At a campaign event held in Robstown, Texas this past Saturday, former President Donald Trump once again invoked themes and employed rhetoric associated with the anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi “Great Replacement Theory.”
This fascist rallying cry is based on the narrative that an international Jewish conspiracy is underway to flood white Christian populations with “inferior” races as part of a Satanic plot to conquer the world.
Also on the weekend, Trump allies and coup-plotters, including his former national security adviser and retired general Michael Flynn, were spewing similar fascistic filth at the “Great Awakening” conference, held October 21-22 in Manheim, Pennsylvania.
At the South Texas rally, Trump accused President Joe Biden, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of overseeing an “invasion” of immigrants, whom he characterized as “murderers” and “rapists.” Trump claimed they were being dispatched by his Democratic opponents to “storm” the country and attack American citizens.
“They are invading our southern border,” Trump ranted. “We had it stopped. Biden has allowed millions and millions of illegal aliens to storm across the border.”
The use of the word “storm” was not incidental. Every QAnon adherent in attendance and watching online would recognize it as an invocation of the coming “storm” that is to result in the destruction of the Jews and their radical left and socialist accomplices.
“They are storming. They are storming our country,” Trump barked. “They include Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Russia, China, Iran, all of Africa. They are storming our country. They are storming our borders. We have no idea who they are, where they come from.”
In another direct appeal to the QAnon conspiracy theory, Trump charged—absurdly—that the Democrats supported “open border” policies that allowed MS-13 gang members to kidnap, rape and “sadistically” murder a “15-year-old girl in a horrific satanic ritual.”
For their part, Biden and the Democrats are scrambling to adapt to the Republicans’ anti-immigrant agitation. Earlier this month they began working with Mexico, using the Title 42 policy implemented by Trump, to strip refugees, mainly from Venezuela, of the right to asylum and deport them en masse to Central and South America. On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security reported that a record 2.3 million migrants were detained at the US-Mexico border in fiscal 2022.
Referencing the tent city opened last week by the Democratic administration in New York City, Trump complained that the “bad people” emigrating to America were living “better than our soldiers.”
Some 5,000 people attended the nearly eight-hour rally at an outdoor venue in Robstown, a suburb of Corpus Christi. As in other Trump rallies, the longer the would-be Fuhrer spoke, the more rapidly audience members filed out. By the time Trump finished his speech, accompanied by his now standard piped-in “storm” music, online viewership had collapsed by over 20,000 in 20 minutes.
Joining Trump at the rally were several Republican politicians, all of whom echoed Trump’s theme of a “border invasion” overseen by Biden and the Democratic Party. Speakers included Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, Representative Ronnie Jackson, Attorney General Ken Paxton and former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) director Tom Homan.
In his speech, Homan said Biden was the “first president” to “unsecure a border on purpose.”
Paxton, who spearheaded a failed multi-state lawsuit to overturn the election on behalf of Trump in December 2020, also appealed to QAnon fascists, claiming that a “partnership” existed “between Biden and the cartels.”
The appeals to QAnon fascists and Christian nationalists was even more explicit at the Great Awakening conference held over two days in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Last year, Tulsa, Oklahoma businessman Clay Clark partnered with Michael Flynn to launch the “ReAwaken America” tour.
With the support of Trump, local Republicans, together with Flynn and Clark, have hosted events in 16 cities. In each city, the two organizers, along with pastors and outright racists, spread a blend of nationalism, Christian supremacism and QAnon talking points.
This includes repeating Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen along with right-wing conspiracy theories concerning COVID-19, 5G communications and “election integrity.”
“I would rather be labeled a Christian nationalist than a godless globalist any day of the week,” said Jackson Lahmeyer, a pastor and former Republican Senate candidate from Oklahoma, one of the many Republicans who attended and spoke at the latest event.
In addition to Flynn, Trump’s son Eric, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, right-wing UK political operative Katie Hopkins, Trump crony Roger Stone and an assortment of “Trump prophets” spoke in-person at the rally.
In her speech, Hopkins, who has previously called for a “final solution” for Muslims in Europe, claimed that Muslims were “outbreeding” white people in the UK and that “white farmers” were under attack from “black gangs” in South Africa.
On Friday night, Trump called into the event and spoke through Eric Trump’s phone. The former president thanked everyone for attending the event and vowed to fight against his political enemies.
Republican Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who has attacked his Jewish opponent, Josh Shapiro, for attending Jewish schools as child, was slated to appear at the conference on Saturday.
However, after a recent interview in the Washington Post in which Shapiro called out Mastriano for his anti-Semitism and embrace of neo-Nazis, Mastriano likely made a political calculation that it was best to stay away from the fascist rally.
While Mastriano cancelled his in-person speaking appearance, this did not prevent his campaign from maintaining a booth at the event.
While Trump and his Republican cronies openly incite fascist and anti-Semitic violence, the so-called “moderate” or “non-MAGA” wing of the Republican Party, a rapidly shrinking faction, remains silent.
In an article published last week, Business Insider reported that it had asked 38 Republicans, including senators, House leaders, retired lawmakers and former Trump administration officials, about the rise of anti-Semitic rhetoric on the part of Trump and his allies.
“The non-respondents,” Business Insider wrote, “included RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, former Vice President Mike Pence, National Republican Senatorial Committee chair Rick Scott, House Republican Conference chair Elise Stefanik, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, among others. The brush-offs ranged from total radio silence to promises to circle back ‘if we’re able to provide comment by your deadline,’ to immediate hang-ups and finger-pointing at Democrats.”
Emboldened by the Republicans’ embrace of fascism, on Saturday roughly seven neo-Nazis with the Goyim Defense League dropped fascist banners over the 405 overpass in Los Angeles, California. One of the banners read, “Kanye West is right about the Jews.”
Accompanying the banner drop, residents in Beverly Hills, California and Tempe, Arizona reported that anti-Semitic fliers were distributed throughout their neighborhood. The fliers blamed Jews for everything from coronavirus lockdowns to “grooming” children for sexual exploitation.
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