Opinion
There is little doubt that the last 4 months have been brutally difficult for the MAGA Movement. From the swearing in of President*Biden and loss of the Senate, to the passing of Rush Limbaugh, 2021 have been a difficult pill to swallow for true conservatives everywhere. Yet beyond the pain of the loss we’ve experienced, our movement faces a moment of real crisis that will determine whether it has the capacity of reclaiming American Exceptionalism once and for all, or if we will have simply been a flash in the pan lead by larger-than-life personalities.
In many ways, I personally believe that we could end up being stronger, and more dangerous to the Left than ever. In conversations with close advisors, I have remarked that these last few months have born a striking resemblance to the post-crucifixion, pre-pentacost church. None of Jesus’ disciples wanted Him to die. In fact, it was unconscionable to them. After He rose from the grave, they most certainly did not want Him to leave them again. However, as we know from history – and as He told them before His ascension into Heaven – He had to leave them…for their sake.
If Jesus had stayed on earth, His ministry would have flourished, but it would likely never have left Israel. The Apostle Paul even said as much in Romans 11:25 when he explained to the church in Rome that the Gospel would never have went to the whole world unless it first left Israel. Once Jesus left, and the Holy Spirit was sent, Christianity – and indeed the whole world – would never be the same. The focus was, and still is, on Jesus Christ, however the indwelling of the Holy Spirit gave Christians the ability and strength to change the world. Indeed, in Acts 17:6 the disciples in Thessalonica were accused of having “turned the world upside down.”
Yet those early days of the church were tenuous ones. Now that the central figure (Jesus) was no longer walking among them in the flesh, it opened the door for false teachers and charlatans to creep into the church and take the new believers captive through slick words and false promises. Essentially these teachers knew exactly how to “talk the talk” to get people to follow them, and then ended taking advantage of the trust bestowed upon them to enrich themselves. The Book of Jude (the shortest book in the Bible) was written specifically as a warning about these types of people. If you haven’t read it recently, I strongly encourage you to.
How This Applies To MAGA
As you can see, the parallels between this period in Church history and the current state of the MAGA Movement are strikingly similar. We’ve just suffered the lost our leaders. Oh sure, President Trump is still around, and is still active on social media and in politics. His role now, however, is now on the periphery of the political concourse, limited to political endorsements for candidates in upcoming races. This is not to say he still doesn’t hold enormous power. He certainly does, as his endorsement is the most valuable one in the current political landscape. He is not, however, flying across the country holding rallies with 50,000 people every week.
The loss of “The Big Voice on the Right”, Rush Limbaugh, at the same time as President Trump leaving office has left a massive void in leadership for the MAGA Movement. It is at precisely this junction that our movement is at it’s most dangerous point, for the same reasons that the early church was at a tenuous point after Jesus ascended into heaven.
Make no mistake, just because they defeated Trump (although not legally) does not mean that now the Left (American Communists) is going to leave us alone. They know that we outnumber them. They know they are in the minority. As such, we still represent an existential threat to their existence. We are still Public Enemy #1 to the American Communists, and they will stop at nothing to destroy us.
They will likely use every imaginable weapon at their disposal. Most of those weapons, however, will fail simply because we see them coming. There is one weapon, however, that is so dangerous that it represents the single greatest threat to our existence and the future of freedom and liberty across the globe.
The Enemy Within
The weapon I’m talking about is infiltration. Just like with the early church, when the Enemy (I’m speaking here of Satan himself, who is behind the American Communists) realizes he can’t kill all of us he will do exactly what he did in the first century: he will use “false prophets” to infiltrate our ranks and take us down from within.
Like with the early church, the only way we will survive this attack is by holding fiercely to the truth. It will not be enough to accept someone into our movement simply because they sound exactly like us. We need to examine them by their motives and background in order to weed out the bad actors from those who are sincerely devoted to the cause of liberty.
Simply put, not everyone who talks like us, sounds like us, and is really good at getting a crowd riled up has good intentions. There are many…many…profiteers who have already infiltrated our ranks. If we don’t call them out they will certainly spell the downfall of our movement.
How To Spot A Fraud
There are many ways to spot these types of people, but the best way of telling a person’s true intentions is by knowing our own history and the kinds of men and women who fought, bled, and died for the cause of liberty. Our founders and framers did not come to the new world, forge a living out of the wilderness, and later take on the most powerful force in the world simply to become wealthy. In fact, many of them lost everything they had. All of them pledged their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” to the cause of liberty.
President Trump did the same thing. In fact, he was the first President in modern history to leave office less wealthy than he was when he went in. He was only the third President in United States history to have refused his presidential salary (JFK and Herbert Hoover were the other two), and bankrolled his campaign out of his own wealth. That’s part of what drew Americans to him by the millions. He was in it because he loved America. He loved America more than his own success, more than his own lifestyle, and more than his own comfort.
Using that standard, then, it becomes much easier to spot the fraudsters. While we are certainly not against someone earning their worth, someone who gets up on stage, speaks our language with passion and fury, but doesn’t actually accomplish anything but lining their pockets with handsome speaking fees, notoriety, and lucrative book deals is nothing more than a profiteer and charlatan.
The next time you see someone like that, ask yourself “what have they actually done for our movement?” Have they helped campaign for grassroots conservatives? Have they actively helped fundraise for causes and efforts that actually do something to advance liberty? Have they made an effort to lead their community by serving it first, or have they simply stirred a crowd while lining their pockets? Those who have done it know there is nothing glamorous about servant leadership. It is exhausting, often thankless, and frequently grueling work. Yet for those who are in it for the right reasons, it is a passion and a calling.
Why We Exist
Now I know what you’re thinking: “wait a minute, isn’t Ignite Liberty a business? Aren’t you trying to make money too?” Let me set the record straight. Yes, Ignite Liberty is a business, yet neither my partner or I have taken or made a dime from it. Through the generous donations of our readers we are able to cover our costs to allow us to keep doing our work, but this is not a profitable business at all. It is very much a labor of love and passion.
My partner and I didn’t start this company to get wealthy off of it. We started it to serve our community by defending the truth. We saw the imminent danger of Marxists taking over our communities from the ground level up, and decided to do something about it. We recruited and supported grassroots conservatives to run for city council and school board positions. We are actively working with conservative members of the legislature to ensure that the America First, Oklahoma First agenda is implemented in new legislation. In the coming weeks we will be launching the Liberty Business Network: Oklahoma’s first Conservative Marketplace that will bring together conservative business owners with like-minded customers (a local version of Andrew Torba’s vision of creating a conservative Christian economy).
Yet the most important work we do is to serve as a watchman, of sorts, sounding the alarm when bad actors try to infiltrate our movements, be they profiteers and shysters, lukewarm “conservatives” who lack a spine, or outright Satanists and Communists (yes, this is actually happening).
In the coming weeks and months we will be running articles exposing some of these fraudsters. Fair warning: this will make many of you uncomfortable. As always they will be well-documented and researched. Our goal is not to attack anyone, but to merely expose the truth. We are just the messenger. The fate of freedom and liberty in Oklahoma will depend upon what you do with it.
We can’t blame the Left for being, well, the Left. Darkness will always exist. It has from the Garden of Eden and it will continue to exist until the Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ on earth. The existence of the Left is not the greatest threat to liberty. The greatest threat to liberty is when those who are supposed to be salt and light refuse to be salt and light anymore. As I said when I spoke on the south steps of the Capitol in October, “the problem in Oklahoma is not the Democrats…it is the ‘conservatives’ who aren’t conservative enough, who buckle too easily under pressure.”
As Jesus said in Mathew 5:13, “But if the salt loses its savor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrownout and trampled by men.” Salt is an irritant to impurities. It stings and burns, but it also protects, preserves and purifies. If liberty is to be preserved for future generations, it is imperative that those of us who are the salt and light be the salt and light.
If we don’t, then our grandchildren will one day ask us the terrifying question, “what was it like when America was free?”
This organization will be the salt and light for Oklahoma. We ask that you join us.