A whirlwind of lies
We are less than three weeks out and it's not getting less crazy
Been on a bus
If you follow me on social media, which I hope you do, you may have heard I spent almost two weeks wandering up and down the east coast and into Pennsylvania until just a couple of days ago. I was the “Commodore” of the VoteVets ‘Not a Sucker or a Loser’ tour pirate ship and it was truly an adventure.
We went from New York, down to Virginia Beach, over to Fayetteville, NC, then up to Philadelphia, Scranton, Reading, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and finally Johnstown chasing Trump and J.D. Vance and reminding them that veterans aren’t suckers or losers. Along the way we rallied supporters, spoke to the press, and got more thumbs up than middle fingers.
I spent a lot of my time telling MAGA supporters that not only did Trump call us those words to former White House Chief-of-Staff John Kelly, but many even worse things from skipping Dover for two years to banning a young injured servicemember from appearing with him because “nobody wants to see that.”
These are all documented so, of course, they are all “fake news.”
The Fire Hose of Lies and Anger
Have you been on social media lately? Twitter has become the ultimate cesspool of the most vile hatred and bigotry I’ve ever seen. Many of us have noticed that you will post something praising Kamala Harris or criticizing Trump and after maybe an hour or so the most disgusting flood of hatred piles on to the replies. One after another.
I recently spent several minutes hiding and blocking easily several hundred replies to a fairly innocuous post before finally finding the positive comments from my usual followers. Elon has turned the platform into a hate site designed to break our spirit and convince us Harris is losing.
But it’s all a lie.
We are winning. The polls haven’t changed at all. The momentum hasn’t reversed. Donald Trump hasn’t suddenly “broken through.” On the contrary he is dwindling before our eyes. Just watch any clip of that utterly disgusting speech he gave at the Al Smith Dinner last night to see how far he has fallen. He isn’t funny. He could barely read the paper because he refuses to wear glasses. He was bitter, transphobic, and hateful beyond measure.
That’s before we talk about the crudity and disgusting comments he made about other attendees and Vice President Harris. He was a broken man in his twilight and he knows it. He wakes up everyday knowing he is losing to a black woman and it absolutely infuriates him. The hate is eating him alive.
I wish him nothing but the worst.
A monster lurks
You see they aren’t electing Donald Trump anymore. He isn’t running to be President. He is running to stay out of prison and they are electing J.D. Vance. to be the President. He is the least qualified Vice Presidential nominee in modern history with barely a year and a half of unremarkable Senate service. But, he is a protege’ of Peter Thiel and selected by Elon Musk and the Trump sons.
But the whole story of J.D. Vance is even darker as he is a leading acolyte of the growing Christian Nationalist movement and the extreme toxic elements in that effort to make the United States a Christian nation. He even wrote the forward for the Heritage Foundation President’s book that all but lays out the path to that vision.
He wasn’t selected to be a partner for Trump. He is the replacement.
For the last several weeks I have focused ‘On Democracy with FPWellman’ on the things that Donald Trump has done and promised to do that have been collectively forgotten or they would like us to ignore. From January 6th to his ongoing disdain and disrespect for military service.
This week I thought it was time to turn to the man who will be President as Trump clearly faces declining health and would enter office as the oldest person to ever run for President.
J.D. Vance’s involvement in this Christian Nationalist movement is key to that story so I was able to swing an interview with the brilliant Dr. Kristin Du Mez, the author the bestseller ‘Jesus and John Wayne’ from 2021 and a new film called ‘Our Daughters’ which lays out the outrageous cover ups and abuse of women evangelicals.
It’s a fascinating conversation.
The Show
Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a New York Times bestselling author and Professor of History and Gender Studies at Calvin University. She holds a PhD from the University of Notre Dame and her research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion, and politics. Her most recent book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation lit up the conversation around modern Christianity and she has just released a short film, For Our Daughters— on systemic sex abuse and cover up in evangelical churches, linking abuse with Christian nationalism and warning what a Christian nationalist state would mean for women.
Thanks for hanging in with me. We are just over two weeks out from the election. I hope you are voting early if possible and bringing your friends along.
Place comments on social media...."Not suckers or losers" to vets groups, military, military dependents, history sites. Vote vets has thousands of testimonials of 2020 Trump voters that flipped. According to Facebook, there are 4 million veterans or active duty members on Facebook, and 12.5 million family members of veterans or active duty members on Facebook.
I've thought all along that Vance was the replacement for Trump. He is far worse in my eyes. I wrote an Op Ed for my local paper about the impacts of Project2025 and how, as Kristen Kobes DuMez says the authors are trying to reinterpret the Constitution through a Christian (Nationalist) lens. I'm trying not to remain brave. I'm admire all you do to help save our Democracy and help our Veterans.