Eric Metaxas’ ‘civil war’ dream: Wants Trump to ‘outlaw’ Democrat Party
In a recent episode of his self-titled podcast, Eric Metaxas expressed his desire to see Donald Trump launch a “civil war” and “outlaw” the Democrat Party via a “national emergency” declaration.
In his interview with author James Howard Kunstler, Metaxas agreed that Trump might have to declare a national emergency to outlaw the Democrat Party in order to prevent them from winning the midterm elections (via People For):
Angry that the GOP-controlled Congress has been unable to pass the SAVE Act, Kunstler warned that “at some point, I think Mr. Trump is going to have to go Abe Lincoln on the Democratic Party.”
“He’s going to have to declare some kind of a national emergency,” Kunstler said. “He may have to declare the Democratic Party as a seditious outlaw organization and do something about it.”
Metaxas agreed while noting that such a move would undoubtedly be seen by Trump’s critics as “dramatic.”
“It seems to me that circumstances may require—may require—Mr. Trump to go to a place where he has to declare certain emergency executive powers to deal with an organization that wants to destroy the country,” Kunstler replied. “And that means probably taking some people off the game board in a very demonstrative way.”
“Those of us who care about the country realize that others have done this,” Metaxas said. “Lincoln did it. But what would that look like? … Can he do that before the midterms? What’s that going to look like? If ever the No Kings people would be losing their minds—he does nothing and they lose their minds—when he does something, you have to wonder what that would look like.”
“I think it would probably look something like a civil war,” Kunstler answered. “We’ve been there before and somebody had to rescue the republic, and it looks like we may be entering a period where the republic needs to be rescued again. It’s going to be pretty unappetizing to see that happen, but necessity may call.” (Emphasis mine)
Calls for “civil war” and emergency declarations have become standard talking points for the party that has replaced conservatism with Trumpism and Nationalism, and it’s becoming increasingly problematic within the circle of Evangelicals I refer to as the Fellowship of the Pharisees — a group with a long history of trading the Gospel of Jesus Christ for a seat at Trump’s table, and of which Eric Metaxas is a long-standing member.
In the weeks leading up to the events of January 6, 2021, members of the Trump cult were calling for a military coup and/or secession from the Union following a 7-2 U.S. Supreme Court decision that rejected Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election via a Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn the outcome in four battleground states.
Following the SCOTUS decision, Allen West, the failed TEA Party congressman and former state chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, reacted to the ruling with a call for a new Civil War in a statement released shortly after the ruling.
A small number of cult members held a rally in support of Trump’s attempt to steal the election and was attended by disciples like Michael Flynn, the recipient of a presidential pardon and a multi-million-dollar taxpayer-funded “settlement” for crimes he committed and pled guilty to on Trump’s behalf. A few days prior to the rally, Flynn called on Trump to declare martial law and hold a new election in order to avoid a Civil War:
“When the legislators, courts and/or Congress fail to do their duty under the 12th Amendment, you must be ready Mr. President to immediately declare a limited form of Martial Law and temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections, for the sole purpose of having the military oversee a national re-vote.
“Failure to do so could result in massive violence and destruction on a level not seen since the Civil War. Limited Martial Law is clearly a better option than Civil War!”
Serving as master of ceremonies at the rally (referred to at the time as the Jericho March) was none other than Eric Metaxas. In a broadcast of his radio show hyping the event, Metaxas interviewed Trump and declared “I’d be happy to die in this fight. This is a fight for everything.”
It was about this time that Eric Metaxas also interviewed Charlie Kirk to discuss the “stolen” election using several troubling statements about the election:
“It’s like stealing the heart and soul of America. It’s like holding a rusty knife to the throat of Lady Liberty.”
“You might as well spit on the grave of George Washington.”
“This is evil. It’s like somebody has been raped or murdered. … This is like that, times a thousand.”
Metaxas had this to say about Americans who disagreed with his conclusions or believed Trump lost the election:
Everybody who is not hopped up about this … you are the Germans that looked the other way when Hitler was preparing to do what he was preparing to do. Unfortunately, I don’t see how you can see it any other way.
Comparing Americans who disagreed with him to Hitler was rather ironic for the man who wrote the book, Bonhoeffer. But that’s how low Trumpism has taken him. Metaxas also declared to his friend Kirk, “We need to fight to the death, to the last drop of blood, because it’s worth it.”
During Trump’s rise to power in the 2016 election, I noticed how America’s religious leaders were showing themselves as no different than the Nazi Germany religious leaders ultimately responsible for the rise of Adolf Hitler. I wrote an article about these similarities at the time based on the biography written about Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas. In the forward of the book by Timothy J. Keller, we read:
It’s impossible to understand . . . without becoming acquainted with the shocking capitulation of the German church to Hitler in the 1930s. How could the “church of Luther” . . . ever come to such a place? The answer is that the true gospel, summed up by Bonhoeffer as “costly grace,” had been lost. On the one hand, the church had become marked by formalism. That meant going to church and hearing that God just loves and forgives everyone, so it doesn’t really matter much how you live. Bonhoeffer called this “cheap grace.” On the other hand, there was legalism, or salvation by law and good works. Legalism meant that God loves you because you have pulled yourself together and are trying to live a good, disciplined life.
Both of these impulses made it possible for Hitler to come to power. (Emphasis mine)
My contention at the time was that the spiritual condition of today’s American church so closely resembled that of 1930s Germany that we were dangerously close to seeing our great nation fall into the hands of a Hitler-like leader. And with all that has transpired since the 2024 election, the parallels between 1930s Germany and today are even more stark than they were ten years ago.
Eric Metaxas’ call for “civil war” and a presidential emergency declaration to “outlaw” the Democrat party is a literal picture of the post-constitutional America conservatives have been warning about for years. And unless we expose political prostitutes like Metaxas for their “fruitless deeds of darkness” (Ephesians 5:11), evil will win . . . and liberty will be destroyed.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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