Ramble On: Money, Lies, God, Ketamine, and Retribution (video + podcast)
Morning thoughts on Musk in shades, Kash Patel's ominous plans for the FBI, the retirement of Mitch McConnell, and how the savior of democracy might be [checks notes] Calvin Klein
Today on the PREVAIL podcast, I talk to Katherine Stewart about her spectacular and well timed new book, Money, Lies, and God.
Here is today’s ramble:
Transcript:
Good morning. It’s February 21st, which means we’ve been into the redux for exactly one full month. So that’s how long it took to dismantle pretty much everything, capitulate completely to Putin as we knew he would, but still very, very shocking to see it happen in real time. Hand over pretty much all of the domestic administration of the country to a guy who is pretty clearly high on ketamine or something. I don’t know what he’s high on, but I watched that CPAC video where Elon is wearing the dark glasses, and I don’t think he’s wearing them to be cool. Let’s just put it that way. I don’t know if you’ve seen this. I mean, this is a Nazi thing. Nazis were all high on meth, and he’s high on meth too. So that’s where we’re at.
I just have a couple of announcements up front real quick. Again, the podcast today, we’re back intermittently with podcasts. I have Katherine Stewart on: great journalist who’s been covering kind of the Christian nationalist beat for many years. She has a new book that came out this week called Money, Lies, and God, which is pretty all-encompassing, but, it’s a great, great book because it’s really a guide to these people and who they are, how they fit together, and what we can do to stop them. So download the podcast, listen to that, and go buy her book and read it. You’ll learn a lot. I learned a lot from reading—it just really helped me organize my thoughts about the enemy that we’re up against. And by “enemy,” I mean enemy of democracy. And I don’t think there’s any question that these people are enemies of democracy.
This is my second cup of coffee.
On Monday, the 24th of February, I will be at the Ukrainian Institute of America on the Upper East Side of New York City at 6 p.m. talking to Alexander Vindman, who has this new book out, The Folly of Realism, which is an excellent book about the political situation in Ukraine, Russia, and proposing a new way of looking at things, which is great. I’ll talk about it more after, but if you’re in New York on Monday— Monday night, nobody’s doing anything Monday night—come on down to, or up, I suppose, it’s the Ukrainian Institute on East 79th Street and check us out. It’s going to be good. I have no idea what to wear. What does one wear when, when one shares the stage with a retired lieutenant colonel? I don’t know. I don’t know. I have to figure this out.
The following weekend on Sunday, I think it’s Sunday, March 2nd, I will be up in Saranac, with Stephanie Koff, LB, for a live Five 8 event at Adirondack Voters for Change at their annual convention. Come check that out. We’ll have more information for you about that as it’s known, but that’s gonna be on Sunday, March 2nd up in Saranac Lake, New York. What else do I have? Yeah, just a reminder, I have my book, you know, this essay book, The Age of Unreality, which probably you already know.
Okay, I want to talk about one thing real quickly upfront, and that’s Kash Patel. He has now been confirmed as the director of the FBI. And I think that while RFK will kill more people with the health thing and Tulsi will give away all of our secrets as DNI, the most obvious change agent for the worse is going to be Patel at the FBI. He is going to transform the Bureau of Investigation into a Bureau of Retribution. He’s going to go after Trump’s political enemies. He’s already indicated that this is going to happen. He’s going to work hand in glove with Pam Bondi, “25 Grand” Pam Bondi, as I call her, the new attorney general of the department of quote unquote, “justice” that we now have. And he’s just gonna go after people, you know? So anybody that’s on the lists that he and Ivan Raiklin and these other Mike Flynn people have been compiling are in, you know, they’re gonna be targets, they’re gonna be targeted. I wrote about it in Rough Beast and page 73 here—you know, this is the part where I say what will happen when Trump gets elected if he were to get elected:
There will also be state sanctioned vengeance against anyone who has betrayed Dear Leader. Kash Patel said as much in his recent appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast:
We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. [sic] We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out, but yeah. We’re putting you all on notice and Steve, this is why they hate us. This is why we’re tyrannical. This is why we’re dictators.
A little bit of honesty there at the end, Kash Patel. So this is not something that I’m imagining. It’s not something I’m pulling out of my ass. This is something that he’s announced there and many other places that is going to happen. So we have to keep an eye on that.
The other thing about Patel, and I think this is an under-reported thing. Remember he and John Solomon were named designees for Trump’s official records after he left the White House. And then they went on this like kind of wild goose chase search for the binder of stuff related to Trump’s Russia investigation. And I think that the reason that Trump picked these two guys to do that is because they are fabulists. They’re the best, like, make-shit-uppers that they have over there. Meaning that, in the same way that I can take disparate pieces of information and create narratives that are true, Kash Patel can do the opposite. He can take a couple of data points and create like an entire work of fiction around them that then will become GOP talking points. He did this before with all the Russia investigation stuff, came up with ways to just counter-program, I guess, what really happened.
And, you know, he’s good at it. He is good at it. He wrote a children’s book, and I think a children’s book author, a fictive children’s book author, is pretty much the right guy to talk to the MAGA. Anyway, I expect to see more of that. He is now going to have at his disposal the entire records database of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He’s going to be able to cherry-pick whatever he wants from any of those files, not show us the rest of it and just make up bullshit. And it’s going to sound really really good when it’s, you know, Jesse Waters talking about it on Fox News or Matt Gaetz on whatever that is—One Nazi Network or something. This is something to keep an eye on cause this is, know, nobody’s really talking about this, but it’s going to happen.
And, you know, the Republican senators that voted for this guy. I mean, what are you doing? He clearly not qualified. He’s clearly in it for the wrong reason—and for vengeance; he’s said as much. I don’t understand. I do understand—they’re all compromised and apparently they’re all being threatened. Look, I don’t care if they’re being threatened, man. You’re a Senator. You have death threats. You’re afraid of Trump. I don’t care. Resign. If you can’t do the job, get out of there. Just don’t do it. Simple. It’s part of the job. You know, I don’t want to be president. I don’t want to be in the Senate. You know, so I don’t run for office. But if you run for office, one of the, you know, drawbacks of the job is that sometimes you’re going to have to make hard decisions that have life and death consequences, often for your constituents, but every once in a while for you. And if you’re too chickenshit to, you know, accept that responsibility—give it to somebody else, you know?
And on that note, finally, Mitch McConnell is retiring. I mean, you know, he’s not seeking reelection, which is like, like, I don’t know, is he going to still be alive when that election happens? He don’t look so good. You know, he looks like he’s been hollowed out, or whatever soul was remaining in there is long gone. And now it’s just a matter of the creaking body to follow. I think he’s so confused, he actually voted against some of some of Trump’s appointees. There’s a great account on Blue Sky by Tyler James Hill, who’s this really funny guy. And he put out a tweet yesterday that said something to the effect of I’m paraphrasing: You know when people die and they put the flags at half-mast out of respect and sadness? When Mitch McConnell dies, they should add an extra half and fly it higher.
And that’s it. I think that’s a great idea. I think we should do it for him, for Trump, for whoever. Maybe cut back to Ketamine guy. Apparently there’s all these rumors going around on the BlueSky about drug use and Mr. Empress of America there. There’s something called Calvin Klein, I found out, which is cocaine and ketamine mixed together—which I’m sure is a really good time.
And maybe the person that will save the American Republic is. . .Calvin Klein.
Until next time, we shall prevail.
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
Money, Lies, God, and the Taxonomy of Reactionary Nihilism (with Katherine Stewart)
Katherine Stewart is the author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, the award-winning book upon which the documentary feature, God & Country, produced by Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner, is based. She has covered the intersection of faith and politics for over 15 years; her work appears in the New York Times, The Washington Post, the New Republic, the Guardian, and Religion News Service, and she has been featured on broadcast media outlets such as MSNBC, CNN, and NPR. Her 2012 book, The Good News Club, covered the religious right’s effort to infiltrate and undermine public education. Her spectacular new book, MONEY, LIES, AND GOD: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy, came out this week.
Greg Olear talks to Stewart about the rise of Christian nationalism in the United States, the impetus for writing the book, her research process, the rhetoric of the movement and the lies used to boost its popularity, reactionary nihilism, the various factions within the movement, and what we can do to take democracy back.
Find her at @kathsstewart and katherinestewart.me.
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