Far-right pastor Lance Wallnau is incredibly upset over the burgeoning controversies regarding Donald Trump's nominee for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth. No, he's not angry about reports that Hegseth paid off a woman who accused him of rape, or about the repeated adulteries and other marital cruelties detailed in a 2018 letter his mother wrote to him. Nor is Wallnau concerned with the growing pile of stories suggesting Hegseth has a severe drinking problem. Wallnau's just mad that an email detailing some of these issues exists.
"Mom, don't write a letter like that to your son!" he whined straight into the camera. "Don't write it and send it in an email someone could intercept and put in the New York Times."
Wallnau, a close Trump ally whose robust social media presence helped drive the mob on January 6, isn't just mindlessly defending Trump's nominees. He's especially gung-ho about Hegseth because the two men are deeply entwined with the Christian nationalist movement, which believes the purpose of the U.S. government should be to enforce far-right Christianity on not just Americans, but the whole world. It's not just Hegseth's tattoos that indicate his allegiance to this theocratic ideology. He recently joined a church run by Doug Wilson, a proud Christian nationalist who argues "secularism is a hollow construct" and should be replaced by a government-run according to the dictates of "evangelical Protestantism." Using Trump to grant control of federal powers — especially those that can be enforced with guns — is central to this plan.
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