Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is everywhere lately.
They organized the Florida event where Trump first told Christians, “Get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.” A couple days later, a FOX News host repeatedly tried to elicit a recantation. Instead, he doubled down: “You won’t have to vote anymore. I won’t need your vote.”
At TPUSA’s “Believers Summit” on July 26, Trump promised to end the “weaponization of law enforcement against Americans of faith” and “create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias.” He asked, “How does a Catholic person vote for a Democrat with what they’re doing to Catholics?”
Since that speech, this bizarre bid to rally different religious constituencies has intensified. He’s claimed that under the current administration Christians are “treated very badly,” Catholics are “like, persecuted,” and Jewish people who vote for Democrats are “fools” who “should have [their] head examined.”
In just the past week, Kamala Harris has been described as “militantly hostile toward Americans of faith,” “totally against the Jewish people,” and “the most Anti-Catholic person ever to run for high office in the U.S.” Accordingly, CatholicVote has launched a multimillion-dollar campaign to “expose Kamala’s vile hatred of Catholics.” (Nevermind, I guess, that she identifies as Baptist, her husband is Jewish, and she’s vice president to the second Catholic president?)
TPUSA was also in Wisconsin this week with a “Tolerance IS NOT A commandment” poster outside the New Apostolic Reformation revival tent that’s traveling through swing states to deliver the Trump gospel. Inside, self-proclaimed prophets like extremist Lance Wallnau were promising healing and recruiting poll workers to “fight the fraud.” On the topic of “secularization,” one speaker said, “What we’re up against aren’t people. These are spirits.”
And all of this was about the same time we learned vice presidential candidate JD Vance penned a glowing endorsement of the book Unhumans. Its thesis? Progressives aren’t actually people. Written by TPUSA contributor Jack “Pizzagate” Posobiec, it contains lines like: “Democracy has never worked to protect innocents from the unhumans. It is time to stop playing by rules they won’t.”
It would be difficult to find a more textbook example of dehumanization, and it’s far from the only instance of this kind of language being used. Trump has called his political opponents “vermin,” the very same rhetoric used by despots and war criminals. These words, one expert said, “are the bricks that pave the road to political violence,” and research suggests an embrace of authoritarianism has been central to Trump’s political ascent.
Telling Christians they won’t have to vote anymore is, as many have said this week, “weird” and does seem to suggest a threat to our democratic system of government. But calling non-Christians “unhuman” is a direct threat to atheists and other nonreligious Americans.
Indeed, this ideology of intolerance that TPUSA and Trump are propagating threatens anybody and everybody who doesn’t adhere to their narrow set of extreme religious and political beliefs. In the White Christian Nationalist worldview, those of us who believe, as our nation’s Founding Fathers did, in a pluralistic democracy are the worst of all.
Unfortunately, it’s likely we’ll keep seeing TPUSA and its outsized influence up to and beyond November. Since its founding in 2012, the group’s revenues have grown exponentially thanks to a Who’s Who of far-right mega-donors—from just $78,000 to well over $80,000,000 in 2021. That exponential growth has occurred even as they’ve been accused of financial impropriety, associating with neo-Nazis, and propagating misinformation.
TPUSA is only one example of what we American Atheists are up against, but we’re not backing down. In fact, our strategic plan directs us to do the opposite. Although we may never have the millions in revenue groups like TPUSA do, our staff and volunteers are used to punching above our weight. But we can’t do it without your support.
By giving a one-time gift of $45 today or setting up a monthly gift of $10, you’ll ensure we can continue pushing back against the dehumanization of nonreligious Americans and building a better future—one in which we atheists can participate fully, where all people are guaranteed equality and (I can’t believe it needs to be said) the right to vote again.
In solidarity,
Nick Fish
President
American Atheists is a 501(c)(3) non-partisan, nonprofit educational organization that relies on the support of members like you. Contributions are tax-deductible. Our Federal Tax ID Number is 74-2466507 and our Combined Federal Campaign number is 52217.
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