Steve Turley, a religious-right author and podcaster who celebrates the rise of right-wing nationalism and authoritarian leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, devoted the latest episode of his podcast to mocking the inauguration of President Joe Biden as “pathetic” and “embarrassing.” Turley called Biden’s inauguration an “abject disaster” and touted Steve Bannon’s prediction that former President Donald Trump will be elected again in 2024.
“Nobody showed up,” Turley said, describing the "optics" of no crowd on the National Mall as “humiliating.” Turley claimed that the Biden camp “blamed it on COVID" to explain away the new president's inability to draw a crowd. Turley failed to mention that the National Mall was in fact completely closed to the public due to security restrictions imposed after the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Turley said that the number of people viewing Trump’s farewell speech far exceeded those watching Biden’s inaugural address, which he claimed “no one on earth gave a crap about.” In fact, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Biden-Harris inauguration was “watched by more than 30 million TV viewers Wednesday and will likely top the average for Donald Trump’s ceremony in 2017, according to early Nielsen data.” The Times reported that for CNN it was “the most-watched inauguration ceremony in the network’s 40-year history.”
Early in Trump’s term, Turley argued that Trump’s “redemptive” presidency was a sign that “the political influence of the Religious Right is just beginning.” In March 2019, he published a podcast episode titled “WHITES Projected to Become Dominant SUPERMAJORITY in U.S.” in which he disparaged “the current multicultural insanity that’s unleashed a virulent and pernicious cultural Marxism upon our nation” and predicted “the restoration of a distinctively American culture, custom and tradition that will continue to define our nation for generations to come.”
At the World Congress of Families global summit in Verona, Italy, in 2019, Turley said that religious conservatives will swamp secularists because they have far more children, predicting that America’s future will be “evangelical, Mormon, and Amish.” In his book, “The Return of Christendom: Demography, Politics, and the Coming Christian Majority,” he argued that “we are actually seeing nothing less than a conservative Christian resurgence in our demographics and politics that promises not suicide but rather the salvation of the West.”
Turley’s high-energy fulminating has its fans. His video, “A New Conservative Age is Rising!” has been viewed nearly 400,000 times. His YouTube channel shows almost 750,000 subscribers, though he announced on his podcast this week that he has shifted to the Rumble platform after some of his recent videos were taken down by YouTube.
Like many of the “prophets” who predicted Trump’s victory well after the election, Turley provided his listeners with a steady stream of assurances that Trump would win, even after the votes were counted and it became clear that Trump had in fact lost.
Here is a sampling of Turley podcast episode titles:
- Nov. 10: “WE WILL WIN’ as Coming REVELATIONS May SHOCK THE WORLD!!!”
- Nov. 13: “MI and PA on VERGE of FLIPPING to TRUMP as Pundit Warns ‘Things are About to EXPLODE’!!!”
- Nov. 19: “BIDEN LOST! Michigan Electors REFUSE to Certify Vote as TRUMP on PATH to VICTORY!!!”
- Nov. 23: “Sidney Powell Reveals EPIC Lawsuit Coming! ‘IT WILL BE BIBLICAL’!!!”
- Nov. 27: “The TIDE HAS TURNED! Biden Vote FRAUD is About to IMPLODE!!!”
- Dec. 23: “BREAKING! Vice President Pence Poised to REJECT Biden’s Electors!!!”
Since Biden’s swearing in, Turley has touted reports that Trump is considering starting a third party, the Patriot Party.
