You would never suspect it from the lack of coverage by the cowardly mainstream “liberal media,” but “Christian” nationalism was already taking off like a rocket in 1994. Its immense and powerful disinformation campaign about American history was appearing almost simultaneously in newspapers and radio shows across the United States, often almost word for word, saturating the press with the false claim that our nation’s founding fathers had never in fact intended to establish a free nation at all, but had really intended to enact a Iran-like religious dictatorship based directly on the teachings of one particular, highly legalistic, and very Puritanical interpretation of Christianity.

Take this editorial from a January 1994 edition of the Mammoth Times newspaper, for example. The author’s scapegoating of Americans who hold different beliefs is vicious: “It is no coincidence that the moral slide we’ve seen in our lifetime is a direct result of the removal of God from the upbringing of our children and the leadership of our government.”

The author goes on to literally threaten America into surrendering to his version of his religion: “But what about a nation that refuses to be accountable to God? Nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world. They’ll answer to God in this one evidenced by an inevitable chain of causes and effects. Through­ out history, national sins have reaped national calamities. There is no other way for a nation to answer to God.”

By 1994, the right wing had begun bashing the living crap out of America with a ferocity that I had never dreamed possible.

Think that extremist takeovers of school boards are something new? MAGA extremists had already begun targeting school board elections in the early 1990s. Religious extremists succeeded in taking control of the Vista, California School District in 1992, only to be tossed out on their ears in a 1994 recall election. Letters to the editor by extremist former school board members and their supporters poured out hatred for “liberals” and echoed the “Christian nation” revisionist history expounded in the Mammoth Times editorial.

One such letter by supporter Richard Bentley stressed the need for teaching creationism in public schools. His argument for doing so was straight-up “Christian” nationalism, claiming that creation must be taught in order to prevent American society from crumbing into utter chaos from the horrors of sexual and reproductive freedom.

Creationist propagandist Ken Ham openly admits that the crusade to teach creationism is schools is intended to advance a far right theocratic agenda: “When we look at the United States and other countries today, we see increases in homosexuality, support for abortion on demand, disobedience to those in authority, people who do not want to work, pornography, the abandonment of marriage and modest clothing, to name but a few examples.” … “It wasn’t long ago that creationism was the basis of our society. A creation basis means there are absolutes. If you accept a belief in God as Creator, then you accept that there are laws, as He is the Lawgiver. He is the absolute authority, and we are under total obligation to Him.” … “It used to be that creationism was taught through the school system. People who weren’t Christians by and large respected and obeyed the laws based upon the Bible. A homosexual lifestyle was against the law; abortion in most instances was considered murder.”

He comes right out and says it! Teaching creationism is a prerequisite to building and establishing an oppressive, brutal religious regime along the lines of Afghanistan and Iran!

Are you connecting the dots yet? In MAGA’s early days, they were far more open about what they had in store for us.

In 1993, all sorts of little upstart far right publications launched, such as the short-lived “FEDUP News.” Note the highly combustible mixture of religious symbolism and American symbolism across the top. On Page 8 of the booklet (the second page in the uploaded copy), more canned renditions of revisionist “Christian nation” history appear: “This nation’s presidents also have proclaimed that America is built upon a Judeo-Christian moral and religious foundation. For example, President George Washington recognized that religion and belief in God contribute to order in the soul and order in the commonwealth. In bis first inaugural address, President Washington declared that we owe gratitude and reverence to ‘the Great Author of every public and private good,’ and said that America should acknowledge and adore the invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men.”

(As a brief aside, I’ll point out that the publisher of this booklet skipped over President James K. Polk’s inaugural address of 1845, which said, “All distinctions of birth or of rank have been abolished. All citizens, whether native or adopted, are placed upon terms of precise equality. All are entitled to equal rights and equal protection. No union exists between church and state, and perfect freedom of opinion is guaranteed to all sects and creeds.” I’ll also point out that George Washington’s peculiar way of referencing God, the “Great Author,” stems from his Freemasonry; in fact George Washington was the Worshipful Master of his own Masonic lodge, which still exists today. Freemasonry was anathema to “Christian” totalitarians, both then and now and heading his own Masonic lodge is a pretty good sign that George Washington was one of their hated Freemasons. Bad example, MAGA.)

These lies were allowed to saturate the opinion pages of newspapers and radio airwaves across the nation, and there were almost no authoritative voices in the media debunking this dangerous propaganda. This marked the beginning of MAGA, in all of its then-raw, unpolished, unrefined religious bigotry, years before skilled drafters of smooth, professional messaging became adept at giving this “Christian” nationalism a high polish and cloaked it behind deceptive appeals to “freedom” and “liberty.”

They were also much more honest about their hatred for Planned Parenthood back in those days, too. The front page of this publication alone makes it clear that they hate Planned Parenthood not so much for providing abortion services, but because the courageous organization supports sexual freedom and liberates men and women alike from the chains of MAGA clerics’ moral fatwas and decrees.

Yet where was the media push-back against this scapegoating hate propaganda and dangerous revisionist history? Where were the factual refutations of these revisionist claims that one would expect from responsible news media when vicious falsehoods like these, that demonize Americans of different beliefs, appear in their own newspaper pages or on their own TV screens? Extremists were saying it right out in the open, loudly and crudely!

The refutations were virtually nowhere.

MAGA was already a dangerous force in the early 1990s, gaining strength and momentum during that period. The difference was, back then, we still had a Supreme Court that mostly upheld our basic rights and liberties in a vigorous, full-throated manner. The fact that effective Constitutional safeguards still existed in the 1990s made it easy for the MSM to sweep this developing cancer under the rug. Meanwhile, MAGA was perfecting its rhetoric and becoming adept at concealing its anti-liberty ideology in highly deceptive talking points that pretended to be respectful of liberty and Constitutional rights.

But today the Constitution is gone, thanks to today’s illegitimate Supreme Court, and MAGA’s open advocacy of brutal Taliban-like religious rule is coming out into the open.

Again. Just like in the early 1990s.

[Teaser for a future piece: the 1990s case of Pontotoc, Mississippi, and the insight that it provides into the sort of government that MAGA has in store for us – a government under which the chances that minority groups would enjoy even basic police protection are slim to none.]