CARTER WALKER | Staff WriterDoug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor, is scheduled to speak next week in Lancaster County at an event that features a long list of far-right personalities, from believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory that Democrats and Hollywood elites are sexually abusing and cannibalizing children, to backers of former President Trump’s false declaration that the 2020 election was stolen.
The “ReAwaken America Tour,” a collaboration between retired U.S. Army General Michael Flynn and entrepreneur Clay Clark, is slated for Oct. 21 and 22 at the Spooky Nook Sports complex in East Hempfield Township. It is the tour’s 25th stop since it began in April 2021.
Clark, the event’s founder, says the tour’s purpose is to “reawaken” Americans to the “truth about elections fraud, medical fraud, religious fraud” and other subjects as part of his plan to save America.
A business consultant and podcaster from Oklahoma, Clark rose to prominence in 2020 when his podcast began to shift to anti-COVID topics amid lockdowns, mask mandates and the vaccine rollout. Clark said he put together the tour with Flynn after coming to believe he was the “Mr. Clark” referenced in a 2013 prophecy from South African pastor Kim Clement. That Mr. Clark was destined to “influence this nation” through his prayers, according to the prophecy.
Observers like the Anti-Defamation League, Right Wing Watch and professors studying the religious right have said the ReAwaken events are spreading a dangerous mix of misinformation, Christian nationalism and divisive political rhetoric.
“They blend the iconography of Christian symbols with patriotic American symbols,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “(The events) feel like a combination of a worship service and a political rally. And that gets to that very definition of Christian nationalism, of merging Christian and American identities into one.”
Tyler said she can see Christian nationalist ideas reflected in the tour, such as Flynn’s statement at a November 2021 ReAwaken event in San Antonio, Texas: “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.”
“Whether they’re explicitly calling for violence at these events or not, they’re stoking distrust of the electoral process,” Tyler said.
Her organization produced a report on the Christian nationalist influence on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which she said was “what happens when people are told over and over again that an election has been stolen from them.”
She added, “So to perpetuate lies about the 2020 election, and to create a general mistrust in the electoral process, while also continuing to send the signal that God has ordained a particular election result, could lead to violence again.”
Most of the ReAwaken events have been held in churches. Spooky Nook has been host to meetings of other conservative groups in the past, including the grassroots FreePA organization and meetings and election night gatherings of the Republican Committee of Lancaster County.
Anthea Butler, a scholar of American religion and politics at the University of Pennsylvania, said events like this have been going on for a long time, pointing to Rick Perry’s “The Response” tour during the Obama administration.
“In this particular case, ReAwaken America is very different because they are meshing the political with the religious,” Butler said.
Butler said she believes the tour is stopping in Pennsylvania because Mastriano’s campaign aligns with many of the themes at the event. She thinks the events are dangerous because much of the rhetoric revolves around “spiritual warfare,” “taking back” the country and casting Democratic rivals as evil.
“When you put all that together, I do think it will be very lucky if we do not see violence, but all these people are talking about when they get on stage is violence in the guise of ‘spiritual warfare,’ ” she said.
Flynn spoke at Mastriano’s January announcement that he was entering the governor’s race, and Flynn was with Mastriano in Lancaster County in June 2021 at a political fundraiser for Kathy Barnette, who was running for U.S. Senate.
ReAwaken speakers
The following speakers have been advertised for the Spooky Nook event:
Michael Flynn
A retired U.S. Army general and briefly the national security adviser under President Trump, Flynn was reported to have been involved in meetings with Trump in 2020 where invoking martial law and seizing voting machines were discussed. Flynn was convicted of lying to the FBI about conversations with a Russian ambassador during Trump’s transition into office in late 2016 and early 2017. Trump pardoned Flynn in 2020.
Roger Stone
Stone is a longtime political operative and adviser to Trump. Stone reportedly pushed Trump to declare victory in the 2020 election before all votes were counted in order to sow confusion and make retaining the presidency easier. Stone was indicted for lying to Congress and other charges uncovered by former FBI director Robert Meuller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia. Trump pardoned Stone in late 2020.
Pastor Mark Burns
Burns is a South Carolina evangelical pastor and former congressional candidate. He has repeated Trump’s 2020 fraud claims and said at a recent ReAwaken event that he was declaring war on “every demonic, demon-possessed Democrat that comes from the gates of Hell.”
Jim Breuer
Breuer is a former SNL comedian popular with conservatives. He has delivered an anti-COVID comedy routine at tour stops.
Peter Navarro
Navarro served as trade adviser to President Trump. He is currently facing criminal contempt of Congress charges for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
Eric Trump
Eric is Donald Trump’s third child. He has repeatedly boosted his father’s election fraud claims, and was recently accused of fraud himself in a lawsuit brought against the Trump organization by New York’s attorney general.
Robert Kiyosaki
Kiyosaki is a businessman, author and financial educator who has had a long-standing business relationship with Trump.
Kash Patel
Patel is a former Trump national security council staffer who was elevated to chief of staff of the acting secretary of defense in the final months of the Trump presidency. He has been described as a Trump loyalist and recently found himself involved in the Justice Department’s investigation of classified documents allegedly kept illegally at Trump’s Florida estate. Patel recently authored a children’s book that depicted Trump as a king besieged by enemies.
Mike Lindell
Lindell is the CEO of My Pillow. He claims to have definitive proof that the 2020 election was stolen, but has yet to share it.
Dr. Stella Immanuel
Immanuel is a Christian pastor and doctor from Texas. She is the originator of the claim that hydroxychloroquine could be used as a treatment for COVID-19, a treatment that was boosted by Trump and other conservatives. She also has claimed that alien DNA is being used in medical treatments and that vaccines have been created to prevent people from being religious.
Doug Mastriano
The GOP candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, Mastriano pushed back against COVID-19 restrictions during the pandemic and is a key player in pushing Trump’s false claim of a stolen election in Pennsylvania.
