50% OFF FREE ARCHIVES FOR ALL SALE!

$30/year subscription for YOU (reg $60)
A 6-month paid sub to a person who can’t afford it
AND free archive access for everyone through the midterms.

18 free subscribers took advantage of this offer yesterday. We still have 82 to go to reach our goal.

Offer ends 31 July 2026 at 11:59pm eastern.

50% OFF FREE FOR ALL

Don’t want to give money to Substack and Stripe? You can take advantage of this offer by VENMO. Click the button below and leave your subscriber email address on your purchase. I’ll get you set up!

VENMO

I don’t normally send Saturday newsletters, but I feel compelled to write today.

My husband and I saw Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey on Thursday night, and I’ve been thinking about it since. Maybe because it is everywhere right now.

I’ll say more about how the movie hit me and what I think of Nolan’s films in general at the end.

Subscribe now

I have a theory about why Elon Musk and his ilk really hate this movie, and it has nothing to do with the casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy/Clytemnestra.

A central theme of The Odyssey as an epic tale is Xenia, the ancient Greek code of hospitality. It commanded that strangers be treated with respect and set out a specific expectations hosts owed guests.

Xenia applied regardless of who knocked on one’s door requesting food, protection, and shelter. A host owed kindness to everyone who asked, and guests were required to respect the host and their property while showing gratitude. (Source and more discussion of Xenia HERE.)

Feed the hungry.

House the stranger.

Protect the vulnerable.

It almost sounds like the ancient Greeks read the Bible. Or the writers of the Bible knew about Xenia. Or Jesus Christ quoted Zeus. Or something.

In part, The Odyssey is a warning about what happens when humans ignore Xenia, or our obligation to treat strangers with respect and dignity. Ten years of war - won by lying to the enemy in the form of a hollow horse - followed by ten years of wandering.

I think Musk and his ilk hate this version of The Odyssey because it reminds us of Xenia, our fundamental human obligation to one another. It spotlights how far this regime and its enablers have strayed from basic humanity.

I used to enjoy Nolan’s films, but I now see him as a misogynist who doesn’t know how to portray female characters.

This is particularly on display in The Odyssey. He reduced some of the most celebrated female characters in Western literature to bland background for the men. Only Samantha Morton seemed determined to buck Nolan’s required display of flat, lifeless femininity.

As an aside, the novel Circe by Madeline Miller is a captivating book. I’d prefer to see it as a movie over Nolan’s The Odyssey.

The scenery is sprawling and varied. I appreciated some of the tricks Nolan employed to avoid the use of CGI. I didn’t check the time over the course of the film’s three hours, but I left feeling empty. If I had the opportunity to watch it on IMAX, I might. But otherwise, this is a film I’ll never watch again.

Have you seen The Odyssey? Tell me what you thought in a comment today.

Leave a comment

I leave readers with a few scenes from one of the movie’s filming locations. Ancient Scandinavians cast Hell as a frozen wasteland, not a lake of fire. Nolan set Hades on Iceland’s Reynisfjara. I once stayed in a cabin on that beach upon completing a residency at the Icelandic Writers Union in Reykjavik. The farmer who owns them is an Icelandic version of my father.

Toxic positivity encourages humans to ignore atrocities happening right in front of them. To shrug and say, “Oh, everything will turn around soon” while doing nothing to make change. To cling to the belief that somebody, somewhere will swoop in at the last minute and save us from fascism while we go about our lives as if we’re not already there.

Finding hope when things feel hopeless is a way to cope with the abominable things we see happening every day. It’s a kernel of strength that helps me believe we must fight, a belief that we can win. Hope isn’t a feeling; it’s an act of protest against everything fascists want. My hope forces me to DO SOMETHING every day.

I may not live to see the product of my hope, but I still believe my hope will bring others freedom.

What gave me HOPE this week:

Most of my friends are flung all over the globe. I’ve been weathering a particularly lonesome period of late.

So when this picture from a dear friend hit my messages, I squealed.

She let me know she was in Iceland for a spell and was thinking of me. This quick message from her made my week and gave me hope.

What gave YOU hope this week?

Over 17,000 people read this work for free.

If just 100 of you took advantage of this offer, I could afford to make all archives FREE FOR ALL through the midterms.

I support FREE FOR ALL

For Such a Time As This is approaching 900 newsletters since its start as How Project 2025 Will Ruin YOUR Life. By the midterms, we should be at 1000! That adds up to a lot of heavily-researched and passionately-nuanced information.

In order to provide the most useful, truthful information possible in the lead-up to the Midterm Elections, I’d like to make archive access to all of those resources FREE FOR ALL.

That means every subscriber can access every full article I’ve ever written.

NO PAYWALLS.

As we have important discussions with our fellow Americans, I believe good information will make a difference. Sharing relevant newsletters from my archive could persuade more of your connections to vote for freedom.

We also must commit to building community if we are going to make a difference. This is why I am structuring this sale as a 2-for-1 kind of deal. When you make this investment to support good information, you will also raise someone else up who may not be able to do so themselves.

Besides helping to make the archives available to all and giving another reader the lift up to paid subscriber access, you also gain the following.

Paid Subscriber Benefits at For Such a Time As This:

• Ability to comment on newsletters and notes. AND I READ AND RESPOND. Many Substackers don’t engage with their commenters, but I always have. It’s an important part of community-building. Limiting comments to paid subscribers also keeps out trolls and gives everyone a thoughtful, supportive space to interact.

• Ability to message me privately AND I RESPOND. Some readers don’t feel comfortable making certain comments public, but they want answers. I always want subscribers to get the most from this work.

• Three downloadable books. Every newsletter I wrote about Project 2025 is in How Project 2025 Will Ruin YOUR Life. Another book contains tools to resist and reject fascism. How to Stop the Phoenix Declaration translates WCN language for real-time use in your communities. Plus, every download preserves this work for future reference in case Substack goes offline.

• Share weekly HOPE. Every Friday, Paid Subscribers and I share what gave us hope that week. This isn’t an exercise in toxic positivity; fascists try to crush hope. Sharing our hopes is a collective act of weekly resistance.

• Access to my paid-only Lincoln Square show Unholy Ground. I added this show as an added benefit for my paid subscribers earlier this year.

• Weekly Substack LIVE interviews for paid subscribers. Every Wednesday, I chat with someone I want my readers to know. It might be known names like Anne Applebaum, Marcel Dirsus, and Gareth Gore or Substackers you should know like Michael Zeitgeist, Ann Kramer, Evan Hurst, and more. I try to bust the algorithm and elevate voices YOU should know.

• Access to the Democracy Reading Group. We’ll be back in September to help attorney, professor, and coverture expert launch her upcoming book The House That Family Money Built: How Inequality Governs Debt and Wealth Management. PRE-ORDER YOURS HERE. Democracy Reading Group members will have a chance to win free copies, too!

• Periodic Ask-Me-Anything sessions. Since I’m very hands-on with my subscribers, I don’t do a lot of AMAs. But every time I do, you’ll have access.

• Access to our ongoing project WE THE PEOPLE, where subscribers define what kind of country and Constitution we want. These discussions are vibrant and vital. Find what we’ve accomplished so far at the We the People tab below.

WE THE PEOPLE

New Paid Subscribers get all this - plus my daily newsletters - for only $30 for one year.

AND they give someone who cannot afford a paid subscription paid access for 6 months.

AND make all archives FREE FOR ALL.

Don’t want to give money to Substack and Stripe? You can take advantage of this offer by VENMO. Click the button below and leave your subscriber email address on your purchase. I’ll get you set up!

VENMO

***This offer is valid on ALL new paid upgrades through 11:59PM 31 July 2026.
***We must have 100 paid upgrades to support FREE FOR ALL.

This exchange led me to write - AGAIN - about why we are where we are because of what Americans value.

Subscribe now

One of my very accomplished readers commented about her experiences in teaching students to question what they value. It reminded me of this 2019 article in Politico: What Teaching Ethics in Appalachia Taught Me About Bridging America’s Partisan Divide by Evan Mandery. I hoped he did this experiment to write a book, but I’ve never seen one. So we must settle for the article. GO HERE to read it.

To encourage more readers to question why we listen to specific voices, stop scrolling when we see certain images and headlines, and linger on similar types of empty information, I’m re-running part of a 2025 newsletter: Today’s Deja Vu Is Yesterday’s Premonition.

Because we do not have to value what our society demands that we value, Americans. We can reject those things and choose what matters to us.

My experience as a young woman in Christian Nationalism and my deep dive into all 900+ pages of Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership gave me a unique perspective. I felt an urgent responsibility to help Americans see what was coming, especially when the rising threats against things like contraception and other liberties came directly from WCN.

I pleaded with other outlets to elevate that work and shrieked about it wherever I could. While I understand that 9/10 of America values “this is what happened” over “this is what COULD happen,” this aspect of Project 2025 was too alarming not to try everything I could to get anyone with a platform to amplify it.

Why couldn’t I get my perspective and predictions to a wider audience? Raising an alarm that too few people could hear is frustrating and tragic. How could a huge proportion of the American populace completely miss what a large and mobilized minority where saying loudly and with belligerence?

I never really understood how this dynamic came to be until I read George Packer’s July/August 2021 essay in The Atlantic: How America Fractured Into Four Parts.

GO HERE for a gift link to read the whole article.

Packer divided the United States into the following quadrants: Free America, Smart America, Real America, and Just America.

While they are all worth reading, I’m focusing on Smart America today.

Here is Packer’s description of “Smart America:”

The new knowledge economy created a new class of Americans: men and women with college degrees, skilled with symbols and numbers—salaried professionals in information technology, computer engineering, scientific research, design, management consulting, the upper civil service, financial analysis, law, journalism, the arts, higher education. They go to college with one another, intermarry, gravitate to desirable neighborhoods in large metropolitan areas, and do all they can to pass on their advantages to their children. They are not 1 percenters—those are mainly executives and investors—but they dominate the top 10 percent of American incomes, with outsize economic and cultural influence.

They’re at ease in the world that modernity created. They were early adopters of things that make the surface of contemporary life agreeable: HBO, Lipitor, MileagePlus Platinum, the MacBook Pro, grass-fed organic beef, cold-brewed coffee, Amazon Prime. They welcome novelty and relish diversity. They believe that the transnational flow of human beings, information, goods, and capital ultimately benefits most people around the world. You have a hard time telling what part of the country they come from, because their local identities are submerged in the homogenizing culture of top universities and elite professions. They believe in credentials and expertise—not just as tools for success, but as qualifications for class entry. They’re not nationalistic—quite the opposite—but they have a national narrative. Call it “Smart America.”

SOURCE: The Atlantic at gift link above

Smart America is likely part of the reason my Project 2025 work wasn’t elevated. (The other part was an active decision on the part of billionaire media owners to suppress accurate information about Project 2025.) To much of Smart America, I lack the “right” credentials, haven’t written for the “right” publications, didn’t get published the “right” way, didn’t know the “right” people, didn’t go through the “right” channels, haven’t paid the “right” dues, didn’t have the “right” spit-shine, and more. These are Packer’s “qualifications for class entry” above.

At times, trying to earn a seat at one of these tables feels like a cage-match-level university tenure-earning endeavor, where those who already have tenure (however they got it) are determined to wield their power by policing and restricting who can have it in the future. This naturally leads to a clique of the same people who talk to each other and exclude other voices.

These qualifications for class entry act as a mechanism to keep others from being admitted to the group, but they also prevent the promotion of valuable perspectives from people who have direct experience in the other three parts of America. And since much of Smart America has no experience with White Christian Nationalism, they continue to fail to inform other Americans about it.

This Smart America cultivated and rigidly curated blindspot, in part, cost Americans their freedom.

I’ll share two stories from the wild.

One is personal. We all know I didn’t get the book deal to write about Project 2025 and be the recognized expert, even though I spent most of 2024 educating Americans about it. No, the title of “Project 2025 expert” was awarded to someone who didn’t know how important it was until after the election, when it was too late to matter. Whenever anyone needs a Project 2025 expert, they call this person who barely mentioned Christian Nationalism or theocracy in their analysis. I like this person as a human being and respect their work, but they are a member of Smart America, and I am not. This is the essence of how Smart America works.

This dynamic also applies within Smart America, which further fractures our ability to elevate good information.

As an example, I’ve been fortunate to meet all kinds of people, despite the challenges of Smart America. One highly successful person told me they pitched a book on a topic that interested them but was beyond their acknowledged area of expertise. This person does everything well, and this project would have contributed to our knowledge of the chosen topic. But instead they were told another person was the recognized “expert” in that topic, and output from anyone else would compete with their work (and revenue from their books.) They were advised to stay in their assigned Smart America lane.

What drives Smart America’s decisions? Capitalism and money.

They recognize that Americans have a finite amount of both attention and money. Therefore, they structured Smart America to protect themselves and what they have accumulated.

Which is why we see Substack devolving into a group of purple checkmarks who talk to each other. And we watch the same talking heads on corporate news outlets. And we listen to the same voices in every other space they control. And we see the same experts trotted out to provide the same opinions, even if other voices provide more nuance, guidance, or depth.

Women are often accused of being “too ambitious” or “grasping” when we expect our work to be recognized, and we are called “whiners” when it isn’t. As a woman with ambition, I’ve lived with this messaging my entire life. If I were going to have a tombstone, I’d choose “She refused to know her place and stay in it” as my epitaph.

I know my place is to help Americans understand, in part, how we got to this place of losing our country —and I am going to stay in this place I have staked out for myself.

Someday, another group of people may have the ability to create something new and democratic. They would be wise to build a better structure that eliminates society’s stratification in favor of embracing opportunity for everyone.

While Smart Americans have lots to say, they aren’t the only ones with valuable messages or keen insights. As you choose where you get your information, please support voices saying what needs to be said. We might be in a very different place as a country if more voices had been amplified; and our resistance might look very different with more people at those tables.

Thank you for supporting and amplifying my work. And thank you for allowing me space to challenge you to think about what you value.

Today, I leave you with this thought-provoking clip from . As you decide how to allocate ever-dwindling finances, I hope you’ll think about what it costs to have good information.

I asked to join me for this Substack LIVE because he wrote a great piece about Hunter Biden and professional wrestling last week.

Missives from a Middle-aged Man

Hunter Biden Is A Political Professional Wrestler

I wanna like Hunter Biden. I really do…

Read more

9 days ago · 67 likes · 29 comments · Frederic Poag

His piece got me thinking - again - about what Americans value.

Why do we elevate so many abominable people to positions of power? Is it because we truly have no other options? Because we value garbage? Or something in-between?

Some listeners felt like I was attacking Hunter Biden. I don’t care for him, but he’s part of a group of people I don’t care for more generally: Nepo-babies; celebrities; the wealthy; sports figures; family legacies. I think lots of Americans valuing those things landed us here. And I admit that over the course of my life, I’ve contributed to it.

To stop contributing to it, I started asking myself why I value certain voices over others. In the mid-to-late 2010s, I looked at my habits, how I spent my downtime, and what captured my attention.

When I started that journey, I was one of the biggest consumers of celebrity gossip you’ve ever met. I made fun of people who watched reality TV shows while I secretly mainlined every Daily Mail celebrity story I could find.

And I realized I had a problem: I spent a ton of time picking through a garbage pile, hoping to find scraps of treasure.

So I quit reading about celebrities. Which led to quitting Facebook. Which morphed into asking myself why I pay attention to every voice and image and video clip I land on.

Maybe it made me think too critically, but this near-constant self-reflection about what I value and why led me here. To this work. To YOU.

Our leaders are a reflection of WHAT WE VALUE.

Do we want to keep paying attention to the same corrupt tired selfish greedy garbage people because they have the right name/sex/skin color/screen skills/ speaking ability/magnetism/follower count/money/connections?

To change our trajectory, to transform our country, we have to change WHAT WE VALUE.

As we head into the midterms and beyond, I would be remiss in my job if I didn’t stop and challenge more people to think about that.

Our collective values landed us here. Changing our collective values starts with me. With you. Until we become an US. And I believe in US.

Thank you so much for being here. Especially , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with ! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Get more from Andra Watkins in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Don’t forget to join Frederic Poag and me TODAY! 22 July 2026. Noon eastern. Substack LIVE. We’ll chat about Hunter Biden roughing up Nick Fuentes and how American values turn politics into tribal infotainment.

JOIN US!

Upgrade to PAID

Pay attention to how Doug Wilson uses the word persecution in this clip. He says he doesn’t want to persecute LGBTQIA+ people in a society governed by a Christian Constitution.

Subscribe now

According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, persecution means unfair or cruel treatment over a long period of time because of race, religion, or political beliefs.

Merriam Webster’s Dictionary has a handy extract of recent media uses of the word persecution:

• Their cheap talking points have led to chaos, persecution, and death.

  Ben Sasse, National Review, 16 Aug. 2021

• The plight of people who are displaced from their homes due to war and persecution is top of mind for many.
  Evie Carrick, Travel + Leisure, 10 Nov. 2023

• These refugees are now at acute risk of persecution and violence.
  Tazreena Sajjad, The Conversation, 13 Mar. 2025

• So in a real sense I have been battered by the storms of persecution.
  Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review, 26 Apr. 2021

• The law wouldn’t have any impact on those fleeing persecution.
  Andi Shae Napier, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 12 Oct. 2024

• Help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.
  Stephanie McNeal, Glamour, 27 Jan. 2025

• All of the asylum seekers at the hotel face a high risk of persecution back home, human rights experts say.
  ABC News, 28 May 2026

• But the themes of persecution and the need for a Jewish homeland were deeply embedded in me.
  Jill Gurvey, Twin Cities, 2 May 2024

• To them, the team feels like an extension of the government, whose persecution drove many to flee the country.
  Jesus Jiménez, New York Times, 30 June 2026

Christian Nationalists define persecution as any hostility, discrimination, or violence directed at believers because of their faith in Jesus Christ, encompassing imprisonment, physical attacks, legal restrictions, and social rejection. (Source Oxford Academic HERE)

LGBTQIA+ people would define persecution as being told they cannot be who they are, love who they love, or live the truth of their identities without hostility, discrimination, violence, possible imprisonment, physical attacks, legal restrictions, and/or social rejection.

Journalists NEVER ask people like Doug Wilson what they mean when they parrot the phrase persecution.

Instead, we allow White Christian Nationalists to repeatedly state that they are the most persecuted group on this planet, a claim that was thoroughly debunked in this 2025 study from the journal Sociology of Religion:

…Conservative American Christians localize the suffering of Christians globally to claim that Christians are persecuted worldwide, including in the USA. The ability to extend the suffering of Christians from the global to the local allows American Christians to claim victimhood (McAlister 2018), turning persecution into a powerful political tool in legal battles and culture wars (Dick 2021; Perry, Schnabel, and Grubbs 2021). This construction of Christian persecution positions American Christians simultaneously as advocates of suffering kin as well as victims of Christian persecution (McAlister 2018) (Source HERE)

This lie about Christian persecution informs their definition of religious liberty. It is the bedrock of their insistence on conscience rights. It enables NSPM-7.

Over time, this repeated lie about Christian persecution has enabled them to redefine disagreement and dissent as CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION.

While White Christian Nationalists are willing to subject ANYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH THEM to:

• Hostility

• Discrimination

• Violence

• Imprisonment

• Physical Attacks

• Legal Restrictions

• Social Rejection

This is the very definition of persecution. Weaponized as NSPM-7. Announced last Thursday to representatives of over 60 countries.

And the American people shrugged.

I recommend that everyone read Dr Robert B Shpiner’s op-ed in The Guardian, but I pulled out his paragraph on Stephen Miller’s statements at that event:

Midday belonged to the White House deputy chief of staff. What he said deserves to be quoted rather than summarized, because summary is a mercy it has not earned. He called “leftwing political terrorism” a “fatal cancer of civilization”. He said that its politics, left to run its course, “always becomes a gulag”. He said antifa demonstrators are “all deformed in some way, in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism”, that “their outer appearance becomes a manifestation of their inner hatred”, and he asked why there is “not one normal-looking person among them”. He said that when the leftist protests that his rights are being violated, those appeals “must fall on deaf ears”. He urged the assembled governments to be “completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization”. And he described the work already under way in six verbs: “disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest and prosecute”. (Read the whole op-ed HERE)

If that paragraph isn’t the definition of persecution, I don’t know what is, Americans.

Today, I find myself alongside many of you: Frustrated and bewildered by those in my life who are in danger but are determined to pretend everything is normal.

I want you to know you’re not alone in wanting to shake people. It isn’t enough. But I see you. I hear you. I know you. And I feel you.

I deplore this timeline. Thank you for walking it alongside me.

Subscribe now

It’s important for more Americans to grasp what these words mean when they hear them. We can’t push back against tactics we can’t identify or don’t understand. Today’s newsletter is for YOU to LEARN and EDUCATE others in your communities.

In last week’s newsletter Christian Nationalists Do Not Agree Over a Christian Constitution, I included one of the movement’s demands:

Restrict public office holding to practicing (White) Christian (Nationalists).

“Practicing” means White Christian Nationalist men will constantly have to prove their bonafides to maintain eligibility.

I linked to the newsletter for those who missed it.

We talk about this in today’s Unholy Ground. Readers who prefer to skim a transcript can find one at the Transcript button below the video.

I’m expanding on our discussion to help more Americans recognize what these “practicing” Christian purity tests look like on the ground.

In Kennedy v Bremerton School District, the WCN Roberts Court ruled that a public high school coach has the right to pray on the field after games. (Source: Politico)

This ruling does not address its consequences: How athletes may be hazed, punished, or cut from teams for refusing a coach’s order to pray. Whether or not an individual bows one’s head is a form of WCN purity test. It is designed to apply peer pressure to force everyone to go along with WCN indoctrination.

What we can do:

• Parents of students who do not want to be forced to pray can bring lawsuits against school districts and individuals.

• Parents can put public pressure on school boards. A coach or teacher may have a right to pray due to a flawed Roberts Court ruling, but they don’t have the right to force anyone else to pray.

• People can walk out of forced prayers. Peer pressure can work both ways. Don’t be disruptive or loud. Just get up and leave.

• Concerned citizens can run for school boards.

According to at The Friendly Atheist, a California public high school coach is forcing his teams to complete White Christian Nationalist journals or run extra laps. (GO HERE for the story.)

As someone who spent the first two decades of my life in this kind of indoctrination, I want readers to understand what’s happening here.

A journal is supposed to be a tool for private reflection. But when a teacher or authority figure assigns a Christian journaling session and monitors whether or not students complete it, the teacher or authority figure is READING the journal. Over time, students learn to complete the journal in a manner that pleases the authority figure or they are punished.

Students are being sorted into fully indoctrinated, needs more pressure to yield to indoctrination, and must be broken in order to yield to indoctrination. Assigning additional laps is public humiliation designed to let everyone know who either needs more pressure or must be broken. The fully indoctrinated students are rewarded for participating in this humiliation.

(Growing up with this near-constant abuse was so much fun. NOT.)

What we can do:

• Many of the steps in the previous section apply here.

• Parents, communication with your kids is vital. Help them understand that these tactics are abuse, and let them know they can always count on you to protect them.

Requiring WCN purity tests for public support or welfare assistance.

On 6 May 2024, I wrote the newsletter What Does “Sin is the Root Cause of Homelessness” Mean?

The story covers a WI public official who refused to approve taxpayer funds for a men’s shelter because it did not apply WCN purity tests to continued residence at the shelter.

A seminal goal of Project 2025 was transforming ALL public assistance into taxpayer-funded WCN religious indoctrination in exchange for help. The regime has cut funding to secular groups that provide this assistance while expanding funding to approved religious organizations. This was always the plan.

What we can do:

• I continue to pound this drum, but COMMUNITY ORGANIZING is going to be crucial in pushing back against WCN purity tests and forced indoctrination. Make sure you have independent secular nodes to provide for yourselves and your communities. This doesn’t have to be a formal non-profit. It can be food donation stations in random garages, clothing swap-meets, a group of healthcare providers who offer free clinics in their homes, and pooled funds to help community members when necessary. Too many Americans still cling to structures we had when we could use our imaginations and resources to build something new.

For more resources and ideas on how to recognize WCN purity tests, I’ve included links to several archived newsletters below.

I hope this expanded discussion of WCN purity tests to determine who’s the “practicing” Christian will help more Americans recognize these tactics in their communities.

You’re not alone. We can refuse this colonization of our minds together.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with ! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Get more from Andra Watkins in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

WEDNESDAY! 22 July 2026. Noon eastern. Substack LIVE.
will join us to chat about Hunter Biden roughing up Nick Fuentes and how American values turn politics into tribal infotainment.

Fred’s recent newsletter is the impetus for this discussion.

Missives from a Middle-aged Man

Hunter Biden Is A Political Professional Wrestler

I wanna like Hunter Biden. I really do…

Read more

8 days ago · 65 likes · 27 comments · Frederic Poag

JOIN US!

Upgrade to PAID

Over the weekend, House Speaker Mike Johnson propped himself in front of a lectern at the Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines, Iowa. In a roundabout way, he seemed to claim that late-stage billionaire-fueled capitalism is Biblical and godly.

Before we examine what he said, let’s learn more about this event and its organizer.

The Family Leader, organizer of the Family Leadership Summit, claims to be working for cultural transformation. This was their 15th annual installment. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that Citizens United happened in January 2010, and this event began in 2012.

Subscribe now

Per their website (not linking to them):

The FAMiLY Leadership Summit is the Midwest’s premier event for Christians committed to transforming culture through God’s design for the family, church, government, and more.

According to Influence Watch, the Family Leader receives substantial funding from the usual group of WCN-billionaires and their foundations, including The Bradley Foundation, The Mitchell Foundation, and the Van Wyck Family Foundation. In part, these foundations exist to help billionaires avoid paying taxes which they can then pour into buying our politicians, creating “think tanks” and other political influence groups, and capturing our government. (Source HERE.)

NSPM-7 would classify the previous paragraph as both anti-capitalist and anti-Christian, because pointing out that billionaires create foundations to avoid paying taxes and then use the money to fund the transformation of our government into White and Christian and Nationalist is the language of domestic terror. Because how dare anyone say billionaires should pay taxes or be unable to use their money to buy politicians and our government.

Anyway.

Mike Johnson would say I’m twisting his words if he bothered to read this work. Which he doesn’t. But in the interest of being fair, let’s examine what he said at this political event sponsored in part by White Christian Nationalist billionaires.

From KeyC.com:

“We’re trying to maintain the very foundations,” Johnson said. “It’s a spiritual battle.”

He’s talking about the midterms as spiritual warfare. Got it.

From Iowa Capital Dispatch:

Johnson said he believes the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and argued that Marxism, Communism and Socialism begin with the “premise that there is no God.”

Ergo, Capitalism must begin with the premise that there IS a God? Is that how this argument works?

He doesn’t say. But given how much capitalist billionaire money enabled him to stand in front of that lectern and push those words through his mouth hole, I think “Mike Johnson believes capitalism is godly because its billionaires enrich Mike Johnson” could be a reasonable conclusion some people might make.

He does go on about economics and the Bible without citing book, chapter, or verse to show where God endorses capitalism. I think he sounds a bit sweaty and shriek-ey, but what do I know. I, a woman, should never accuse a White Christian Nationalist man of being - dare I type it - hysterical.

“It’s dangerous stuff,” Johnson said. “They don’t want the allowance of private property. They don’t want the free market. This is what we’re facing right now.” (Source: Iowa Capital Dispatch)

Here’s even more:

Johnson described these candidates as “avowed communists,” claiming they want “no borders,” “no prisons” and want to “abolish the U.S. Senate.” (Source: Iowa Capital Dispatch

And so this weekend, we got a first look at the Republican Party’s Talking Points for the Indoctrinated Masses, 2026 Midterms Edition™. Which also serves establishment Democrats.

• Progressive Democrats = godless Marxist/communist/socialists

• “They,” meaning anyone who opposes the Republican Party’s billionaire overlords, want to take away your right to own property. (Never mind that billionaire venture capitalists have largely done this already. Which is why Americans can’t afford to buy homes or pay rent.)

• “They,” meaning anyone who opposes the Republican Party’s billionaire overlords, want to destroy the “free” market. Indoctrinated Bubba hears that as rob you of your right to buy as many guns as you want. The indoctrinated don’t understand that it really means billionaires can continue to grow food with slave labor and not spend money to clean it because that eats into their profits so - SURPRISE! - you get explosive diarrhea.

I could go on, but I have intelligent readers who get the idea.

Since we’ll be hearing these Republican Party Talking Points for the Indoctrinated Masses™ on stun from now until November, how can we engage with our brainwashed connections?

Instead of arguing, I encourage readers to ask them questions every time they word vomit these talking points.

• Help me understand. Can you show me book, chapter, and verse where God condemns Marxism, communism, and/or socialism? Then let them talk. Instead of lecturing, periodically reassert this question. Don’t judge. Be curious. Interested. Make sure they can see that you’re listening.

• I’m not trying to insert religion into this. You’re the one who said socialism is godless. So I’m trying to understand. Win me over. Help me understand where God condemns socialism. Keep asking for book, chapter, and verse in a curious, open-minded, I’m-genuinely-trying-to-understand way.

• Where does the Bible say we have a right to own property? Then let them talk. This “right to own property” argument comes from Genesis 1:28, which we have covered numerous times in this space. For newer readers, Genesis 1:26-28 is the White Christian Nationalist go-to for asserting White Christian Nationalist male dominion. If they never get around to citing Genesis 1:28, ask them where Genesis 1:28 says the words “property ownership.” They’ll probably have to look up Genesis 1:28 on their device. Wait patiently and don’t judge.

• Where does the Bible say free markets are God’s preferred economic system? Then let them talk. WCNs also get this talking point from Genesis 1:28. Maybe ask them if subduing the earth means free markets. They’ll probably venture into prosperity gospel arguments like God blesses hard work and lots of money and stuff is a sign of God’s favor and similar. It’s important for Americans to understand that prosperity gospel arguments (from Psalm 128:2 and 90:17, Proverbs 10:4 and 14:23, and Galatians 6:9) have been used to indoctrinate Americans to respect and want to emulate billionaires, celebrities, and sports figures. Even in secular spaces, this WCN tenet permeates. Forcing your WCN connections to talk about this helps us ALL push back on this bedrock indoctrination.

For readers who haven’t seen Genesis 1:28 in a while (or ever), here’s the KJV:

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

It is vital to help more Americans grasp what’s at stake. Point out these talking points for what they are: Targeted propaganda to activate the indoctrinated masses and brainwash more Americans.

We don’t have to sit back and let them get away with this. Citizens, influencers, and journalists can be proactive and push back by using today’s tools.

Readers who’d like a greater understanding of these arguments can read a great 2019 interview at The Nation. GO HERE for historian (and professing Christian) Eugene McCarraher’s discussion of his book The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity.

We found yet another temporary place to live. Grateful for the ability and flexibility to pivot, pay for a roof over our heads, and stay somewhat sane. This week, my husband and I clung together and gave each other hope.

What gave YOU hope this week?

I found this Iceland drone video in my history and thought it might cool everyone off. Enjoy! I believe the artist is . I was lucky to know two people who were playing with drones on this 2021 residency, and I got to tag along and see what was on the other side of landscapes we couldn’t reach on foot. On Iceland’s northwest finger, facing the Westfjords and the North Sea.

And here’s another freezing-cold shot of two of us from that 2021 residency. At the Hvítserkur Sea Stack overlook to give the drones room to roam. In the must-read novel Burial Rites by Hannah Kent (get yours HERE), the site of Iceland’s final public execution of Agnes Magnúsdóttir is nearby. (In case readers are looking for more ways to cool down. Reading books set in cold places sometimes does it for me.)

American James “Fergie” Chambers was arrested while vacationing in Ibiza, Spain one week ago. According to The Guardian, the US government has charged him under NSPM-7 domestic terror guidelines for supporting Hamas, with additional charges of money laundering. If the Spanish government agrees to extradite him to the United States via their extradition treaty, he faces up to thirty years in prison. (Source HERE)

Wherever you live on this planet, his arrest matters FOR YOU.

Chambers is the black sheep son of the billionaire Cox Communications family. He is a self-proclaimed communist and has used his trust fund to support anti-Israel groups including Palestine Action, which targets Israeli defense contractors worldwide. He has also given money to support humanitarian aid programs in Gaza.

While he has participated in disruptive protest actions like throwing red paint on buildings and blocking access, he has no known record of violence.

According to this article in Los Angeles Magazine, he has been on an FBI watchlist since October of 2023 as part of their examination of Palestine Action. This monitoring was opened during the Biden administration. (Source HERE.)

He broke with his family over their vocal and financial support of Atlanta’s Cop City. Despite being estranged, his family are rallying around him to convince the Spanish government to release him and ignore its extradition treaty with the United States. (Source HERE.)

In 2025 or possibly early 2026, Chambers lived in Tunis, Tunisia, where he sponsored a soccer team. He moved briefly to Ireland in early 2026 before vacationing with his family in Spain. It isn’t clear whether his time in Ireland coincides with the release of an Irish documentary film on his life called All About the Money, which premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

Thanks for wading through this background. Now it’s time to make my case for global far-right/Epstein Class coordination in Chambers’ Spanish arrest.

I believe Chambers’ arrest was coordinated by the global far-right/Epstein Class because:

• The United States has no extradition treaty with Tunisia. As long as Chambers remained in Tunisia, he could have avoided arrest, because the Tunisian government would most likely not have turned him over to the US.

• The US has an extradition treaty with Ireland, but techno-state fascists have huge investments there. It doesn’t make business sense FOR THE GLOBAL FAR-RIGHT/EPSTEIN CLASS to put the Irish government in this position. Much better to surveil the target and strike when he visits an “enemy” country.

• The US has an extradition treaty with Spain at the same time the US regime and its billionaires have been attacking its socialist leader and government for over a year. This isn’t only a play to make a global example of a historically flamboyant billionaire; it is also a play to topple Sanchez and turn the Spanish parliament hard-right. On top of further destabilizing the European Union.

• They chose their target very carefully. Chambers is a self-described communist who set up a commune in Massachusetts, sports numerous face tattoos, and has been on an FBI watch list for several years. He took great pleasure in taunting groups he opposed. Because many people lack nuanced knowledge of him, he might not be a broadly sympathetic character.

I believe the decision to arrest Chambers in Spain serves multiple global far-right/Epstein Class causes including:

• Boxing in Pedro Sanchez’s already weak socialist government. Does Sanchez disregard a ratified extradition treaty with the United States and risk major sanctions? Or does he anger greater Spain by ignoring its broad and very vocal support for Palestine? The US regime has been sniping at Spain for over a year. Ignoring an extradition treaty will give a predatory regime carte blanche to punish Spain. Ignoring millions of Spaniards who still march in support of Palestine every week will give voters a reason to punish his party. It puts Sanchez and his party in a near-impossible position.

• Helping far-right cells learn how to work together globally. Ibiza rejected Spain’s socialist parties in 2023 in favor of a hard-right turn (Source HERE.) It’s reasonable to think that area police and judges might be more amenable to cooperation with the US over a mutually-beneficial arrest. The world’s focus will be on Sanchez, not on how lower-level far-right actors may have coordinated in Ibiza.

• Train the global far-right on jurisdiction shopping. Because of the previous bullet point, it isn’t a coincidence Chambers was arrested on Ibiza. I don’t know whether he visited other areas in Spain prior to his arrest, but it would’ve been harder to make these charges stick in socialist PSOE-controlled Catalunya, for example.

• Setting precedents other far-right governments can use to arrest people who oppose the global far-right. If the United States is able to force Spain to extradite Chambers, it sets a precedent for every American going forward: If you travel to a right-leaning country or area within a country, you could be arrested. But it will also embolden other far-right governments to target their opponents and critics.

• Eroding free speech globally. This arrest makes one thing abundantly clear: Wherever you are, the United States (in this case as a proxy of Israel) will use NSPM-7 to charge anyone, anywhere as a terrorist for espousing broad, subjective positions that were previously labeled disagreement or dissent. I believe we can look at International Criminal Court sanctions the US applied to non-US-citizens to divine how it might persecute people from other countries using NSPM-7. ICC judges lost access to some banking, credit cards, travel, and other conveniences like online shopping with US companies like Amazon. (Source HERE.)

For more on NSPM-7, I wrote this very deep dive in October 2025. It’s now relevant for every reader, everywhere on this planet.

If you don’t live in the United States, it’s time for every person to ask themselves whether continued US influence will be good for individuals and their countries. The United States is using the clout it built in the wake of beating the Nazis to BE NAZIS and force the rest of the planet to go along. As an American, I refuse to be on the side of Nazis.

For those who live in countries with active citizen involvement in the political process, don’t be silent.

• Let your elected officials and governments know you do not want a predatory regime deciding what free speech and expression means in other countries.

• You do not approve of honoring treaties that were negotiated in good faith with governments that have gone rogue.

• It’s also vital to be aware of how the Epstein Class (AKA the global far-right) pushes the levers of individual nations to reach their collective goals. Train yourselves to see these actions through a global lens before focusing on how it might impact your country or region.

• Talk about these issues in your communities. My goal to start more globally-focused, geography-specific Substacks isn’t dead. Events behind the curtain keep pushing back the launch. In the meantime, send them globally-focused newsletters like this installment by clicking the SHARE button below.

Share

Leaving the United States.

Closing the border and threats to pull CBP from Blue state international airports.

The meaning of a Christian Constitution.

How I left Christian Nationalism.

Do people know they’re in cults? And how to approach them.

How WCN churches are organized like mini-dictatorships, complete with contractual obligations for membership.

The various branches of White Christian Nationalism and how they do not agree.

And much more in the 45-minute chat.

As always, people who prefer to skim a transcript can find one at the Transcript button below the video.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Get more from Andra Watkins in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

The Christian Constitution movement, of which Doug Wilson is a proponent, are demanding that specific (White) Christian (Nationalist) language be inserted into the original founding document.

Subscribe now

Covenanters like Wilson have long claimed they do not want an entirely new Constitution; they believe the Constitution can be “corrected” with amendments. They do not acknowledge that their amendments would create a new (White) Christian (Nationalist) Constitution.

Wilson specifically wants the following amended to the existing Constitution to make it (White) Christian (Nationalist): (GO HERE for source)

A statement of the Apostles’ Creed.

I have reproduced the Apostles’ Creed below. Please note that my text is from the Christian Reformed Church. The asterisk beside the word “catholic” goes to a footnote that “catholic” means the true Christian church in all times and all places. On Catholic websites, this explanation is not included, as they believe the Catholic church is the true Christian church. (Source HERE.)

We’re only one point into Doug Wilson’s demands, and WCN factions already disagree over who is the “real” Christian. As a bit of personal WCN history, my Baptist church didn’t recite the Apostles’ Creed because it reeked of popery.

Just so everyone understands where we are after only one addition; we’re already at holy war over “real” Christianity.

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic* church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

*that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places

Restrict public office holding to practicing (White) Christian (Nationalists).

This means white Christian Nationalist men. And we still don’t know which faction of WCN they will anoint as “true” Christians.

“Practicing” means White Christian Nationalist men will constantly have to prove their bonafides to maintain eligibility. It isn’t far-fetched to believe they would require men to:

1. Attend WCN church every time the doors are open;

2. Check in as proof of attendance;

3. Serve in assigned church leadership positions;

4. Govern his family according to WCN directives, including female submission and knowing her “place” in the home; a man who cannot “control” his wife would not be eligible;

5. Send his children to WCN schools; they must be model WCN children; a man who cannot “control” his children would not be eligible;

6. Tithe at least 10% of his gross household income to the church (with proof of income required);

7. Sign a WCN Contract of Conduct and submit to periodic reviews of his adherence by church committee.

If Catholicism wins the WCN holy war, expect to see references to the sacraments, including requirements about taking mass and attending confession as part of this list. (We will cover the Heritage Foundation’s approach in a bit. The Heritage Foundation is affiliated with the far-right Opus Dei Catholic cult.)

I want readers to understand how much weight the word “practicing” lifts here. It won’t be enough to say I’m a Christian. One will endure extensive, continuous purity tests to prove it.

Head of household voting, with male heads-of-households the voter by default.

Robbing women of the right to vote is only his third priority. I spent more time on the first two because they’re more obscure to readers, but please understand: He cares about the first two more than he cares about women voting, because if he and his crowd accomplish the first two, women will not vote by default.

To me, it is more important to help Americans understand what comes ahead of robbing women of the right to vote.

Outlaw abortion and overturn the right to same-sex marriage.

While these positions shouldn’t surprise anyone, I want to again direct readers to points 1 and 2. If more Americans grasped what those two changes actually meant, we might collectively focus our time on confronting White Christian Nationalism instead of fighting the various culture wars they lead us to.

The Heritage Foundation and its associated entities took a different approach. They assert that the Constitution was always a (White) Christian (Nationalist) document. We simply drifted away from the founders’ original meaning.

I covered much of this ground in my 2024 coverage of Project 2025. Here is a link to my 11 June 2024 newsletter What is Separation of Church and State?

I’ve reproduced relevant sections of that newsletter for those who lack archive access.

Montpelier, Madison’s plantation home that is now a national historic site, houses many of Madison’s papers. Here’s how their experts interpret his stance on religious liberty:

Madison would have seen morality as part of the individual, protected conscience. It’s not that he didn’t have his own opinions of rights and wrongs or justice and injustice, but he would insist that those opinions were his own. And, by extension, the state has no right to try to legislate or otherwise stifle your own morality. Madison, who was intensely private about his own religious convictions, pushed the boundaries of how his countrymen thought about the matters of conscience. It was partly due to his work on the subject that minority voices were protected from having the government control perhaps their most fundamental right—what they believe.

Source: Montpelier.org

Here’s where Christian Nationalists saw a means to rewrite history: The state has no right to try to legislate or otherwise stifle your own morality.

I’m not linking to them, but The Heritage Foundation (P2025’s main sponsor) argues that Madison devised the separation of church and state as a staunch Christian. As such, they define freedom of conscience as belief or conviction about religious matters and insist that’s what Madison meant.

This revisionist interpretation of Madison’s recorded beliefs on the right to one’s own mind form the basis for the Project 2025 project to reimagine the original Constitution as a (White) Christian (Nationalist) document where:

• The founders meant for the separation of church and state to protect the CHURCH from the STATE.

• The founders were all Christians.

• The founders meant for the United States to be a (White) Christian (Nationalist) nation.

• The founders were in favor of a strong executive branch and would bless unitary executive theory (currently being used to consolidate control of federal government under the Executive Branch.)

• The founders defined freedom as doing not what we want, but what we ought. Since that italicized phrase comes from the Bible, doing what we ought is being a good (White) Christian (Nationalist.)

While the Heritage Foundation has worked with other wings of WCN, their ultimate vision is for the United States to be a (White) Catholic (Nationalist) nation. I believe they would require many of the same purity tests listed earlier, which is why I briefly referenced Catholic additions in that section.

As White Christian Nationalists consolidate power, they are going to come to blows over who gets to define the outcome of a Constitutional rewrite.

Doug Wilson and his crowd do not believe Catholics are “real” Christians. This prejudice was overtly displayed by Pete Hegseth’s refusal to hold Catholic mass at the Pentagon as part of the Good Friday service.

Doug Wilson, not undear leader, presently controls the US military. If Hegseth’s two daddies gave him a conflicting order, I believe he would follow his spiritual daddy, Wilson, over his orange daddy.

The Heritage Foundation and its related entities currently control the Judicial Branch, as the six corrupt Roberts’ Court justices are HF plants. It also controls the Executive Branch via the implementation of Project 2025 by Russ Vought and Stephen Miller.

As long as Mike Johnson is House Speaker, it can control the Legislative Branch, though I believe his true loyalties lie more with the Wilson crowd than Heritage. While undear leader can request an additional $350,000,000,000 (what $350 billion looks like written out) to fight communism at home, the outcome of unleashing the US military on US civilians within US borders is far from given. The Executive Branch may very well authorize it, but I see it as the Wilson faction’s chance to win the Holy War and install his vision of WCN as the new theonomic government.

Do not despair. These projected outcomes are not written yet.

I’m merely giving readers a lens into the various factions in hopes that it will mobilize more Americans to organize and boycott this entire regime. Every day that we carry on as if we can vote our way out of this or keep our heads down and grit it out is another day we lose in building the country WE demand.

Community structures are vital to surviving this period, Americans. Get busy organizing, joining, and collectively working to build what you need to opt out of whatever White Christian Nationalist faction might ultimately win.

I’ve shared the Daisy Chain for community organizing a bunch of times, but HERE IT IS AGAIN.

your weirdo friend

The Daisy Chain: A Neighbor's Guide to Mass Cooperation

For people who are new to my work: The Daisy Chain as a mass-cooperation strategy to assist you in reclaiming neighborhood power so that we aren’t stuck in a freeze state and hemmed in by political abusers—who try to divide and threaten us into silence. Abuses of power are, on their face…

Read more

6 months ago · 1273 likes · 111 comments · ✨your weirdo friend✨

Subscribers who prefer to skim can find a transcript at the Transcript button beneath the video.

We spend a lot of time in this video talking about indoctrination tactics. Americans would be wise to memorize this slide and apply it to every piece of information they are served:

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with ! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Get more from Andra Watkins in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Paid Subscribers! Please join me today at noon eastern via Substack LIVE. I haven’t done a just-me Substack LIVE in months. Please stop by and say hi. Ask questions. Make observations. It’s a chance for us to connect and share what we believe is coming in the weeks and months ahead.

JOIN US!

Upgrade to PAID

Last week, Doug Wilson plopped his meat sack in front of another microphone/camera and said only Christian men should be allowed to vote for their households. Clips circulated of Wilson agreeing that the 19th Amendment should be repealed and almost all women should not be allowed to vote.

Most chatter focused on his views on women: Submissive to men; in the home; breeding and mothering; definitely not voting.

Subscribe now

But he covered something else that has a long history in the United States: A Christian Constitution. Let’s talk about what that means.

Here’s the relevant wording from the NPR interview (Source HERE):

WILSON: Because the public space would belong to Christ. So church bells can occupy the public space, but a minaret is a loudspeaker, a big call to prayer. Could Muslims pray to Allah? Yes. Could they gather together to pray to Allah? Yes.

FADEL: But they should do it quietly and in their homes?

WILSON: But they should recognize that they’re in a Christian country. And consequently, they should defer to that. Now, the only way that that is ever going to happen is by means of persuasion, evangelism, mass conversion to Christianity. You can’t just flip a switch and make this country as cosmopolitan and secular and diverse as it is, and just say, OK, everybody, we’re going to do it the Christian way. That’s not going to happen.

FADEL: Could they serve in public office? Could they vote?

WILSON: So if you had a Christian republic, the Constitution would be Christian. And an office holder would have to vow to uphold the Constitution. So everybody who holds public office...

FADEL: ...Would have to be Christian?

WILSON: Would have to vow to uphold the Christian Constitution. Yeah.

Doug Wilson didn’t create this movement. Most Americans don’t know that the movement to create a Christian Constitution began over 150 years ago.

Jared A. Goldstein explains how Christian Nationalism evolved in his UC Law Journal paper How the Constitution Became Christian:

Nineteenth century Christian nationalists denounced the Constitution as a godless document unworthy of a Christian nation and fought for an amendment to express the nation’s Christian faith. In contrast, the contemporary Christian Right that coalesced in the 1970s lauds the Constitution as the highest expression of the nation’s Christian identity. (Source and full download of Goldstein’s 2017 paper HERE.)

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Christian Nationalist groups like the National Reform Association sought to amend the Constitution to insert an amendment that specifically made the US Constitution a Christian Constitution. The National Reform Association sprung from this 1861 Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America resolution (though at least eleven other WCN groups subsequently joined.)

They called themselves Covenanters. I include the original 1861 wording below:

Whereas, God has come out of his place to punish the nations and this nation for their sins; and whereas, we have on every hand the anxious inquiry, "Watchman, what of the night?" and whereas, it is the duty of faithful witnesses to meet the obligation to testify, imposed on them by providential occurrences: therefore,
Resolved, 1st. That we see in the present civil war God's controversy with this nation for their rejection of his name and authority, the prerogative and law of his Son, and for trampling upon the inalienable rights of man.
2nd. That we call upon this nation so to amend the Constitution, which is the basis of the Union, as to acknowledge God, submit to the authority of his Son, embrace Christianity, and secure universal liberty. (Source HERE)

Long-term readers of this newsletter may readily note consistent WCN themes, but let’s review for newer subscribers.

God has come out of his place to punish the nations and this nation for their sins.

The White Christian Nationalist claim that every calamity, disaster, and plague is God judging a sinful nation is not new. The National Reform Association still teaches that the Civil War was God’s judgment on a nation that refused to insert his authority into the US Constitution.

To them, the Civil War wasn’t about enslaving Black people; it was a holy war over whether the US was a secular versus a Christian nation.

Covenanters opposed the Constitution primarily because it forgot God and did not acknowledge Christ, and secondarily because it had pro-slavery provisions. They saw slavery as the manifestation of the root problem of godlessness. (Source HERE)

This central belief about the Civil War fueled the notion that flying the Confederate flag is about “heritage, not hate.”

It lies behind every claim that the Civil War wasn’t really about slavery.

I’d wager it’s the source for names like The Heritage Foundation and Heritage American. (Trigger warning: There are some vile images of lynchings at the link below.)

It is the duty of faithful witnesses to meet the obligation to testify, imposed on them by providential occurrences.

This is their Genesis 1:26-28 assertion of WCN Biblical dominion. They believe they are obligated by God to be faithful witnesses, seize the public square for Christ, and force the nation to embrace Christianity in its founding documents.

Again, this was written in 1861.

As far as I can tell, Doug Wilson’s goal is a new (White) Christian (Nationalist) Constitution. Like the Covenanters, he wants overt WCN language inserted into a founding document. Maybe they would repurpose some of the original founding language, but their goal is a founding document for a White Christian Nationalist theonomy. A theonomy is a form of government organized around the judicial laws of the Old Testament, WCN-interpreted, of course. (Source HERE.)

The Heritage Foundation and its satellite groups’ goal is a reframing of our original Constitution as a (White) Christian (Nationalist) Constitution, also a WCN theonomy. Using the concept of Constitutional Originalism, they redefine words, phrases, and ideas from the original Constitution as Christianity and a Christian nation were always what the founders meant. They see the original Constitution as the only relevant founding document and are in the process of abolishing all Amendments. Project 2025 was their almost-thousand-page policy project to spell out this objective.

Those who would argue that they will never abolish the 2nd Amendment haven’t studied fascism. Fascists cannot countenance an armed citizenry. At some point, they will seize the guns.

Tomorrow, we will cover how these efforts are converging and project what it could mean in the coming months and beyond.

TOMORROW. 15 July 2026. Noon eastern. Substack LIVE with ME.

I haven’t done a just-me hangout with subscribers in months. I hope you’ll join me tomorrow. I’ll answer your questions, share your thoughts, and tackle what I think is coming in the weeks ahead.

JOIN US!

Upgrade to PAID

The World Cup ends on 19 July 2026. Five days from now.

Since every regime day is a 24/7 waterboarding of outrage and horror, most Americans have probably forgotten this May 2026 threat to pull Customs and Border Protection from Blue state airports:

Subscribe now

Which is in line with this Project 2025 directive I warned Americans not to vote for in April 2024:

For those without archive access, I reproduced an evergreen section of the April 2024 newsletter below:

Though far-right Republicans complain about the southern border, the Project 2025 text below doesn’t target our border with Mexico. Its overarching statement simply refers to “the border,” which means ALL borders: by land, by sea, and by air.

Illegal immigration should be ended, not mitigated; the border sealed, not reprioritized.

Project 2025, page 13

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary offers this tertiary definition of the verb “to seal:”

To close or make secure against access, leakage, or passage by a fastening or coating.

To seal means nothing comes in and nothing goes out.

When regime Republicans immediately pivoted to prohibiting pregnant women from entering the United States in the wake of the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision, it wasn’t outrage theater. Or a temper tantrum.

It was a glimpse at their hand, another teasing of the regime playbook.

Sean Davis, CEO of The Federalist, released this seemingly unhinged list of options. He probably pulled them from the playbook’s pages. I included items relevant to this newsletter below:

• Deny entry to all pregnant foreigners

• Deny entry to all female foreigners

• Require sterilization of all foreign visitors prior to entry (Source HERE)

Deny entry to all pregnant foreigners

Numerous Republicans demanded this step in the wake of the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision. But instead of shrugging and saying they’ll never do that, let’s consider what this step could mean.

Does the United States require every foreign female to submit to a pregnancy test at the border?

I believe the answer is YES.

Only because I believe this gives them an excuse to test the infrastructure necessary to prevent white women who can be pregnant from leaving the United States.

This regime wants more lily-white babies. Focusing our attention on who they want to prevent from coming IN misses the point. This has always been about who they want to prevent from leaving: White women of reproductive age.

But this isn’t only about white women who can be pregnant. The United States is already creating a pool of super-charged white men who can impregnate them.

In 2025, the Department of Defense spent $1.8 million on erectile dysfunction drugs for active-duty service members (Source HERE.) General pay-for-sperm legislation has been proposed. (Source HERE.) Though it has never passed, sponsoring laws that seem “out there” is another way this crowd tips their hand.

If they’re encouraging or outright paying white active-duty service members for their sperm, I’d love to hear about it.

Deny entry to all female foreigners

While this outrageous proposal would prevent foreign women from having babies on US soil, it would also give the regime a means to test a system of PREVENTING FEMALE EXIT on a foreign population.

You know, where American women hear about Bad Things happening to foreign women at a border checkpoint and don’t care because it isn’t happening to them.

Again, White Women Who Can Be Pregnant, this proposal is really targeting YOUR ability to leave the United States, however incomprehensible that sounds.

Require sterilization of all foreign visitors prior to entry

A regime that can force sterilization and chemical castration on an incoming population will have all the tools it needs to require it of those exiting.

Especially if those exiting are Peoples of Color.

If one resets everything above to this came directly from the mind of Stephen Miller, it doesn’t sound so impossible, does it?

Because when Kevin Roberts wrote the Project 2025 words I quoted above, his source for Seal the Border was Stephen Miller.

I am not writing today’s newsletter to scare readers. It is my job to help Americans cut through regime theater and focus on what the theater is obscuring and/or signaling.

• Today, I write to remind readers of Markwayne Mullin’s threat to pull CBP from Blue state airports. The World Cup ends this Sunday. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him try this with at least one Blue state airport as early as next week. If you are traveling internationally, plan accordingly. (GO HERE for tips.)

• I’m also reminding Americans that sealing the border was a stated goal of Project 2025. To seal means nothing goes in and nothing comes out. The regime is still ruthlessly implementing Project 2025. Every recent EO, including removing endangered species protections and shrinking public lands, came from P2025. Every. One.

• This regime excels at directing attention away from where we should be looking. This border noise is not about foreigners entering the US; it is about preventing Americans from leaving. If more Americans grasp that NOW, we still have time to stop them. Which unfortunately means convincing more Americans that something is intended to harm them before it actually does.

Don’t let this newsletter paralyze you. Talk to your neighbors. Call your elected representatives. Strengthen your community support structures.

Subscribe now

I lived in South Carolina for fifty-two years. He was my senior Senator since 2002, and I haven’t said much.

Human beings are still being disappeared to the tune of 2,000 per day. Russ Vought is still destroying the federal government while his boss loots it. Billionaires are still coordinating with regime traitors to rig the midterms. Democrats, and Americans more generally, still do little about any of it.

But I’ve also been quiet because I know people Graham genuinely loved like family. Whatever his faults, they are grieving him. One once worked with my husband as an urban design assistant, and we got to know a couple of them via that connection.

Which is why I can’t ever hear Lindsey Graham’s name without thinking about Evan Bayh.

Evan Bayh. Former governor of Indiana. Democratic Senator who resigned in February 2010, citing extreme partisanship and extensive gridlock in his New York Times op-ed. (Source HERE.) Man who took his $9 million campaign war chest and ballooned his assets by multi-millions through lobbying his extensive connections and corporate board seats. (Sources HERE, HERE, and HERE.)

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Bayh announced his resignation less than a month after the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. It’s so cynical of me to think he resigned because he knew his connections would be more lucrative post-Citizens United, and he could better enrich himself outside Congress than in it.

Anyway, the last time we had dinner with people who are mourning Graham today, we talked about Evan Bayh’s recent resignation. They were worried about the extreme partisanship they saw in DC and knew Bayh’s resignation would worsen it. We bemoaned the country’s trajectory while we awaited our table.

Circa-2010 Lindsey Graham was an across-the-aisle deal-maker with many, many personal appetites and faults. He lit up while hammering out compromises with both friends and foes. My husband had dinner with him once, and Graham spent more time working a deal on the phone than enjoying the meal or his table mates’ company. He came away from that experience and said, “Working deals is clearly what Graham loves about politics. I don’t like the man or his positions, but he’s good at the deal part of it.”

Which is why I was actually glad to see him in Ukraine. If anyone could’ve dragged this regime to a deal that benefited Ukraine, it was Lindsey Graham.

In post-Citizens United 2010, Graham had to raise $35,000 A DAY to maintain his campaign war chest. (At his death, it reportedly held $15.6 million. Source HERE.)

Two years post-Citizens United, Graham was making time for breakfast with a potential donor who pledged five figures to his campaign. I don’t know whether that donor got a federal contract, but the last time I drove by their business, its footprint had doubled.

Because when elected officials must raise five-or-six figures PER DAY to remain in office, they make the most time for people who can hand them money.

And so Lindsey Graham the across-the-aisle-deal-maker died and resurrected himself as Lindsey Graham the ruthless-filler-of-the-campaign-war-chest. Some will argue he never had a soul to lose, but he lost whatever remained in this post-Citizens United transition. Well before undear leader appeared and squashed Graham’s presidential ambitions.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Mark 8:36 KJV

Instead of penning more opinions about people who are dead and/or done, we Americans need to ask ourselves what we value.

I don’t care whether Mitch McConnell is alive. Or where Lindsey Graham died. Or what Graham Platner should do now.

While we’ve been consumed with these conversations, 2,000 more human beings a day have disappeared into concentration camps. Homeless people are now in a first-of-its-kind Utah concentration camp. Stephen Miller is still shrieking at his minions to get to 3,000 disappearances per day. Russell Vought is still destroying the government. Billionaires and the billionaire-in-chief are still looting our treasury, our national assets, and our public lands. More Flock cameras have gone up while more water has been diverted into surveillance centers. ICE has executed more innocent human life. Nobody has done squat about protecting the midterms, but billionaires have worked with this regime to fine-tune corrupting them.

Do we want to keep participating in a political system that pollutes everyone it touches, because billionaires have bought everything and everyone?

Are we okay to keep letting billionaires use information and drama and outrage to capture and hold our attention?

Is it cool to let billionaires keep stealing our retirement, our healthcare, our land, our resources, and our children and grandchildren’s futures?

All so we can say the most viral thing on the internet today?

When we let that happen - and even willingly gleefully shamelessly take part - how much are we like Lindsey Graham?

To those who loved Graham like family, I am sorry for your loss.

As always, readers who prefer to skim can find a transcript at the Transcript button below the video.

Subscribe to The Moral High Ground at the link below.

The Moral High Ground

We are living through a world-historical temper tantrum from white conservative Christians over their loss of control, relevance, and supremacy. This weekly newsletter looks at current events through that lens and usually mocks it mercilessly.

By Evan Hurst

Read more

As always, those who prefer to skim a transcript can find one at the Transcript button below the video.

Subscribe to De Monte’s deep dives into how the federal government was designed to function and his breakdown of what’s happening now at The Long Memo (TLM):

The Long Memo (TLM)

I wrote memos for senior government officials to make better policy decisions. Now I write them to help people like you understand our world.

By Bryan C. Del Monte

If you’re thinking you might like to give yourselves options to leave the United States, Del Monte also writes Borderless Living. He uses a model he developed to rank countries into Tiers, and authors Country Briefs organized around this system. Many readers who use this model are looking for OPTIONALITY: Build an alternate place to land or second residency/citizenship to respond to increasing US instability.

Borderless Living

Borderless Living is a guide for quietly building a life beyond borders—legally, intelligently, and on your terms. If you're planning your next chapter abroad, you're in the right place.

By Bryan C. Del Monte

Read more

I’m sharing one news-related hope and one personal hope.

News-related HOPE: US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who presided over ’s lawsuits against undear leader for assau…

Read more

Periodically, I compile a newsletter to outline changes I’ve noticed within the Substack universe. Buckle up, readers. Today’s is a doozy.

Readers can find links t…

Read more