The Coup & The Military-Christian Nationalist Industrial Complex

[Celerity]

The retired military played an outsized role in Trump's coup attempt. And Christian nationalism and dominionism played an outsized role in preparing them for it. Warnings go back more than 15 years.

https://crooksandliars.com/2021/01/coup-military-christian-nationalist



Christian nationalist military sees nothing wrong with Nazi symbols like this SS emblem displayed by Marines in Afghanistan until the Military Religious Freedom Foundation raises holy hell.

As different facets of the origins of Trump’s failed coup keep emerging from the shadows, one elephant in the room remains: the role of Christian nationalists and hard-core dominionists in driving the participation of retired military in the insurrection, which an NPR report has tentatively been estimated at around 20%—almost three times their presence in the general population. While stories have highlighted the roles of Christian nationalists as well as those with military training, journalists are belatedly scrambling to grasp the connection between the two—a connection made crystal clear by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation when Larry R. Brock was identified as an Air Force Academy graduate. Almost immediately, MRFF founder and President Mikey Weinstein penned a blistering open letter to the Air Force Academy, bluntly headlined, “We Told You So.”

While the NPR report linked above traced the connection between military personnel, and extremists—particularly white supremacists—the problem with Christian nationalists may be even worse, Weinstein told Crooks and Liars, whether from a lack of capacity or lack of will. “The U.S. military can’t even handle its ever-present sexual assault and sexual harassment plague,” Weinstein pointed out. “It has not either the minimum desire or preliminary expertise to stop the explosion of fundamentalist Christianity through its ranks.” “The U.S. military has never taken the incredible national security threat internally from fundamentalist Christian fundamentalism/dominionism seriously. They have no desire to,” Weinstein said. “This religious extremism controls the military and not vice versa… It has been there for decades now.”

White Supremacists & Christian Supremacists Go Hand-In-Hand

Yet, “There is no observable or cognizable daylight between white supremacy in the military and fundamentalist extremist Christian ideology… The two go hand in hand,” he explained. “If you find a KKKer or neo-Nazi or Proud Boy in the military, the chances that they are not also completely mind-warped and brainwashed by weaponized Christianity is extraordinarily low.” Indeed, MRFF has exposed several scandals involving neo-Nazi activity—or sympathy, at the very least. In 2012, MRFF raised hell over the photo at the top of this story, of Camp Pendleton Marines posing with a Nazi SS symbol in Afghanistan which Marine higher-ups had previously investigated but found "not to be racially motivated." As result, the Marine Corps officially denounced it. Eight years later, MRFF was instrumental in getting a Walla Walla, WA police officer to alter an identical SS Tattoo. And in late December, two weeks before Trump's failed coup, MRFF succeeded in getting the VA to remove two Nazi headstones from Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, following a long battle that began in early May.

Incidents like these, though comparatively rare, are qualitatively no different than the more common battles MRFF fights—as the seven-month battle to remove the Nazi headstones clearly shows. Shared enmity is a big reason why the two go together so well. “Both white supremacy and fundamentalist/dominionist Christianity share an indescribable hatred for American democracy…especially amped up in our military,” Weinstein said. “And they both attempt to base this boundless, seething hatred upon their shared tortured version of extremist Christianity. They will cite biblical passages ad nauseam to justify their wretched exclusivist views, just as those slave owners constantly did to justify slavery in the U.S., and just as the segregationists did in Congress and universally elsewhere to justify ‘separate but equal’ and Jim Crow.” Thus, “What happened on Jan 6th was not merely overnight in the making for the U.S. military. It was decades in the making, generations in the making.”

snip

[musette_sf]

1. K&R

[niyad]

2. KNR

[love_katz]

3. Kick and rec.

[Bradshaw3]

4. K&R

Scary stuff.

[Claire Oh Nette]

5. Christian faith is a problem in polticians

Christians can't compromise on their faith. The have to believe in things they cannot see, cannot prove. They are binary about this.

Christian Politicians, by extension, can't compromise because their Evangelical binary- thinking constituents will excoriate them for not having faith in their convictions.


Compromise is anathema.

THanks Reagan.....

[GulfCoast66]

8. Agreed. But not just Christians. All religions. It's a effect of thinking god is on you side.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

6. KnR!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. We need to stop spending taxpayer dollars to train Nazis.