When the far-right ReAwaken America Tour stopped at one of former President Donald Trump’s properties recently, Trump called in to the event and promised to bring former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn back into the White House if Trump is elected president. Let us count some of the many ways that pledge highlights the authoritarian threat represented by Trump and the MAGA movement:
- Flynn called for martial law. Flynn backed Trump’s efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 presidential election. In December 2020, Flynn promoted a call for Trump to declare martial law and use the military to oversee a new election.
2. Flynn told far-right activists not to accept Trump’s defeat. On the eve of the Jan 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Flynn spoke at a rally emceed by Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander, where speakers mingled Christian nationalism and threats of violence, where Flynn insisted, “We should not accept this.”
7. Flynn makes the Christian nationalist threat clear: “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God,” Flynn said at a ReAwaken America event in 2021.
8. Flynn is a warrior in the right’s dishonest and damaging war on “wokeness.” Right-wing activists have turned “woke” into a catch-all slam against efforts to promote diversity, respect, inclusion, and teaching about racism.