In case you missed it, the only reason Donald Trump’s head is still above water is that over 70 percent of white evangelicals still back him, even in the face of the nearly daily outrages coming from the White House. It’s partly because they listen to people like Rick Wiles of TruNews. Wiles is so fanatically pro-Trump that he believes virtually any opposition to Trump amounts to sedition.
For instance, within hours of the Alexandria shooting, he called for a massive purge of the entire left side of the political spectrum. If he had any say in the matter, MSNBC would have been yanked off the air, and Rachel Maddow and other left-leaning reporters and journalists would have been “rounded up.”
Anyone who has followed the news in recent years would know that sounds a lot like something Vladimir Putin would do at even the slightest pretense. Well, in light of two rants from Wiles earlier this week, his call for Kremlin-style tactics makes sense. After all, he seems to think that Russia is a model for how a moral society would look.
On Tuesday’s edition of “TruNews,” Wiles claimed that the same forces that kept Russia chained to Communism are now in control in this country–and are the same forces that are pushing for abortion and gay rights. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.
About 32 minutes into the show, Wiles discussed a recently-passed law that will make it more difficult for Trump to undo sanctions on Russia. As he saw it, this law was another attempt by the “deep state” elite–or “the dark state,” as he calls them–to prevent Trump from treating Russia “with respect.”
To Wiles’ mind, the deep state’s hostility to Russia went all the way back to the Russian Revolution. He claimed that at bottom, the deep state was “Satanic” and “Luciferian”–and it was responsible for imposing “atheistic, God-hating Communism” on Russia and the Soviet Union. He believed that the deep state was “furious” at Russia for daring to break the chains of “their God-hating atheism, their Satanism.”
Well, that’s interesting. As anyone who was in school from the 1950s through the early 1990s knows, the American “deep state” was largely responsible for the policy of containment that guided our foreign policy for most of the Cold War. Some elements of the deep state were so anti-Communist that they lent support to horribly oppressive dictators on the premise that they were better than letting the Communists get their hands on power.
Wiles almost certainly knows this as well. So how does he justify this blatant alternative facting? Well, Wiles claims that this country is now under the thumb of Satan. How do we know?
“The people in control of America today are Satanists. What do they defend? Baby killing. Selling baby parts. Homosexuality. Pedophilia. They celebrate it.”
As evidence, he noted how the European Court of Human Rights recently condemned Russia’s odious “gay propaganda” law. That law ostensibly bans the “promotion” of homosexuality to children, but is so broadly written that merely speaking out about gay rights can get you fined. Wiles, however, thought that the European authorities were the ones who overreached.
“As a Christian, I stand with the Russian people in their defense of morality. And I condemn the dark state that is in control of the United States and Europe and Canada and Australia and New Zealand. It is a Luciferian, demonic Satanic empire that is against God, hates God.”
We didn’t have to wait long to see how far Wiles was willing to go in order to “stand with the Russian people in their defense of morality.” On Wednesday’s show, he loudly applauded Russia for effectively banning the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Right Wing Watch got a clip.
Wiles devoted most of his Wednesday broadcast to wringing his hands over the deteriorating relations between Washington and the Kremlin. He blamed it on “Luciferian devil-worshiping Satanic people” who control most Western governments, and are out to “punish” Russia for breaking free of Communism.
Fifteen minutes into the show, he cited as a case in point American evangelical concerns over Russia’s move in April to ban the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Russia’s Supreme Court upheld a law that bans Jehovah’s Witnesses from holding worship services under penalty of heavy fines and jail time. A number of evangelical leaders condemned this move as anti-Christian.
Well, Wiles let it be known that he hoped that this country could follow Russia’s lead.
“Well, congratulations! I’m glad you did it. I wish we could do it. I wish we could get rid of all the cults in this country. We’d be better off for it. But we allow the cults to run around in the country.”
I had to listen to this twice in order to believe it. Wiles just called for this country to effectively shred the First Amendment and ban any religion that it considers a “cult.” It’s what most religious right leaders would like to happen. They just don’t admit it–at least, not in the open, when they think we’re listening.
Wiles either doesn’t know or doesn’t want you to know that Putin was taking a page from the Soviet playbook. Jehovah’s Witnesses, like all religious groups, were severely persecuted in Soviet times; they were branded as spies and enemies of the state. So persecuting religious groups was bad when the Communists did it, but is just fine when that paragon of virtue, Putin, does it? Apparently so, in Wiles’ world.
Under Putin’s rule, freedom of speech is almost nonexistent. The press is either owned outright by the state or controlled by oligarchs close to the Kremlin. As we learned when Megyn Kelly was tricked into letting a Russian state TV anchorman give a man-on-the-street interview, reporters are propagandists first and journalists second. Apparently, this is the kind of vision Wiles wants for this country. That’s the only thing we can assume if he thinks Putin is the model of a moral leader.
(featured image courtesy Wiles’ Twitter)
