MAGA Grifters Strike The Mother Lode From Peddling Trump Support
To understand the power of MAGA, follow the money and the grifter’s road usually leads back to Texas.
How about a 14-inch version of the “National Monument to the Forefathers Replica” for just $235 or a “SIGNED Kryptek Camo Cap for only $365 (the ad does not say who SIGNED the caps). Or a “Biblical Citizenship ‘Home Class in a Box’ (Thumb Drive)” formerly $206.97 and now just $129.97. Or a “Socialism Is Bad, Very Very Bad” T-Shirt for the paltry sum of $20.
This assortment of money-making merch and many, many more priceless items are available through the Patriot Academy, one of many cottage industries that have been spawned by the trump conflagration.
Patriots Academy is a Texas-based program for young adults “to learn about America’s system of government from a Biblical worldview.” It is led by former Rep. Rick Green, R-Texas, described by Rightwingwatch as a “Chuck-Norris-approved-Alan-Keyes-supported- WallBuilders’-pseudo-historian-TEA-Party-Religious-Right-activist.”
Among those listed as endorsing the Patriot Academy is the far right, former Republican Texas congressman, Louie Gohmert. During his less than spectacular years in congress, Gohmert compared homosexuality to bestiality, compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, said Hillary Clinton was “mentally challenged,” speculated mask wearing caused his contraction of COVID-19, grieved over the arrest of January 6 rioters, and said cancelling a television show with homophobic comments was comparable to Nazism.
Another trump leach is Brendan Dilley, a QAnon devotee followed by tens of thousands of believers. Dilley and his “Dilley Meme Team” are behind the “God Made Trump” video that has caught fire in the MAGA world and has been shared by trump on his Truth Social account; and by numerous far right activists, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.; conspiracist Laura Loomer; and by trump’s spiritual advisor, Paula White-Cain, a televangelist proponent of prosperity theology.
Another sure-fire money maker, at least for its founder, Steve Elliott, is the Grassfire organization which promises “President Donald J. Trump’s impact on politics and culture will last decades” and that “No matter what radical Democrats, NeverTrump RINOs, the Unhinged Left, the Woke Mob and FAKE NEWS do to him, Donald J. Trump is NOT going away.”
Elliott is plugging his book with the nightmarish title “21 Years of Trump, How Trump’s hegemony over America is far from over and will reshape our country.” In trumpian fashion and the great huckster’s style, MAGA believers can get two copies of the book absolutely for free, with a $30 contribution to Grassfire.
The uneducated bigots who support trump are bad but they pale before the educated, greedy hate mongers who know better and then repeat the lies in order to make huge profits.
Green created the Patriot Academy in 2003. A sampling of Patriot Academy merch includes a Patriot Academy Christmas Ornament emblazoned with “May you never lose your Character” is $15. The Founders’ Bible is only $79.99. A Constitution Training Bundle goes for $282. A bundle of the Biblical Citizenship DVD Set & Thumb Drive was $159.94 and has been reduced to $119.95. Green’s “Constitution Alive Class Workbook (Spiral Bound)” is now just $20. A 10 pack of “Pocket Principles” is appropriately, $17.76 or get a 50-pack for $75. A pack of 100 Patriot Academy Bookmarks goes for $10. And don’t forget Green’s “Defending The Constitution — Without Shooting Someone!” (DVD) for $20. A “Comedy & Constitution” DVD, by Green and Brad Stein, costs $9.97. And there is much, much more.
The Patriot Academy, located between Fredericksburg and Comfort, Texas., offers programs on how to “restore our Constitutional Republic and the Biblical principles that caused a Nation to thrive.”
The promo says that Patriot Academy has a “bold mission: to equip and educate a generation of citizen leaders to champion the cause of freedom and truth in every sector of society, as we help restore our Constitutional Republic and the Biblical principles that cause a Nation to thrive.”
In addition to various classes and programs, members can learn all about guns and shooting with a Biblical worldview, for just $100 a day at the Patriot Academy. Organizations can book Green’s “Comedy and the Constitution” tour for $3,000 plus the cost of Green’s and evangelical comedian Brad Stein’s travel costs and accommodations. Volunteers will have to be organized to help sell the merch and educational materials and the churches will be required to promote the event during services and on local Christian radio stations.
Green is a former Texas state representative. He also lost a 2016 bid for a seat on the Texas Supreme Court.
As a lawyer in private practice, Green won parole for a convicted Ponzi schemer named Melvin Cox who had stolen tens of millions of dollars from investors. Cox used some of the money to lend $400,000 to a business owned by Green’s family called Krestmont International, which among other things sold diet supplements. Green said that he helped Cox because he was a family friend.
During the legislative session, Green invited lobbyists and others to purchase tickets at a fundraiser in support of a foundation he started. The Texas Election Code bars officeholders from accepting contributions from anyone during the legislative session.
Green also was in an infomercial for a Maine-based company offering a diet supplement called “Focus Factor.” The ad was partly shot in his office in the Texas Capitol. “Focus Factor” offered viewers a “supercharged brain.”
Dilley Meme Team
Dilley, a QAnon devotee, and his “Dilley Meme Team” are behind the “God Made Trump” video that has caught fire in the MAGA world and has been shared by trump on his Truth Social account; and by numerous far right activists, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.; Laura Loomer; and by trump’s spiritual advisor, Paula White-Cain, a televangelist proponent of prosperity theology.
The message of the video, a blasphemous attempt to win support of the evangelicals, is that God personally made trump as a gift to America.
“On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God gave us Trump,” the narrator says. “God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, fix this country, work all day, fight the Marxists, eat supper, then go to the Oval Office and stay up past midnight at a meeting of the heads of state.’ So God made Trump.”
The bizarre messianic video, created with artificial intelligence, is a veiled, parody of radio legend Paul Harvey’s “So God made a farmer” speech that Harvey gave at the 1978 Future Farmers of America convention. The voice over sounds like Harvey who died in 2009 and was known for ending his broadcasts with “Only now you know … the rest of the story.”
The video calls trump “a shepherd to mankind” while claiming that trump “finish[es] a hard week’s work by attending church on Sunday.” Factually, trump never joined a church in Washington, D.C., and was known to spend an inordinate time on the golf links rather than behind a desk at the White House.
Trump posted the God video on the morning of Jan. 5, 2024, a day before the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by trump supporters who were trying to force congress to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election results. Greene and Loomer shared the video on X on Jan. 6.
The video prompted an outcry from many in the non-evangelical community and in response, Dilley posted a meme depicting Trump as Moses parting the Red Sea on his You Tube show, The Dilley Show.
The Dilley Meme Team troll army, led by Dilley, is a collective of video producers who call themselves “Trump’s Online War Machine.” Dilley claims to be a Christian man of faith but admits that he has never read the Bible and does not attend church. Another member of the meme team is musician Michael Beatty who has recorded several albums of original Christian songs.
Dilley, who says he is a life coach and has a popular MAGA radio show, has frequently referred to trump as being close to divine. After the president came down with COVID-19 in October 2020, Dilley said on his radio show that trump would be fine because he was blessed with “god-tier genetics.”
Dilley ran as a Republican MAGA candidate in a 2018 special election to the Congress to represent Arizona’s 8th Congressional District. He lost by a wide margin. He lives north of Atlanta, Ga., and said he has visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort three times in the past year and has posed many times with trump and has consulted with trump’s advisers.
Right Wing Watch described Dilley as “overtly racist, unapologetically misogynistic” and “gleefully amoral.” In 2020, Dilley said he had no concerns about being factual and made up claims to further the trump agenda.
“My objective is to destroy Democrats, OK? To destroy liberals, liberalism as an idea, Democrats, and anything that opposes President Trump. That’s my goal. I’ve never made any bones about that,” Dilley said. In 2019, Dilley explained how he attacks trump’s enemies and said, “it doesn’t have to be true; it just has to go viral.”
“There is no room for mercy,” Dilley said. “I want to win and I won’t consider it total victory without destroying our enemies.”
After trump lost in 2020, Dilley said the ex-president had not been “nearly as authoritarian as we hoped he would be” during his term in office.
Dilley makes money from advertising on his You Tube site as well as the MAGA merch, including the Dilley 300 Classic Tee for $39. A Dilley “Meme Team Retro Tee” with the slogan “Trump’s On Line War Machine” also sells for $39. And then there is Dilley’s self-published book, titled, in trumpian all caps, “STILL BREATHIN’ THE WISDOM & TEACHINGS of a PERFECTLY FLAWED MAN.” Available on Amazon for $13.95, the book claims to be “a thought-provoking book that not only will entertain, offend and inspire, but promises to make even the most open minded reader blush while exploring the depths of human behavior and sexuality.”
Steve Elliott
Elliott, the founder of the far right, trump idolizing organization, Grassfire, based in Chesapeake, Va., has a new book out. The nightmarish title is “21 Years of Trump, How Trump’s hegemony over America is far from over and will reshape our country.”
In fine trumpian style, the book notes that for a $30 contribution to Grassfire, MAGA believers can get two copies for free. A contribution of $25 or more also will entitle the donor to a 3-foot x 5-foot “TRUMP 2024” flag. Contributions of $50 or more will include “THREE” pro-Trump, pro-America banners.
“Donald Trump is the most misunderstood public leader since Ronald Reagan,” the book preface reads. “They didn’t take his candidacy seriously… until he won. They gave him no hope as a president… until he learned. They illegally investigated him, conspired against him, impeached him twice and now drag him to court. They report on his imminent demise on a daily basis, yet he strikes back and gains the advantage. And every day, he continues to cast a dominating shadow over the American political landscape.”
Grassfire claims it has partnered with millions of citizens on various far right issues. The organization “helped save the Scouts (before they later walked away from their principles)”; it fought illegal immigration when it “rallied hundreds of thousands of citizens for our ‘Stop The Invasion’ campaign that saw huge billboards and TV spots extend from coast to coast”; and it battled against Obamacare and “stood strong for liberty and limited government.”
Monthly contributors can become a Grassfire VIP and be entitled to “VIP News Briefings” about everything trump.
In beseeching donations, Grassfire posts a “P.S. We don’t have a Rolodex of deep-pocket donors, angel investors or wealthy benefactors underwriting our grassroots efforts. Grassfire relies on the generosity of team members, like you, to help us REPORT TRUTH that empowers you to TAKE ACTION.”
Another arm of Grassfire is LibertyNews, which is offered to contributors and posts videos largely from Fox News. One recent video was by ultra-conservative Fox commentator Greg Gutfield, who ridiculed Democrats and the left on a segment titled “Trump is sending Dems into an existential panic.”
LibertyNews subscribers reacted predictably.
@charlesbutterfield3464 posted, “President Trump is the only candidate who has demonstrated the willingness and ability to clean out the corruption in Washington DC.” (The writer apparently is ignorant to the fact that trump faces a total of 91 charges across four criminal cases. They include 44 federal charges and 47 state charges, all of them felonies. And at least 11 former trump officials have been charged with various crimes.)
@josiahgibbs5697 posted, “We had Donald Trump before and it WASN’T the end of democracy. It is amazing how stupid they think we are that somehow a second term would be the end of democracy.” (The writer may not be aware that trump said he would be a dictator, at least on his first day in office.)
And then there was the nonsensical comment from @utualan, who posted, “Trump merely joked he would be a dictator for one day and explained his intended helpful common-sense actions.”
@newenglandsun4394 observed that “Trump is literally the only politician who has 100 percent supported LGBT issues from the beginning of his taking Office.” (There were no trump tweets honoring Pride Month and trump rolled back an Obama regulation that mandated health care as a civil right for transgender patients under the Affordable Care Act, among other anti-LGBTQ measures.)
Grassfire is not above praying for donations through its “Let’s Pray America Great Again” campaign.
The Grassfire campaign is explained next to a copy of a painting of George Washington praying, head down, with his horse.
“Our borders are gone. Our cities are decimated. Our families are being crushed by rising inflation and the shrinking economy. Our government is bankrupt. We can’t even tell the difference between boys and girls,” notes the campaign statement. “We’ve talked about building back better. We’ve been trying to make America great again. Isn’t it time to PRAY America great again?”
“We hope hundreds of thousands will make PRAY AMERICA a movement this year. But we’ll take a Gideon’s Army who believe that politics won’t decide our fate, but prayer will,” the statement says, instructing followers to “Simply complete this form to join the PRAYER TEAM FOR AMERICA in 2024. We’ll connect you with prayer resources and other praying Americans in this critical year.”
Any amount of tax deductible donations are accepted, from $30 to $2,500, one time or monthly. Donors also will receive four “Pray America” re-stickers.