Driving to Joshua Tree, California, after seeing the world premiere of Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy at the Palm Springs Film Festival, I see a billboard advertising the extremist pro-Trump newspaper Epoch Times as being ‘#1 Trusted News’.
That ain’t true.
My mind was still processing how Bad Faith exposes the methodical and well-funded decades’ long plot to turn apolitical religious non-voters into weapons of mass democratic destruction. They did it by deploying a well-oiled and well-funded media machine of lies. These lies were deployed in churches, on AM radio, and fertilised in journalism deserts throughout the US. When I see that Epoch Times ad — with its churchy looking avatar of a pious young man, I wince. I also see what they don’t advertise — a dark-money base, which includes far-right religious extremists and conspiracy peddlers Falun Gong and US Christian nationalists.
