Vast numbers of Evangelicals continue to support the Orange Tyrant. Statistically, as many as 85% voted for him in 2024. On the surface it might appear to be a religious thing, but in reality it is largely political and identity-driven. Most do grasp that Trump is personally not religious, and so they support him because he has supposedly been chosen by god as an “imperfect vessel.” (“God uses sinful men to accomplish His purposes.”)
Why do so many Evangelical leaders and influences defend the indefensible?
Many are deeply insecure and terrified of change. They also as a community tend to naturally select into positions of responsibility individuals who crave influence and wealth, and so Trump very successfully taps into this. He offers them a villain, a hero, and a promise of restored dominance. Merge all that and you get politics as religion and it comes with prophets, heretics, and holy wars.
Let’s focus down on one group, the self-appointed prophets.
When it comes to “prophets”, yes they are of course full of it, but it is still worth understanding the mechanics of how they manipulate. The why is obvious, it is all about money and influence to enable them to have even more money, but how do they actually play the “prophet” scam and get away with it?
Let’s dig into this with a few examples from the past week.
- Right Wing Watch has a nice little list of failure examples for him here, yet his marks don’t grasp how bad he actually is as a “prophet”.
- Saying “I’ve been right on virtually everything” while daring critics to disprove it shifts the burden of proof away from the person making prophetic claims. This is especially telling given that prophecy, by definition, is supposed to be publicly testable over time. In any serious epistemic system, the claimant documents predictions in advance, specifies outcomes clearly, and accepts falsification. Wallnau does none of that. Instead, he relies on vagueness, selective memory, and retrospective reinterpretation.
- Back to my question, why does he get away with this? Many of his past claims about elections, political timelines, divine judgments, and Trump’s destiny were specific, falsifiable, and demonstrably wrong. How the con works is that his failed prophecies are quickly reframed as “delayed,” “spiritual,” or “conditional,” hence the prophet can never be wrong. When you rapidly reframe, then any claim of accuracy becomes meaningless.
- One very famous example of this was Harold Camping. He was the guy who claimed an end-times date of May 21, 2011. You might remember the billboards up and down various highways. When the date came and went, he shifted the date, it was “delayed” until Oct that same year. After Oct, he then played the “it happened, but on a spiritual level only, hence you can’t see it” card.
- Wallnau’s confidence has not been earned through accuracy. Instead it is confidence preserved by making error impossible – that’s the con here.
- You might, and should, roll your eyes when such lame excuses pop up, but for those invested in him it works, it resolves the cognitive dissonance.
When also got this from Lance in the past week – he apparently believes that with President Donald Trump, we have “a prophet in the White House.“
- If he had said “Profit” and not “Prophet”, then he would have nailed it, because the utterly corrupt Trump truly is the grifter-in-chief.
- You can see what is really going on here. This is a strategic narrative: elevate a political figure to divine authority. Loyalty to him becomes morally compulsory. It shifts the conversation from policies, competence, or evidence to unquestionable obedience: if Trump is God’s prophet, criticism isn’t debate, it’s blasphemy.
- It’s also a classic cult move. Wrap political allegiance in sacred language, shield the leader from accountability and bind followers through fear of moral failure. This branding a politician as untouchable, and so it uses religious authority to manipulate belief and behavior.
Let’s move on to another one.
- On the surface this is laughable gibberish to once again roll your eyes at and to also mock. Be aware – it is also a deeply odious and sinister manipulation that is designed to radicalise.
- Calling a real, named public official a prophesied “beast” isn’t a theological critique, it’s mythic demonization. Once someone is framed as a monster rather than a human being, normal moral restraints start to disappear. The imagery of prophets “putting their foot on the head” and “drowning it beneath the streets” may be wrapped in spiritual metaphor, but history shows that this kind of language is how people are prepared, psychologically and morally, to tolerate real-world violence.
- This is not prophecy, it is a political weapon. Bullock isn’t predicting events; he’s assigning divine meaning to political enemies. That turns disagreement into cosmic warfare and makes compromise, pluralism, or basic democratic legitimacy impossible. If your opponent is a “beast,” then opposing them becomes a holy duty, a crusade.
- It is really about conditioning an audience to see fellow citizens as monsters rather than people. Once that line is crossed, the problem isn’t just rhetoric, it’s the erosion of the moral framework that makes peaceful coexistence possible in the first place.
OK, let’s do one more “prophet”.
Hank Kunneman claimed this past week that he issued a prophetic “word of warning” to President Donald Trump’s campaign that resulted in Trump being pulled off the campaign trail for his safety.
- This is a textbook example of self-aggrandizing prophecy, where unverifiable claims are retrofitted to ordinary events to create the illusion of supernatural influence. The actual evidence for his claim is exactly zero and will remain permanently at zero because his claim is a lie.
- The play here is to imply insider status and influence over power.
- Kunneman isn’t reporting any actual inside information or offering insight, he is claiming credit for events he cannot plausibly demonstrate he influenced, using religious language to elevate his status and bind political loyalty to prophetic authority. That may be good branding inside his cult ecosystem, but it’s not evidence of anything supernatural actually occurring.
So what else has Hank been saying?
He also claimed that this past week God told him who will win the 2028 presidential election but he’s “not allowed to share.”
- … until after the election. So yes you can see how that scam works.
- A prophecy you’re “not allowed to share” can never be proven wrong, which is exactly what makes it useful within his grifting circles.
- This is not faith or foresight, it is just a performance.
- Labeling unfavorable polls or criticism as “demonic chatter” isn’t just hyperbole, it’s a way to delegitimize reality itself. If disagreement is framed as satanic, then evidence no longer matters and critics aren’t fellow citizens, they’re enemies of God
- To be clear, what he is doing is not faith or patriotism, it is raw fascism with a religious mask that is designed to manipulate.
In the end, none of this is really about God, prophecy, or faith. It’s about power: who gets to define reality, who gets to command loyalty, and who gets to silence dissent. When religious language is used to excuse lies, demonize opponents, and sanctify authoritarianism, it stops being religion and becomes a tool of control. Prophets who can never be wrong, leaders who can never be questioned, and followers trained to see critics as evil are not defending civilization, they are dismantling the moral and democratic foundations that make any civilization worth saving in the first place.
What should we do?
- Call out the lies clearly and repeatedly. Don’t let “agree to disagree” apply to factual reality
- Insiders also have an important role – Ex-evangelicals telling their stories and also Faith-based critiques of this blatant lunacy.
- Most do not know how the manipulation works. Educate and explain it, lay out what is really going on. Once people see the con structure, it becomes harder to unsee.
- Address the root cause – fear of identity loss. Create inclusive communities with meaning and belonging. Make pluralism feel like home, not loss. People rarely leave extremist identities for pure logic, they leave for better belonging.
- Mock the prophets and spotlight that they really are clowns in a circus, but also highlight the real dangers of dehumanization and violence. Ridicule without explanation can radicalize; explanation without ridicule can normalize. Use both
- Talk to people, not at people. The leaders are too far gone, but the followers can still be reached. Start with shared values (fairness, honesty, dignity).
OK, let’s move on now and do a quick review of some of the other crazy stuff from the last seven days.
2026 Election Integrity at high risk
Story after story, drip drip drip, as he chips away at the integrity of democracy. Slowly slowly getting ready to rig the election in plain sight.
The White House today refused to rule out the presence of immigration enforcement at voting locations this November, a response that follows extremist rhetoric about placing federal forces at the polls.
Members of Congress, election officials and pro-voting advocates are denouncing President Donald Trump’s rapidly-escalating push to seize control of elections from states. But Trump is doubling down, and instead pushing to “nationalize voting.”
Meanwhile Trump decided the right place to rant about the “rigged” election and his own ego was at … (checks notes) …the National Prayer Breakfast. It was truly wild stuff, quote: …
“They rigged the second election. I had to win it. I needed it for my own ego. I would’ve had a bad ego for the rest of my life. Now I really have a big ego. Beating these lunatics was incredible … The first time they said I didn’t win the popular vote. I did.”
What is true is that Trump has been banging the rigged-election drum for years, but what is new is that he getting far more frantic.
- Link to article is here
- Quote: “We are witnessing a dangerous trend: the elevation of known bad-faith actors like Heather Honey,” said Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, in a statement, citing Honey’s “well-documented history of spreading election lies that have been debunked in court.”
Trump ordered top U.S. intelligence official Tulsi Gabbard to take part in the FBI’s Fulton County raid, the New York Times reported, undercutting the Department of Justice’s explanation of her presence as a coincidence. The report indicates Trump was personally involved and heavily invested in the raid.
The good news is this – as special election results continue to come in something becomes clear. A recent state Senate election, in which a district Trump carried by 17 points elected a Democrat by 14 points. No map, no matter how carefully constructed, can withstand a 31-point swing.
For now, Trump is left to stew over the fact that his unpopularity is dragging down Republican chances of retaining control of Congress, and that his plan to rig the results appears to have failed. But if there is one thing we know about Trump, it is that he never gives up on subverting the will of the electorate.
The next nine months will be a long fight.
Matt Davies
Rob Rogers – Trump’s self-fulfilling prophecy … #Trump #FultonCounty #TulsiGabbard #FBI #202Election #TheBigLie #Georgia #voters #DOJ #fraud #conspiracy #voters
Blatant Racism
Dennis Goris – The Stafer
Clay Jones – If you still don’t believe Donald Trump is a racist at this point, then you are also a racist. #RacistTrump #Trump #TrumpIsARacist
Epstein Revelations
People are still finding new stuff …
So who could this be then, anybody got any idea?
Nope, no idea at all …
It is deeply perverted that the persecute (not just prosecute, but “persecute”) the innocent via ICE, and at the same time protect perverts …
It was basically this …
For those that are a tad distracted, then here is a cool way to get their attention …
Dennis Goris – People are saying this is a legacy the likes of which no one has ever seen before. #epsteinfiles
Gaza Board of Peace
So weird how this keeps happening. www.haaretz.com/us-news/2026…
Corruption on a truly epic scale
Guess who will be paying a lot less tax now … $9 billion less …
- Tossing $40 million at the Orange Tyrant has paid off rather well. It turns out that bribes are now tax deductible.
- Their profits rose 45%, they paid significantly lower taxes, and yet they are still laying off people?
- Guess who gets to now pay for this tax shortfall?
And now a message from the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who leads the Republican Party …
There is a reason that those with lots of money supported him, it was to get even more money by taking away your money …
- Link to article here
- Quote: “While American families struggle to pay the bills due to higher tariffsand cuts in public benefits, Trump’s billionaire cronies have never been wealthier,” said ATF, noting that “billionaires bet big on Trump and Republicans in the 2024 elections, with just 30 MAGA billionaire families spending $1.4 billion to influence the outcome.”
Meanwhile billionaires are fearmongering about California’s proposed billionaire tax. It’s all baloney. Just look at what happened when Massachusetts raised taxes on the rich.
- They said the same nonsense in NYC when Mamdani was running for mayor. No mass exodus. Crickets
Never forget who Trump governs for.
Not Just Corruption, but also Treason
The Economy
If you are wondering why you can’t afford things as before …
Matt Wuerker – They’ve reworked the plumbing…
Multiple layers of Lunacy and utter incompetence
Literally everything he touches turns to shit.
Here is the view from outside …
ICE Gestapo updates
For some what is happening is very clear …
ICE attempted to murder her …
There’s absolutely no reason for the level of violence ICE is using. Immigrant and citizens are one in the same to them. Excessive force without provocation. Ordered by a criminal president running from justice and protected by the republican party. It’s beyond unconstitutional.
Cruelty is big business …
Illegally detained and shipped off to a concentration camp …
- Link to article here.
- Quote: “Swaths of Minnesotans are being unlawfully detained then they are being quickly ushered across state lines in order to avoid the reach of the federal district court here in Minnesota,” she said. “I have never seen anything like this to the extent and depravity that we are seeing right now.”
He signed up to put his life on the line, and so his reward from Trump is to be booted out …
Meanwhile the cover up of murder continues. NYT: How Trump/Kash blocked an investigation into the murder of Renee Good. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/07/u…
Clay Jones – The child snatchers of ICE plan to stalk Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl. #ICE #BadBunny #IceOut #CiamconejoRamos
Rob Rogers – Trump wrote a social media post calling for the return of Savannah Guthrie’s mother. If only he had the same compassion for the people he kidnaps. #Arizona #FBI #NancyGuthrie #kidnapping #kidnapper #SavannahGuthrie #Trump #ICE #immigration #HomelandSecurity
Clay Bennett – The Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Healthcare
Joe Heller – Measles
MAGA Christian Cranks
The nuttier right-wing religious fanatics within the MAGA cult are as always doing their thing, and so here are this week’s samples.
- What Partridge is doing here is both historically ignorant and morally corrosive.
- Claiming that non-European immigrants have “destroyed our nation” is a fact-free narrative of decline that relies on fear rather than evidence. The United States has gone through repeated waves of immigration panic — Irish, Italian, Jewish, Chinese, Catholic, Eastern European — and every time, the same language was used: unassimilable, dangerous, nation-destroying. Each time, it proved false. The country didn’t collapse; it changed, adapted, and grew.
- I most probably do not need to tell you this next bit, but yes let’s repeat it once again. The U.S. was explicitly founded without a religious requirement for citizenship or participation in public life. Turning Christianity into a gatekeeping tool for national membership isn’t patriotism, it’s theocratic fascism.
- Partridge isn’t diagnosing a real problem or offering a workable vision. He’s articulating a grievance ideology: blame outsiders, redefine citizenship as religious loyalty, and call exclusion “restoration.” History reveals that path doesn’t save nations, it destroys them, for example Nazi Germany.
Mark Meckler tells Christian parents to remove their children from public schools: “You are sacrificing your children to Moloch if you leave them in those schools. You are leaving them to the mercy of demons and people who hate the Creator.“
- This is truly vile disgusting rhetoric. Teachers, administrators, and school staff, who are ordinary people doing difficult jobs, are recast as agents of demons who “hate the Creator.” That erases their humanity and motives, replacing them with a cosmic villain role. Historically, this kind of framing is how social trust collapses.
- Public schools exist to serve a diverse population in a religiously neutral way. Teaching in a pluralistic society isn’t hatred of God, it’s a constitutional reality. Meckler reframes neutrality as hostility, which makes coexistence impossible by definition.
- This kind of rhetoric doesn’t protect children, it isolates them, undermines trust in institutions that millions depend on, and trains kids to see fellow citizens as enemies or demons. That doesn’t produce resilient faith or healthy democracy. It produces fear-driven insularity.
Michele Bachmann says it was “an act of discrimination” for a black manager to deny service to ICE agents at his gas station: “He’s a black man and we think back to 1950s, during Jim Crow laws, when blacks were refused service at public lunch counters.“
- Her comparison is doing a lot of dishonest work … but hey, this is Michele Bachmann, that’s true with almost everything she says.
- I get it, you get it, but for those MAGA sitting at the back, then here you go: Refusing service to Black customers under Jim Crow was state-backed racial oppression. People were denied basic dignity and survival because of who they were. Meanwhile, a private business declining service to ICE agents is a political act aimed at a government institution with enormous power, and that is not discrimination against a protected class.
- Equating the two flattens history and flips the power dynamic on its head. ICE agents aren’t a marginalized group facing systemic exclusion; they’re representatives of the state. Calling that “Jim Crow–style discrimination” doesn’t honor civil rights history, it cheapens it.
Bachmann also rolled this bizarre twist out when she shares her thoughts on anti-ICE protests: “It’s literally is a Salem Witch Trial.“
- It is literally not.
- The Salem witch trials were mass hysteria backed by state power. People were imprisoned and executed based on paranoia, lies, and spectral “evidence.” Protesters criticizing or opposing ICE are doing the opposite: challenging a powerful government agency through speech and assembly. No one is being accused of witchcraft, no one is being dragged to gallows, and ICE certainly isn’t a persecuted minority.
- Her comparison that flips reality is a way to delegitimize criticism without engaging it.
William Wolfe says that Jesus “would support ICE and mass deportations” and proclaims that “if we want to save Western Civilization, we must become immune to the tears of liberal women.“
- Claiming Jesus would support mass deportations selectively ignores the core of the gospel; care for the stranger, mercy for the vulnerable, and skepticism of state power used against the poor. You can argue for border enforcement on policy grounds, but wrapping it in divine certainty isn’t faith; it’s a way to shut down moral debate by declaring God already picked a side.
- The line about becoming “immune to the tears of liberal women” is even more revealing. It’s not about civilization, it’s about training people to dehumanize empathy, especially when it comes from women. When compassion is mocked as weakness and suffering is dismissed as manipulation, what’s being defended is fascism.
- “Saving Western Civilization” here becomes a permission slip to ignore pain, silence dissent, and baptize politics with religious language. That’s not strength or righteousness, it’s moral abdication dressed up as conviction.
Weirdest of the Weird
Joshua Haymes declares that he wants to “pursue legislation that criminalizes adultery” and that “capital punishment for adultery should be on the table.“
- That would rather neatly obliterate most elected GOP officials and also Trump
- Beyond the absurdity, this is a deeply dangerous proposition. Adultery laws historically have been tools of control, usually aimed at women (Hey Saudi Arabia and Iran we are thinking of you). Enforcing them with criminal penalties, let alone death, violates basic human rights, due process, and proportionality in law. Marriage and fidelity are personal, private matters, not state weapons.
- Modern democracies function on the principle that consent, bodily autonomy, and private morality are protected from government coercion. Suggesting capital punishment for adultery isn’t just impractical, it’s fascist, misogynistic, and a fundamental threat to civil liberties. Protecting relationships with law should mean support and education, not surveillance, criminalization, or execution.
- If you are wondering who this guy is, he is basically a Christian nationalist Pastor and conspiracy nut. He is also an enthusiastic supporter of United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is a member of his church.
Even More Political Cartoons from the past week
As always, there are many excellent cartoons.
Melania
Well done England …
Media Madness
- His pain is well made. Billionaires don’t cut journalism to save money, they do it to protect power. Bezos needs to spare us the “tough decisions” routine, we are not buying it.
How it was done to some is quite frankly appalling, and demonstrates what a total shit Bezos really is …
Then there is also this …
Nick Anderson – Democracy Dies in Weakness
Dave Whamond – Washington Post layoffs. Bezos needs to save up for the next Melania movie. #DemocracyDiesInDarkness #WashingtonPost
Actions really do have consequences
VA Senate president responds to Ted crying about VA’s redistricting, which should add 4 new Dem seats.
- I don’t know Louise, but she’s my kinda gal
The boycott has begun …
- Article here
- Quote: “For Seymour, the cancellations led to unexpected benefits, he said, like realizing he was paying for subscriptions he didn’t need. When Seymour needed firewood this week, he said he came upon a mom-and-pop store in his neighborhood that he hadn’t noticed before. “I think that finding really cool alternatives and more fulfilling ways to spend your time is gonna be a really awesome byproduct,” he said. “As well as saving some money.“
WASH POST: “Dollar down 10% under Trump… the key to the dollar’s drop is the ripple effect of the president’s erratic policymaking, including abrupt stops and starts with tariffs and military action against a lengthening list of countries…” www.washingtonpost.com/business/202…
Finally
Jon Stewart – DOJ Protects Trump From Epstein Accountability as MAGA Attacks “Sanctuary Cities” | The Daily Show
5,498,265 views Feb 3, 2026 #DailyShow#JonStewart#Epstein
Trump declares himself “absolved” by the latest release of Epstein files, while Elon Musk’s Christmas wish for a trip to the sex island is put on blast, and Jon Stewart finds himself on Epstein’s list… for documentary voiceovers. Plus, as MAGA continues to shield the president from all accountability, Jon Stewart shines a light on the double standard of sanctuary given to Trump vs. immigrants. #DailyShow#JonStewart#Epstein#SanctuaryCities
- 0:00 – Jon Stewart’s TDS Welcome
- 1:02 – The DOJ Releases Millions of Documents from the Epstein Files
- 3:12 – More Names Dropped in the Files
- 6:33 – Elon Musk Emails Show Talks of Parties
- 10:10 – Howard Lutnick Tells Story of How he Met Epstein
- 14:32 – No One New Can be Prosecuted From the Newly Released Files
- 16:40 – Jon Stewart Questions Where the Accountability Is
Jimmy Kimmel – Trump’s All Over the Epstein Files, Attacks Jimmy Kimmel After the Grammys & Don Lemon Gets Arrested
5,363,498 views Feb 3, 2026 #Kimmel
Today is Groundhog Day, the ironically-titled Department of Justice released about half of the Epstein files, there were many disturbing accounts about a lot of famous people including Bill Gates, Steve Bannon, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk is in there too – more than a thousand times, Donald Trump’s name was mentioned 4,896 times, Trump’s Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick’s name pops up 138 times, there appears to be an email to Ghislaine Maxwell from Melania, Trump had the audacity to play the old “Jeffrey who?” card pretending they weren’t actually friends, Trump went after Jimmy in a late night Truth Social post criticizing Trevor Noah who hosted the Grammys, Trump is suing the IRS for $10 Billion, he also announced that he’s closing The Trump Kennedy Center for renovations, Melania the movie made $7 million over the weekend, and journalist Don Lemon was arrested on Thursday night for covering an anti-ICE protest at a church in St. Paul.
Stephen Colbert – Trump Is All Over The Epstein Files | DOJ Exposes Epstein Victims | Trump Admin Won’t Investigate
2,928,770 views Feb 3, 2026 #Colbert#Comedy#Monologue
President Trump is referenced thousands of times and accused of hideous crimes in the latest release of documents from the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the Department of Justice failed to redact the identities and personal information of many of Epstein’s victims, and the DOJ announced that there will be no investigation into any of the prominent men implicated in the files.