Thread by @sarahposner

This story, via @washingtonpost, about far-right GOP donor Steven Hotze being prosecuted for a scheme in which he allegedly dispatched a former cop to surveil an HVAC contractor, claiming he was delivering fraudulent ballots in the 2020 election, is something else. Thread: 1/x

I've written about Hotze, and his lawyer, Jared Woodfill before. Read the story. I have a few thoughts. 2/x

washingtonpost.com/investigations…

There are a lot of twists and turns here, but the gist is that Hotze, who has been criminally charged, allegedly bankrolled the ex-cop, through his nonprofit Liberty Center for God and Country, to find "voter fraud," and he settled on some random HVAC repairman. 3/x

The ex-cop allegedly rammed this poor guy's van and tried to make a "citizens' arrest." The DA in Harris County says of Hotze and the ex-cop: 4/x

Read the whole thing for all the twists, conspiracies, mishaps, and denials, including that there is a taped telephone conversation between Hotze and Ryan Patrick, a federal prosecutor in Texas under Trump, and the son of Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (Hotze's friend). 5/x

Basically it looks like Hotze was trying to urge the younger Patrick to bring a federal case. 6/x

(The HVAC repairman is suing Hotze, et. al.) 7/x

Hotze is being represented by his friend, the lawyer and activist Jared Woodfill, whose campaign against trans people in Texas I wrote about in 2018. 8/x

typeinvestigations.org/investigation/…

Hotze has been around in the religious right for a long, long time. For a long time he was considered fringe; now he's basically regular.

For decades he has called for a Christian takeover of government. 9/x

For example:
(prospect.org/article/prince…) 10/x

This is Christian Reconstructionism. For more, see @julieingersoll, the true expert. 11/x

global.oup.com/academic/produ…

Hotze and Woodfill have been highly active around Texas GOP politics, always aiming to push the state party further and further to the right, attacking other Republicans as insufficiently conservative. 12/x

Woodfill told me in 2017 that they go to the same church as their friend Dan Patrick, whose son Hotze allegedly tried to convince to prosecute imagined voter fraud. 13/x

typeinvestigations.org/investigation/…

Starting in 2014, Woodfill and Hotze spearheaded a campaign that became the germ of today's anti-trans assaults in red states across the country. 14/x
typeinvestigations.org/investigation/…

Woodfill told me in 2017 his ultimate goal is overturning Obergefell, and that he saw Trump, with his judicial nominations, as the path to doing that. Read the whole piece via @typeinvestigations or @RollingStone
rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
15/x

So basically in this really convoluted story about Hotze's "voter fraud" scheme, you see this progression: Christian nationalist activist believes Christians must take over government. Works tirelessly for decades to achieve result, precinct by precinct, law by law. 16/x

Public opinion seems to be turning the wrong way. Obergefell and LGBTQ rights, especially, even as they think they can ultimately reverse Roe. So the task becomes more urgent, in their minds. 17/x

So they support Trump. They get the judicial nominees they want. But once they've had that power they don't want to let it go, by any means necessary. 18/x

I think a lot of people don't really appreciate the extent to which the aims of (and disappointments of) the religious right are tied up in Trump's stolen election lie, and the quest to hold onto power because their ideology and political position is unpopular. 19/x

(That's also why we saw #capitolsiegereligion, as documented by @plmanseau and others.) 20/x

See also: 21/x

revealnews.org/article/how-th…

And why we've seen new Christian Right support for voter suppression (under the guise of "election integrity"). 22/x

revealnews.org/article/how-th…

When you have people, like Hotze, who think they are carrying out a divine mission to take over government from secularists, "communists," or "sodomites," things get dangerous very fast, as evidenced in this alleged plot, for which hopefully there will be accountability. 23/23