Joy Reid discusses the latest must-read article to come out from ProPublica, in partnership with Wisconsin Watch. The article by Phoebe Petrovic looks at the latest superstar of the MAGA crowd, psycho pastor Matthew Trewhella. Just how psycho is Trewhella? Well, he was too psycho for other right to lifers:
TREWELLA: I'm 62 now, and, you know, in the time that I've lived, our country's been on this trajectory downhill. Murdering their own sons and daughters through abortion, how depraved can you be? Mutilating your own sons and daughters, the ones that are born that you haven't murdered. We are a wicked country, and we have a wicked overnment, and we need to call men and our government to repentance.
REID: Well, that's Pastor Matt Trewella from the Mercy Seat Christian Church in Milwaukee, who just two years ago was thought of as so extreme that two different state chapters from Right to Life, the anti-abortion group, condemned him for calling for churches to form militias and defend the murder of abortion providers. Today, Pastor Matt finds himself at the center of more mainstream MAGA politics, crucially providing a religious justification for some of the far-right's dystopian policies and causes.
His story, detailed in this must-read ProPublica report, is an example of a sharp right turn for Republican priorities just 118 days before the election, which includes elevating a pastor who says homosexuality should be treated as a crime, who defends the murder of abortion providers, and promotes the view that government officials have a divine right and duty to defy any laws, policies, or court opinions that violate what he calls the law of God.
You can see why he has become so popular with the MAGA crowd, he uses the Bible to justify their hatred and Christofascism.
Then again, he's always been a nut job. During the height of the pandemic, he compared the facemask mandate to the Holocaust:
A Milwaukee pastor compared mandatory mask wearing to the Holocaust, and was applauded by resident attendees, during a Brookfield City Council meeting July 21.
“The Jews didn’t one day get called to the edge of the railroad and be told to get onto the box cars," said Pastor Matthew Trewhella of Mercy Seat Christian Church. "There were a thousand little acts infringing upon their liberty prior to that."
Mercy Seat is based in Milwaukee, but the congregation has been meeting in Brookfield since Milwaukee established a mask mandate.
[...]
Moments before exiting the room, Trewhella said, "that’s how tyranny operates until one day, the final solution takes place and the box cars are there."
The hate towards women's reproductive health is so strong that he even served time in prison for it:
Trewhella is a co-founder of Missionaries to the Preborn, a group focused on pro-life advocacy since 1990. He previously served 14 months in jail for blockading Milwaukee abortion clinics.
He also once said that he "wouldn't condemn" a person for using force against someone seeking an abortion, but later tempered the remarks by saying he doesn't advocate violence.
Hell, the way things are going now, I wouldn't be surprised if Felon Trump offered him the chance to run as his Vice-President.
