Eric Metaxas, a right-wing author who has tumbled ever-deeper into Trumpism and stolen election conspiracy theories, complained on his radio show Tuesday that he and his sponsor, MyPillow guy Mike Lindell, are the victims of a “wicked” cancel culture that Metaxas claimed “really is like what happened in Germany in the ‘30s.”
Lindell became a major funder of right-wing media during the Trump administration and has heavily promoted conspiracy theories about Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. He sponsors “The Eric Metaxas Radio Show” as well as the Right Side Broadcasting Network, which livestreamed Trump rallies and so-called Stop the Steal events. On a show posted Monday, Metaxas called Lindell “an American hero.”
Metaxas griped that he is losing sponsors and that YouTube took down a video of the Monday show on which the two of them talked about widely debunked conspiracy theories that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump. On that video, Lindell claimed that Trump won by millions of votes and that “China and other countries chose our president and many down-ticket people, too, including the two runoff Senate races in Georgia.”
Metaxas also noted that two large retail outlets, Kohl’s and Bed, Bath and Beyond, recently announced they would no longer carry Lindell’s products, a development that Metaxas called “despicable” and “absolutely chilling.” He urged his listeners never to shop at those stores again.
Metaxas also complained that he has heard from some old friends who say they can no longer be friends with him. Metaxas blamed the media for saying that he assaulted someone—he did in fact punch a protester, an event he downplays, saying, “I think I flailed at someone in self-defense”—and that he has been “spreading lies or incendiary untruths or whatever”—which he has.
He said a friend had called his father and urged him to tell his son to go on the radio and tell people not to be violent. “As if I would ever tell people to be violent,” Metaxas protested. “It’s sickening.”
Metaxas acted as if the very idea that he would promote violence was preposterous:
But the point is, that the fact that I would have to say that I'm against violence or whatever, this is where we are. Like, the loons, the QAnon loons that were in the U.S. Capitol, they were obviously, like, loony. I mean, I can't know what to say. But the thought that I would be with those folks, with the dude with the horns and the stuff … It's madness, folks. There are 80 million people that voted for this president, many of whom are devout Christians. And the last thing they would ever do is be violent. These are family people.
(Trump received 74 million votes, but the claim that Trump got 80 million votes appears to be treated as an established "fact" in MAGA world.)
For the record, Metaxas was the emcee of a major “Stop the Steal” protest on the National Mall in December that was billed as a prayer rally but featured violent and extreme rhetoric. One speaker, the Oath Keepers’ Stewart Rhodes, demanded that if Trump did not use his powers as commander in chief to stay in power, right-wing militia groups would have to wage a “much more bloody war.”
Metaxas did not appear to find Rhodes’ threats of violence sickening; indeed, he responded with a “God bless you” and told the crowd that Rhodes was “keepin’ it real, folks.” Afterwards, rally sponsor Jericho March featured a video of Rhodes’ remarks on its website.
Metaxas has not seemed very troubled about the deadly violence at the Capitol either, portraying it as much less important than what he insists was a stolen election. He said he believed anti-fascist activists were responsible for the violence but that even if they were Trump supporters, “So what?”
In his conversation with Lindell this week, two days before Biden’s inauguration, Metaxas insisted that Trump had the power and “an historic obligation” to act on the “evidence” Lindell recently delivered to him at the White House. “He must do something about this,” Metaxas said. “I don’t know what he’s going to do, but if he’s worried about riots, I mean, what a joke! What are riots compared to the end of the United States of America?”
Another sign of how far Metaxas has traveled into far-right territory was his claim that Fox News, with the exception of a few “heroes,” is “just parroting the party line.” He added, “And by party line, I don’t only mean the Chinese Communist Party line, I also mean the Republican Party line as put forward by anti-heroes like Mitch McConnell.”
