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This episode uncovers the hidden history and modern influence of The Family. A secretive religious–political network that has shaped American power since the 1930s. Founded by Abraham Vereide and built on the belief that God works through “key men,” The Family cultivated presidents, senators, foreign leaders, and global elites through private prayer circles, back-channel diplomacy, and the National Prayer Breakfast. We trace their role in anti-labor politics, Cold War foreign policy, international human-rights abuses, scandal cover-ups, and their deep connections to the Trump era, where “Jesus plus nothing” theology helped justify Christian nationalism and the erosion of church–state separation. Drawing from documented scholarship and investigative reporting, this episode reveals a movement that has remained influential precisely because it operates in the shadows.

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Sources

1. Sharlet, Jeff. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. HarperCollins, 2008.
   

2. Sharlet, Jeff. C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy. Little, Brown and Company, 2010.
   

3. Kruse, Kevin M. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America. Basic Books, 2015.
   

4. Williams, Daniel K. God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right. Oxford University Press, 2010.
   

5. Dochuk, Darren. From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism. W.W. Norton, 2011.
   

6. Gage, Beverly. The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in Its First Age of Terror. Oxford University Press, 2009.
   

7. Martin, William. With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America. Broadway Books, 1996.
   

8. Callahan, Richard J. Jr. “The Invention of Corporate America’s Invention of Christian America.” The Marginalia Review of Books, 2020.
   

9. Balmer, Randall. “The Religious Right and the Family Values Crusade.” Journal of Church and State, vol. 52, no. 3, 2010, pp. 370–394.

10. Butler, Anthea. “Race, Religion, and the American Presidency: The Faith Factor.” Journal of American History, vol. 99, no. 1, 2012.
    

11. Clark, Elizabeth A. “Invisible Hands and Divine Order: Theology and the Political Economy of American Fundamentalism.” Religion and American Culture, vol. 18, no. 2, 2008.
    

12. The Washington Post archives on the National Prayer Breakfast (1953-present).

13. The New York Times coverage of Doug Coe and Fellowship Foundation operations.

14. Religion Dispatches (University of Southern California Annenberg) – multiple investigations into The Family’s political network.

15. Guernica Magazine: “Christ Über Alles” interview with Jeff Sharlet.

16. The Humanist: “The Family: More Gilead than Godly.”

17. Encyclopaedia Britannica: “The Family (international religious movement).”

18. Library of Congress Congressional Records on the National Prayer Breakfast (1953-1970s).

19. Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College – correspondence and records on Vereide and early ICL initiatives.
    

William Randolph Hearst was one of the most powerful and controversial figures in American media history — a man whose newspapers didn’t just report the news, but created it. Rising from the son of a wealthy mining family to the head of a sprawling media empire, Hearst revolutionized journalism through bold headlines, emotional storytelling, and sensationalism that came to define “yellow journalism.” His rivalry with Joseph Pulitzer ignited a circulation war that prioritized scandal over substance, blurring the line between truth and spectacle and forever changing how the public consumed information.

But Hearst’s influence extended far beyond print. His newspapers helped fan the flames of the Spanish-American War, demonstrated the political might of mass media, and paved the way for today’s era of opinion-driven journalism. Though his empire eventually declined — and his life inspired Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane — Hearst’s legacy endures in every media outlet that trades outrage for engagement. His story is both a warning and a blueprint for the modern information age.

Sources

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OrdIlOeSdw3i7lKSJNaBM-YcGUMS9qIUzfIMJloGKTA/edit?usp=sharing

Last summer here in Nashville, there were 8 neo-Nazi marches. What is social media’s role in fueling — or even enabling — political violence? How do algorithmic echo chambers, disinformation loops, encrypted organizing platforms, and the erosion of trust in institutions converge to create real-world harm? And what can be done to hold systems and actors accountable before the spiral becomes irreversible?

To guide that conversation, we’re honored to have Timothy J. Heaphy with us. His vantage is rare: He’s been on the front lines of investigating two of the most consequential episodes of recent American unrest — Charlottesville in 2017 and the January 6, 2021 Capitol siege — and in his new book Harbingers: What January 6 and Charlottesville Reveal About Rising Threats to American Democracy, he tells both the story of how these events unfolded and the deeper dynamics behind them.

Timothy Heaphy’s career spans decades of legal, prosecutorial, and public service work, giving him deep institutional insight and investigative experience. A graduate of the University of Virginia (B.A. and J.D., 1991), he spent over a decade as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., and later in the Western District of Virginia, handling a range of federal prosecutions. After moving into private practice, he was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2009 to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, where he oversaw major investigations into corruption, fraud, civil rights, and national security.

Following his tenure, Heaphy returned to private practice and later became University Counsel at UVA. In 2017, he authored Charlottesville’s independent report on the “Unite the Right” rally, and in 2021, he was appointed chief investigative counsel for the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, directing its investigative and legal teams. He also founded The Fountain Fund, a nonprofit supporting reentry for formerly incarcerated individuals. Throughout his career, Heaphy has combined legal expertise, public service, and investigative leadership in some of the most consequential inquiries of recent years.

In his book, Harbingers, Heaphy brings that rich background to bear on two momentous acts of political violence: the 2017 Charlottesville rally and the January 6 Capitol attack. He doesn’t just rehash the facts — he shows how he built investigative teams, how he sifted through communications, how he probed decision-making failures in law enforcement and government, and how social media and digital networks played roles in planning, mobilization, and escalation.

In today’s episode, we’ll use Harbingers not just as narrative backbone, but as a portal into deeper inquiry:

• How did social media architectures and incentives — content moderation policies, recommendation systems, coordinated groups — intersect with extremist organization and violence?
  

• Where did institutions (local government, law enforcement, federal agencies) fail to anticipate or respond — and why?
  

• What are the paths forward for accountability, reform, civic resilience, and prevention?
  

So let’s dive in, first by asking: when does online grievance cross the line toward violence — and what makes that line blur in 21st-century politics?

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Happy Halloween!!! In this episode, I am going to take you deep into one of the most bizarre and destructive moral panics in modern history — the Satanic Panic.

From daycare witch hunts to heavy metal hysteria, the 1980s saw ordinary Americans convinced that the Devil had moved into their suburbs. Police were trained to spot pentagrams and candles as signs of ritual murder, therapists “recovered” memories of occult abuse, and media outlets like Geraldo Rivera and Oprah fueled the flames. Innocent people were imprisoned, reputations destroyed, and entire communities torn apart — all in the name of protecting children from imaginary cults.

Lets explore how this hysteria culminated in the West Memphis Three case — three teenagers convicted largely for wearing black and listening to Metallica. Nearly two decades later, DNA evidence revealed what fear had obscured all along: there was no cult, no ritual, and no Satanic conspiracy — just a community so terrified of darkness that it created its own.

But the story doesn’t end there. The same architecture of fear — hidden elites, child-trafficking conspiracies, and divine warfare — has found new life online through Pizzagate and QAnon. Monte connects the dots between the witch hunts of the 1980s and the algorithmic hysteria of the digital age, revealing how the Satanic Panic never really died — it just went viral.

Through history, psychology, and media analysis, this episode asks a haunting question:

Why do we keep needing a devil to blame?

Sources & References:

• Pazder, Lawrence & Michelle Smith. Michelle Remembers (1980)

• Loftus, Elizabeth. “Creating False Memories.” Scientific American (1997)

• Victor, Jeffrey. Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend (1993)

• Lanning, Kenneth. “Investigator’s Guide to Allegations of ‘Ritual’ Child Abuse.” FBI Behavioral Science Unit (1992)

• Nathan, Debbie & Snedeker, Michael. Satan’s Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt (1995)

• Richardson, James T., Joel Best, & David Bromley. The Satanism Scare (1991)

• Barkun, Michael. A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (2003)

• Argentino, Marc-André. “The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making.” The Conversation (2020)

• Zuckerman, Phil. “From Satanic Panic to QAnon.” Skeptical Inquirer (2021)

• Swami, V., Malpass, F., Havard, D., et al. “Metalheads: The Influence of Personality and Individual Differences on Preference for Heavy Metal.”

• “Extreme Metal Music and Anger Processing.” PubMed Central (PMC)

• “The Psychology of Scapegoating.” Psychology Today

• “The Cult Psychology of the Satanic Panic.” Get Therapy Birmingham

• “Moral Panics…” Southern Connecticut LibGuide

• “Lame Blame: Forgive the Scapegoat to Forgive Yourself.” Ernest Becker Institute

• “The Oldest Trick in the Book: Panic-Driven Scapegoating in History and Recurring Patterns of Persecution*

Danny Collins once had everything lined up — talent, ambition, and a fast track toward the major leagues. Danny signed with the Atlanta Braves in 2002 but his life began to unravel. Addiction took hold, leading to 14 felony convictions and years behind bars. In prison, desperate for protection and belonging, Danny joined a white supremacist group — a decision that would define his beliefs, his future MAGA support, but also become a key insight into leaving MAGA and becoming an advocate for prison reform.

But inside those walls, something began to change. He started confronting his own pain, his past, and the hate he had inherited and embraced. Through education, introspection, and the influence of other inmates who faced the racial discrimination of the justice system, Danny began dismantling the ideology that had shaped him.

Today, he stands as an outspoken advocate for racial justice, prison reform, and personal transformation, using his story to expose how fear and indoctrination breed hate — and how courage and empathy can break the cycle.

In this powerful and deeply honest episode, Monte sits down with Danny Collins to talk about addiction, ideology, accountability, and the hard work of redemption.

This week on Flipping Tables, Monte sits down with Amy Duggar—the outspoken cousin who dared to step outside the Duggar machine and call it what it is. Known to millions from 19 Kids and Counting, Amy has spent years reclaiming her voice and redefining her faith after growing up in the shadow of one of America’s most controlling religious families.

In this raw and unapologetic conversation, Amy opens up about her upcoming book, Holy Disruptor, and the cost of breaking the silence. From toxic purity culture to spiritual manipulation, family loyalty, and the aftermath of scandal, she exposes the systems that weaponized religion—and shares how she found redemption in honesty, not obedience.

This isn’t just a story about the Duggars. It’s about the courage to burn down false altars and build something truer from the ashes.

Check out her book "Holy Disruptor" out now

I've been guilty in the past of talking about historical figures doing really awful things and making comments like "they were a reflection of their time" meanwhile, other men and women of their time- knew it was wrong and fought against it.
A great example of this is John Brown. John was a devout Christian, and a staunch abolitionist. In fact, he was an abolitionist who so firmly believed that slavery was a violent sin against humanity that he was willing to use any means necessary to end it. Even now, we live in an era where white washers of history want to act, and teach kids that slavery "wasn't that bad". That human trafficking, rape, kidnapping, beating, torture, forced labor, medical experimentation on an entire community because of their skin tone "wasn't that bad".

He famously said, "The crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood". And he was right.
How much do we believe in the things we say we do? Are we willing to let it cost us? Are we brave enough to stand for human rights no matter what?
I hope I am. John's story inspires me and calls me to account. How dare I be afraid or tempted to cower when others have sacrificed so much. Excited to share this story with you !

I know things over the last two weeks have been extremely heavy. I found myself more fatigued than I ever remember being. After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, getting doxxed and looking at the world burn it really brings up the question "Is there hope left?" Is there room to bridge the ever widening gap happening across America?
Caroline Stout, like me, was part of that faction once, including working at Turning Point USA. Today we discuss our journey's about how we left, because here's the thing- if two people that were as entrenched as we were can leave- anyone can leave. As we watch Christian Nationalism spin into a frenzy and we watch the America we thought we had fall into rubble...
People will wake up
People can wake up
People will leave
I hope this conversation gives you hope. Hope for change, hope for the future, hope for a better tomorrow. Because we can change. And at the end of the day we are being pushed into a rhetoric of right vs. left, christian vs. heathen, good vs. evil when that is NOT the battle.
The battle is and always will be top vs. bottom. The people pitting us against each other are picking our pockets, lining their mansions with money they don't need and could never spend.
My neighbor is not my enemy

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One of my favorite people alive, and my favorite public scholar. I've been considering graduate school and this conversation has me deeply considering going back to school. There's so much to know.

Dr. Dan McClellan is a public scholar of the Bible and religion. He has a PhD in theology and religilon from the University of Exeter where he wrote his dissertation on the the conceptualization of deity and divine images in the Hebrew Bible through methodological lenses of cognitive linguistics and cognitive science of religion. Translation: REAL SMART and knows his shit.

Since 2021, he has been making scholarship more accessible and confronting misinformation on social media related to the study of the Bible and Religion. He also has an incredible podcast with Dan Beecher called Data over Dogma. He now even offers online classes like Biblical Hebrew.

In this conversation we really approach cultural issues and arguments being made about the Bible, especially about biblical history, and the ways in recent years its been used to ostracize and demonize groups of people and the burning question- is that what the Bible really teaches?? Check out his bestselling book "The Bible Says So!"

This was a dream conversation for me- hope you enjoy!

I am SO SORRY. In the wake of traveling and working in DC I completely forgot to post last weeks episode. I'm a human and I apologize sincerely. It means a lot to me to stay on top of this work and education the best I can.

That said, YOU GET TWO EPISODES THIS WEEK

The first is the most comprehensive conversation I've had to date. Dr. Randall Balmer is a prize winning historian and Emmy Award nominee and holds the John Phillips Chair in religion at Dartmouth which is the oldest endowed professorship at the school. He is an expert in Religion in North America and Evangelicalism in America and his recent book "America's Best Idea: The Separation of Church & Hate" is the best top to bottom explanation on why 1. Separation is so important and 2. NO we are not a "Christian Nation" but one founded on religious liberty.

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