Donald Trump managed to remain standing even though he didn’t even make a cursory effort to appeal to those who didn’t vote for him. Apparently, a number of Republican candidates seem to be taking that as a blueprint. One of the most notable followers of this blueprint is the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano. It has been apparent for some time that Mastriano is one of the most comically extreme gubernatorial candidates in recent memory. He has been a shameless promoter of the Big Lie, and would order his appointed secretary of state to require every voter in Pennsylvania to re-register—a move that legal scholars have deemed illegal and unconstitutional. He has also been an open and unashamed peddler of QAnon nonsense.
It initially appeared Mastriano had bottomed out when he came under fire for his ties to Andrew Torba, founder and CEO of the deplorable social media platform Gab. Torba has no qualms about allowing racists and antisemites on his platform—in no small part because he’s an antisemite himself. He claimed that Jews have no place in a far-right movement that he’s building, and once claimed that he was building a society that was an alternative to the “Judeo-Bolshevik” society that currently exists, which is an old Nazi trope.
After a good deal of prodding, Mastriano distanced himself from Torba—but claimed the reaming he took over his ties to Gab was just a distraction cooked up by the Democrats and the media. That alone should have proven that he isn’t sincere. But Media Matters’ Eric Hananoki discovered even more evidence that Mastriano is still a full-on deplorable. It turns out Mastriano has very close ties to a far-right “prophetess” from Iowa whose “gift” amounts to little more than wrapping conspiracy theories in a Christian gloss.
Lately, Mastriano has heavily promoted Julie Green, who heads Julie Green Ministries in Bettendorf, Iowa. Her “prophecies” are a toxic stew of conspiracy theories. For instance, in February, she claimed that Nancy Pelosi “loves to drink the little children’s blood,” proving that she’s “a true witch.” This is a common QAnon trope; QAnon followers frequently claim that elites try to extend their lives by drinking children’s blood.
In April, she claimed that government muckety-mucks are performing “human sacrifices” to solidify their domination.
She has also “prophesied” that a number of politicians are about to be executed for supposed treason. Not just Democrats, either. She called out Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who has been on Trumpworld’s shit list for some time for refusing to overturn Biden’s narrow victory in his state.
She has also issued similar “prophecies” regarding Senators Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, and Mitch McConnell, as well as Gov. Brian Kemp.
In June, Green told fellow “prophetess” Meri Crouley that she has a “special relationship” with Mastriano. That relationship began as early as March 15, when she was invited to open a Mastriano campaign event with a prayer. Later that month, Mastriano shared a video prophecy from Green in which she declared that God was in the process of “cleansing” Pennsylvania of a “hornet’s nest of corruption.”
By hitting the share button on this video, Mastriano was effectively saying that he believed himself to be the vessel to clean Pennsylvania.
By April, the “special relationship” had blossomed to the point that Mastriano invited Green to come to Patriots Arise, a QAnon/Christianist conference in Gettysburg, which is in Mastriano’s state senate district. Mastriano had heard about a “prophecy” Green had “received” a month earlier declaring that God had chosen him “for such a time as this” in order to “get to the truth in election integrity” and push for “the great steal to be overturned.” That conference, which included a number of other Republican luminaries such as Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis and Trump Twitter sockpuppet Liz Harrington, was organized by fellow QNut prophets Allen and Francine Fosdick, and was chock full of QAnon.
Listening to Green, I could have sworn I was listening to Mark Taylor, the so-called “firefighter prophet” who claimed God had told him Trump would become president. Never mind that he received this “word” in 2011—and that any competent reading showed that he was foretelling Trump defeating Obama in 2012. For a time, Taylor was one of the big things in the Trumpvangelical world. He used that fame to spew QAnon crazy and other conspiracy theories. Indeed, QAnon was the least batshit thing he espoused. For instance, he claimed that the reason so many people despised Trump was that the Illuminati were fiddling with our DNA.
And now, a woman who is basically Taylor in a skirt has the ear of the man who wants to be governor of our fifth most-populated state, with 20 electoral votes. This is yet more proof that Mastriano has no intention of being governor for all of Pennsylvania. The Keystone State deserves better—and fortunately, they have a chance to get better with the Democratic nominee, state attorney general Josh Shapiro. Send him some love here.