Stephanie McCrummen

By 10 a.m. yesterday, the line of people wishing to dedicate America to God was more than three hours long. They came ready with prayer flags to wave the Holy Spirit into action, and shofars to scatter demonic forces. They wore T-shirts declaring the sort of Christians they were. A muscular man wore one that read Prayer Warrior. A woman in cargo shorts announced that she was an Intercessor for America. An elderly woman wore one that read I Am the Weapon.

In the two weeks since Charlie Kirk’s killing, Trump-administration officials and allies have not only promised a sweeping crackdown on liberal groups. They have marshaled the language of a rising charismatic Christian movement to describe their political agenda as a cosmic battle against the forces of evil.
At Kirk’s memorial service on Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the moment at hand as “not a political war” and “not even a cultural war—it’s a spiritual war.

With the suspect accused of killing Minnesota’s Democratic house leader and her husband now in custody, investigators will have a long list of questions to ask about what the alleged shooter believes.

One recent morning on Chicago’s southwest side, the manager of a Mexican grocery store began the day posted at the front door, rehearsing the phrase “I wish to exercise my right to remain silent” in English in case immigration agents showed up asking about employees.
At a Mexican restaurant, the owner stashed newly laminated private signs under the host stand, ready to slap on the walls of the kitchen and a back dining room where workers could hide if agents arrived without a proper warrant.

In the final moments of the last day, some 2,000 people were on their feet, arms raised and cheering under a big white tent in the grass outside a church in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. By then they’d been told that God had chosen them to save America from Kamala Harris and a demonic government trying to “silence the Church.” They’d been told they had “authority” to establish God’s Kingdom, and reminded of their reward in Heaven.

Updated at 10:00 a.m. on June 22, 2024
Hours after my Washington Post colleagues and I published the first of several articles in 2017 about the Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore’s history of pursuing teenage girls, the Republican nominee’s powerful allies launched an elaborate campaign seeking to discredit the story.
The best-known of these efforts was an attempt carried out by the far-right activist group Project Veritas to dupe us into publishing a false story, an operation we exposed.