Paul Bowers is an experienced journalist who writes a fascinating blog about South Carolina called “Brutal South.” In this post, he tells us who Nikki Haley, Republican Presidential candidate, is and whom she admires.
In his 2010 book of prophetic wisdom, Can America Survive? 10 Prophetic Signs That We Are the Terminal Generation, the Texas televangelist John Hagee recalls standing on a hill overlooking Megiddo in Israel, looking down into the valley, and envisioning a lake of blood 200 miles wide and as deep as a horse’s bridle.
In this and other bestselling books of prophecy, Pastor Hagee takes the book of Revelation literally and then prescribes a political program to bring about the end of human civilization as we know it. This is notable for a number of reasons, not least of which is that he has the ear of Republican presidential contender and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Like a lot of people, my ears perked up when Haley launched her campaign Feb. 15 in Charleston, South Carolina, and brought Pastor Hagee onstage to kick off the proceedings with a prayer. When Haley said, “To Pastor Hagee, I still say I want to be you when I grow up,” I nearly fell out of my chair. Like some kind of theological pervert, I went to the public library that week and borrowed every book by Hagee I could find.
I’ve been taking notes on these books and will probably write a more general synopsis at some point, but this week I want to linger on Can America Survive? It is an audacious book of geopolitical soothsaying, and it raises some questions that it would behoove political reporters to ask Haley on the campaign trail.
This book is, among other things, the most virulent Islamophobic text I have ever read. It repackages the “Eurabia” conspiracy theory for a U.S. audience, warning of an “Islamic population bomb” (p. 37) and favorably citing the British UKIP booster Melanie Phillips’ 2006 book Londonistan (p. 126). Hagee warns of secret Islamist sleeper cells throughout the heartland (p. 11) while advocating for spying on U.S. mosques and pre-emptive military strikes against Iran (p. 50). Hagee questions “radical Islam’s loyalty to America” after citing a random series of newspaper clippings about “honor killings” and claims, without evidence, that Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf is a No. 1 bestseller in unspecified Muslim countries (p. 26).
Please open the link and read on to understand Haley and other Christian nationalists.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Please open the link and read on to understand Haley and other Christian nationalists.”
There is no rationo-logical understanding of Hagee, Haley and the regressive xtian fundie theofascists. . . nor any other faith believers.
These people and their fantasies in the sky are scary crazy.
yup
Apoplectically apocalyptic?
lol. yes. Haley is another total loon, like MTG and Jabba the Trump. Total wacko.
The only positive note in the whole thing is that Republicans apparently still let women vote and run for office. I wish they would choose better representatives of that gender, though.
All the Republican alternatives to Trump suffer from these associations with the distant right of American political and religious thought. This Hagee character does not represent the majority of religious thinkers in America. The scary thing is, that many of the same people who would never accept the Hagee philosophy would vote for Haley anyway, laughing off her cozy statements as typical of political talk.
This is how extremists on the right get power through the ballot box. When those who are moderate are frightened by fables to vote for a Hitler or Franco. My favorite fable? The Fox Commentator and the grapes.
Right-wing evangelicals and Catholics make up a pretty large proportion of “religious thinkers in America,” if, that is, one construes “thinkers” very broadly. Not long ago, I came across a book that was an annotated timeline of 3,000 end time movements since the time of the provincial rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth. A LOT of these were American and recent–19th and 20th century.
The Fox Commentator and the grapes. ROFL!!! Good one, Roy!
Haley is an extremist. This is not surprising. She was handpicked by Jabba the Trump. A kook. Way, way out there in rightwing la la land.
I mean, what if the Rapture happens BEFORE the election and she and Hagee and MTG and the Reverend Mike Hucksterbee and his Hucksterbee spawn and that imperfect vessel chosen by God to make American Grate again all go floating off to heaven?
Oh, I forgot. Before that can happen, the Antichrist (AOC? Bernie Sanders? Greta Thunberg?) has to rule for a thousand years. Hmmmm. Guess I better read up in the profit-ic works of the Reverend Hagee.
Maybe that’s how this works. Kamala ends up being the candidate, and her opponent is Raptured, and the 1,000-year reign begins.
Bob,
There you go, making sense again! AOC for 1,000 years? Bernie? Greta?
It’s nice to dream.
I am absolutely horrified every time I read something that tells how horrible Muslims are. I lived/worked in Malaysia, a moderate Muslim country, for 11 years. I got ill my last year and found out how generous people can be.
One Muslim girlfriend, who had received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Northwestern University, would come and pick me up and take me grocery shopping most weekends. I didn’t own a car.
I did alternative healing work with a lady who later studied to become a medical doctor. She got her medical degree from a university in Thailand. She changed her religion to being a Muslim. She sent me a big bouquet of flowers once I had settled in my condo in Indiana. She gave me a copy of the Quran, the holy book of Islam.
People spend too much time hating those whom they don’t understand.
Hagee warns of secret Islamist sleeper cells throughout the heartland (p. 11) while advocating for spying on U.S. mosques and pre-emptive military strikes against Iran (p. 50). Hagee questions “radical Islam’s loyalty to America” after citing a random series of newspaper clippings about “honor killings” and claims, without evidence, that Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf is a No. 1 bestseller in unspecified Muslim countries (p. 26).