PAID SUBSCRIBERS! This Wednesday, 29 October 2025 at Noon Eastern, our Democracy Reading Group will discuss Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s book “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?” Get your electronic copy at your favorite outlet HERE. See you at Substack LIVE.
Over the weekend, my husband and I watched the 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate. Based on the novel by Richard Condon, The Manchurian Candidate stars Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, and Angela Lansbury in an Oscar-nominated performance.
Since pundits are talking about the vice-president as a Manchurian Candidate, I thought I should watch a film I’d never seen to grasp the term.
This classic film is worth a watch, but I don’t include it in today’s newsletter to give a film critique. The Manchurian Candidate lends tremendous insight into the purpose behind Steve Bannon’s recent deployment of the term “Divine Providence.”
For those who haven’t seen the film, The Manchurian Candidate deals with a platoon of soldiers who are captured during the Korean War and subsequently returned to the US. They are all brainwashed by their Chinese/Russian captors, but one is trained as an assassin. When he hears the phrase, “Why don’t you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?” and draws a Queen of Diamonds, he is conditioned to kill whoever he is commanded to kill.
Afterward, he doesn’t remember anything he has done and thus feels no guilt about his murderous actions. He cannot have empathy or remorse, because he has been indoctrinated to disassociate by hearing a benign command to play a simple card game.
The Communists are coordinating with American traitors to place a compromised agent in the Presidency. It’s the brainwashed assassin’s job to make sure their man wins.
Steve Bannon is deploying the term “Divine Providence” like the command “Why don’t you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?” Only instead of controlling a lone actor, he’s potentially activating radicalized millions. Therefore, it is critical for every American to understand what Bannon means when he uses the term “Divine Providence.”
Lots of people have weighed in on Steve Bannon’s invocation of “divine providence” as the reason our current president should get an illegal third term. I include links to some of my favorite takes below:
Ruth Ben-Ghiat GO HERE.
Rick Wilson GO HERE.
These and many other interpretations of “Divine Providence” are worth a read. But everything I’ve read focuses on The Leader/Dictator/King as the recipient of “Divine Providence.”
Today and tomorrow, I’m diving deeper into this term and applying it to Bannon’s statements. As an escapee of White Christian Nationalist indoctrination, the focus on The Leader/Dictator/King misses a key piece of this puzzle: Those who have been radicalized by White Christian Nationalism and whose radicalization is activated/reinforced by the words “Divine Providence.”
What is “Divine Providence?”
Divine Providence is a fundamental tenet of White Christian Nationalist history classes and dogma.
Divine Providence is an ACTIVE CHOICE God makes to direct human affairs.
WCN Example: God led Europeans to colonize the eventual United States because he wanted to establish a Christian nation that would protect Israel and the Jews, his chosen people.
Because Divine Providence is active, it is different from “God’s will.”
God’s Will represents passive outcomes that usually originate from human needs, desires, or requests: I asked; God provided or chose not to provide. Either outcome represents God’s Will.
WCN Example: “I prayed to God for a cure to my cancer, and I now have 2 weeks to live. Therefore, it wasn’t God’s Will to cure my cancer.”
Divine Providence is God putting a finger on the scale and saying to humanity, “This particular thing is what I command of you, and you cannot question the path I have ordained.”
In other words, Divine Providence is God literally saying, “THIS IS WHAT I WANT, AND YOU HUMANS CANNOT DEVIATE FROM IT.”
Steve Bannon (and now Mike Flynn) are saying our current president was elected by Divine Providence. They are telling their various cult followers, “God put his finger on the scale and chose this man to lead.”
Here’s why the term Divine Providence matters to White Christian Nationalists.
It isn’t unusual for Christian Nationalists to question God’s Will.
Example: “I begged God to cure my father’s cancer, but God took him anyway. While I understand his death was God’s will, I’m still mad at God for taking my dad before I was ready.”
Christian Nationalists are conditioned to filter “God’s Will” through this lens of grief and anger. It’s okay to feel these emotions as long as the ultimate outcome is acceptance of God’s Will.
“Divine Providence” cannot be questioned. EVER EVER EVER. Christian Nationalists are indoctrinated to see Divine Providence as an ABSOLUTE. Whenever they hear that something is “Divine Providence,” they understand immediately that they are to accept it without question. To reference a newsletter from last year, “God said it; that settles it.”
Archived newsletters are PAID SUBSCRIBER benefits. To access almost 600 archived newsletters and support this work, upgrade to paid below.
Bannon is using the term “Divine Providence” to activate indoctrinated, highly radicalized Christian Nationalists. He is saying that every illegal, unconstitutional, violent thing they do to keep the current president in that office is GOD’S DESIGN.
Just like Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate, Christian Nationalists accept “Divine Providence” without question; support it without reservation; and will fight, kill, and die for it if and when required.
In tomorrow’s newsletter, we’ll discuss more of the programming around Bannon’s use of Divine Providence, Thiel’s use of the AntiChrist, and why it matters for everyone on this planet.