Conservative activist and Donald Trump surrogate Charlie Kirk added a new notch to his white Christian nationalist belt on Wednesday when he called on pastors to take to the pulpit and preach against Democrats as “everything God hates.”
During a speech at a campaign rally in Georgia for the Republican presidential candidate, the CEO of Turning Point USA said there was a “spiritual battle happening around us” and that “spiritual victory” required pastors to join the front lines.
“If you’re a pastor watching this right now, I hope this touches you,” he said. “I hope you—and I’m looking in the camera right now—I hope you give a Sunday sermon and you talk about how the Democrat Party believes everything that God hates.”
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Continuing his cosplay of a firebrand preacher, Kirk urged pastors to “tell your congregation how to biblically vote.” Churches, which are exempt from paying taxes, are not allowed to campaign for political candidates under U.S. law.
Kirk is a powerful but divisive figure in Republican politics. Trump’s own supporters have accused him of trying to “raise a new generation of Hitler Youth.” The 31-year-old has called for kids to be forced to watch televised executions, trashed Martin Luther King Jr., and claimed Jewish people “push hatred against whites.”
On Wednesday, he called Georgia a “Christian state” and said he wanted that to continue.
Turning Point USA oversees the Republican Party’s youth-outreach operation, and this year the group also launched a $108 million “ballot chasing” scheme to convince low-turnout Republications to cast votes for Trump in battleground states.
But given Kirk’s own authoritarian leanings, it’s not clear he’s in a position to effectively push back against reports that Trump is a Hitler-loving fascist.
