ReAwaken America tour hits Lancaster, and the audience finds uplift amid the angst

Eric Trump at ReAwaken America event

Erik Trump talks to his father on the phone at ReAwaken America event in Lancaster County, Pa.

MANHEIM - If you’ve never been it’s hard to explain exactly what the “ReAwaken America” tour, which rolled into Spooky Nook event center outside Lancaster Friday, actually is.

It is part political rally for sure, especially in the month before a national mid-term election: Attendees repeatedly were reminded of the need to create a political wave coming that drives Democrats and weak Republicans from office this fall.

They even delighted in a minute or so with former President Donald J. Trump, who took a cellphone call from his son, Eric, during Eric’s mainstage presentation.

“We love you all,” the former president said to his unseen fans and followers. “And we’ll be back doing things that... We’re going to bring this country back because our country’s never been in such bad shape as it is now.”

It is part Christian crusade: The program is peppered with charismatic pastors from around the country, all of whom in one way or another called on the audience to take up arms - metaphorically speaking - in a spiritual war between good and evil.

Good, in this barnstorming roadshow produced by Oklahoma entrepreneur Clay Clark, is the vision of an America built on its traditional Judeo-Christian heritage; one where there are only two genders, schools stick to Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, and everyone has the freedom to get vaccines or wear masks if, when and where they want.

The mantle of Christian Nationalism was repeatedly and lustily cheered Friday.

“We have done more good in the world than any other country in history,” argued attorney Thomas Renz, noted here for a lawsuit he’s brought against two scientists he blames for supporting lab research that created COVID-19. “”What part of that do you oppose?”

Evil, generally speaking, is assigned to a loosely-organized coalition of tech, business, media and government leaders whose success is determined by their ability to make money and lord over a passive population.

And finally, it is in large part an infomercial: From doctors giving a deep dive on natural substances people can use to keep themselves healthy, instead of Big Pharma’s vaccines - all on sale at special show prices in a pop-up marketplace at the back of the hall; to the financial advisor touting the benefits of buying gold as a hedge against the potential collapse of the financial markets.

Stir it all together, and you kind of get a sprawling state fair of conservatism, from the red, white and blue microphone the mainstage speakers used to the books, t-shirts, annointing oils and “constitution cards” for sale in the exhibit hall - the latter being 52-card decks imprinted with the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence.

Top billing Friday was shared by a trio of Trump loyalists:

  • Michael Flynn, the president’s first National Security Advisor, who pleaded guilty to one felony count of lying to the FBI for his contacts with the Russian ambassador and was later pardoned by Trump;
  • Roger Stone, the veteran political operative and longtime Trump friend who was convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign and possible ties to Russia, and;
  • Mike “My Pillow” Lindell, the bedding executive who has claimed to have evidence showing how computer manipulation threw the 2020 election against Trump, but has not released it because of pending defamation suits by voting machine companies.

All were welcomed as heroes at this venue.

(Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano is scheduled to appear on Saturday.)

Stone, in his brisk appearance, celebrated what he sees as God’s (and Trump’s) deliverance of him from having to serve a 40-month prison term. Stone said Trump’s July 2020 commutation saved him from having to go to a COVID-infested prison where, he believes, his enemies likely hoped that he would die.

He was defending himself anew Friday, however, against what he called out-of-context video excerpts aired by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks on the U.S. Capitol of interviews that made it appear like Stone was anticipating the violence.

“What did the January 6th committee not show you?” Stone asked. “The speech I gave on January 5th outside of the Supreme Court to thousands of people, in which I specifically said: ‘Tomorrow, do not be baited into violence. Violence is used by the left. We don’t engage in violence.’”

Mr. Pillow, Mike Lindell, addresses audience

Mike "Mr. Pillow" Lindell, addresses audience at Reawaken America event in Lancaster County, Pa.

The speakers repeatedly exhorted attendees to make sure that they don’t sit out the coming election, which they often characterized in existential terms.

“If you assume that there will be a red wave, if you just take that for granted, there will not be a red wave,” Stone cautioned. “If you recognize that we are in an epic struggle in this election... and that if we fail this nation will step off into a thousand years of darkness, I say to you take nothing for granted. Vote on Election Day. Get every single person you know to do the same. And if you do that, victory will be ours.”

But there were other clear emotional peaks throughout the long day of praying and proselytizing.

One came about 2 p.m., when Julie Green, a self-proclaimed modern day prophet, foretold of Trump’s return to office.

“Says God, you can’t stop my son, who is the rightful president,” Green said, as the crowd rose to a standing ovation, accentuated by clanging cowbells and the blowing of ram’s horns. “He is on his way back and how he takes his position back on center stage, you will never see that coming because you won’t see me coming. And I am with him.”

Green added this will not necessarily wait until 2024, because God can do it in “unconventional ways.”

The day didn’t always hang together, logically.

Lindell, the founder and CEO of the My Pillow franchise, argued that American elections are fully vulnerable to computer-based manipulation; but then closed his remarks by encouraging everyone to vote in person in the upcoming mid-terms - meaning voters would be using the very machines Lindell is worried about.

Sandy, a York County resident who declined to give her full name or hometown, later tried to tie Lindell’s loose ends together for a confused reporter.

“It’s because we have to overwhelm the system,” she explained about the encouragement to use voting machines. “If you overwhelm the system (with in-person votes) they can’t do it (execute a steal). They can’t keep up with it.”

There were some dark turns.

Attendees were warned about next-generation technologies - delivered in the guise of vaccinations and other methods - designed to destroy our individual free will, and subliminal attempts by Hollywood to sexualize children and separate them from their parents.

Clark, at one point, tried to turn homelessness into a laugh line, as he asked one speaker form California how many homeless he usually has to dodge in his daily run. (About a half-dozen, came the speaker’s response.)

And, the crowd cheered when a photo panel with luminaries like Hilary Clinton, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, President Joseph Biden, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Michelle Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau popped up on the big screen under a banner declaring that an angel of death is coming for them by year-end.

To be fair, other speakers, over the course of the day, asked for prayers for their enemies.

Ticket-holders reached by this reporter Friday, almost unanimously, spoke of their broken faith in the federal government, the judicial system, the news media who informs them about these things, and just about every other facet of 21st Century American life.

But for all that angst, they said here they found badly-needed affirmation in spending a day where they felt they could not just be open about their beliefs, but celebrate them without having others react to them like they are nuts.

“My boys say: “Dad, you’re crazy,’” a Bucks County man who only gave his first name, Ken, said of any time he tries to discuss the 2020 election with them. He believes Trump won and it was stolen. “But you have no enemies in there,” he continued, nodding toward the event hall. “It’s different from daily life.”

“Just getting all these people together in one place who are all about God is so much more powerful than being at your home by yourself,” said a Wisconsin woman who decided to make the trip to Lancaster with a friend after seeing promotions for it on Green’s website.

“We’re already over the hump on the bad stuff,” the woman said, noting that she already regularly followed most of the speakers on the schedule and is very familiar with their litany of complaints and outrages. “But bringing God into it totally mellows you out, and you don’t have fear of anything.”

Jessica Schwanke, a 40-year-old Mom from Hanover, took organizers up on their offer of end-of-day, full immersion baptisms.

Schwanke said she has been on a two-year journey toward finding God, and with some of her favorite preachers here, including Green and Dave Scarlett - she felt the time was right Friday to deepen her personal commitment.

“I know the pastors. I know what they believe and I know what they talk about,” Schwanke said.

Since starting in Tulsa, Oklahoma in April 2021, the tour has had 15 stops across the country.

This weekend’s stop at Spooky Nook, (capacity 3,000) is its first in Pennsylvania, and it comes a little more than two weeks before the mid-term elections for governor, U.S. Senate and dozens of hotly-contested Congressional and legislative seats.

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