Evil Mermaids, Demons, and Donald: This Pro-Trump Conference Got Real Weird

Trump Prophesies. “Demonic” Democrats. Totalitarian threats. And predictions of combat with mermaids(?!). The Trump Doral was a hive of far-right and religious extremism this past weekend. And whatever doesn’t weird you out, should freak you out.

Trump’s Miami property played host to a one-two punch of reunions for Pastors For Trump — the charismatic evangelical body hyping up the Trump ‘24 campaign as a gift from the Lord — and the Re-Awaken America tour, the traveling MAGA circus that platforms retired Gen. Mike Flynn and an unhinged band of shofar-bleaters, conspiracy theorists, and zealots who relate their visions of the spirit world.

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Both of these groups have previously operated with tacit support from Donald Trump, but this was the first time that either group had staged their hijinks at a property owned by the former president, or appeared jointly. Trump himself called into the ReAwaken proceedings to laud Flynn and give his well wishes to the throngs of his admirers at Doral.

Pastors for Trump kicked off the proceedings in a Doral ballroom on Friday night. The group’s Tulsa-based leader, Jackson Lahmeyer, painted the nation’s politics in dark, biblical terms, asserting the devil has seized control of one-half our two-party system. “This is one of the worst points our nation has ever faced,” Lahmeyer said, condemning what he called “gender confusion” and “moral confusion.”

“Satan, right now has an entire political party in this nation doing his bidding — for free,” Lahmeyer told the crowd, referring to the Democratic party, whose president, in truth, is an observant Catholic. “The battle that we are in is one that is between good and evil,” Lahemeyer added before leading the assembly in a prayer. “Our nation knows a God who rescues his people, when we find ourselves in trouble. We lift up President Donald Trump, and we ask that You would give him divine wisdom.”

When pastor Craig Hagin, another Oklahoma preacher, took the podium, he felt he needed to “dispel a few rumors” that he blamed on the “mainstream media” in light of the group’s over-the-top devotion to the 45th president. “I want to go on the record that at Pastors for Trump, we do not worship Donald Trump,” he said. “We only worship Jesus Christ.”

Soon a “prophetic” voice took the stage. Stacy Whited is Christian nationalist media personality whose podcast is called “The Prophetic Report.” Whited delivered hope to the Trumpy insisting that 45 is fated to return to the White House: “President Trump will be back for a second term,” Whited insisted. She also told the audience to prepare to get rich — because there is a great “transference of wealth from the wicked to the righteous” coming. She added: “imagine when we partner with God, the Creator of the universe, what we’re going to do with this money.”

In his own remarks to the Pastors for Trump crowd, Flynn echoed Lahmeyer’s declarations about good and evil. But he added a totalitarian twist: “If you haven’t figured this out yet, the evil that we are facing will not give in until we take over,” he said.

The weekend ReAwaken America convention built seamlessly on the Friday-night zaniness of Pastors for Trump. (The two groups are, themselves, linked; Clay Clark — the organizer of the ReAwaken tour — is a member of the Tulsa church of Pastors for Trump leader Lahmeyer. Both men revere Flynn as “America’s general.”)

In his appearance on the main stage, Flynn took a call on his iPhone from Donald Trump, who directed him “to stay healthy because we’re bringing you back.” This seemed to be a pledge to give the disgraced general a place in any new Trump administration. (Rolling Stone reported last week that Trump has been privately planning to appoint Flynn to a top post if he’s reelected.)

The presidentially pardoned Flynn appeared anything but chastened from his first, criminal stint as a Trump adviser. Appearing on stage with fellow-former Trump aide Peter Navarro, and invoking the nation’s founding, Flynn declared of himself and Navarro: “We’re probably going to go to the firing squad someday.” (Flynn backpedaled only somewhat adding: “I say that a bit tongue-in-cheek, but that’s what we’re up against.”)

Pastor Mark Burns, a Black preacher who is making a name for himself in MAGAworld, gave a strange speech in which he suggested that Christians should not turn the other cheek, when confronted by wicked forces, rather prepare to “smack them back two times harder.” Burns told the crowd of this nation: “The bible says we take it by force.” And he insisted that the “only man that God has annointed” in the 2024 race is “Donald! J! … ” (Burns left it to the crowed to holler out “Trump!”)

Julie Green, another leading MAGA “prophet,” renowned for falsely predicting that Prince Charles would murder his mother to seize the British Royal crown, told the ReAwaken crowd that God had revealed to her the imminent downfall of the current president. “The removal of The Biden is coming,” Green insisted. “That’s what the Lord is saying.” Picking up on the theme of violence, Green also described the nation as in the midst of another “Revolutionary War.”

In by far the strangest performance of the whacked out weekend at Doral, yet another prophet, Amanda Grace, suggested that the warfare will be both spiritual and physical — and that the enemy will be unfamiliar, involving strange, “seducing spirits.”

“I have never seen more images of more mermaids and water people in my life,” Grace told the crowd, elaborating that these aquatic forces are “a division in the kingdom of darkness.” Underscoring the danger, Grace insisted that that these mer-people are “highly technologically advanced.”

“We have to understand the rules of engagement in spiritual warfare. And we are meant for hand to hand combat,” Grace instructed. “We are meant to bring our cries before the throne of God to bring judgment on the rulers of darkness of this world,” she added. “Because the rulers have set up a throne in this nation.”

“Darkness,” Grace insisted, “has completely covered and eclipsed the White House.”

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