Friday, August 20, 2021

"Answers in Genesis" and QAnon


It's very likely that Ken Ham (the fundamentalist theme park manager for AiG) was and is a Trump supporter. I don't think he ever urged people to vote Trump, but he was clearly a sympathiser. Take this quote from Ken's blog post dated 17 March 21 where he compared his treatment by the "left-wing" (sic) media with the way it treated Trump. 

The left-wing, secular media is doing to President Trump what they’ve done to us for years—spreading false accusations, lies, and misinformation; being engaged in censorship; and more.

In a post entitled "Will Biden make a more secular America" dated 17 Dec 2020 we find Ken listing the faults of the Biden administration and then saying:

This anti-Christian approach is typical of many atheists—they have nothing positive to offer and spend most of their time attacking Christians.

He then quotes Titus 1:15 and Romans 8:7 ignoring  Biden's own Catholic faith.  As far as I'm aware Ken has never criticised the Trump administration (let alone in such strong terms) in spite of Trump's corruption and his attack on American democracy which I read as a bid for absolute power (see footnote*).

Like many of a far-right inclination Ken doesn't use the label "left-wing" & "radical left" to designate classical  revolutionary Marxist idealism: To the far right many mainstream Western views now get registered as "cultural Marxism".  I'm a UK Monarchist whose vote floats between Labour and Conservative but it's quite likely I'd be seen by the far right as a cultural Marxist! (Even though I reject the idealism of "critical theory")

But the reason for Ken's implicit support for Trump is obvious - Trump supporters are his constituency and customer base; he simply can't afford to alienate them. His theme park business depends on their patronage. 

Another client who is sensitive to his patrons is of course Donald Trump himself who was always very aware of his voting constituency; so much so that he avoided criticising the crazy QAnon conspiracy theorists and hob-knobbed with professional conspiracy theorist  Alex Jones (See here and here).  News is now coming to light that Ken Ham is involved in a similar cynical strategy of implicit support not just for Donald Trump but also for the QAnon conspiracy theorists. This news is found in a video by a QAnon theorist who, presumably with AiG support, used Ken's Ark Park as the backdrop for a piece of QAnon promotion. This promotion video is hosted by a Christian conspiracy theorist called Trey Smith. The video title along with its explanatory blurb reads as follows:

The COMING STORM: a Donald J Trump documentary inside Noah's Ark

The "Coming Storm" is a talk on the subject of Donald J. Trump affront "Noah's Ark" in Kentucky with documentary maker Trey Smith.

This documentary / video is a talk with Trey Smith about the prophecies of Donald J. Trump, 2020, and the election.

The documentary takes place at the Ark Encounter" replica of Noah's Ark in Kentucky by Ken Hamm.

The "Storm" is a QAnon concept: According to the QAnon fantasists "The Storm" is the day when the evil-other (That is, what they lump together as the "left-wing" in the Media and government) are rounded up and imprisoned for their crimes of mass paedophilia (Yes it's that far fetched!).  Prophecies were made to the effect that Trump would win a second term and the explanation of why Trump isn't in power now is that the election was "stolen" and that Biden is an illegitimate president.  That these conspiracy theorists can paint such an evil picture of their antagonists makes some of them dangerous; some of them will kill to get their way and believe it's justified.

Because the backdrop of Trey's video is Ken's Ark Park baby I think we can safely infer that in the absence of an explicit condemnation of QAnon fantasies, Ken is sending out implicit signals of support to the QAnon believing community. Like Donald Trump, Ken has a cynical eye on the patronage of his constituency.  Atheist PZ Myers points out in one of his blog posts that it is significant that Ken has recently added "paedophilia" to Answers in Genesis' polarised evil-other vision of secularism. This looks suspiciously like a signal to the QAnon fantasists that Ken's organisation is sympathetic to the QAnon cause, a cause which revolves around a fantasised paedophilia ring. After all, Ken needs their patronage. 


* Footnote:

If the possibility of fundamentalist dominionists being at the head of a Western dictatorship seems farfetched let’s recall that many American Christian fundamentalists are closely linked to Donald Trump the man who:

a) Vowed to “drain the swamp” of America’s well established democratic government,

b) Attempted to by-pass established democratic institutions and set up his alternatives,

c) Hobnobbed with professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and gave credence to the QAnon theorists,

d) Seeded the democratic debate with conspiracy theories,

e) Arguably helped provoke the attack on Capitol Hill,

f) Emboldened race supremacists & fascists, (cf. the Charlottesville rally)

g) Had a rapport with dictators like Russia’s Putin (etc) 

h) Attempted to intimidate a republican election official into falsifying the vote count 

i) Had an adviser whosuggested imposing Trump’s view of the election using military force.  


ADDENDUM 09/09/2021

In an address that can be seen here Steve Bannon, one of Trumps pardoned side kicks uses language that almost sounds as if he wants the 2024 US election to be the inauguration of a new dictatorship: He talks of 20k shock troops on standby ready to take over a country they effectively already control.....

If you’re going to take over the administrative state and deconstruct it, then you have to have shock troops prepared to take it over immediately .....pre-trained teams ready to jump into federal agencies.... .We’re winning big in 2024 and we need to get ready now.......We control the country. We’ve got to start acting like it. And one way we’re going to act like it, we’re not going to have 4,000 (shock troops) ready to go, we’re going to have 20,000 ready to go and we’re going to pick the 4,000 best and most ready in every single department.

Perhaps it's all just metaphorical election talk. I hope it is, but do people like Bannon talk in metaphors?  If the far-right win the 2024 election would they ever again concede an electoral defeat if they think of themselves as controlling the country? Having crawled over the back of Trump could Bannon one day call himself "president"?



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