On Saturday, September 28, J.D. Vance appeared at the so-called “Courage Tour,” a domestic-extremist jamboree that’s been dubbed one of the “most-conspiratorial, Christian-supremacist spectacles in the country.”
J.D. Vance is linking up with Lance Wallanu, the man who popularized the Seven Mountain Mandate that says conservative Christians are called to rule society, and who has been warning that Kamala Harris is possessed by demons.
Mike Hixenbaugh
Vance was in a town hall” conversation with Lance Wallnau, a Dominionist televangelist and self-described Christian nationalist. Wallnau is associated with New Apostolic Reformation, in which he is considered a “prophet,” and frames his MAGA beliefs as spiritual warfare. Most notably, he has tried to mainstream the idea that Trump is a modern-day King Cyrus.
During his appearance, Vance advocated for ending all public funding of education, a major goal for extreme Republicans religious institutions hoping to turn private religious schools into the primary educator of America’s youth.
Trump’s merger with Evangelicals
Since 2015, Donald Trump has benefited from Evangelical support. For his third run in 2024, experts say, this time is different: Trump repeatedly “cast himself as messiah figure” and “compared his legal troubles to the persecution of Christ,” according to Diane Rehm. He’s also repeatedly turned the apparent assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania (for which Trump refuses to release medical records) into an “act of God” that saved him.
The “Courage Tour” appears to be an inevitable convergence of Christian Nationalism, election denialism and Trump’s creepy belief he’s in some way a deity—or at least protected by one.
Wallnau’s “Courage Tour” is therefore a fused entity of hard-right religiosity and a political campaign, where, according to scholar Matthew Taylor, Trump’s allies are sharing voter data with Wallnau. Why would a preacher need voter data, and what is Wallnau doing with it?
Similarities to Mike Flynn’s rhetoric
Disgraced/fired National Security Adviser Mike Flynn has been making grandiose proclamations with religious undertones for some time. Flynn launched “ReAwaken Tour” with Evangelical leaders and even asserted that America needed “one religion,” even though our country was founded on freedoms to practice whatever religion Americans want.
Flynn reportedly amassed a network of nonprofit groups, as PBS reports, “projected to spend $50 million” to advance his “movement.”
“Flynn has drawn together election deniers, mask and vaccine opponents, insurrectionists, Proud Boys, and elected officials and leaders in state and local Republican parties. Along the way, the AP and ‘Frontline’ documented, Flynn and his companies have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars for his efforts.”
