because earlier this week, you guys were talking about Nancy Mace refusing to acknowledge Jim Jordan's involvement in covering up the Ohio State abuse. And you both made a really great point of saying, well, you know, stop the interview or caller on it right there and go, okay, well, how about this? And so I think Jake Tapper might be listening to our show because this is what happened when she was on a show the other day. Tom Cole or Tom Emmer, who are some of the other possible individuals who you think maybe could get to 217? Well, I think Jim Jordan is not out of the mix.

I've talked to a lot of people who still support him. I've actually talked to Democrats who trust him at his word. I don't think that's out of the realm of possibility. Jim Jordan? Yes, I've talked to Democrats over the last week on who do they trust, even though they wouldn't agree with him on many issues. The Jim Jordan from Ohio? Oh, yes, the Jim George from Ohio. Democrats in Congress?

Yes, they can work with him and those that I've talked to. Name one Democrat from Congress that trust Jim Jordan. I'm not going to name of people off the record. They trust him more than they trust the former speaker. In my private conversations with Democrats, I will say that. I mean, first of all, so glad that CNN got some smelling salts over there. So, bravo, Jake Tapper for like, whoof, waking up to journalism. Like, it's just name one is my favorite comeback.

Name one. Name one Democrat. Oh, I'm not going to reveal my imaginary conversations that I'm having with myself in the mirror. Like, are these Democrats in the room with us right now? Yeah, can you feel them? Knock three times if you're a Democrat in the room with us right now. She's dumb. I look forward to years of dunking on her.

Yeah. Vice President Nancy Mace. Oh, shut up. No, don't put that out. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. She almost wasn't even on time to prayer breakfast. Mm-hmm.

Oh, right. That's her claim to fame. She was boating. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal, a person whose work, I think, is critical and incredibly important at this time where we find ourselves in America. Catherine Stewart is the author of the book, The Power Worshippers, Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. And Catherine, one, welcome to you. I don't know if you ever thought that when you dropped this book during the pandemic, that you would be a prophet of sorts as to where we would find ourselves in the United States, which is not where I ever thought that we would be, where there is a prophet of sorts, where there is a,

politics of religion that is taken hold, particularly of one political party, the Republican Party. And I just want to get your thoughts on when you wrote the book and it came out versus how you are feeling about its resonance today. Well, first of all, Danielle, I want to say thank you so much for hosting me. It's really great to be in conversation with you. Again, I think a lot of Americans today, listen, when the book came out, it was before January 6th, or, you're a very great to be in conversation. Donald Trump was facing 91 felony charges across four criminal cases before he was ruled in court to have committed financial fraud and all of these things. And I think that many people are continuing to wonder, how is it possible that so many Americans could support as the next

president of the United States, to put it bluntly, a man who led a coup, an attempted coup against government seems to be thoroughly liberated from any concerns about decency or the truth. I don't think 10 or 15 years ago anyone would have predicted that the Republican Party could stand behind such a person, but here we are. And I think it's leading people not just in America, but also around the world, to wonder if American democracy has a future. Because when a political party, the Republican party stands behind a candidate as they're standing behind him now who tried to overthrow a democratic election to fraud and violence. They're basically saying that the institutions of democracy don't matter. So this is a movement that has been anti-democratic at its core for very long time, but it's never

been more clear. You know, and what gets me about the Republican Party in its current manifestation is the weaponization of Christianity. And I'm not a novice to the ways in which white evangelical Christendom has woven its way and situated itself next to power. We don't have the right to abortion in all 50 states in this country because of their crusade over the last close to 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade. We are in a position where we see justices on the Supreme Court who are aligned with their religiosity as opposed to the law and the grounding law of the constitution of these

United States. And so when you look at the way that this party has been able to weaponize religion and curry favor with this particular class of Republicans, do you see a way that logic finds itself when you're pressing logic against warped religious doctrine? Yes, listen, I mean, religious nationalism is something that we see all around the world. We see nuances specific to different regions. I want to take a minute to be clear on what Christian nationalism is and what it's not. So Christian nationalism is not a religion. It's not Christianity. It's a political phenomenon that involves exploiting religion for political purposes. And the core idea is that America was founded as an explicitly Christian nation, but it has supposedly fallen under the control of liberal, secular,

cosmopolitan elite. Its leaders say that the right kinds of Christians need to take control and restore America with supposedly biblical foundations. And here's the thing about religious nationalism. It's really a kind of identity politics. It says that there's a right way to believe, which is supposedly correct and very reactionary versions of the Christian faith. Look, Christianity in America is incredibly diverse, but it's this kind of fusion of reactionary religion. with a hard right politics. So you see a lot of faith groups in America, such as Faithful America and Baptist Joint Committee and the National Council of Churches and Christians against Christian nationalism explicitly coming out in opposition to the politics of division that this movement

represents. But what the movement has succeeded in doing is drawing so many Americans into a kind of identity politics saying, you know, there are those who believe correctly and they're those who don't. And, you know, it's an apocalyptic struggle between absolute good and absolute evil. There's the pure versus the impure and the consequences of losses in the political arena are too dire to ignore. And I think that one of the reasons that Trump has been so successful as a candidate is he understands the utility of religious nationalism. Have you ever seen his rallies or been to one of his rallies. He always has these very fiery pastors or preachers as his Mormon. Right. So he's got Mark Burns to his left and he's got Robert Jeffers to his right. And in doing this, he's saying,

hey, I'm surrounded by the holy men. I've got the holy men on my side. You can't touch me because I've got religion on my side. You know, we're part of the righteous, the in-group. And anybody who's not with us is part of the out-group. And this is what religious nationalist leaders do around the world. They bind themselves very tightly to reactionary religious figures in their own countries in order to consolidate a more authoritarian form of political power. And in doing so, they're thwarting or making it more difficult for people to engage in critical investigations of their corruption, their nepotism, their failures, and the ways that they're abusing their own people. Catherine, one of the most jarring phrases where I saw an absolute switch from Donald Trump,

Trump's tele-evangelist routine and his used car salesman routine was when he told a crowd that I am your retribution. I think that us in the media needed to really understand that moment. When you heard that and it was replayed over and over again, what did you make of that moment? Well, I saw it in the broader context, Danielle, of what the Christian nationalist movement has done to the rank and file, the leaders cast themselves and their followers as the single most persecuted group in American society. They are constantly talking about how persecuted are. You know, Trump at his rallies is often said when they're coming after me, they're coming after you. They're weaponizing all of this grievance and supporting Trump has become a test of these

basic loyalties. This is why he's survived so many scandals. People, have many reasons for legitimate grievance. We live in a society where too many American families are struggling to succeed. A lot of people feel left behind by the sort of fast pace of technological innovation. We have growing economic and equality in our country and people are looking for answers. And this is the movement that gives them easy answers. It's, you know, it's because your group is no longer on top. There's a lot of weaponization of racial grievance. There's a lot of a lot of weaponization of economic grievance, any problem that, you know, they face is blamed on a kind of secular other, right, people who don't believe correctly, people who aren't like us.

So that's one of the reasons why it's very difficult for people to shift their loyalties away from Trump, and they have tried to justify it by giving it a kind of biblical overlay. They've compared him with biblical figures like King Cyrus or King David, an imperfect ruler through whom God chose to enact his will. And here's the thing. He doesn't follow the rules. He likes to break them. And in doing so, he embodies the lawlessness of the authoritarian. And that appeals to this anger and the authoritarian impulses of his supporters. Do you know what always shocks me? And you just said it, which is this perpetual grievance. that is marketed. And I wonder, how is it that Donald Trump is both to be viewed as this strong

man that is impenetrable, but then is yet whining all the time? What a snowflake, right? Yeah, like, I just, I don't understand the ability to both hold these two things and say that they're true. I am both, like, the strongest man. and only I can lead. I have all the answers. And yet, like, I have been wronged so much and there's just so much harm here. How are both of those things held, you know, and kind of wrapped in this Christian nationalist bow? Well, I think that we can't overlook the role of propaganda and disinformation bubbles in the United States. Look, the grievance narrative gets people upset. And then the propaganda that this movement has been able to utilize sort of gives them a different story,

I would say, about the reason for their grievances. I've been to, do you know what a reawaken America event is? No, tell me. I recently published a piece in the New Republic about attending a reawaken America event in Las Vegas. Reawaken America was founded in 2021 by Mike Flynn, Clay Clark and some of Donald Trump's other closest allies. One of his sons typically speaks at these events and they have held dozens of events since 2021 all around the country. Typically, they hold them in megachurches. They draw thousands of attendees and they are far-right conspiracy fest, mega-conspiracy fest. You go in there, they're talking about the Great Replacement. They're talking about COVID conspiracies. They're talking about one-world government. They're talking about

about something they called a Great Reset. There's a lot of QAnon presence in these places. And all of these conspiracies are designed to unhinged people from reality, to make them afraid, to feel like, you know, the government is controlled by evil, satanic, one-world, you know, shadowing creatures who are going to change their gender against their will or something like that. Their money is being worthless in every aspect of, you can't imagine how crazy these events are. And listen, there's always been all, America's always had all kinds of nuts and bolts rolling around for many years. This type of fringe stuff was just kind of amusing and people could report on it or a little funny group over here or there. This is a group that includes

some of the Republican frontrunners' closest allies, including his children. It's really astonishing what they're doing. It's basically doing some kind of very toxic information operation on our country, because this is the sort of core of his support. When you go into these events, you'll see lots of art of like a shirtless Trump, you know, somebody else's body, obviously, thank goodness, with eagles and crosses and, you know, they're portraying him as a fighter. And they're saying that these 91 felony counts that he's facing is nothing but an effort to get him. They talk about how, I mean, it's just, there was a really terrific piece actually in the LA Times also that just came out a day or two ago about reawaken America. And if you haven't seen it, it's worth looking it up

because you can't laugh at these things anymore. Trump is the overwhelming favorite in the Republican field. And by the way, people like Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramoswamy, they're trying to get supporters by proving that they can be as Trumpy as possible. If we look at DeSantis' war on library books in Disney, in Florida, he's doing exactly the same thing. He's trying to behave like an authoritarian ruler. I mean, another thing I want to say about unhinging people from the truth in this way, and drawing them into this extreme irrationalism and polarization is it makes our country less governable and more chaotic, less capable of the kinds of political compromise we need to actually keep this country running. And I think that's by design, because what it does is it, it makes

the country chaotic and it clears the way for an authoritarian reaction. And we see what Trump does. He says, I alone can fix it. You know, he's behaving like a typical authoritarian leader. I mean, it's like the way that you describe, though, this way, I mean, first of all, it's terrifying. It sounds like, you know, it's sponsored by the inquirer. And what makes it even worse is that these events are being attended by thousands of people. But the way that they are using this fan art, this is why I refer to the Republican Party as a cult, that it is a cult of personality, that it is something that you bring these people in, you sucker them in with their grievances, then you keep them in. with their fear and exacerbating the fear that they have, and then you unleash them on the world. Last question for you, Catherine, is there any sane way to combat this? Because I am not seeing,

when we're looking at this two-party system that we have, which has really become a one-party system, and we're looking at the tools and the tactics and the skills that are being wielded by these religious zealots and then these phonies, because that's what Donald Trump is, how do we upend it? Is there a way to upend it? Absolutely. Look, the tools of democracy, the basic tools of democracy are still available to us. We still have the right to freedom of speech. We have the vote. The only thing that really matters at the end of the day is who turns out on election day, but it's not enough to just vote yourself.

There are things we can do when we're by ourselves, but there are things we can only do when we join together with others. We need to work to protect our vote. We need to work to educate others about what's happening. We need to invest in all of the infrastructure of democracy. And there are a lot of organizations that are doing that right now. Look, I think 10, 15 years ago, people were pretty asleep at the wheel. They thought everything was kind of fine. They took the status quo as, you know, well, I don't always get everything I want, but it's still functioning. But, you know, these days, the old right has left the building. Frankly, the Republican Party has abandoned many of the key principles of conservatism. They don't want to preserve institutions that have served us well over time,

as we're seeing with the chaos in the House of Representatives right now, the magoing of the Republican Party just wants to burn it all down and see control of whatever's left. So what we need to do is learn something from the right. They talk a good game about taking on. the woke elite, but they're the ones who've managed to create a very well-connected and very well-funded elite in their own space. They've invested in infrastructure in a sort of massive voter turnout machine. And we need to do those kinds of two things as well. And there are a lot of organizations that are working to that aim. And I think it's really important for anyone who cares about our democracy, not just for themselves, but for future generations to sort of figure

out the landscape, find a lane, and really devote yourself to it. Finally, there needs to be a positive messaging program as well. The economy is doing better than expected. Infrastructure programs are working. The Inflation Reduction Act has been quite successful and delivered a lot of improvements in a lot of communities. Investments in alternative energy are generating strong economic growth. This doesn't have to be a lesser of two evils contest. We need to motivate others to vote, and we need to help them understand the stake that they have in our democracy as well. I think when people vote, sometimes they're just thinking about the individual that they're casting their vote for. But we need to understand it's not just about that individual. It's the judges

that they're going to appoint. It's the foreign policy experts that they're going to surround themselves with. It's the domestic policies that they are committed to addressing and improving or making worse? Are the people they surround themselves actually going to bring about a more just society or further degrade our society? I think it's really important to look at the big picture and help others to do so as well. A hundred percent. We will leave it there today. Catherine, I can't thank you enough for making the time for the new abnormal. Thank you so much, you guys. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going.

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