Erratum, Update, and To-Do
Last Friday’s (September 9) post, “Flynn’s Reawaken America Tour Comes to the Inland Northwest” must have rung a chord: it was among the most widely shared and most read of any recent post—as well it should be considering Flynn and company’s disturbing Christian Nationalist message and the money-sucking ticket swindle this two-day-long piece of pseudo-Christian misinformation represents.
ERRATUM: I started the September 9 post with “Tomorrow and Sunday, September 16th and 17th, from 10AM to 6PM, you’re invited by Matt Shea and company to “The Great Re-Awakening,” aka the “ReAwaken America Tour” held just over the border at Stateline Speedway in Post Falls.” I was oblivious to the logical contradictions in that sentence: September 16th and 17th are THIS COMING Friday and Saturday and NOT last weekend. I find it a little worrisome that just one observant reader Reply-emailed me to gently point out my temporal disorientation. I thank that reader.
Expropriation of the Christian Message: Since we’ve been granted the extra time by my error, once more I want to encourage you to sign on to the petition protesting this event in our region. It was recommended to me by the Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane, an organization I respect and support. You can access the petition here.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 2404 N Howard St, Spokane, is holding a vigil from 11AM to noon on Saturday, September 17, in protest of the Post Falls Christian nationalist tour. Click here for the background, reasoning, and details.
The Rt. Rev. Gretchen M. Rehberg, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane, has an excellent article published in the Spokesman that addresses the Flynn event head-on from a Christian perspective that I highly respect. Read it here.
Politics and Fleecing the Populace: Aside from its Christian cloaking, Flynn’s event, the ReAwaken America Tour, reeks of a carnival sideshow dedicated to extracting money from the deluded while propagating lies and mistrust. The whole thing is run by a failed Republican candidate and serial entrepreneur, Clay Clark, who has already re-branded his show from a “Health and Freedom Tour” dedicated to spreading Covid-19 misinformation to the new “ReAwaken America Tour” dedicated to 2020 election conspiracy theories. His web ad page for the current Tour breathlessly declares that every previous tour stop has “Sold Out”. The ad for the Speedway Event this Friday and Saturday proclaims “Just 4000 tickets will be sold”. In the original post I wrote of my experience texting for tickets. At that time (last Friday, September 9) the fellow who called me back from the boiler room excitedly told me there were “only 129 tickets left”—and yet the website two days later still offered tickets for sale. Does that trajectory seem unlikely for an event destined to sell out 4000 tickets?
I encourage my readers to text to 918.851.0102 to inquire if there are any tickets left for the show this Friday and Saturday, September 16 and 17, in Post Falls. Ask how much tickets cost. Send me an email to jxindivisible@gmail.com with the day and time they contacted you, the number of tickets they said were left, and the offered range of prices. (I certainly would NOT give them a credit card number, no matter how much they hype the urgency.) Perhaps we can expose Clay Clark’s and Michael Flynn’s boiler room project for the grift I suspect it is—or we’ll find that their marketing techniques have attracted thousands…
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
P.S. One of my readers responded to the poster for the “ReAwaken America Tour” in my original email with, “That “Great Awakening” poster is a “Where’s Waldo” of neofascist authoritarian cult followers.” I might add “leaders” of the authoritarian cult. For fun, see how many you can pick out.
P.P.S. Another reader queried, “Did you notice that these same people who are trying to ‘ReAwaken’ are the ones who dis people for being ‘Woke’? What’s up with that?”
P.P.P.S. For any of you unfamiliar with the history of “Awakenings” in the history of the last 400 years of the protestant Christian churches I recommend this wikipedia article. Clearly, Flynn’s and Clay Clark’s clever branding of the tour as a “ReAwakening” is meant to pretend to an Evangelical underpinning of its political message.