Thread by @dogemperor

So Rob Schenck is doing what Skipp Porteus did (in the Institute for First Amendment Studies days), or Frank Schaeffer Jr, or @JeffSharlet (namely, being one HELL of a whistleblower and shining a spotlight on things).

I'm still not sure I trust him 100%, but still...

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https://twitter.com/fawfulfan/status/1594011365739737088

I will say that it seems Schenck jumped off the Trump Train quite a while before others did (especially in Christian Nationalist circles), and I'd like to give folks some perspective on why--of all people--Schenck would have Known about this stuff

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So, Schenck--up until 2018 or so--was a hardcore Christian Nationalist, and of the NAR type at that; he was literally recruited as a kid into Teen Challenge (a de facto front of the Assemblies of God that has been linked to...a *lot* of bad stuff),

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and from there pretty much was pulled into NARasitized Assemblies of God churches, and had by the late 80s been recruited into anti-reproductive-health groups (that had notable links to the Christian Nationalist terrorist group Army of God).

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And that led to one of his more infamous early stunts--in 1992, Buffalo, NY had been targeted by anti-reproductive-health sorts (which would eventually end in Army of God assassin James Copp murdering Dr. Barnett Slepian), and somewhere along the way...

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somehow Rob Schenck had managed to acquire what *appeared* to be a preserved human fetus (to this day, nobody knows if it was a real fetus or not), promptly christened the kid "Tia" because he thought the "fetus" was an African-American, and basically made this...

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the symbol of their protest, which made him rather a bit of a celebrity in Christian Nationalist circles.

By the late 90s/early 2000s, he'd become quite the influential Christian Nationalist in Washington, with a *remarkable* level of access...as we'll see.

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In addition to co-founding Operation Rescue with Randall Terry (which served as the de facto "peaceful" protest/political wing of the Army of God), he was also John Ashcroft's preacher when he was a US Senator (and later when he was Attorney-General).

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And by 2006, he'd gotten deep enough in that...he and deacons at his church were able to waltz into the Senate chambers, smear Wesson oil on all the seats, and essentially hex the Supreme Court in the name of Christ into voting for Samuel Alito's confirmation.

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And no, I am not making this up: talk2action.org/story/2006/1/6…

(This makes more sense if you consider "anointing oil" is typically used in NAR circles as a form of territorial pissing rather than as a blessing--"naming and claiming"; origins in "prosperity gospel".)

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In fact, Schenck was one of the earlier subjects of my writing, when he followed up this cunning stunt with cursing WV families who'd lost members in a mining disaster for a comment made in heartbreak

talk2action.org/story/2006/1/6…

Read that link: it shows how deep he was in

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and if you are all tl;dr--suffice it to say he was a member of at least five hardcore NAR Christian Nationalist political organizations, many of which were front-groups of each other, which were ACTIVELY steering government policy during the Dubya admin.

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And in addition to his cursing the families of the Sago mine disaster and trying to literally "name and claim" the Senate a la Jim Bakker, he was also working--at the same time--was working with Sam Brownback as a spoiler for Christian Nationalists...

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in refusing to allow nominations until they got an ideologically acceptable-to-Christian-Nationalists candidate.

Yes, this WAS the same affair that led directly to Sarah Palin being the VP candidate, why do you ask?

talk2action.org/story/2006/1/3…

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(And yes, @JeffSharlet likely has a great amount of Tea himself to spill on Rob Schenck and Sam Brownback, as Brownback also has close links to The Family aka The Fellowship aka That Christian Nationalist Cult That Was Subject Of A Netflix Expose.)

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Around 2006, as well, you had a lot of anti-reproductive-health and Christian Nationalist sorts targeting Amarillo, TX (including NAR hate group Repent Amarillo), and Schenck was documented then as having links to organizer Frank Pavone (talk2action.org/story/2006/2/2…)

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By 2011, he'd been linked to a particular event in Texas that should have been a major warning of what was to come--"The Response", a political rally/tent-revival linked with then-Gov. Rick Perry that was a who's who of Christian Nationalism talk2action.org/story/2011/9/1…

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And all through that time, he was also besties with Roy Moore, even working with some of Moore's publicity stunts of putting up ginormous graven images of the Ten Commandments...

oh, and he also put up a lot of money to "Jane Roe" to turn sides. web.archive.org/web/2020052316…

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And sometime between 2015 and 2018--Schenck had, notably, started doing a *lot* of religious talks on gun violence arguing lax gun laws were immoral...Schenck apparently had *some* kind of actual change of heart, realizing what sort of Frankenstein's monster he'd created,

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and actually realizing that systemic racism IS a thing, and...also came to a real change of heart about reproductive choice, which arguably broke him out of the cult programming web.archive.org/web/2019053102…

(This isn't unknown, as an aside.

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A LOT of writers on Christian Nationalism (like myself, and @C_Stroop and @JeffSharlet and Frank Schaeffer Jr. and (re the late Institute for First Amendment Studies) Skipp Porteus and Austin Miles) were former members of these groups, either raised in it, or

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recruited when young; hell, to this day the membership lists of the Council for National Policy were and are leaked by #exvangelicals who haven't been purged from the membership lists--this has been invaluable for researchers and activists.)

And it'd seem Schenk...

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...may actually hold some regret for what he's done, and (similar to, well...a lot of #exvangelicals, or others who've escaped) is doing a bit of a "quiet whistleblowing". npr.org/2018/07/11/628…

Hence the tea spilled re Alito.

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