The Promise is a passion play about Jesus Christ that, most currently, has leased, for $12 a year, the Texas Amphitheater that is in Glen Rose Texas. For some reason, the board decided to ask, of all people, Jonathan Stickland to be board president, probably because he cosplays as a Jew in the play. I find it hard to believe that the people on the board did not know of Stickland’s notorious association with Nick Fuentes, an avowed Nazi; the Texas Republican party sure knew about it and, in a first draft of a resolution about anti-semitism, censured Stickland by name. Not only does the Promise have Stickland as board president but also a figurehead in negotiating to try to buy the Texas Amphitheatre from Somervell County for a paltry, way-under-value bid of $140,000. (Stickland was not at the latest meeting of Somervell County Commisssioners Court in which the bid was discussed, apparently he was on a cruise) The horrifying thing is that even if Stickland were not board president, he cosplays a Jew in the Promise play-no standards for the Promise? At all?
Here’s what House Speaker Dade Phelan said about the hosting of Fuentes at Stickland’s office building for almost 7 hours.
“This [is] not just a casual misstep,” Phelan said in a statement. “It’s indicative of the moral, political rot that has been festering in a certain segment of our party for far too long. Anti-Semitism, bigotry and Hitler apologists should find no sanctuary in the Republican Party. Period. We cannot – and must not – tolerate the tacit endorsement of such vile ideologies.”
Phelan invoked the Hamas attack while pointing out Fuentes’ history of being a “Nazi sympathizer.” Fuentes has praised Hitler, called for “holy war” against Jews and said that “all I want is revenge against my enemies and a total Aryan victory.”
Stickland has never publicly explained why Fuentes was at his consulting company office and “did not respond to questions Sunday or Monday”. And Stickland’s PAC he had at the time (He started West Fort Worth Management after that) had other hateful anti-semites working for him.
While Fuentes’ unapologetic hate mongering has made him perhaps the nation’s best-known white supremacist, he was merely the latest in a line of people who have been embraced by Defend Texas Liberty and its close allies despite publicly espousing antisemitic views or partnering with extremists. That includes, among others, Ella Maulding, a social media coordinator for Stickland’s consulting firm who has praised Fuentes as the “greatest civil rights leader in history”; and Shelby Griesinger, the treasurer for Defend Texas Liberty who has claimed on social media that Jews worship a false god and shared memes that depict them as the enemy of Republicans.
This seemingly casual acceptance of choosing to give Stickland a visible and leading role in running The Promise calls into question any so-called “christian” values this organization has. At least, unless The Promise condones anti-semitism and overlooks Nazis. Looking for a bit about Nick Fuentes, whose appearance at Stickland’s consulting group Pale Horse, was not vigorously explained by Stickland. Interesting that Fuentes calls himself a “Christian Conservative” -do the *christians* at the Promise embrace Nazi-ism? So does Stickland in the “About” page of his West Fort Worth Management LLC-looks like the “Christian Conservatives” sect includes white supremacists and Nazi ideas.
Fuentes attempts to mainstream his extreme ideology by aligning himself with “Christianity” and “traditional” values. In a November 26, 2022, livestream, Fuentes said, “My overriding belief…is that God is real, Jesus Christ is God, and yet the country is run by people that don’t believe this, and don’t live by this. And we’ve talked about who they are, they are largely Jewish…We’ve got to save our country, tell the truth, and have Christian leadership.” Fuentes previously asserted that even though adherents of the America First movement are “sheep among the wolves and the snakes,” they will ultimately prevail as they “have the protection of God and Jesus.”
Who is Nick Fuentes?
According to the Texas Tribune,
- Fuentes often praises Adolf Hitler
- Questions whether the Holocaust even ever happened
- Called for a holy war against Jews
- Compare the 6 million killed by the Nazis to cookies being baked in an oven
- Wants the US under authoritarian rule
- Disdains women, Muslim, the LGBTQ community
- Wants a total Aryan victory against his enemies, ie for white supremacy
- Such a loathsome person is also apparently embraced by the Republican party.
- Attended the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesillve
- Attended the Stop the Steal Rally.
- Trump had dinner with Kanye West and West brought Fuentes along to Mar-A-Lago. EVEN WEST deleted his tweets a week later about Fuentes. And even Trump disavowed knowing Fuentes.
Don’t know how many of the Promise people are also Republicans and endorse statements from Donald Trump such as this “Hitler did some good things”. Or a video on Trump’s page on Truth Social that implied the US could become a “unified Reich”.
Do the *christians* of the Promise believe that anyone who does not share their same sectarian view of christianity should be killed? How about, in a democracy, about people who do not support ex- President Trump-should they be murdered? Or people that are not christian or any religion at all, or those who do not share their views from the bible? Are *christian conservatives” holocaust-deniers?
People of good moral and ethical values should be repulsed by all this.
P.S. In case there are people that somehow want to defend Nazis At 10, I fled the Nazis to live starving and alone in the woods. For two years, detection meant death
One day a notice was given for all Jewish men aged 18-50 to register for labour. Smart’s father was ordered to the town square along with 350 others. His father told him he’d be right back. On the square, the men were separated into two groups: one for professional workers (doctors, lawyers, teachers); one for skilled tradesmen. The professionals, including Smart’s father, were taken to a nearby hill and shot. Smart did not find this out until many years later.
The families were told that their men would be released if they relinquished their assets. “I remember my mother went to borrow money to pay them off,” he says. “It was all just a story. They were already dead. They collected the money but I never saw my father again.”
Buczacz’s Jewish community was moved into a ghetto and forced into labour. On one trip home from shovelling wheat, Smart and dozens of others were taken away in trucks by armed guards. They were stripped and imprisoned for three days. “I remember being in jail without food, without water. I was creative: I took off my shoe, I pushed it out through the window to catch snow in the shoe to have some water. Everybody shared it.”
