On September 29, Bannon appeared at the Capitol Hill Club—a Republican club on the House side of the Capitol—for the launch of a new organization, the Association of Republican Presidential Appointees, founded to prepare future appointees “to optimize their tenure and ability to advance public policy goals.” In an interview afterwards with NBC, Bannon described his comments as, “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.” He would double down on that sentiment on his podcast on October 4, saying “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.” To use this kind of martial rhetoric in describing an intention to impose reports on the American federal government is troublingly fascistic.

The following weekend, Bannon attended the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival, as he has annually for several years. He has fostered connections among conservative and evangelical Christian audiences for more than a decade, and now seems to be preparing to exploit those relationships in a variety of ways. Bannon’s address to the group contained all of the half-truths, gross exaggerations, invented evidence, and irrational interpretations endemic to today’s MAGA-populist GOP. What is new is his insistence, based on an existing conflation between revolutionary clergy and modern Christian conservatives, that religious leaders should advocate the rejection of President Biden and his 2020 election victory as an act of piety among their followers. Religious leaders at the festival were already well versed in an interpretation of the American Revolution that positions themselves as its heirs and sole beneficiaries, but it is hard to think of a time—other than during the Civil War—when clergy have been so publicly advised by a national political actor to advocate open insurrectionism against the U.S. government and our system of elections. Paired with the self-interest of these organizations, which see affiliation with national figures like Bannon as providing exposure for themselves, this development ought to be regarded with real alarm—especially among members of those faith traditions. At best, their beliefs are being exploited by cynical men like Bannon and Trump, who want to use them as a voting bloc. At worst, these groups’ beliefs could be manipulated by leaders they respect and by genuine fears they harbor to provoke otherwise law-abiding American citizens into acts of violence and treason. Bannon is suggesting that Christians must choose between loyalty to their country and loyalty to their political allies.