As of Thursday night, Donald Trump’s average approval rating, as calculated by FiveThirtyEight, is 37 percent–the worst on record for a newly-elected president at this stage in his presidency. As bad as those numbers are, in all likelihood, they’re inflated. The only thing keeping Trump from completely cratering is his off-the-scale support from the religious right.
At last report, well over 70 percent of white evangelicals approve of Trump’s job performance. In large part, that support comes from religious right “leaders” bullying their followers into thinking the opposition to Trump is driven by witchcraft, demons, and the devil himself. Well, one of those leaders is taking it upon himself to go to war against those forces.
Among the fundie leaders who are still bowing down to Trump, Rick Wiles of TruNews is almost in the same class as Jim Bakker, Lance Wallnau, and Rick Joyner. He believes that those who oppose Trump are guilty of sedition, both against the state and against God himself. He briefly backed off from his diehard support for Trump over the Syrian missile strike–even going as far as to change his registration to independent.
But he seems to be bowing down to Trump once again, as evidenced when he claimed Donald Trump Jr.’s attempt to get “opposition research” on Hillary Clinton from Russia was a false flag. And if there was any doubt that he is back on the Trump bandwagon, it was erased on Wednesday, when he led his audience in a prayer against the demons supposedly preventing Trump from making America great again. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.
About 12 minutes into Wednesday’s show, Wiles and co-hosts Doc Burkhart, Zach Drew and Fior Hernandez mused about the daily cycle of leaks about Trump. Hernandez contended that this was a textbook case of the “spirits of confusion and distraction at work.” Wiles agreed, contending that the opposition to Trump wanted to “put him to sleep politically” and keep him from getting anything done. He and Fernandez believed that Trump’s opponents were trying to slowly bleed him to death. Drew bluntly denounced it as “a Satanic plot,” since the devil doesn’t try to “come for everything” all at once.
Later, Wiles claimed that rumors of an agreement between the two highest-ranking retired generals in the administration, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis, could prove that there is indeed an active plot against Trump. Kelly and Mattis have reportedly agreed that one of them must stay in the United States at all times in order to keep an eye on Trump. Wiles believed it was evidence that Kelly and Mattis were aware that active and retired intelligence agents, media personalities, and other prominent Americans were plotting to bring down Trump.
Wiles then claimed that the constant leaks about Trump are being orchestrated by “masterful liars” who are “totally owned by Satan.” Supposedly, they tell lies so often that “it doesn’t faze them”–they just put out another lie. Hmmm, who does that remind you of?
He then shifted into his other role–that of pastor at Flowing Streams Church, a charismatic/pentecostal church in Vero Beach. He believed that the church had to pray against the spirits of “lying,” “deception,” and “division and strife.” Hernandez then recalled a dream she had earlier in the year in which Trump found it impossible to trust anyone. She tried to get Trump to agree to an interview so they could get the truth out about him.
This prompted Wiles to have Burkhart, Drew, and Hernandez join him in prayer so they could “bind these spirits” attacking Trump and bent on causing “civil war in this country.” He believed that anyone who thinks pushing out Trump won’t cause civil war is “totally deluded and full of pompous pride.” Since the anti-Trump forces are “acting under the spirit of Lucifer,” the church should use the power Jesus to it to not only “bind these devils,” but “loose angels” to protect Trump.
With that, he prayed that God would protect Trump’s body and spirit from the numerous attacks he faces, and that every attack only makes him stronger.
“We loose truth to prevail–truth and righteousness to prevail in this nation. We bind every demonic, evil, wicked, satanic spirit–the spirits of lies, deception, division, strife, confusion. We bind all of those demonic spirits that are operating in the White House, in the Congress, in the intelligence agencies, in the Pentagon–anywhere in this nation to destabilize the president of the United States and to cause our government to collapse. We bind those evil spirits and we render them paralyzed–that they cannot speak, they cannot move, they cannot act to carry out their wicked deeds against President Trump and his administration.”
Wiles then asked that “the light of the Holy Spirit” expose the plots of the resistance and “bring forth the names” of those leading the “Satanic campaign” against him so it can be brought down.
Apparently those prayers didn’t work. Less than 24 hours after this broadcast, word got out that the special counsel for the investigation into Russian interference in the election, Robert Mueller, had convened a grand jury to help him in his investigation. Don’t be too surprised to see a lot of people standing outside Mueller’s office with their hands stretched out toward him.
Then again, Wiles probably didn’t consider that there are a lot of charismatics and pentecostals out there who are praying for Trump to be exposed for who he really is, and that there is a country left to save when all is said and done. I’m one of them. And we’re also praying that when all is said and done, Wiles and the other so-called moral guardians who have bullied so many people into backing Trump be held to account when Trump finally goes down.
(featured image courtesy TruNews’ Facebook)
