For some time, the religious right has been among the loudest voices warning us against claiming that Russia hacked the election for Donald Trump. Their explanation? The Kremlin didn’t hack the election–God did. To hear them talk, God was so determined to end abortion and marriage equality that he cast the only vote that really mattered, thus ensuring the Donald’s victory in what can only be described as a miracle. After all, Trump’s platform is supposedly the same as that of the Almighty.
For that reason, the nation’s so-called moral guardians have warned us that opposition to Trump is fueled by witchcraft and demons, and we oppose God’s plan for this country if we persist in opposing the Donald. For good measure, we risk cursing our families if we oppose Trump, since he is God’s chosen one. Well, a leading fundie evangelist recently took this line to its logical conclusion. He claimed that God hacked the election to punish Barack Obama.
Last weekend, the Family Research Council held its annual “Watchmen on the Wall” pastors’ conference in Washington. One of the keynote speakers was Jonathan Cahn, a messianic Jewish rabbi from Wayne, New Jersey–that is, a rabbi who believes Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Cahn has been one of the darlings of the religious right for some time. Back in 2012, he published “The Harbinger,” a book in which he argued the September 11 attacks were a divine warning to this country for tolerating “immorality,” teaching acceptance of homosexuality, legalizing abortion, and Obama’s supposed sins.
Cahn He first came to national attention in 2014, when he told Pat Robertson that unless things changed, this country has 20 years left at most. Watch here.
In other words, this guy has solid wingnut street cred. He didn’t disappoint when he spoke on the first day of the Watchmen on the Wall conference. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.
Cahn repeated what has become a standard religious right shibboleth about Trump’s upset victory–it was “a sign of God’s hand,” brought about in part by thousands of people going into prayer on election night. If you’ll remember, a lot of fundies believe that the returns began shifting in Trump’s favor right around the time the audience at a Kenneth Copeland-sponsored webcast started praying.
But Cahn asked his audience to consider the possibility that Trump’s upset victory was rooted in “a 4,000-year-old mystery”–the Abrahamic covenant. He was referring to Genesis 12:1-3, in which God promised to not only make Abraham’s descendants a great nation, but to bless those who bless his descendants and curse those who curse them. Cahn paraphrased it as “whatever you do to Israel shall be done to you.”
He then claimed that in 2015, “article after article” came out to claim that the Obama administration was backing a group dedicated to unseating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. To hear Cahn tell it, God didn’t forget that insult.
“But the Abrahamic covenant says, ‘whatever you do to Israel will be done to you.’ So if you intervene in the election of Israel, well, then God will intervene in your election. If you seek to end the legacy of the leader of Israel, then God will end your legacy. The Obama administration claimed that the Russians intervened. Weell, maybe they did, but the intervention was much higher than the Russians.”
Okay, Rabbi Jonathan. I’ll play. Do you seriously expect us to believe that God inspires people to engage in blatantly criminal behavior? In case you don’t recall, there is nearly irrefutable evidence that a cabal of rogue FBI agents engaged in a campaign of unethical and criminal behavior in the run-up to FBI Director James Comey releasing his now-infamous letter.
The nation’s two most prominent election forecasters both agree that letter was what cost Hillary the election. Nate Silver concluded that letter caused enough late-deciding voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to break for Trump to throw those states–and the election–to him. Likewise, Sam Wang believes Trump kept just enough of his post-letter bounce to win the Electoral College.
So tell me, Rabbi Jonathan. Are you saying that God inspired those agents to violate the Fourth Amendment, the law, and basic standards of decency? That’s what you’d have to believe in order to believe God hacked the election for Trump. I know God’s ways aren’t our ways, but if you seriously think God inspires FBI agents to act in this way, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.
But even without that to consider, Cahn’s argument is based on a conspiracy theory. It’s based on the work that 270 Strategies, a consulting firm headed by Obama 2012 national field director Jeremy Bird, did for an NGO opposing Netanyahu’s Likud party in the 2015 Israeli election. That group, OneVoice, received over $300,000 in State Department grants in 2014 for its work in the Israel-Palestine peace process.
That money, combined with the fact that a former Obama campaign operative was involved, caused wingnut heads to explode. Matt Barber and Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel even went as far as to scream for impeachment. Listen here.
This would be roughly like calling for George W. Bush to be impeached over something one of his former cabinet members did after leaving office.
A Senate investigation ultimately found that OneVoice did nothing improper. But if Cain’s spiel is any indication, this shibboleth is still floating around the fundie world. Remember, folks, these are people who mostly rely on the likes of “The 700 Club” and American Family Radio for news.
The only thing that’s a real surprise is that it took this long for a prominent right-winger openly declared that God hacked the election to spite the Kenyan Socialist Mooslamb. But if Cahn thinks for one minute that he can get away with spewing this garbage, he’s got another think coming. Let Cahn have it on Facebook and on Twitter.
(featured image courtesy Cahn’s Facebook)
