Episode 204: The Reawakening Tour feat Sam Kestenbaum
Once a DJ, Oral Roberts University misfit and entrepreneur mindset guru, Clay Clark has become the organizer of a far-right, religious, QAnon-baiting live show with headliners like Michael Flynn and the Trump sons. Sam Kestenbaum, who wrote a piece about it for Rolling Stone, joins us to discuss this traveling gong show.
Tickets to our tour: http://tour.qanonanonymous.com
Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to the full Trickle Down 10-part miniseries and all upcoming extra series: http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous
Sam Kestenbaum: https://twitter.com/skestenbaum / https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/clay-clark-reawaken-america-maga-tour-trump-1234594574/
New Merch: http://merch.qanonanonymous.com
Music by Pontus Berghe. Editing by Corey Klotz.
Welcome, listener, to Chapter 204 of the QAnon Anonymous Podcast, the Reawaken America Tour episode.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rokitansky, Julian Field, and Travis View.
This week, we are going to be discussing a very strange and jocular man named Clay Clark and his Reawaken America Tour that has included a who's who of MAGA and religious grifters.
To dive deeper into this, we have a guest.
His name is Sam Kestenbaum, and he recently wrote a fantastic article for Rolling Stone on this exact topic.
But before that, QAnon News.
So there's been a lot of articles recently published about Trump embracing QAnon.
This is partly due to the fact that Trump is continually amplifying QAnon accounts and QAnon content on his social media platform Truth Social, and this is partly because he played a QAnon-connected song at his recent rally in Ohio.
Specifically, he played an instrumental track called WWG1WGA by an artist that goes by the name of Richard Feelgood.
Yeah, well, I feel good when I hear it.
Especially when the vocal track on it is just some guy ranting about the decadent nation and how it needs to be cleansed with fire.
Yeah, very disturbing stuff.
Now, Trump previously used the same track for a video posted on True Social in early August.
A track he's used a few times now.
But one thing I do want to say is that it's not a new development of Trump embracing QAnon.
This is something that he's been doing for years.
In 2019, when he still had his Twitter account, he retweeted QAnon accounts hundreds of times.
In 2019, he retweeted Lisa May Crowley, who was a huge QAnon promoter.
In 2020, he retweeted Praying Medic, who was one of the biggest QAnon promoters.
However, I've never seen him retweet himself with a Q-Pin with The Storm is Coming and Where We Go When We Go All in one photo.
That's a fun new development.
Can't we celebrate?
But it's just a continuation of the old development.
It's not like straight coming out of nowhere.
See this is the problem.
Travis's poor mind.
It's like been four years and so now he's like he's like a perennial hipster.
He's like no okay I was fucking this shit was happening before man.
No but like look I mean we've talked about this before it's like this is this is all he has left really.
It's kind of all he's ever had, because before he used to also do this.
This is just how he rolls!
He's not desperate!
The walls are not closing in!
He's fucking thriving!
He's doing great!
He's being his best self!
Yeah, it's like, he's like, well, you know, pussyfooting around it, you know, didn't work so, you know... No, he doesn't care that much!
He was like, but let's, I wonder what would happen if I directly... He doesn't even remotely care that much.
He opens phone, see picture him, press.
He doesn't give a shit.
People are like, Mr. Trump, don't you think that, you know, that the QAnon people, they're a little bit, you know, they could be a little bit dangerous to optics.
He's like, yeah, they love me.
Who cares?
So during the Ohio rally, many people noticed the unusual sight of the crowd pointing their finger upwards and towards the direction of Trump while Trump spoke over the where we go when we go all track.
Again, we have to bake something that's like, basically, Big Beautiful Man, love you!
Love you!
Love you so much!
I had, though, I had, like, reporters hit me up.
It's like, what does this mean?
It's like, I don't fucking know, man.
So I've never, that is not a QAnon thing, at least not prior to this.
They're all communally saying, sex would be more interesting if you just slipped a little finger.
No, I don't think so.
When I saw the video, it looked like a religious service.
I thought the same thing.
That's the most sensible interpretation to me.
It's like people, they're feeling the spirit of Trump, you know, and they're just pointing towards the sky in sort of approval of what they were saying.
Man, I like!
Happy man!
Big point!
Here's my conspiracy about it.
You know, at a religious service, you put your hand up like this.
There's no number one finger.
And I think maybe some Trump supporters are maybe particularly self-conscious about raising one hand in the air, you know, at a 45 degree angle.
No.
So the number one... They don't care.
You know, so the number one maybe is kind of like this.
This is going to differentiate this from...
You have a classic case of Libbrain where you're processing their beliefs.
Man love, lift, happy.
You're processing it through like, they know what they're doing.
These shifty Nazis are aware that they look like Nazis.
No!
They're like shocked that anyone would be like, you're a fascist.
I think most Trump supporters are genuinely like, what are you fucking talking about?
They're not like going, well, how much of my power level can I show today?
Yeah, that's true.
No, they just—good man, sent by God, happy.
No, they just think that.
This guy's gonna make America thriving and good and prosperous again.
Their thinking doesn't go beyond that.
They're not fucking reading fucking Hannah Arendt!
Like, they're not fucking— Now, an enduring question has been, how does Trump himself feel about QAnon?
And why is he so willing to encourage the movement?
You know, we speculate about why that is, but fortunately, a recent Rolling Stone report gave us some insight into how Trump feels about all this by quoting some anonymous sources close to Trump.
One person close to Trump was quoted as saying this of Trump's embrace of QAnon.
He said that he thinks some of their memes and images are fanny.
He also sometimes mentions that it's hilarious to make people like you in the media so mad when you see him touch the Q shit.
But to be fair, he says that they're some of his biggest fans, which, you know, is his thing.
Yes, this is exactly what I was saying.
This is exactly what I was saying.
It's so simple.
Funny.
Also makes me the man.
It's funny, it makes the media mad, and they like me.
Win-win-win.
It makes me look really cool.
Triple threat, triple threat.
Makes a man likes me funny.
Another source intimately familiar with the matter relays that Trump has claimed to some people, as recently as this summer, that he thinks many of these conspiracy theorists and online posters are simply misunderstood, and that the news media enjoys lumping them in with wacky types just because, in Trump's words, They love Trump!
Right.
I hate to lump in QAnon believers in with wacky types.
No, he's touching on something that's borderline interesting and real, that the term conspiracy theory is used unfairly to kind of placate anybody who dares to kind of question the official, often government, line or the line of the intelligence agencies.
This is a fair argument.
But that's not... No.
That's not what he's saying.
No, it's not.
But he's just... It's Trump.
So he just takes the thing that's true and another thing, he just moves it over, copy-paste, done.
Fake news.
You're fake news, actually.
Not me.
I'm not fake news.
You're fake news, Donald.
He's just saying, oh, they love Trump, so they're being very unfair.
They're being very nasty towards my people.
But for him, he's like, listen.
They're unfairly lumping in the QAnon people who love me in with these whack jobs who think maybe Saudi Arabia had something to do with 9-11, or that the JFK assassination is extremely sus.
The weird people, you know?
Of course, not the people who believe that JFK's son, JFK Jr., is alive and well and selling hats outside of my rallies.
Those are smart people, and they shouldn't be lumped in with these other wackos.
One former White House official recalls that during his presidency, Trump would sometimes compliment his Q-pilled followers for having the right idea when it came to adoring Trump and the MAGA movement.
You've got the right idea, loving me.
And loathing the deep state and its enemies like Hillary Clinton and James Comey.
Okay, well she's like for like a smidgen of a sentence there.
Loathing the deep state... This former official says that they mentioned to Trump that QAnon was nuttier than merely being pro-MAGA and that featured tall tales of pedo-controlled Hollywood and the Democratic Party.
According to this source... Don't use the only real thing!
According to the source, he says, quote, I do not remember his exact words, but Trump's response was along the lines of, there are plenty of bad and sick people in Hollywood and among the liberal elite.
So this is I mean, this is basically what QAnon people do.
It's like, well, you know, the Harvey Weinstein thing is true.
He was a Hollywood sicko.
Ergo, they torture children for their adrenochrome.
Yeah, no.
Instead it's just, gotta suck a dick to get ahead.
And they're organizing sex parties with young actors.
Sure.
And a lot of them are, you know, sometimes they're locking women into rooms and torturing them.
Not drinking the blood of Christian babies!
Right.
This is the thing that, honestly, this is something that Steve Bannon said at QAnon.
It's like, well, it's directionally correct, which I fucking hate because it's like... You hate him because he's right.
No, no, because it's like, it's like any conspiracy theory.
It's like, it's like if it premises the idea that, you know, people in positions of power are corrupt is, you know, that has a grain of truth.
But you know that... You're onto something, Travis.
Develop that further.
Well, yes, but... That is a good point.
Because the recognition of corruption at high levels leads people to absurd conclusions.
That actually lets corrupt people at the high levels off the hook.
I agree.
It's a perverted and distorted version of an impulse that starts from a kind of correct, let's say, hunch.
Like a feeling that you're getting screwed by a shadowy room of assholes.
And then you're like, tacking on a bunch of bullshit.
Yeah, absolutely.
Totally.
But that's why I have to... No, I'm not gonna give it to Bannon.
But the directionally correct thing, although it's infuriating, it has an aspect of it that is true.
Yeah, I hate this bullshit, because the lizard person conspiracy theory has a grain of truth.
Does it?
No!
What do you mean?
You really think the elites are so alien to our lives because they live in such privilege that they can't possibly understand what it's like to live as a working class?
You don't think they actually feed off of our energy?
You don't think that?
You don't think there's an element of reality there?
Okay, maybe they're not literally aliens.
Well, yeah, but they are alien to us.
Poetically, you're right, actually.
Holy shit, Travis!
God damn it!
They're cold-blooded.
Yes, they're cold-blooded, they're cruel, they're indifferent to our suffering.
Some of them have surgery to fork their tongues.
Do they?
Do they?
I don't know.
I think that is a thing that some people have.
That's like bod mod people in Portland.
You can make the directionally correct argument about the wildest, stupidest conspiracy theories, and it doesn't help anything.
It doesn't help expose corruption.
It doesn't help prevent corruption.
But does it hurt that you're directionally incorrect?
We love to tease Travis, but he's probably right.
Today we're going to be talking about Clay Clark's Reawakened America tour.
And in order to better understand that, we are joined now by religion reporter Sam Kestenbaum.
He has written for the New York Times and the Washington Post.
His latest piece for Rolling Stone is headlined, quote, I think all the Christians get slaughtered inside the MAGA Roadshow Barnstorming America.
Sam, thank you so much for joining us today.
Really happy to be here.
Thank you also for providing a line that I'm going to be cutting out and isolating so that Travis, you know, is declaring the sacrifice of all Christians.
That'll be the full episode, just him over and over stating this.
Quite a provocative headline, I have to say.
Now, before we get into it, so how would you describe this thing?
Because I watched many hours of the videos that they produce that the Reawakened America Tour has put out on Rumble, and it is like, I don't know, a kind of like Christian, prophetic, MAGA variety show or something like that.
Yeah, I think that's pretty good.
I mean, a line in the piece that I have is like, that I thought about for some time is like, you know, part tent revival, you know, part circus, part campaign rally.
I mean, there literally is a gong on stage that Clay will occasionally hit, you know, evoking a kind of like a MAGA gong show.
So I mean, a variety show fits it.
And, you know, The prophetic element is a pretty central thing to it as well that I'm sure we'll get into, but I think that's about right.
A variety show fits it.
And the guy who organized this, Clay Clark, is not someone who was really known in, I guess, political circles or religious circles beforehand.
He was like a business guru before he decided that this was his life's mission, right?
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like a local kind of provincial talk show host on radio in Tulsa.
And, you know, known like in Oklahoma for his various business ventures, which were pretty ambitious for, you know, for like a local business guy.
He once ran for mayor.
He ran a pet training company, a barbershop chain, like a, like a, you know, serial entrepreneur in the way that we might sometimes praise those sort of folks.
Yeah, he's really fascinating to me because he is the perfect combo of like a QAnon guy and like one of those success grind guys where it's like, get up early, put in the work, you know, everyone can do this.
Yeah, it's like, there are like thousands of these guys who like, Ran a successful business in this particular case, his first like major successful venture was this DJing sort of like business, right?
That's right.
Yeah, he was in college when he attended ORU, Oral Roberts University.
He was running a DJ company out of the dorm room, just DJing parties, weddings and He dropped out of school and continued that business and had some success locally doing it, really cornering the wedding market.
It's a whole spiraling industry of connected vendors.
And that's really where Clay learned his craft, so to speak, that he's spun into or applied to MAGA world of You know, dealing with various personalities and vendors and merchandise and venues and so forth.
But yeah, it was the DJ company, DJ Connection in Oklahoma, where he had his most success early on.
They parlayed the success into becoming a business consultant and then, like you mentioned, a radio business guru, teaching small business owners how to scale, basically.
Correct, yeah.
Yeah, after, you know, after the DJ Connection business was a success, he was written about in like, you know, local like 30 under 30 sort of just, you know, sort of local press accounts and parlayed that into the consultancy business where he would take, you know, a percentage of the profits of off of those who he would consult and that continues to be a major source of income for him.
Yeah, what is it with these guys?
It always becomes teaching entrepreneurship to others and making tons of money basically on more like the concept that you're a good businessman than the actual practice.
And also there's something funny about him.
Like he strikes me as the kind of guy who in Christian circles is like the edgy friend who like he'll put on like a song with swear words at the Christian dance and everyone's like, Oh, Clay's like that, you know?
But in, like, broader circles, he just seems like an insane dork.
But yeah, I don't know.
I have to say there's something a little bit charming about him, like, as an annoying guy.
Yeah, he's a high-energy kind of funny guy.
You know, it seems like he'd be fun to hang around.
In a different life, I could have been like him, probably, if I was raised evangelical.
Yeah, I mean, and I mean, you were OK.
No, if I was.
I was about to take a different track of this conversation.
But no, I mean, that's I mean, that's right.
Like, I mean, at ORU, Oral Roberts University, when he was there, he was like the campus bad boy.
He had like this funky car with a like sort of painted like a Batmobile almost with like hand painted wacky stuff on it.
He got into lots of trouble.
He would like argue with professors.
So in this sort of context of I don't know.
I want to say straight-laced, but you know, it's sort of Pentecostal, ORU scene.
He was like, he was the sort of cool bad guy and he was a DJ, which is always cool.
And he was, he recorded like parody rap songs, one of which eventually got him basically
kicked out of ORU, where he's doing like a sort of an impression of Eminem over the
real slim shady beat and making fun of like Christian school life and the lavish lifestyle
of the then school administration, which, you know, some of it like, you know, he kind
of has points about sort of how Pentecostal wealth was circulating within the school.
But that ultimately got him kicked out because he was.
Uh, making fun of the administration and not exactly swearing, but, um, like they were, they were reversed swear words.
So they were sort of implied, which is edgy.
Wow.
Yeah.
And French, that's like a whole sub, you know, subset of language.
They call it like, you know, backwards, but it would be like the equivalent in English would be like, if we, if suddenly the kids started talking in a way that they were calling quads back.
I'm not joking.
The French are extremely dorky with language.
I love that he's not stupid enough to imitate Snoop Dogg for his parody rap.
Well, he doesn't listen to Snoop Dogg, that's why.
He's like, this guy seems cool for the first time ever in rap for some reason.
But I guess to hardcore Christians, Eminem is basically the devil.
Yeah.
To Clay's credit here, he also does an ODB in the same song.
Okay, fair, yeah.
Or, yeah, sort of an ODB reference anyways.
And so he has this jacket that says DJ Clay on the back, like he's had jackets made for him?
Yeah, he's had personalized jackets made.
I mean, he has a Reawaken jacket, a hockey jersey now.
But yeah, he had a DJ Clay jacket that he would ride around town from show to show with before the Reawaken days.
So, you know, always had a sort of a flair for branding, you know, I mean, the I have in front of me here a stack of books that he that he put out, even before, you know, the reawaken sort of tour stage that is in which he's put out other books as well.
But but always, you know, a entrepreneurial brander and Sort of incessantly going from venture to venture the books.
I don't know that he made much off the books, but they provided like props for him to do more of the business guru work and You know, they're full of stuff like quotes from Napoleon Hill or Oprah or Bill Gates, who, you know, there's some irony there, which we may get to.
But, you know, he's like celebrating all of these other sort of business success stories of America and sort of cleaving himself to that to that sort of success ethos.
Before he realized they were part of the blood drinking cabal, I guess.
Yeah, it's got to be, you know, that moment of disenchantment.
I mean, you know, he told me that he had to do a lot of redecoration.
I imagine.
Yeah, you gotta take down all the adrenochrome drinkers.
I figured out my house was actually some sort of shrine to pedophiles.
I had to change the curtains.
I had the Oprah curtains.
But I do like the idea of people on campus being like, see that guy over there?
Yeah, with the jackets.
And the Batmobile.
That guy gets to second base with so many girls on this campus.
Well, it's also interesting, too, that it's not like he chose an industry that is very difficult.
If you're a wedding DJ, party DJ in a fairly small area, you're going to rise to the top pretty quick.
He's like, I'm going to do the hardest job in the world.
A wedding DJ, and because I'm successful, I'm going to teach you how to be successful.
Yeah, also jacking beats, which is such a QAnon and Christian thing.
It was when they do hip hop, they're just like, I'm going to take this very famous beat.
It's mine now.
Done.
I'll just do a version of this for our people that doesn't have swears.
Even though Clay Clark has obviously a religious background, he went to a religious university, and you write in your article for Rolling Stone that he believed in miracles, he believed when his child was saved from blindness due to a miracle from God.
He wasn't really religious in a public way until the pandemic hit, and then he started doing his own research about what he thought was really going on, got kind of red-pilled, and he started devoting more and more time on his radio show to Well, I mean, he saw it as an obstacle to his business, right?
So he saw that all his kind of, you know, midsize to small businesses were kind of under threat by, you know, some of these regulations.
And so he went on YouTube to figure out why.
Why are they doing this, I guess?
Is that accurate?
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, you know, that's, that's, you know, his accounting of it, which, you know, I think is helpful in a way because it, I mean, yes, there's a kind of a pilling or a conversion, but he also, it's like very, very openly, you know, about, you know, the financial hit that potentially was going to be had by him and his, you know, if we understand him to be part of his profits come from those he's coaching.
So, you know, his clients are also concerned.
He's concerned.
I mean, he's in Tulsa, which is a different sort of environment than, you know, L.A.
or New York.
So I think there's a different sort of – he's already sort of in kind of libertarian circles in some way.
So people are already like opposed to the government messing with them in any way.
But it was very clearly a financial concern for him.
And, you know, some of the folks that he was already connected with are people who you guys have probably mentioned on here or who he became connected with pretty quickly in that.
So, you know, Sean Foyt was another ORU alum who knew one of Clay's business partners and in the Tulsa business crowd was already sort of leaning rightward in some other ways, too. So it wasn't, you know,
it wasn't like a full on dramatic conversion in that sense. Like the networks that he was in
were moving in that direction already.
And I think that he sort of sensed that. Yeah, Foyt is like the kind of guy with the
acoustic guitar version of like him being the DJ, like for this kind of community.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Sean Foyt's got the more sort of like camp counselor. Yeah. And I mean,
maybe they're both sort of camp counselors in their way.
But but Clay's the sort of, you know, the bad one. Yeah, they were probably dope camp
counselors, though, in like, you know, 2006.
Yeah, and they're both kind of like, you know, elder millennial.
You know, I think about this like, you know, Clay's got this sort of like Zuckerberg-esque, you know, just reading back about the, you know, the early press of him, the way that these types of guys are written about, like dorm room hustlers, dropout, gonna succeed still.
There's this like, sort of millennial mythology around, But Clay Clarke's real turn to someone who is devoted to this kind of movement and conspiracism apparently came as a consequence of a prophecy from a South African prophet, self-described prophet, named Kim Clement.
Now, who is this guy?
Yeah, might not be able to give a super good accounting of Kim Clement.
So, you know, Kim Clement is one of a number of prophetic figures whose words and media and pronouncements circulated in Pentecostal and charismatic media in the sort of Trump era.
And they were seen to provide a kind of a supernatural drumbeat to the Trump presidency.
Kim Clement did not live to see Trump's election, but his old clips where he's saying, You know, sometimes, you know, to the sort of uninitiated, you know, pretty vague statements are kind of revisited for new insights by the faithful or by those who, you know, seek to find insight in them to give, you know, like supernatural legitimacy to Trump.
You know, basically, they see Trump as a divinely appointed leader.
And, you know, in another piece that I wrote for The Times about charisma media, Charisma Media actually is a sponsor of this tour and they
are one of, they're like a flagship Pentecostal publication, and they published
these sort of Trump prophets incessantly or, you know, quite a lot in the lead-up
to Trump's win and the months after Trump's win. And Kim Clement is one of the
sort of more prominent of these.
His prophecies or his pronouncements were, you know, viewed really as legitimate, as persuasive by those in these circles.
So Clay's ability to graft himself into this story and connect himself to Kim Clement is not just saying, oh, a prophet said I was prophesied to do this.
He's saying the prophet that many of you believe is one of the most legitimate persuasive prophets who said that Trump would win.
has also said that I will have a role in this supernatural story unfolding in our lifetimes here in America.
So yeah, Clay Clark produced a documentary called Reawaken in which he talks about discovering this prophecy and believing that it was about him.
And this particular prophecy from Kim Clement comes from a 2013 talk that makes reference to someone named Donald and Mr. Clark.
In July of 2020, I got a text message sent to me by Charles Kola.
Clay, watch this, call me.
And I watch it, and it's Kim Clement, and this prophecy was from 2013.
There is a man by the name of Mr. Clark, and there is also another man by the name of Donald.
You are both watching me saying, could it be that God's speaking to me?
Yes, he is.
Somebody, just a few minutes before you came on the show, you went out And you took the American flag and you said, I'm proud of my nation.
You raised it up and God said, you have been determined through your prayers to influence this nation.
I recalled Aaron Antus who went to Bible college at Ramah Bible college.
I said, Aaron, I think there's a prophecy about me.
Oh boy.
This guy's literally just doing cold reading.
He's like, one of you's Donald, the other was someone else Clark.
Fucking generic names.
Yeah.
You know, and also he's saying you're listening to me right now.
So clearly not, if you found this much later, not about you because you're not listening to him.
Yeah.
One thing I want to point out is the slap bass.
Yes.
But there's something, you know, I mean, you know, for all of the import that this guy's that Kim Clements, who is a singer songwriter, as well, so he's a musician, you know, they're, they're like, super entertaining, and they're pretty funky.
And, and yeah, no, I think you're right.
I mean, it has a quality of 800 number.
You know, call me now in that, you know, someone, a lot of people could derive meaning from these videos and that's sort of their their appeal.
The fact that it, you know, spawned this industry of MAGA profits and people like Clay in the tour is, you know, surprising, I suppose.
But, you know, I think a lot of people could be watching these and getting insights from them that are not leading them to start a tour and tour the nation with Mike Flynn and Lindell and so forth.
Yeah, he's just being like, oh, Donald Duck, um, fucking, what's the Superman guy's name?
Clark Kent.
Donald Duck, Clark Kent, gonna save the world.
We've got an Elmer.
I can sense an Elmer is watching us.
Mr. Fudd, if you're listening.
Kim Clement is not living anymore, but his daughter is on the tour as well.
Oh, wow.
And she, um, they're actually in, I think they're in Thousand Oaks, um, so not far from here, and they have a, um, You know, there's a sort of a small industry still of sort of spreading and speaking about Kim Clement, who is really highly regarded.
So, you know, so Clay really, you know, adeptly seized this, this narrative, this story, and, you know, put himself in it, and then even brought the daughter of this prophet on the tour, which you got to think if you are sort of a consumer of this prophetic media, That's pretty exciting that you can go see the daughter of the prophet who was prophesying about this guy and the tourists coming to town and, you know, let's go.
What happened to children rebelling against what their parents did?
What happened to that?
Yeah, what happened to that?
You know, you've never been to a rave and met like Christian kids who were like, dude, this is fucking changed my life, man.
I'm like son of a pastor.
Why can't, like, Kim Clement's daughter be like, oh yeah, my dad was, like, kind of a fraud and, like, yeah, he sort of, like, tricked a lot of people and, like, I'm, you know, I'm actually getting, you know, my master's degree.
Or Michael Flynn Jr.
Charismatic, in the sense, like, the broader sense.
Like, these are people who can convince their kids.
They win over their family.
Whereas, like, my dad wasn't maybe as adept at public speaking and convincing other human beings.
It wasn't his full-time job, so he, you know, he was saying stuff and I was like, yeah, whatever, I'm gonna do the exact opposite.
Okay, fair enough.
Yeah, I mean, don't you think most people are not?
I don't know.
Most people, but many folks go into the same line of work.
I know if we if we take the sort of like belief aspect of it out or the sort of like extreme belief, if you know, if we do think these things are extreme beliefs, like it is like a sort of a craft that, you know, she's probably seen growing up.
And she's I mean, she's not making prophetic claims herself.
She's sort of carrying on the lineage of Kim, of her father.
The living remnant.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes, there was a part in your article where you mentioned him like screening a call from a woman who makes like pretty wild prophetic claims.
Does this scene ever get like a little saturated with people claiming to be prophets?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And I mean, Clay is, you know, he's like, he's pretty open about that.
You know, I'm there behind the scenes ahead of the opening of the tour.
And this is in Virginia Beach and somebody keeps calling his phone and he's not picking picking up and he says he's sort of like, oh, this person
again, he finally picks up and puts her on speakerphone.
And it's this woman saying that she's actually was from a Kim Clement prophecy.
She was saying, oh, I, you know, Kim Clement prophesied about me and I'm like Esther.
And you know, I need to be on your stage like tomorrow.
And can you fly me there?
And he's kind of like, no, you can come and, you know, tickets are this price and we'd
love to have you.
But I, you know, I can't I don't know you.
But but it's a fine I mean, he's polite.
He's doing it in full Oklahoma Tulsa charm.
You know, I appreciate you, appreciate you so much.
I hope you can come here.
He's not, you know, cruel to this woman, but he's running a show.
And if he's going to have prophets on the stage, he's going to have ones that people know.
Julie Green, who is Doug Mastriano's sort of go-to prophet, is on the tour.
Someone named Amanda Grace.
There are a lot of other prophets who are better known.
So, yeah, you know, it's mercenary in that sense that, you know, that clay is going to go out on a limb and put anyone who comes up and says, hey, my prophet, it's got to be somebody who with a following of the fandom that are already doing well in other media networks.
Right.
This is show business.
You know, you can't just call somebody up who's, who's, you know, has done the grind and made it, you know, and, and has put the tour together and say, Hey, like I, like my prophecy is, I just know that when, when Clay picks up the phone, my prophecy is so good that he's going to make me one of the headliner speakers.
And, you know, it just, it doesn't work like that.
You have to be functionally delusional, transactionally delusional.
You can't just be absolutely delusional.
So, Clay Clark feels that he's been prophesized into starting this tour, and it starts as Clay Clark's Health and Freedom Conference, the first of which was held in April of 2021 at Rima Bible College in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
And this was a pricey event from the start, apparently.
The VIP tickets and the front row tickets were $500 each.
Wow.
And the general admission was $250, and they also had apparently pay-as-you-can discounts.
But this was, I mean, yes, that's a lot, $250, even for like an all-day show.
Yeah, I missed the last Weezer tour that came through Los Angeles because the tickets were 250, and that's like my favorite band, you know, and I didn't even want to pay that.
Talk about Weezer.
I'm just saying, that's a lot to ask of people.
Well, you know, I think Weezer, yeah.
No, no, please, go on.
Let's talk about that.
Well, I was gonna wonder if Weezer might go on the show, but no, Weezer wouldn't.
But Blink-182 or one of these guys could.
I mean, there are sort of would-be mainstream comedians and other figures who have joined the tour, but Weezer, as far as I know, has not joined the tour yet.
But just a point of clarity on the pay-as-you-can.
A lot of people are paying like $50 to $60 to go.
So just to let you know, next time it comes through Anaheim, you don't have to pay $250 to go.
And Clay makes a big show of this as well.
This is a selling point that he will talk about on the various promos.
I don't want to keep anybody out of here.
If anyone wants to, you know, I don't want money to be an issue.
If you want to pay $8 to come, you can.
You know, we'll let you in the door.
So the VIP, there's no budge.
But in terms of, you know, if there's a kind of a, you know, gimmick or a sort of a, you know, a appealing sort of twist there where anyone can really get in.
And that's always been the case.
And I don't think that people are paying $250 in general admission to go.
I mean, there's a lot of other merchandising options once you get there.
Like a free-to-play game.
They'll let you in for free.
But then if you want any of the really good skins, you gotta pay up.
You can pay $250 if you're that much of a mark.
It's like if you have no bartering skills.
It's basically like, would you pay $250 kind of thing?
Just checking if you're that much of a mark.
I like that.
It's sort of a challenge if you know the game.
So I want to talk about some of the actual content of the speakers in these events, because I watched the recent event in Idaho, which happened over two days.
And it was literally an all-day event.
Like the first day, at least the recording, was like 10 hours of speakers.
And the second day was another 10 hours of more speakers.
And I would describe it as an unending barrage of, like, rage and conspiracy theories.
Just people who are furious and want the audience to be furious and also insane nonsense about what the cabal is planning.
So, I mean, there's no really possible way to cover what all the speakers are talking about, but I'm going to give you a small sample of what an attendee of the Reawaken tour might experience.
You may learn from Clay Clark himself that the NIH started experimenting with how to block the God gene in 2008.
Now, this is not true, but this is what he said.
So in 2008, the CDC begins, the NIH begins doing research on how to block out the God gene.
So if you click that link right there, why is it troubling, Aaron, that the NIH is trying to do research to block out your ability to think?
Ah, well, probably because if you're going to block out the God gene, you don't want God influencing anything that happens in a person's life or any of their thoughts.
The guy's wearing a fucking American flag, like, jacket.
Yeah, he's like the, um... Talking about the fucking God gene!
The God Gene!
They're blocking the God Gene!
So, I mean, I checked on what the hell he was talking about there.
I went to the website that they're referencing, because this is actually, this whole segment was basically him going to this website and they walk you through basically the history of the 50-year plan of the Cabal to do the Great Reset and their beliefs.
So what they're talking about is a 2008 paper called Experimenting with Spirituality, Analyzing the God Gene in a Non-Major Laboratory Course.
It has nothing to do with blocking the God gene.
It was actually an education paper that references the book The God Gene, how faith is hardwired into our genes.
So in that book, the author Dean Hammer argues that a variation in the VMAT2 gene plays a role in one's openness to spiritual experiences.
And the paper in question Simply examines how students in one class responded to learning about concepts in the book.
So I don't know how they got the NIH is trying to figure out how to block the God gene from that.
But is this a theme, you know, in the I guess in the tour that like they're the powers that be the government is trying to destroy spirituality?
Yeah.
I mean, yes, it is.
You know, the banner image of the tour now is this sort of like Marvel or Street Fighter looking face-off between the, you know, the bad guys and the good guys.
The good guys are the lamp of the tour.
The bad guys are sort of the Soros, Zuckerberg, Gates.
World Economic Foundation stuff.
Yeah.
Carol Schwab has called out, was it the Great Awakening versus the Great Reset, right?
That's right.
Yeah.
And are like, you know, below it in all the boxes?
Or is it like the speakers?
Like, like, you can choose your fighter, you know, I mean, it has that look.
I mean, you know, I don't know if if Clay has plans for sort of interactive, you know, iPhone game yet, yet, but That would be pretty good video game.
Klaus Schwab versus Clay Clark fight.
I mean, he made like a like a theatrical invite to, you know, to the bad guys to, you know, to appear on this tour.
Like, I'm saving a seat for you.
You know, Klaus Schwab, if you want to come, this is not going to happen.
But but, you know, he's the idea that you can see, you know, the heroes and the villains duke it out is sort of what's suggested by by this this by the image.
And Yeah, I mean, it's like, you know, these are villains who are it's a full on onslaught of everything that, you know, you the viewer hold holy in your life.
And, you know, that that clip of Clay providing the links, you know, I think is that is his approach is, you know, it is the sort of do your own research, you know, ethos and that he has done his research and he's going to provide you the resources to do your own.
You know, I have no idea if people go to those links.
I don't know, but it's sort of a barrage of You know, here's the information.
I'm not making claims that, you know, you can't substantiate yourself.
And it's almost, and this is sort of an uncomfortable way to put it, but it's almost like, you know, almost like journalistic in that sense.
You know, it's, it's, it's like, it's about, you know, sorting through links and, and like, you know, shoving them down the throat or into the, into the, into the viewer's lap.
He is also on stage it's it's you know it's it's like almost like pedagogical and that he's you know telling you take out your pens and paper write down the links right down the name right down the you know the PayPal write down you know get this information into your notebook into your into your life.
And, uh, and, you know, don't let it pass you by.
So it's, it's, uh, it's almost like, you know, some sort of, uh, class that you're in or like a Bible study really.
Um, and that, you know, the marathon quality of these events too, is like, you know, speakers are up there like 15 minutes, 30 minutes, and that's just about it.
And it's, it's nonstop.
There's no break.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like I said, it's just unending barrage.
Um, like you mentioned, there's also a big, How many of you guys are excited right now?
Give me a big shout!
Woo!
How many of you guys believe by the end of this year something big is about to happen?
She delivers a message that there is a prophecy that Trump will be restored as president by the end of the year.
How many of you guys are excited right now? Give me a big shout.
Woo!
How many of you guys believe by the end of this year something big is about to happen?
Yeah!
How about that our rightful president gets his seat back?
(cheers and applause)
And old Biden is going to go bye-bye.
And I'm not just saying that.
Really, I really am not.
I want to read off a couple of prophecies I'm going to give you guys today of something that has already been fulfilled.
And it should excite anybody to realize that prophecy is not just people giving out words.
They're actually giving out God's words and what God is saying today.
How many believe that God actually gives us the news before the news?
And that God knows exactly what's going to happen before it happens, right?
She is on some pretty heavy medication there slurring her words.
Or she's just got the spirit so much.
She's not of this world.
She's got the vapors or whatever they used to say.
She is though in fact just saying things and these are just words.
News before the news I like.
You know, because I think that is like, and I think that's that does encapsulate the, you know, the appeal of these people who follow this sort of stuff so closely is that it's its current events.
I mean, it is like having a special insight into what's to come.
And, you know, there's an aspect of it, which is like, Also, like speaking, speaking into existence, the things that they wish to come to sort of, you know, there's a kind of wishful thinking element of it as well.
And, you know, in Julie Green, I mentioned before, but she, you know, she's connected to Doug Mastriano.
And so she is sort of coming, you know, coming into her own or, you know, has a pretty large following now.
And I met people at the event who told me they came specifically to, you know, excited to see her speak.
Yeah, she looks like she would be kicked out because her bachelorette party's being too loud at a comedy show.
Isn't, like, uh, you know, news before the news?
I feel like that's referencing some kind of, like, biblical stuff, like the good news and all that stuff.
Is there, like, are they using these words because they know it is hitting a emotional chord with the audience who's already very familiar with this style of language?
Yeah, probably.
But yeah, I mean, gospel, right?
Gospel is the good news.
And, you know, one of the ironies of this tour, and I think of probably a lot of these figures that you guys also look at, is there's, you know, this like deep suspicion, attack, assail against the media and the use of media, what the lies the media is telling you.
At the same time, this is like a really slick multimedia operation with people with really large fandoms, more followers than I have, more followers than, you know, I don't know.
But, you know, then a lot of you will have.
Then we'll have.
And, you know, so they are sort of marshalling their social media followings and, you know, producing podcasts in rooms that maybe look like this on these topics at the same time as, you know, inviting, you know, paranoia, kind of like a joyful paranoia almost about what the media, the lies the media is telling you.
Julie Green, I actually don't know.
She's probably on Rumble.
I don't follow her too closely, but she's in these networks.
Like I mentioned, this is like a variety show.
There are preachers and there are political conspiracy theories, but there's also music and there's also some comedy.
In fact, during the show I watched, you could see the comedy stylings of Jim Brewer.
Oh, he has been on Fox.
He's become so unfunny.
He looks in pain every time he appears anywhere.
I mean, he did his bit, but he seemed very unhappy.
So during his set, he complains about getting criticized for not wanting to play shows at venues that require vaccinations.
And for those who don't remember, he was the high guy in Half-Baked.
Well, you have to clarify, he was the most high guy.
Come on, man!
You know, your typical, your stereotypical tie-dye-wearing, white-stoner guy.
And was beloved!
I mean, in that era, people loved Jim Brewer.
Yeah, to watch his turn to this, to appearing on the, you know, Reawaken America tour is... I mean, I guess stranger things have happened, but it's... Proof that we won't say what.
Proof that no one is safe.
Yeah, no one is safe from falling into these ideologies.
But when it really started getting interesting was...
I said, listen, I'm not going to do any venues that force vaccinations.
Yeah.
And of course, of course, all the media... Send the heathens and disgrace him!
Because that's what they do.
What kind of man would care about his following?
He wants them all to die!
Which was the great trick that they pulled.
You don't want your grandmother to die, do you?
Don't go visit them on their deathbed!
Trust the science!
Trust the science!
This is disturbing because he's doing Bill Hicks, and the jokes that Bill Hicks does in this style are literally about, like, GOP politicians blowing Satan.
But he's, like, transformed it.
It's like, ah, the media is being, you know, evil.
You know, that, I mean, obviously, it sucks.
But in that room, it killed because it hit a lot of themes that the crowd was receptive to.
Anti-media, anti-vaccination, and also skeptical of mainstream science.
And also, you know, reenacting the voice of the media as Satan, which many probably believe.
But all these acts are just like, this is how liberals are.
It's like, Jesus Christ.
He pretty much just does, I mean, when I saw him speak, he pretty much just does those sort of voices.
Either like animals or... It's a lot.
And actually, I remember what I wrote down as he was talking as I was taking notes.
And I think I wrote something like, you know, for my money, Clay is funnier than this comedian.
He is.
He's actually more charming too, yeah.
He doesn't seem like he's in constant pain either, whereas Brewer... I mean, it's kind of like there's no...
It's all sort of one note.
There isn't, there's like very little dynamics in this sort of as a comedy act.
I mean, that would be a fun, you know, I'd like to read this sort of like comedy critic take on these MAGA comedians.
I mean, J.P.
Sears has also been on this.
And I know you guys have recently covered him at length.
But there's something there's something that like there isn't much sort of dynamic to the to the comedy act.
And I and I think, you know, Clay sort of is like many characters at once on stage.
I mean, he has to sort of keep the show moving.
But I think when he does sort of jokes and voices, even he's actually a little more funny than the actual comedians that he has on the show.
Yeah, because he does seem to be kind of enjoying himself.
I think there's something self-aware, too, about Clay, which is maybe a little uncomfortable to say.
But, you know, there's something there's there's a bit of a wink with Clay from time to time.
Yeah.
Well, and with somebody like Jim Brewer, you know, the question is, were these always his beliefs and he kind of had to mask it, you know, to get as far as he did in sort of mainstream Hollywood?
Or, you know, was he, you know, happy to be, you know, the sort of liberal sweetheart after half-baked and then as work dried up and he found that the, you know, that he pivoted to this angle, does that actually hurt him inside?
And, you know, with J.P.
Sears, I think we saw, you know, I think it's kind of clear that I don't know.
I think what's consistent is that there's like seething anger underneath the surface.
Whereas with Clay, I don't know if there's that much actual anger.
I think he plays it up a little bit.
But J.P.
Sears and this guy seem to be in actual pain and they seem to actually loathe the people around them.
So I don't know.
Because, yeah, I get that.
If you are, like, you know, one of the top sort of, like, you know, everybody loved Half-Baked and The Weed and, you know, you're kind of this hero, you know, you're a hero for being in such a popular stoner movie, and then to have that audience turn on you feels bad, you know, it feels bad.
America's Sweetheart, the hero, the guy who was like, yeah, man!
It was!
Look, I was like in college when that movie came out.
Yeah, I was a college stoner when that movie came out.
Everybody thought he was a hero.
Sure!
They all were!
I mean, people walked around quoting Half-Baked for, like, basically until Chappelle's Show came out, and then they were quoting that for the rest of college.
Well, at the very least, a countercultural figure.
Yes, okay.
That's a smart way to say it.
Hey man, I just saved this woman from underneath a car, man.
I mean, you really need.
And I mean, it's not like a particular novel observation now, but like the way the, I mean, the sort of aesthetics of the counterculture, you know, sort of flow through these, these MAGA or Q circles or, you know, before that everyone was talking about the alt-right, you know, the sort of counterculture quality to, I mean.
The co-founder of Vice, you know, I mean, you know, Gavin McInnes, I mean, you know, there's there's a way that the things that we thought were edgy were are edgy, continue to be edgy, but edgy in a different way.
Or these figures who involved in edginess, the edge, you know, they follow a different edge.
I think they do.
They do.
They kind of smuggle in some counterculture into the right, and the right feels like, yeah, see, we've got our guys, too, you know?
Even though, like, they're often just, like, husks of their former selves.
But still, it's the feeling of, like, yeah, we're going against the grain instead of trying to enforce, you know, a centuries-long, like, vision of, like, the family or what it means to be a good person and faithful.
There's also, you know, some QAnon mixed in with the speakers.
In fact, right after Jim Brewer spoke at the show that I watched, there was a call in from the X-22 Report, at least the anonymous individual who does the X-22 Report show, which is a QAnon promoter.
And for his segment, he said that all of the legal activity surrounding Trump right now is actually good because it's bait that's luring the deep state.
Um, everything that the Deep State is doing right now, everything that they're trying to do, um, where they started with the pandemic, they went after Trump with Russia, Russia, Russia, impeachment hoax number one, impeachment hoax number two, now they're trying to go after him with Mar-a-Lago, they confiscated Mike Lindell's phone, Dr. Frank's phone, and they're continually going after him.
Actually, it's not really him, it's really us.
This is all, they're desperate, they're panicking, they're working out of fear.
This is not a group that is in control.
A group that is in control doesn't go after people, they sit back because they're in control.
If you notice, Trump is the one sitting back.
Trump is the one that is relaxed.
Trump, he's actually the bait.
He is actually bringing these people to where he wants them to go.
He wants them to walk down this path.
Yeah, classically, when people take control like a junta or a despot, they're just like sitting back, man, just resting on their laurels.
They're not like out there actively chasing and executing their enemies to make sure to solidify power.
They're just fucking chilling, dude.
And it doesn't seem to be chilling.
Yeah, that brings me to the question of, I guess, Trump's role as a really like a religious figure, because I don't know if you recently saw the footage of the rally in Ohio.
In which while Trump was giving a speech over a over a song that happened to be called Where We Go When We Go All, the crowd was raising their finger up towards the heavens and towards Trump as if they were, you know, at a, you know, at a Pentecostal, you know, church or something.
So, I mean, why?
I mean, this is a difficult question, but like, Why exactly was Trump's role as something more than just a political figure, someone who is destined to make America great, someone who is connected to some sort of grand spiritual battle?
Yeah, yeah, that is a big question.
You know, I'll say that, you know, there is the role that these sort of freelance prophets play in that, in, you know, making him a sort of sanctified character in End Times prophecy or End Times events unfolding.
But then, you know, there's also, I think, just like an aesthetic quality that I think is worth pointing to, that is, You know, Trump, an early advocate for Trump was Paula White, who is a televangelist, who he knew from Florida or sorry, from just watch from watching her on television.
And, you know, she, among others, became his sort of inner circle of largely Pentecostal advisors who, you know, who I think I think there's a sort of a consonance or a familiarity with even just sort of the televangelist style and Trump's own sort of Bombast and, you know, sort of prosperity gospel.
So, you know, I just want to point you just want to like dry out the like aesthetic qualities.
I think of what Trump has tapped into and the ways that these tour events regardless of like the beliefs of the people there.
There's like a style that Trump tapped into early on.
I mean, and the Trump brothers are on this tour as well, Eric and Don Jr.
And Trump has not appeared on the tour, but he calls in.
Or Eric makes a call on his phone and Trump's voice speaks from the phone.
I don't know if that's recording.
Like God.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know if if Trump actually is, you know, there is Trump's voice does come through, but I don't know if he's waiting on their other line to, you know, to pick up each time that Eric calls.
But I but I saw this this this act happen on the stage and it's become a sort of a regular thing now.
So, you know, so seeing Trump.
But then again, you know, I'd also just say that, like, campaign rallies, I think, are generally pretty, you know, quote unquote, religious, even without the hands raised.
There's a sort of a worshipful quality regardless of who the candidate is.
I mean, so are, you know, so are Weezer concerts, too.
Correct.
Now, like you mentioned, it's not just fringe figures who are part of this tour, like, you know, Eric and Donald Trump Jr.
are part of this.
Also, you could see Roger Stone.
In fact, I was able to see Roger Stone, who is really one of the most depraved and soulless man to ever walk the earth.
Just if the devil exists, then he is friends with Roger Stone.
But in this segment that I watched, he professes that he discovered Jesus thanks to the Mueller investigation.
Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you as living proof that Jesus Christ can do anything.
I did not always understand or believe this in my younger days when I was a hard-boiled political operative.
Yes, I lived the life of a libertine.
I was a Willful sinner.
But then, in the crucible, when I was framed by Robert Mueller, I was charged with lying under oath to Congress about Russian collusion, which never actually took place, which never actually happened, which was really about pressuring me to testify falsely against my friend Donald Trump and I refused.
It is at that time that I turned to the Lord and I was redeemed in the blood of the cross and of Jesus Christ.
It is hard to prophesy through, like, amphetamine lockjaw.
Wow.
But, like, listen to what he's saying.
He's, like, he's, like, basically, like, yeah, when I was under federal investigation and I, yeah, I had the, you know, the possibility of my freedom being taken away, I turned to Jesus, you know?
It's like... Yes, when I was younger, I used to fuck and suck.
Folks, it's true.
But they love that, right?
They love the story of a sinner who is now saved.
Absolutely.
Yeah, and that's what we heard a lot at the Sean Foyt thing.
You know, it's like, I used to be a homosexual.
I used to do these things and have these horrible orgies.
Roger Stone does, not in that clip, but in other ones, he does have a really beautiful white suit that he wears.
So I just want to give some credit to the sartorial choices.
Of course, Michael Flynn is a regular feature of the tour.
In a recent livestream promoting the tour, Flynn claimed that the globalists are plotting to subvert God's design of ourselves by replacing parts of us with robotics.
They are trying to change the very essence of our DNA.
And there are people working on this.
That's one of them, Yuval Noah Harari, which is just not going to work.
So what do they do?
They're going to basically put components of robotics into us.
And that's one of the other issues that they are looking at.
So, you know, everything from, you see the robotic arms, which can help somebody or robotic legs, which can help somebody who lost their legs or somebody who lost their movement of their arm or an arm.
To be able to do things and to live like a normal life, but that's different than what these guys are trying to do.
They're actually trying to change inside the internals of something that is unchangeable, unmovable, immovable, because they're designed by someone other than them.
And thank God that God designed us the way we are.
So what do you see, I guess, Flynn's role in this?
Because we've been talking about Flynn on the show for many years and, you know, he likes to rile up his digital soldiers.
He used to be part of the QAnon tour that was organized by the man formerly known as QAnon John.
But he apparently dumped that and upgraded to the Clay Clark tour.
So so how does he I guess how is he received by the audience?
I mean, he's the he's the the headliner of this.
He came aboard pretty early on and connected to Clay at one of these sort of early lockdown sort of churchy gatherings that Clay was holding at his office.
And as Clay tells it, Flynn heard him on the Ann VanderSteel podcast.
And, you know, liked what he heard.
At that point, Clay was doing sort of basic anti-lockdown, anti-mask promotion of a book that he had out then and connected with him.
And Clay approached Flynn and they discussed, you know, what would be this tour?
This is, you know, 2021 post January 6.
And so he came on as a headliner.
And you know, much of the coverage of these tours that I was seeing focused on Flynn.
You know, I think not, I think rightly, I mean, he is a, he's a big name at these events
and a draw, a serious draw.
He comes out not as often as Clay, but he's on stage quite a bit.
He has a kind of a rambling speaker's quality.
It's sometimes sort of hard to follow where he's going.
You know, that is, he's not like the showrunner in the way that Clay is really the master of ceremonies, but he is, you know, as they call him, America's general.
And he's evoked in, you know, frequently by Clay on stage in this sort of, Like Trinity of like a sort of a holy trinity of God, Donald Trump and Mike Flynn as
The sort of figures around which this tour sort of circles.
And, you know, he is the biggest, you know, MAGA name they have.
I mean, aside from the Trump kids.
But the Trump kids don't really talk about, they're not as far out there as Flynn is with this stuff.
So he's a, I mean, he's a major figure in the Reawaken tours.
And, you know, like all people, has his booth outside where he's selling merch.
He does, you know, takes fan photos out, you know, in the lobby with everybody.
He walks with bodyguards around the tour.
He was there backstage when I was there, sort of watching approvingly as Clay is putting the sort of final tweaks on all of the backstage stuff.
So he's, you know, in the mix, and not just as a sort of a star, but really behind the stage on things as well.
He's a producer as well.
He's the star power, but he's been in the game long enough that he wants his producer credit.
So, you know, he's backstage, he's, you know, wants to be, yeah, yeah, yeah, that looks great.
That looks great, Clay.
Wild, wild.
And then he gets up there and talks about like, yeah, the vaccine, trying to alter your DNA, just the lowest of the low of, you know, conspiracy theories and...
This is what happens when you just kind of get old and the Protestant work ethic will not stop.
Like, you just have to stay fucking busy.
And so you end up just going on endless tours.
I wasn't surprised to learn from your piece that the tour grosses a lot of money.
I mean, they're able to fill these massive mega churches and you say that they gross about 300 grand per show.
Which is decent.
But it's not a moneymaker, which is kind of surprising because they have to pay all the, you know, the venue and all the people who speak.
But I guess the question is that this started as, I guess, a protest against, you know, COVID measures.
But he's continuing to do it, even though it's losing money.
So what's the purpose now?
Yeah, I mean, you know, I I'm not sure what to make of the of the money claims and and I you know, I look at them with some suspicion in terms of what clay says about this tour losing money on the other hand.
If indeed that money goes immediately back to paying speakers, reimbursing travel, paying these huge megachurches to rent them out, security, you know, if indeed that is all true and there is some money that is lost, it's possible that Clay could be, there are other business ventures that he's been involved in that Where he might take some losses to begin sort of with the hope for a payoff later on that is getting new clients, parlaying this into something else.
That is, you know, he might be taking a risk on this himself.
You know, on the speaker's end, you know, they're probably not losing money doing this.
You know, I don't have numbers for how much speakers are paid and I think it varies from big name to big name.
That is like, If this, you know, this aspiring Esther were to get her way there, she might get some time on stage, but she's not going to get paid much.
But a Julie Green.
Yeah.
And she might be, you know, at least put up in a nice hotel or flown there.
And, you know, Clay wouldn't go into great detail about how much people are paid.
And, you know, and he makes these claims about it being, you know, at a loss for himself and that he would much rather go back to Oklahoma and, you know, sit by his koi pond and, you know, be with his family.
But, you know, this is also like the biggest thing that he's been involved in, regardless of if he's losing money.
This is like the most sort of national attention that he's ever had.
So, yeah, I mean, you know, I think that more might come out about that.
And, you know, and I look to sort of follow that as more finances become sort of clearer.
But it's it's quite mercurial now.
And he also founded a church at his business compound in Oklahoma, which, you know, money might also flow differently through that.
So there's you know, there's a lot of question marks around the the money aspect and, you know, As soon as I know more, I will report that out.
So you actually happened got to speak with some of Clay Clark's former business associates.
So what do they make of his, I guess, pivot to, I guess, one of the biggest conspiracy peddlers in the country right now?
Yeah, I spoke with the current owner of DJ Connection, who was a collaborator with Clay for a number of years, early on when he was getting the DJ company going.
And yeah, Jason spoke to me and, you know, I think what, you know, Jason's observations to me were more like, that looks like a lot of work and a big mess, and I'm glad I have nothing to do with it.
You know, he might share, like, politically some sensibility.
That is, you know, I don't know how he voted, but, you know, he sort of expressed to me that he was conservative, he was a religious man, or, you know, a churchgoer.
But to him, the challenge of it all was, you know, how do you stay on top of who's in the cabal, who's not?
Are you Illuminati?
For a time, you know, people turned on Clay, said he was an Illuminati.
And there's just all these sort of personalities or divas involved in the scene that Clay must always be managing.
So, you know, I liked what Jason told me was just like it seems like a mess.
You know, his like critique or comment was more like this like seems like not something I want to be involved in kind of haphazardly organized and like not a kind of a business venture that I want to undertake.
You know, regardless of, you know, we can speculate about how much money it's making or not, you know, there is something sort of haphazard about it.
It's part of its sort of charm, too.
It's a little freewheeling, a little like it could almost come off the rails at any moment.
And in Jason's sort of observing this and saying, that's not something I want to be involved in.
I do think, you know, he that some of the further out, you know, conspiracy stuff is off, you know, is off putting to not Jason, but also, you know, the church that Clay was actually involved in for for a number of years, where his his parents went, his mother goes to.
You know, abided by pandemic restrictions.
So there's a kind of a further irony where Clay is crusading against what the pandemic is doing to or, you know, what pandemic restrictions are doing to the church, calling them part of this, you know, evil plan against religion.
And at the same time, the church that he has attended for a number of years is dutifully, quietly following those restrictions, you know, pretty peacefully.
So, any other takeaways from your experience, I guess, watching this spectacle and sort of following its origins?
Well, I'd be curious, you guys, as Q people, so to speak, you know, where you see, that is, Q is not for, you know, QAnon stuff is not foregrounded here.
You know, you have to sort of look, there are a couple speakers, there's merch.
When I went to the first one of these, I went to two of these, I went to one in Anaheim last summer when it was you know, in California. And there was a little more QAnon
merch there than what I've seen more recently. So I wonder, you know, as sort of observers
of this sort of, you know, content industry, like what, you know, what role Reawaken plays in
that?
I mean, yeah, I mean, obviously, I mean, what was really remarkable, I guess, about QAnon
is that it did involve like elements of prophecy.
There is this belief that like nothing can stop what is coming.
There is a inevitable result and there are elements that know it.
And of course, there is also this super religious element where they believe that they were on God's side and these people deep inside the Trump administration were like doing God's work.
And there's like, you know, they talk about the Great Awakening.
And this is why, you know, I obviously I like I recognize, you know, a lot of the the QAnon style themes in this in this, you know, in the Great Awakening or in the reawakening tour, because it's just, you know, religious, political prophecy, worshipful of Trump and, you know, the belief that, you know, they are, you know, that General Flynn is is unjustly persecuted, but he's going to lead America to a greater cause.
You know, it's like it's all the broad QAnon stuff without the QAnon sort of labeling.
I mean, that's sort of my perception of it.
Yeah, I think QAnon has always sat at the intersection of religion and politics and introduced conspiracy theories into the lot so that you can really galvanize people.
You know, if you thought you were pissed about, you know, abortion, wait until you hear about the adrenochrome.
I mean, I think, you know, it's just like harder drugs for people that they want.
to get involved. And I think during the Trump era it was trust Trump, keep aligning under Trump, keep supporting
Trump, and now it's you know, actually get politically active so that next time
you know he either loses or wins like we're ready to make sure that that's you
know secured for us.
And so yeah I definitely I think it's just at this point Q has become both like an umbrella and also
just like a signpost you know that's just like you know a part of things another
brand on like the kind of sponsored by you know.
Yeah.
But it's just it's it is it's kind of omnipresent and woven in to to all the speaking points without needing to reference you know Seventeen or QAnon specifically.
And I also think that it contributing to that, that Q not really posting anymore.
I know we had like the four posts, you know, a couple months ago.
But other than that, it doesn't seem like Q is back in any kind of significant way that it was, you know, obviously from, you know, end of 2017 through December of 2020.
So, there's nothing to really point at.
There are not drops to be decoded.
All that's left is the sentiment and the sort of general ideas that were already connecting with an evangelical audience.
Yeah, there's really no point to, you know, it's like, hey, yeah, I'm a fan, you know, I'm a fan, and I got the shirt, or I got the hat, or the pin, or whatever, but like, this is what's happening now, you know?
You're paying to go and see these people speak and say the things that you learned about maybe from QAnon, but Q itself is, you know... It's in the groundwater.
Yeah, yeah, it's like... It's in the taps.
Right.
Yeah, I mean, now that I'm sort of like thinking aloud here, but hearing what you're saying, it makes me think like, you know, this is like, you know, like Fish to the Grateful Dead or something.
There's like, you know, you see the merch in the, you know, I'm more likely to see a Where We Go When We Go All shirt in the crowd, but you know, who's playing it sort of sounds like it, but it's a different, it's a different act.
I mean, you know, Clay's career didn't, you know, take off till in this world, you know, till 2021.
And, you know, some of those tunes are, you know, the band isn't broken up, but it's, you know, it's a it's a little different.
Well, and you also have one thing that I forgot is you actually have Michael Flynn on record twice saying that, you know, he believes that QAnon is a leftist psyop, you know, that he that it's a CIA thing.
And so their own guy, you know, is on record, you know, when he doesn't know that he's being recorded, actually condemning it.
Well, I think he does know he's being recorded.
But also, I think that people can, they can always square that away by just being like, disinformation is necessary.
Throwing people off the scent.
Yeah, you have to say that.
I mean, he recently commented on Western Journal about QAnon.
He was saying stuff like all, well, you know, it's like there's, you thought, you thought it was a psyop, but he only objected to it because he didn't like the idea of trust the plan.
Because the idea is like, no, no, we are the plan.
We need to take action.
He thought that was, that whole trust the plan thing was too pacifying.
Yeah, he wants to transition into like a way more tangible thing and be like, stop sitting behind your computers like you're digital soldiers, but now it's time to be real soldiers.
Local action makes national impact.
Yeah.
And Lin Wood was once on this tour and Clay and Lin did like a sort of fireside chat podcast for a little bit before Lin left as one of the sort of shakeups of the sort of defectors or the sort of infighting within the crew.
You know, a lot of the characters are still, you know, the old members of the band are still kicking around.
But the show has changed a little bit.
They got to bring in like a hot new drummer, you know, younger guy who can sort of keep in time, you know.
And also it's like, oh, they can attack QAnon, but they can't attack us talking about God.
So they're kind of folding back and retreating on that like rhetorical front while they also get way more involved in actual politics and, you know, putting boots on the ground.
Yeah.
Sam, thank you so much for coming in the studio to talk to us today.
Where can people find more of your work?
They can follow me on social media at S. Kestenbaum.
That's my name, my last name, and my website, samkestenbaum.com.
All right.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thanks so much for listening to another episode of QAnon Anonymous.
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Please.
We know it.
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Listener, until next week, may the Deep Dish bless you and keep you.
It's not a conspiracy.
It's a fact.
And now, today's Auto-Tune.
Excuse me, um, could you, uh, uh, t-tuck in that shirt, please?
I-I'm what you call a resident advisor, and it's my duty to make sure that you take off that hat, and you-you wear-take off those earrings, and-and you just be good.
No social dancing, okay?
I gotta hold you accountable, alright?
Call me Slim Shady, but tell me it's not weird that all the deans knew my name by the second day I got here.
Told him to take my earring out and force-touché my face Cut your hair, wear it tight, act like you love this place
A present, prune to look like heaven The only thing worse than four years here would be seven
Deans try to change my songs so people wanna groove Play this acoustic guitar too
And handed me the rules I'm not your average white kid so quit laughing
Watch it, he likes to dance, no social dancing O-R-U-L, worry about O-R-U-L
Act a gay, we'll rock the house, shake some YMCA Yo, I guess the first lady, she said it was okay
And her word stands, pass the shoe, left and out the hard way
I'm more of a power trip than the newest RA This song's a $50 fine, but I won't pay.
You take a pregnant girl out of school.
Guy that did a tour, $50 fine.
It's all to play it cool.
This stuff needs to stop, or I'm gonna lose it.
I'm coming so corrected and dotted, couldn't stop my music.
I've been alert not to touch my mic again.
23 people have voted for me, special etiquette.
But everyone's duty here is to keep me accountable, and my business works for the chapel.
This thing is the kids' chapel.
I can't say any goodbye, because it's my anointing.
