Sometimes, the devil's in the details.
Last week, Hunter Woodall reported for the Star Tribune in GOP Rep. Michelle Fischbach facing primary challenge:
GOP U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach will now have to contend with a primary challenge for her deeply red congressional seat.
Steve Boyd, a small-business owner from rural Kensington, Minn., announced his campaign earlier this week. In an interview with the Star Tribune, Boyd talked about "election integrity" and said he thinks that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election. Trump lost the election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Boyd, 38, also falsely cast doubt on the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. The vaccines have proven critical in helping people around the country.
"Some may consider me extreme," Boyd said. "That's fine. I don't consider myself extreme by any means." . . .
Now why would anyone think that?
Woodall noted:
A news release on Boyd's campaign website describes him as "a Christian, conservative, husband and father of five who owns a turf management and mosquito control company serving residents of Douglas, Grant, Pope, Stevens, and Swift counties."
Following that link, Bluestem reads down column in the press release:
He is also a Constitution Coach for Patriot Academy, a national organization dedicated to teaching citizens about America’s founding as a Christian country. In that capacity, he teaches Biblical Citizenship courses at local churches and online.
Why would anyone think that's extreme? That Boyd is an acolyte of Rick Green?
In Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA is increasingly leaning into right-wing Christian fundamentalism, Media Matters for America noted:
- Starting in 2021, TPUSA Faith partnered with Patriot Academy on courses to teach “biblical citizenship” and other programming denying the separation of church and state. Patriot Academy is an initiative of Barton’s anti-LGBTQ group Wallbuilders that seeks to “train citizens to understand and influence government policy with a Biblical worldview.” TPUSA and Patriot Academy collaborated on “biblical citizenship” courses and a workbook that denies the existence of the separation between church and state. The website also notes that the “biblical citizenship” is critical as “we fulfill the Great Commission and ‘make disciples of all nations.’”
A few months later, Media Matters Payton Armstrong reported in Ahead of 2024, Republican politicians are appearing on the Victory Channel’s FlashPoint, a show helmed by Christian nationalist “prophets” who warn of “demonic influence”:
- Bailey agreed that the church must be the “epicenter of everything,” while regular panelist Rick Green claimed that “to preserve the constitutional republic, the Founding Fathers said you can only do that if faith was infused into everything.” Green is a former Texas state representative who has sought to dismantle the separation between church and state for years and now leads Patriot Academy — an initiative of Christian nationalist activist David Barton’s group WallBuilders — which seeks to “train citizens to understand and influence government policy with a Biblical worldview.” During the panel discussion, Kunneman declared that scripture should be society’s “moral standard” and that the “separation of church and state really was that God wanted the church to affect the state, not the state coming and trying to control the affairs of the church.”
Green appeared Friday and Saturday in the FlashPoint LIVE Truth and Freedom Tour at Mac Hammond's Living Word Christian Center in Brooklyn Park (or Minneapolis, as Flashpoint billed it). Many of the folks whose profiles appear in Republican politicians are appearing on the Victory Channel’s FlashPoint, a show helmed by Christian nationalist “prophets” who warn of “demonic influence were on the stage.
Readers can get a taste of the event on private Facebook videos here and here. PillowGuy Mike Lindell is an added guest on the stage the second day, but Bluestem's more interested in the Coach of the Constitutional Coach running for Congress.
Boyd operates his Constitutional Coaching out of a non-profit called Blessings of Liberty (Facebook page here). The ConstitutionalCoachMN URL on the Facebook page leads to a WIX page brandishing an error message, "Looks like this domain isn't
connected to a website yet."
Here are posts like these on the page:
And
As I posted on X last week, one of Boyd's Constitutional Coach events included several members of the Minnesota Legislaure:
1/2 #MN07 #MNGOP challenger Boyd is Constitutional Coach for "Biblical Citizenship" training. Facebook: Blessings of Liberty. Here's one 1/2022 "a great discussion panel! Thank you to Rep. Eric Lucero, Rep. Mary Franson, Sen. Torrey Westrom, [Alex School Board] Maureen Eigen https://t.co/ZjAcijvNep pic.twitter.com/0wgsaF9b26
— Sally Jo Sorensen (@sallyjos) October 5, 2023
Some might call this extreme, but not the candidate himself. We'll look forward to finding out what voters think in next year's Republican primary.
Screenshot: Boyd and Green at the 2022 National Patriot Leadership Congress in Austin TX. From the Blessings of Liberty Facebook page.
Related posts
- News brief: Franson is Minnesota State Chair for National Association of Christian Lawmakers
- Nostalgia; or, New Republic article about a right-wing Christian sect takes us to our back pages
- Are ties of new MN Senate majority leader with New Apostolic Reformation recipe for gridlock?
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