Monte Mader Deconstructs Alt-Right Christian Nationalism

Summary

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The Find Out Podcast

Episode: Monte Mader Deconstructs Alt-Right Christian Nationalism

Date: March 24, 2026
Guest: Monte Mater (former Christian nationalist, culture critic, musician, podcaster)
Summary By: Expert Podcast Summarizer

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Overview

In this episode, the Find Out Podcast team sits down with Monte Mater, who grew up deeply immersed in the world of far-right Christian nationalism before undergoing a profound transformation. Monte details her journey out of this insular, often abusive movement, offers a first-hand perspective on how religion and Republican politics fuse in American life, and discusses the psychological and social mechanisms that keep people trapped in such environments. Throughout, Monte provides a nuanced and honest look at deconstruction, indoctrination, the Trump era, and the potential for hope and change—even as America faces new challenges under the resurgence of Christian nationalism in Trump’s second term.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Monte’s Upbringing: Faith and Politics Intertwined (01:54–05:23)

• Background:
  Monte grew up in rural Wyoming, surrounded by Republican politics and strict Christian doctrine. Her father served in state government, the family was well-known locally, and paranoia about government overreach was common.
• Christian Nationalism as Norm:
  “It was always, you cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat. That was, that was a baseline.” (01:59, Monte Mater)
• Insular Environment:
  Monte attended private Christian schools, was tutored in theology, and wasn’t allowed secular music, movies, or friends.
• Hell & Control:
  “From the time you’re very, very small… there’s the threat of hell… God’s word comes to you through God-ordained male authority. Any kind of question against them is rebellion.” (03:14, Monte Mater)

2. Early Doubts and Seeds of Deconstruction (08:22–12:19)

• First Seed at Age 9:
  Challenged double standards about modesty (“If men are supposed to be the leaders, why can’t we trust them to lead themselves?”)* (09:10, Monte Mater)*
• Women’s Subjugation:
  Grew resentful of “wives submit to your husband” sermons and saw first cracks in the theology.
• Gender Roles:
  “You couldn’t convince me that a relationship where only one person has resources, only one person has leadership was fair.” (11:15, Monte Mater)

3. The Breaking Point: Personal Experience & Realization (12:25–17:37)

• Major Catalyst:
  At 23, a family tragedy (close contact with a 12-year-old rape victim) forced Monte to confront the hypocrisy and failures of her faith community regarding abuse and abortion.
• Lie-Hunting:
  “That was the first time I recognized I had been intentionally lied to.” (15:16, Monte Mater)
• Contrast of Compassion and Shame:
  Shocked by the difference between her fiancé’s family’s compassion and her own community’s rigidity.

4. The Trump Era and Christian Nationalism Unmasked (17:53–24:45)

• Trump’s Rise as a Catalyst:
  Watching her community embrace Trump (“serial adulterer, disgusting, lying, racist piece of…”) revealed the real motivations in the movement—power, not faith.
• Moment of Clarity:
  “This was never about loving your neighbor... this was all about power for you people.” (19:48, Monte Mater)
• Personal Loss:
  Monte planned to break with her father over these realizations, but he died before the conversation happened, amplifying the trauma of her transition.

5. Abuse, Family Estrangement, and Cycle of Harm (24:45–29:51)

• Abuse at Home:
  Details severe corporal punishment, forced isolation, and emotional estrangement.
• Reluctance to Divorce:
  “He also didn’t believe that that was a good enough reason to get divorced. And I think that was religiously motivated.” (28:55, Monte Mater)
• Family Legacy:
  Siblings vary in continuation or abandonment of Christian nationalist beliefs.

6. Why So Many Stay — Social, Economic, and Psychological Traps (30:26–33:18)

• Factors in Entrapment:
  • Brainwashing from birth
  • Community and family dependence
  • Economic pressure, especially on women
  • Fear of hell and social exile
• Weaponized Support Systems:
  “If they leave that movement, they lose their church, they lose their community, they’ll lose their family.” (31:20, Monte Mater)
• Historical Roots of Gender Control:
  Outlined deep ties between marriage counseling’s eugenicist origins and current doctrine.

7. Justifying Trump: Cognitive Dissonance and Power (33:38–37:55)

• Justification Mechanisms:
  Trump’s sins are “forgiven”—he supposedly found God when he became a Republican. “God uses imperfect vessels.” (35:04, Monte Mater)
• Ends Justify Means:
  “It’s all the ends justify the means for them because… it’s about getting and retaining power.” (37:28, Blonte)

8. Indoctrination & Community Control from Childhood (38:50–41:47)

• Threat of Total Ostracism:
  Leaving such groups often means losing all family and social connections.
• Coercive Techniques:
  “They would rather you be suffering and miserable and in line than anything else.” (41:47, Monty Mater)

9. America’s Pattern: Cruelty and Power Hunger (42:30–48:42)

• No Progress Without Reckoning:
  Discussion of Matthew Shepard, AIDS crisis, and cycles of American conservatism (Nixon, Reagan, Trump).
• “Poverty is not a bug, it’s a feature.” (59:19, Monte Mater)

10. How Can People Deconstruct? How Can Others Help? (49:18–56:48)

• Role of Social Media:
  Access to diverse stories and information is key: “Accounts like Rich’s… just very calmly tell you this… Even if people don’t change their mind right away, it plants seeds.” (49:23, Monte Mater)
• Humanization Over Data:
  “Narrative matters a lot more than data does… stories like Adriana Smith… are much more impactful than throwing data and numbers out.” (50:49, Monte Mater)
• Welcome Defectors Without Forcing Forgiveness:
  Those who leave must accept they may not receive forgiveness from people they hurt: “You cannot expect or demand apologies from people that you victimized… you have to show up and do the work anyway.” (53:11, Monte Mater)
• Who Holds Space for Defectors:
  “This is specifically the work of white folks in particular. But especially if you had a religious background.” (53:41, Monte Mater)

11. The Future: Hints of Hope and Transformation (57:04–59:29)

• Silver Lining:
  The rise of Christian nationalism, while frightening, ripped the mask off the movement, making its true intentions clear and galvanizing resistance.
• Path to Change:
  “I think that this is the path that leads to the United States having universal health care and education. But it had to get this bad.” (58:52, Monte Mater)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Church’s Influence Over Politics:
  “I never had an opportunity to see a separation of those things.” (02:33, Monte Mater)

• On Her First Doubt:
  “If men are supposed to be leaders, why can’t we trust them to lead themselves? Why is it on me, the child, to make sure grown—” (09:17, Monte Mater)

• On Family and Abuse:
  “I was beat with a bullwhip once. My brother was beat with a chair, frozen hose… It was safer at boarding school than being home.” (27:06, Monte Mater)

• On Why People Stay:
  “There’s this deep human longing to belong… if they leave that movement they lose their church, their family… like a gay kid coming out in a Christian home.” (31:20, Monte Mater)

• On Forgiveness and Trump:
  “Well, he made all those decisions while he was a Democrat, and he found God and ran as a Republican. So all those sins are forgiven.” (34:46, Monte Mater)

• On the Future:
  “The facade had to drop before people were willing to actually take the system on. Because the system is working exactly how it’s intended to… now because everything is going to burn down, we get a chance to build something new.” (59:18, Monte Mater)

• On Deconstruction & Community:
  “Queer people should not be holding this bucket. No people of color should be holding this bucket… this is specifically the work of white folks in particular.” (53:41, Monte Mater)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:54: Monte describes upbringing and political/theological indoctrination
• 08:22: First seeds of doubt, age 9
• 12:25: Breaking point—experience with childhood sexual assault/victim blaming
• 17:53: Evaluating Christianity as a tool for male power
• 19:48: Trump as catalyst, realizing movement was about power, not faith
• 24:45: Estrangement from family after going public with new views
• 30:43: Why people stay—social, economic, information control
• 33:38: How Christian nationalists justify Trump
• 41:47: Coercion and control mechanisms (community, siblings, family)
• 49:23: Social media’s role in deconstruction, importance of story over data
• 57:18: Closing: Hope in the exposure of the movement and the road ahead

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Tone and Style

• Honest, raw, at times irreverent and darkly humorous
• Direct, unapologetic, with a blend of personal storytelling and analysis
• Empathetic toward those struggling to leave insular communities

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Conclusion

Monte Mater’s guest appearance offers a compelling, insider look at the machinery of Christian nationalism and how personal experience, information, and empathy are necessary for change. The horrors are real—abuse, brainwashing, social exile—but so are the stories of survival and transformation. As America faces an emboldened right, Monte’s insight and hope shine a light forward: “Now because everything is going to burn down, we get a chance to build something new.” (59:29, Monte Mater)

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Transcript

[Monty Mater]

Foreign.

[Rich]

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Find out podcast. There is a lot of news out there, a lot of bad things. But we're actually going to kind of talk about something a little bit different today because we have a, a guest that we have so many questions for. I know I do, because I don't understand that world. But we have Monte Matter here, Mater here with us. Excuse me. God, I always screw up the names. I always do it. Who used to be part of the far right Christian nationalist community or world and has now completely moved to the other side and is a culture critic, musician, and podcaster. So, Monte, welcome and apologies for screwing up your name, which I have to say to everybody when I start literally every time. Every time. Every time.

[Monty Mater]

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

[Rich]

Yeah. So money. We're the four of us that are with you had religion in their backgrounds, but no longer have it. And I think for years we have sort of, you know, scratched our heads about how the hell do these deeply religious people believe in and support till the end of time? A man that literally, like, exhibits none of those traits. And in fact, this morning took a shot at a guy who he, he criticized for getting married too quickly after his wife passed away. This is the guy. Joe, want to talk? Joe? Joe Kent, who was under Tulsi Gabard and resigned. So he decided to attack him. Which brings up the fact that Donald Trump's cheated on all three of his wives multiple times. Multiple. Multiple times, including one home with the baby. Baron, tell us a little bit about your upbringing and how, how your worldview was sort of shaped as you were growing up in this very right wing world.

[Monty Mater]

Yeah, so I, I grew up very much at the intersection of Republican politics and religion. That was always a married thing for me. There was never a point in my life where that wasn't in the conversation. It was always, you cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat. That was, that was a baseline. So there's a couple things that happen simultaneously. I grew up out in Wyoming in a really rural area. My family was the type of family that we stockpiled arms against the government in case they ruby Ridged us. There was a lot of paranoia, a lot of, if the government does this after the Columbine shooting, a lot of conversations around, well, the Democrats are going to hold you at gunpoint and it's your job to die for your faith. These were very much conversations that I grew up with as a kid. And the, the hard part about it is because I not only was part of the church and my dad and his brother, my cousin, were all involved in Republican politics. My dad was a state. A house representative. Later in his life, his brother was a state senator. My cousin was the county commissioner. My grandfather was kind of someone who was behind the scenes pulling a lot of strings. And so I never had an opportunity to see a separation of those things. But also, I went to all Christian nationalist schools. I was privately tutored in theology and Christian apologetics by my dad. So you're not just getting this information from your parents. You're getting it from your pastor, you're getting it from your teacher, you're getting it from your best friend's dad. And when you're a kid and you're growing up, you're. You're. You think you can trust the adults, and it's all of the adults telling you the same thing. So you grow up. There's that aspect of it. Plus, I was not allowed to listen to secular music. What I could watch in movies and films was highly policed. Who I could hang out with was highly policed. And you have the other side, the religious aspect of it, that from the time you're very, very small. There's the threat of hell, there's this ingrained belief that you're broken, you're sinful, you're evil, you can't do anything right. Don't question God. But God's word comes to you through God. Ordained male authority comes from your pastor, it comes from your dad. And if you ask questions and you rebuff that, then you're sinning. So you end up with this huge overlap of everyone in your life is telling you this exact same idea about the political structure. And also those same people are the people that are supposed to be giving you God's word. And any kind of question against them is rebellion. So that was the. The hybrid that I grew up in. And I went to Liberty University. I graduated from Liberty University. Yay. I left. I was out before the pool boy scandal. Oh, God. But it. Even there, it wasn't until I got to Liberty and I encountered other people who were not where my family was from, who were not deeply conservative, who were. Some of them weren't even Christians. That's just where their parents wanted them to go. That was the very first time I encountered any kind of other worldview that wasn't in this very insular community. And even in that insular community, my family wasn't even the most conservative. So there was a family we were friends with that owned a gun shop who they would not allow the women of the family to wear pants. And so when we, we stayed with them, at one point, they babysat us. I had to wear skirts the whole week because they didn't believe it was right for a woman to wear pants. And we had other families that were, they would homeschool only because they didn't want any kind of infiltration, if you will, of students who maybe didn't grow up even going to a Christian school, who didn't grow up as conservative as they did. So it was an extremely insular environment. I graduated high school, I had just turned, went to Liberty. That was my first experience experiencing anyone who had any kind of different belief system than what I did.

[Rich]

So I'm, I'm having a hard time. There's a couple things there there. You just gave us a lot. So first of all, just the fact that people at Liberty University gave you different viewpoints. That was my point. I know I was like, what?

[Monty Mater]

That's a reflection of how conservative I grew up was. Yeah.

[Rich]

But the other one that I had never heard before, maybe I'm just ignorant to this and I might screw up the name, but you said Christian apologetics.

[Monty Mater]

Christian apologetics. So that's essentially the type of debate that Charlie Kirk did is Christian apologetics. It's one liners, it's very combative. Back them into the corner. I've got my list of talking points, I've got my verse I can throw at you, and if you don't speak Christianese, you won't know what I'm talking about. That's Christian apologetics. Yeah. So I was trained for five years in, in that type of talking form.

[Rich]

So, okay, so you go to Liberty University and do you go, wow, this place is liberal? Is that like what we're like? I'm sorry, I'm just, I'm hung up on this. I just like, I'm sorry. Yeah.

[Blonte]

What was your first reaction?

[Rich]

You were like, whoa, these people are like very progressive.

[Monty Mater]

So. Well, there was, there was a few things that happened. It was my first time encountering people of other races outside of like some indigenous communities. Yeah. So really, I mean, I had maybe met two black people my entire life prior to that. And so, you know, I'm in school in Virginia and, and it was my first time getting that different perspective that's not Hollywoodized or churchized. And I grew up in a very, very like, homogenous white community. But I remember. So I went to a Christian nationalist boarding school for eighth grade and high school. And so we had very strict dress Codes. We had very strict lights out. You would actually get detention if you were caught listening to secular music of any kind. And so getting to Liberty. And I could listen to whatever music I wanted to. This is where my roommate showed me Tupac. And it changed my life. I could. I could, in large part. Liberty has a dress code, but it's not super strict. It's. It's more along the lines of like, you can't wear PJs to class, but you can wear jeans and a T shirt and you can wear flip flops. And I was just like, what? This is great. And two years in, because I had lived in boarding school for so long, someone I went to boarding school with was friends with the provost of the college. So I was able to appeal to the provost to move off campus. My second. My second year, the end of my second year, so then I was off campus and I could just kind of do whatever I wanted. And I could. I had my own car. And I was just like, this is. This is great. This is. Compared to where I had come from, it felt really a lot more relaxed. And it wasn't necessarily that the teachings were liberal. The teachers teachings were very in line with what I had grown up with. But I was getting this opportunity to talk to other people who were not in the same belief system as I was and who came from. One of my best friends was from New York. And so it was this. You have this new kind of access to information and these new thought points. I had never been exposed to other opinions ever. And so that was really what was changing for me. One it just being more relaxed overall and the people there, the students there having differing opinions.

[Blonte]

Monty, what was the first seed of doubt? Like, how, how. When did. When did deconstruction begin in your, in your brain? Was it like when you were like 10, did you start asking questions in your own head? Or was it that it all happened as life happened?

[Monty Mater]

So I had my first moment. I remember really having this bad feeling in my gut and kind of thinking, huh, that's convenient. Was when I was 9. So I had gone to this. And this all happened within a month period. I was going to Sunday school one day. I was wearing a sundress and, you know, like thick sleeveless sundress, but it was just above my knees because I'm tall. And the teacher gave me the whole, well, you need to be careful what you wear because you're going to cause men to stumble. And I don't remember exactly what I said because my vocabulary is Better now. But I said something along the lines of if men are supposed to be the leaders, why can't we trust them to lead themselves? Why is it on me, the child to make sure grown. It was something along that line. In a much more nine year old fashion, she got furious at me. I was asked to leave Sunday school and I wasn't welcome back. So after that I went to adult church. And within the next month I heard my first wives submit to your husband's sermon. And I am sitting next to my dad, was my only parent. And I'm sitting next to my dad with my Bible open. And I can see the passage in Ephesians where the passage starts with the verse submit to one another in love before it jumps into wives. And I see the husband's portion. But the, the preacher didn't have time to get into any of those verses. He just ran out of time.

[Rich]

Skip that chunk.

[Monty Mater]

He skipped that part. And I'm sitting there and I remember just getting furious because I knew that it was unfair. I knew, I was like, that's not fair that like the wife has to be. Doesn't get to make any decisions, she doesn't get to make any choices. And again, I didn't have the vocabulary for it, but I knew that that was unfair. And I also knew, I remember having this thought of like, I was like, wow, it's really good to be a guy. Like, wow, how convenient. And so what I decided that day, I didn't say anything, I didn't complain, I didn't want to make God mad. So my solution to the problem was when I went home that day and went to go change my dress, I took my Bible and I threw it across the room. And I was like, okay, I'm just not going to get married then.

[Rich]

Cool.

[Monty Mater]

Like, I don't want to disobey God. Awesome. I'm just not going to get married because I'm not doing that. And that same issue came up three years later and my dad saw my face this time I was 12 and I said, dad, I was like, I, I don't believe I should have to submit to someone just because he was born with a penis. And I wasn't like, I don't agree with that. And then he goes into the whole, well, it's about picking the right person and he should take your opinion into account. But you couldn't convince me that a relationship where only one person gets to make decisions, only one person has resources, only one person has autonomy, only one person has leadership was fair. And I Just couldn't buy that. And the conflict that I had with that throughout my preteen and teen years was I would recognize that it was unfair and unjust and I would see how miserable women were in my church. But I would also have that opposing conflict of this is my rebellion, this is my pride. I'm rebelling against God's plan for my life. I need to push it down. I need to push it down. And also this belief of, well, maybe when I get older I'll understand and I'll feel differently. I also knew from the time I was 12, I didn't want kids. And that was not an option. You know, the call for your life as a woman in this movement, like our pastor sat us down and your job is to get married, serve a husband, have as many children as you can. So you can direct quote outbreed non Christians. And so you grow up in this movement where that's what you just believe that you're supposed to do. So I had kind of this push and pull all throughout my teen years of recognizing that was unfair, not wanting it and just in my mind deciding I just wasn't gonna get married cause I didn't wanna sin. But also on the other side deciding, like fighting with this, I'm wrong, I'm being prideful, I'm rejecting God's plan for my life. Yeah, that was my first one, but my big crack, my big, oh, wait, this is wrong. Something is really wrong. Happened at 23.

[Rich]

And what was that? That was the first one. I'm curious what the second one was.

[Monty Mater]

The big break where there was no push and pull, there was no kind of falling back in line was. I was engaged in my early 20s. I was doing. I graduated college at 20. I found the Christian guy. I was going to get married. I was doing all the things right. And his half sister turned up pregnant. And she was 12. And we found out that she had been being molested by her brother, her brother, her mother's boyfriend since she was 9. And she finally got her period and she got pregnant. So this had been going on for three years. There was a criminal investigation ongoing. It was this huge thing and I, I was in the room, I was close to the family. So I'm there with her and I'm. I'm looking at her and she is. I just remember thinking, she is so small like her. Her body is so small and understanding. At that time, I had graduated college and I went to my degree. I changed degrees a few times, ended up being clinical exercise science with A focus in pre med and pre physical therapy. So I understood reproduction at this point scientifically and I knew what it could do to her, especially at her size, her age. And there was one day, and again there was an investigation ongoing, her stepmother. So her dad's wife calls me and says, I can't get back to work in time or from work in time. Can you take her to this class for teen girls? Yeah, sure. I just want to help. So I drive her there and we get to this room. There's about a dozen girls. The oldest is 19, the youngest is her 12. Most of them are 15, 16. All of the fathers except for one are over the age of 21.

[Rich]

Jesus.

[Monty Mater]

Jesus. And only one of the fathers is there because he's the age appropriate boyfriend of one of the girls. And so I'm sitting in the back of the room and pregnancy has always been in my top three fears. Like I would rather swim in open water with sharks. Like it's so scary to me. I'm sitting in the back turning green as a 23 year old. Just like, oh, this is a lot. But I realized that there was the first time in that moment that I realized I had never heard the church or my dad or anybody call for male accountability. And I was like, where are these adult men that have impregnated these 15 year olds? I want to know where the fuck they are. And I also, that was the first time that instead of just defaulting to my, my pre planned thought of like, well, you know, two wrongs don't make a right. And yes, it's not her fault, but it's not the baby's fault. I was like, you know what, I don't actually know anything about abortion and the history of abortion. And I've, I've been an insomniac since I was 16. So that night I spent, I was up all night researching abortion in the United States. And the first statistic I came up to was that 93% of abortions happened before 14 weeks. And I was shocked, I was absolutely shocked at that time. I thought that after birth abortions were real. Yeah, that's infanticide. That's never happened. I thought that most abortions, I had been told most abortions happen in the second and third trimester. I had been told that pregnancy from rape never happens. It's a democratic excuse to kill babies. Like I believed all these things again because you hear them your whole life from every adult you ever know. And that was the first time I recognized one that it was absolutely utterly Evil to force a child to bear the consequence of a grown man, first of all, especially when it could kill her. So I was immediately pro choice after that I was like, nope. And that was the first time I realized I had been intentionally lied to.

[Rich]

So, Monty, a question. In the conversations around the 12 year old, did anyone ever say the term sexual assault or rape?

[Monty Mater]

They said rape. So. But this was, this was with my fiance's family, who was not, who were not Christian nationalists at all. Yeah. So this was his family. This was not my family. My family would have had a very different response.

[Rich]

Right. What would their response? Yeah, I was going to ask.

[Monty Mater]

Oh, they're like, their response would have been, oh, well, she has to carry to term, no questions asked, like, we're sorry. Yep, we're sorry that this happened. But ultimately it's a gift from God and this is what she has to do. His family, to their credit especially her stepmother, was like, she gets to make every decision along the way. We're going to support every decision her make. She makes. We are also going to like help the police. We are going to press charges. We are going to. They handled it exactly the right way. And it was, that was also very different for me to see that they responded to her with such compassion and support versus demonization. Because we see this culturally now outside of the church where, you know, the first question that a woman gets asked if she's been assaulted is, well, what were you wearing? Were you drinking? What were you doing? You know, where were you? Why were you doing that? And to see them, that. There was absolutely no response of that at all. Because when I was growing up, it was purity. Culture is, is obviously negatively impacts men and women, but it's often directed more heavily at women. And both myself and any of my friends who have deconstructed or people I've met that deconstructed from similar groups have all said that pregnancy outside of marriage, no matter the cause, was so shameful and so bad that all of us said we would rather tell our parents that we had accidentally killed someone than that we had gotten pregnant. And that's, that was, that's a very common sentiment in women who have left this particular type of high control movement. Yeah.

[Rich]

So go ahead, Rich.

[Blonte]

So. So you're 23. You, you experience this. At what point do you start asking if religion is just a tool that was created by and serves to protect men?

[Monty Mater]

So my. This really was. At this point, I didn't question Christianity itself, but I was like, whatever I was taught was wrong. And I had decided. So I started looking at church history. I started looking at US History from a more, like, expansive view. I started looking at the arguments around homosexuality because I knew that the. In the abortion argument, I had been intentionally lied to to manipulate me. And so now all of these other issues are up for grabs because I'm going to find out the truth. Because now I'm pissed.

[Blonte]

It's unraveling.

[Monty Mater]

Yeah, it's unraveling. So I. And I made the decision after that point in my. In my life that I was going to evaluate anything and I was going to my mind and get disowned by my dad if I had to, because I wanted to know the truth and because I didn't want anyone else to be victimized because I was playing along with an ideology that was a lie. But for me, realizing that that Christian, American Christianity, Christian nationalism was the problem happened when Trump announced his campaign. Because I grew up, you know, at the tail end of the Clinton years, and you grow up and like, oh, Clinton's a scumbag. And it takes integrity to lead. And Clinton is gross. Yes, correct. But I watch all of same people salivate, falling on their knees in front of front of the serial adulterer, disgusting, lying, racist piece of. And I recognize this, like, immediately. I didn't need the grab him by the comment. I was like, this man is trash. What are you talking about? And as his campaign goes and it gets worse and worse and worse and worse, and I watch everyone I know, everyone I grew up with, fall at his feet, call him King Cyrus. I was like, oh, oh. This was never about loving your neighbor and helping the poor and taking care of the sick. This was all about power for you people. And that was the moment for me that I realized this had all, all of it had been a farce to just take power. And, you know, I tell people all the time because a lot of people on my page are still Christ followers. And I'm like, listen, you can follow those teachings and understand that the organization is using these very good things to one is a guise for their own immorality, but also just to grab power. But that was the moment for me that all of the lies and all of the contradictions came into really sharp relief. And I realized that this was just a movement for power.

[Rich]

So what did you do with that? So you see that, right? He comes down the stupid gold elevator, you know, he's calling, you know, illegal, undocumented immigrants, rapists and murderers, which is not true.

[Monty Mater]

Take someone to know one. Donnie.

[Rich]

So how is. Once you see that, like, what is the conversation with your. Is there a. I'm out. Like a. You know, there's a Seinfeld episode in the 90s, which I'll put in. He, like, we have a contest. I'll just say, they have a contest. Slaps, I'm out. Like, is that. How does. How does that conversation go?

[Monty Mater]

So what happened with me? I. In that moment, like, I'm. Again, for me, I was like, ew, no, no, thank you. But it. I had a couple months of really sitting with it and it's a. It's really sobering to be like, man, everything I grew up believing is a fucking lie. All of this was used to manipulate me. All of this was used to help me parrot their talking points, be part of their talking points, give birth to their talking points. And it wasn't until the summer of 2016. And again, I, my. I'm a data person and I love information. So I just. When I saw Christian support him, I dove even deeper. I'm like, I want to know everything. I want to research all these issues. I want to research what he's saying. I want to know what the data is. And I got to a point in the summer where I was like, I can no longer in good conscience in any way, even by perception, associate with this movement. And I also realized I had to tell my dad, which I knew would lead to me being disowned. I knew that that was what was going to happen. I knew that. I knew that in advance. My dad was very aligned with the movement, although he didn't like Trump, so there was that. But very aligned with Christian nationalism. And it was very my way or the highway with him. And he had disowned several of my other siblings for disobeying him or doing things he didn't agree with. So I knew that that was coming. And he was also. He was my best friend. He was my mentor. I was very, very close to my dad. And I made the decision that I was. I needed to have a conversation with him. And we had had this conversation on the phone. He had accidentally butt dialed me. And he was just really happy that day, like, just very, very joyful and told me he loved me. I was working on my first EP and that he was proud of me. And he had never seen someone go after what they want. It was a very unusual conversation for him to kind of shower affection like that. And in that conversation, I remember having this pit in my stomach and thinking, I gotta tell him. Like, I'm not gonna tell him right now, but I gotta tell him. I have to sit down with him and let the chips fall where they may. And he died that night. Oh, wait, like, he died six hours after that conversation.

[Rich]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

[Monty Mater]

And so I never got a chance to. Never had a chance to actually talk to him about it. So he passed away July 14th of 2016. And my uncle, his brother had died two weeks earlier. And then a month later, my grandmother and a close friend died on the same day. So I was just in this. This whirlwind of my worldview's gone, my mentor's gone. All of this death and then the. The campaign and the. Is happening at the same time. It was a really overwhelming time, but I never. I never actually got to tell him.

[Rich]

How do you feel about that today?

[Monty Mater]

I. I wish I could have. I do wish I could have had that conversation with him. But my dad. One of the things my dad had a very hard line on was he did not tolerate people that cheated on their spouse. That was a big hard line from my dad, and that was the reason he didn't like Trump. He was like. I will say to my father's credit that he held Trump to the same moral standard he held Bill Clinton to. So I. I think. I think that it's possible that my dad wouldn't have voted that fall, because

[Rich]

I was going to ask, like, he

[Monty Mater]

really hated Hillary, too, and I think there's a chance that he would have either voted third party or he would have not voted, which would have been a huge active protest for him. But he could not. He could not reconcile a serial adulterer. And that, in part, is because my mom left him. So he had a very personal, personal beef with adultery. And I don't think that he would have. He was never behind Trump. He thought he was distasteful and. But I do wish we could have had that conversation to know for sure, but there was a lot of fallout with people I grew up with. Old teachers, classmates, essentially. Guy got cut off when I became very public about my new viewpoints. My siblings essentially didn't talk to me for two years. I have a really good relationship with two of them now, but some of them still don't talk to me. But, yeah, it was a. It was a. 2016 was a rough year. Was a rough year, yeah.

[Rich]

Fuck.

[Blonte]

Do you have a relationship with your mom now?

[Monty Mater]

I don't really know her that well. She left when I was six and left all six of us kids with my dad and I saw her once when I was 7, once when I was 18, and a couple times in my 20s. And it just became one of those situations where I was one of the only kids, and really the only kid, at least as far as my whole life goes, that she didn't really want anything to do with. She didn't make an effort to speak to me or reach out to me. I think that's in part because I look exactly like my dad. Like I am my father in a red haired wig. I think there's some of that. And I got to a point with her where I understood why she left. Like, if I had been a grown woman living in the environment that we were with this idea that marital rape isn't real and this is your job and you have to submit and you have, I would leave too. And. And I had a really great conversation with her when I was 23. And I said, I just need to know. Because our home was also very physically abusive. It was very, very physically abusive. And I asked her, I said, I need to know why you left this all behind. You knew how dad was. You knew the structure we were growing up in. Why did you leave us all there? And her answer was so honest. She said, I couldn't stay anymore, but I knew I couldn't feed you and your dad could.

[Rich]

So he was physically abusive to both her and to the kid.

[Monty Mater]

Yeah, we grew up very much in a home, like a lot of corporal punishment. My dad was not someone who was a raging drunk who came home and did anything like that. But, but our beatings were severe. If we ever did even minor infractions. I mean, I was beat with a bullwhip once. My brother was beat with a chair, frozen hose. We would be, I sometimes I would be bruised from my bra line to the back of my knees and not be able to walk well for a few days. And so it was very. And when he remarried, my stepmom, it actually got worse. And so it was, it was a really, it was a really tough environment to go through. But the reason I went to boarding school in high school was because of the abuse at home. And for me, anywhere but there was better. And my brother came the next year and we both went through part of middle school and high school in this teeny tiny school in a cornfield because it was safer than being home. He and I, my younger brother and I are the only siblings that were raised our whole lives together. And at one point, after my dad remarried, my stepmom and we moved. We were forced to live in a dark basement for two years. And we weren't allowed to be upstairs in the house. We were only allowed to come upstairs if we were leaving or going to school or to clean it for her. And we also, like she would. Any. Any small infraction. Like, you miss a spot scrubbing the floor, you miss something in the shower. Everything was a beating. So my younger brother Travis and I got out as soon as we could get out.

[Rich]

Did your. Do you know why? Was your. Was that a, like, religious thing, or was that. I assume your father probably was also treated the same way in his household. Growing up is much worse, actually.

[Monty Mater]

Worse. My grandfather was vicious, but I. The corporal punishment side of it again, in Christian nationalism, they're very pro. Spank your children, break their spirit. This was during the time of, like, my dad was a big James Dobson follower who talked about, you know, you have to break the spirit of your children. He called toddlers little tyrants, you know, instead of little people that are trying to learn what it means to be human. So my dad was very much in that. So he felt that corporal punishment was, like, required, that it was necessary to raise your children properly. He didn't actually know about what my stepmother was doing until I was 19. And I don't know. I still don't know how he found out. I just remember because I was in class, he sent me an email saying, hey, I've heard xyz. And he lists all these things. He's like, is this true? And I just wrote him a long letter saying, yeah, and that's. That's about like, 30% of what happened. But he also didn't believe that that was a good enough reason to get divorced. And I think that was religiously motivated. But also he didn't want the embarrassment of a second divorce. And so he stayed with her even when he found out.

[Rich]

Oh, and James Dobson, for those of you who don't know, I think his group was called Focus on the Family. Focus on the Family. Which is, of course, complete horseshit. Well, it's not. How.

[Blonte]

How exactly are you?

[Monty Mater]

I was not. I was not sad when he passed away. No.

[Rich]

Right. So. So you still have. After all of that, you still have siblings that follow those teachings? Correct. And you don't really have a relationship with them?

[Monty Mater]

Yeah. No.

[Rich]

Do you know if they treat their families the same way that they were treated?

[Monty Mater]

I. I'm imagining. Yes. So I have one sister who doesn't have kids. Um, but I do know, and. And I don't think my older brother is Kind of the exception to the rule. He kind of stepped away from everybody, which I don't blame him for. I think he just wanted to wash his hands of it and just walk away. I don't think that he's adhering to any of those principles at all. But I, I at least have one sibling who very much does.

[Rich]

So why the thing that I think for us. Well, we call ourselves secularist. I don't even know heathens. Oh, we've, we've joked about that. Yeah, we. Oh, that's fine. Heathens. Like whatever. Like, I think one of the hard things for, for us. And like I grew up Catholic, but like, not like, not in a strict house. And my, my parent, my dad wasn't even religious and my, my mom kind of had me go and my brother go because my grandmother wanted us to go more than anything else. And we were very progressive house. We didn't believe those things. But like, it's very hard, I think, for those of us who didn't experience those things to understand, like, why isn't everybody just running for the hill?

[Blonte]

Yep.

[Rich]

Like, what do you think it is about that world that basically, like, I mean, like, you got out, but like most people don't. So what is the, what is the message there as far as, like what we're really facing with these like far right Christian nationalists?

[Monty Mater]

Well, obviously, like the first level is if you grew up in it, there's all that brainwashing. I mean, you get a lifetime of brainwashing. And I was fortunate enough, like, one, I'm white. Two, I was able to go to a different state and go to school on campus, which many of them stay homeschooled or they stay in state. They, they never get disconnected from their community and see a different community for women. A large part of is they encourage you to get married young and have kids young, which makes you financially dependent and you're stuck barefoot and pregnant. And then you're stuck. And so then you have not only the added, you have the baseline. It's all fear motivated. Right.

[Rich]

Right.

[Monty Mater]

They make you scared of a scapegoat, but also it's this deep human, very human longing to belong. And, and people know that if they leave that movement, they lose their church, they lose their community, they'll lose their family. It's like a gay kid coming out in a Christian home knowing that they are going to be thrown in the street.

[Rich]

Right.

[Monty Mater]

Is very much that feeling. So there's a lot of that that goes on and because so many of them don't have a lot of access to external influences in their personal life, right? They'll see something on social media now that we have social media, or they'll see something in a movie, but they don't have a personal interaction with it. So it's hard for them to take it to, to think about it other than a concept, because they're not having those interactions. And that's the reason that the groups are so highly controlled, is because once they lose the control of information, this is the reason that Larry Ellison is pursuing this Warner Brothers merger. This is the Seven Mountains mandate, right? To control information. And so they, they are very much put in these bubbles. Women are very often trapped, right? There's no way for them to get out. What are they going to do? How are they going to survive as a single mom? And also even Christian marriage counseling was founded by a man named Paul Popeno, who was a white supremacist eugenicist who was also an atheist. But after eugenics fell out of favor after World War II, when it became clear what the Nazis had done, he switched over into marriage counseling. And the only, the only people that were extreme enough to listen to his viewpoints were evangelical pastors. So he would teach them that white women should never marry outside their race. White women should never be on birth control. White women should never leave their husband, even in cases of infidelity or abuse. And this is what Christian marriage counseling is founded on. And you'll see, and we even see that play out where a pastor has an affair and he gets forgiven. It was temptation. He gave in. But if a woman, a married woman, does that, oh, my God.

[Rich]

Right?

[Monty Mater]

Totally different. But Paul Popeno mentored James Dobson.

[Rich]

Ah.

[Monty Mater]

James Dobson worked for him at his marriage counseling services before he started Focus on the Family.

[Rich]

Wow, that's, that's lovely.

[Monty Mater]

So there's a lot of ideologies to keep people trapped. And again, and you go back to the to hell ideology. You, you, you as a church, create this belief that only I have the answers to what happens to you after you die. And if you don't listen to what I say, you're going to eternally burn in hell. And I'm going to tell you that as a Christian, you have to be Republican.

[Rich]

So let me ask this, because this is where I think a lot of us on the left are like, what the. And it's everything you just said. I, I, I've heard, I believe it. Right. And you talk about, like, you know, if you're bad, you go to hell. If you're good or subservient, you go to heaven. How do they square that with Donald Trump? Like he's, he cheated on all three of his wives, lied about it and actually got 34 felonies because he tried to cover it up with some business transactions. He is, has been a racist his entire life. In the 70s he had to settle a lawsuit with the federal government because they used to write the letter C on any person of color that applicants for his buildings. And we all know what the C stands for. In the 80s he went after Native Americans. Like in the 80s he ran a, a full page ad, I think the New York Daily News or the Post calling for the death penalty of the Central Park Five who are completely innocent. So you have all of this stuff where he is very clearly the antithesis of what theoretically you're being taught in these schools. So how do they, how do they, how do they square that? Because to me it just completely blows my mind.

[Monty Mater]

I'm going to give you the Christian nationalist answer and that's. Well, he made all of those decisions while he was a Democrat and he found God and ran as a Republican. So all of those sins are forgiven.

[Rich]

Are you serious?

[Blonte]

All you have to do is ask for forgiveness. That's the whole, that's the whole story.

[Rich]

Wait, wait, wait. But where did Donald Trump ask for forgiveness?

[Monty Mater]

He didn't. They're making the assumption because he's selling Bibles. He's selling Bibles and he's, he's speaking enough Christian Bible talk in Christianese and, and bringing in like the Heritage foundation that they're like, see, see, he's a believer now. All of his sins are washed away. God uses imperfect vessels just like he used King David. Oh, Christ.

[Rich]

But didn't he say like all of the, the stuff at the back of that bus with Billy fucking Bush with like the, you know, grabbing him by the pussy and all that stuff was after he started running that tone for that.

[Monty Mater]

I don't know where the, when the recording happened, I know it was leaked during his campaign, but I don't know for sure it was, I don't know for sure. Yeah, I stand correct. So it's kind of their, it's kind of their get out of jail free card or his get out of jail free card, I guess, but is essentially. Well, he's been forgiven for that now. So he's a, he's a new man.

[Rich]

Well, some serious praying for what he's doing, but he's right. But he's also in office like, or on the campaign trail made fun of that. That man with disabilities. He's made fun of gold star families. He's. He called, he called John. He like went after John McCain. He's like, I don't like soldiers who are captured.

[Monty Mater]

These were all Mr. Bones for himself.

[Rich]

Yeah, the six defer five departments. You know what, the difference between Trump's Vietnam plan and his Iran, His Iran plan. He had a plan on how to get out of Vietnam. Oh, it's funny because it's true. Oh, God. But like, I, I, this is where I just, I, I struggle because even today we were talking about how he, like went after that Joe Kent guy because he's, oh, he got married way too soon after his wife. He went after Talarico. He's like, he's his, his Jesus has six genders. The.

[Monty Mater]

Does that mean it's like, what, what? It's because Talarico said that God's God is non binary, which is actually scripturally accurate. But it's really like at this point, once they, once they ingratiated him with that first line of reasoning, it becomes cognitive dissonance at this point.

[Rich]

Yeah.

[Monty Mater]

And it becomes, oh, he's, he's King Cyrus. He's this pagan king who's going to bring us to Armageddon and he's going to restore, you know, Christians and he's going to protect us from this fake illusion of Christian persecution they've been teaching us all since 95. And, you know, and so it, then it just becomes a complete disconnect. And so you get a lot of, they just choose cognitive dissonance. They're just going to turn it off. And then you get a lot of sunk cost fallacy where some people, I don't like that, but I've, I've been tied to this shit.

[Rich]

I've come 10 years.

[Blonte]

No, it's all, it's all the ends justify the means for them because like you said earlier, Monty, you know, it's about power. It's about getting and retaining power. And I mean, I've, I've seen people argue. Well, I don't agree with, with how he conducts his life. He's made a lot of mistakes, but him being in office means we made abortion illegal. And so that, you know, that's a

[Monty Mater]

big single vote that they will grab onto. Yeah.

[Blonte]

Monty, I want to go back to something you were talking about earlier, though, as far as the, when indoctrination begins. Because, like, Tim was asking about, you know, how do people not run away from this? And I live in an area where there are a lot of large Mormon families. And we see the same thing. I knew kids when I was 16, 17, 18, through school, who. It's not just about, are you personally being subjected to something bad. They would also weaponize the families and the. And the siblings against any kids who wanted to. To leave. And so I knew one guy who. He said, I'm not Mormon anymore. And he had, you know, six siblings, something like that. And his parents said, I think he was 17. And his parents said, if you leave the church, then we will. You will have to be out of our house and you cannot speak to any of your siblings anymore.

[Monty Mater]

Yep.

[Blonte]

And so not only. And he. And he loved his siblings. None of them did anything wrong. And he was trying to help a lot of them, in fact. And so then it became this. This thing where it's like, well, if I stay in it, then maybe I can help them live a slightly better version of this terrible life that I can't stand. And then he. He still ended up getting thrown out. He lived on couches and everything for a while, and because it was so painful and because it was so bad, he had no access to any support or resources because of the. The compliance is so rigid that nobody can help you once you get thrown out. That's like. That's literally part of the rule. He ended up going back. And I remember at one point he said something like, well, it didn't work for me, but I still think it's a really great religion and I'm going to raise my kids Mormon and everything. And I was like, Christ. So.

[Monty Mater]

Oh. And that's. I mean, that's the same thing that my dad did with my birth mother. So when she left and, you know, he tried to get her back, she wasn't having it. They divorced. I mean, he would have. My brother and I memorize, like, front and back pages of scripture verses every week. And the first group of pages we got was all about adultery, and it was all these verses on the adulteress. But my dad would not let us speak to my birth mother. And it was, you're on her side, you're on mine. If you speak to her, you are choosing to be in sin, and you can't be in my house. And it's. It's that type of. And it's not just being thrown out of the church. It's. It's like being thrown out of your intimate family, losing contact with your siblings or your parents, or not being able to see the family dog. And it's very much used as coercion to keep people trapped. And often they just, you know, I get messages from people, and thankfully, most of them have finally moved past that fear point. But when my account first started taking off, I would get messages from people all across the country in the world saying, I've been so afraid to say that I'm pro choice, or I've been so afraid to oppose this one thing because if I do that, my family's going to throw me out. I'm worried about what will happen. I got so many messages from kids, teens that were in, that are in the LGBTQIA community who said, I'm worried that my parents are going to beat or kill me if I tell them the truth. And that is really the reality of how high control and how coercive those systems are. Did you guys see the. The CPAC interview with Schlap on Piers Morgan where he said they were talking about the girls that were killed in Iran, the schoolgirls, and he said, well, they're better off dead than in a burqa.

[Rich]

Yeah, I saw. Exactly.

[Monty Mater]

It's such a reflection. That is such a reflection of their ideology as a whole. They would rather you be suffering and miserable and in line than anything else. They would rather a woman be in a neglectful, abusive marriage than to be divorced and single. They would rather a gay man be married in a lavender marriage and end up committing suicide because of appearances than like, it. Is that that for me? I mean, obviously so Islamophobic and horrific, but it was such a testament to what their ideology is, is that they don't care who suffers as long as it looks the way they think it should look.

[Rich]

But Matt Schlapp, the head of cpac, has been credibly accused by at least two staffers, male staffers, of sexual assault. So it's very interesting that this guy seems like he feels perfectly comfortable going out there and basically saying that these girls are better off dead when he also has some essay issues in his background. But the other thing I want to ask you about is you mentioning that a lot of these families feel like that they would rather their. Their LGBTQ kids either be in a. Laughter marriage or dead. You actually grew up near where one of the most infamous murders of a gay person was, which is Matthew Shepard.

[Monty Mater]

Yep.

[Rich]

Who was killed in 1998 by a bunch of kids. They beat him and then they threw him on a barbed wire fence and they left him to die.

[Monty Mater]

Yeah.

[Rich]

What would your family, or what did your family ever talk about that case at all, or Was that maybe 2?

[Blonte]

2.

[Rich]

I don't know if that's in your age range or not. But, like, what would you. What would the reaction to your family be to something like that?

[Monty Mater]

I was too young for them to really have a meaningful conversation with me about it. I knew it had happened like some. I remember hearing an adult, like, say the name and them not wanting to explain to me what it was. I asked my dad about that, actually, when I got older, about the death of Matthew Shepard and for many people. And it was. It was split. There was a lot of conservative groups in where I grew up that when this would come up years later, it would be, he got what he deserved. It's the same way that they treated the AIDS crisis, where this is just God's punishment on your lifestyle quotation marks. But I will say again, my dad. My dad still opposed his death, saying no one should ever be killed for that. Like, I don't agree with it. I wouldn't align, but my dad would be the person. If I came out as a lesbian, he'd throw me out of the house. He would. He wouldn't kill me or support somebody killing me, but he'd throw me out of the house and cut off all support until I repented.

[Rich]

I mean, I think we. It's. It's hard for people to remember now because this was a while ago. And actually some people on the call probably were not alive when this guy was. Okay. I feel the ageism, I feel. But. Well, it's gonna make me sound old, so this isn't better. On this call use. There was a senator up until, I think around 2000. His name was Jesse Helms. I don't know, this piece of bigot, racist guy who actually said that AIDS was God's punishment of some form of it. Punishment to gay people.

[Monty Mater]

My dad wrote a book about it.

[Rich]

Holy. Wrote a book about it. About that AIDS was God's punishment.

[Monty Mater]

Yep.

[Rich]

How does he explain the straight people? Stretch the words on that one. You'd think a whole book. But how do you. But, But. Well, yeah, right. Well, right. But like, there were. I mean, millions of straight people have gotten aids. How. How?

[Monty Mater]

Cognitive dissonance at the time that he wrote it. So it was. He wrote it in the very early 80s. And so it was really. It was really before anybody knew how it was transmitted. It was considered a gay man's disease. It was. You know what I mean? It was. It was in that particular era because my dad graduated from high school in the early 70s. And so he wrote that early 80s before there was really any information. And when my dad got older, he was, like, very regretful about that book.

[Rich]

Yeah, well, he was.

[Monty Mater]

He was really ashamed of it.

[Rich]

Well, there was. I mean, the Reagan administration. It's well documented that they used the.

[Blonte]

Laughter.

[Rich]

Yeah. At gay people having this.

[Monty Mater]

Ronald Reagan was a piece of total.

[Rich]

That's why, like, I've always built that. Oh, I wish we had George Bush and Ronald Reagan back. I'm like, are you on your mind? Like, no. They were awful, awful, awful, awful.

[Monty Mater]

And they're the reason that we are here.

[Rich]

100. You could see the income inequality spread starting in the 80s because of shit that Ronald Reagan did.

[Blonte]

Trump wouldn't exist. Exactly. Trump wouldn't exist without the misery that spread from Reaganomics.

[Monty Mater]

Yep. Nixon, Reagan, Trump.

[Blonte]

Yeah.

[Rich]

What a trio.

[Blonte]

Oh, go ahead, Blonte. When do you first remember. And I might know that. Might know the answer to this. Or should I say, do you remember the indoctrination beginning, or did you just have your first memory and it was. And you were already immersed?

[Monty Mater]

I remember. The one thing I remember about that is I remember the hell indoctrination starting very, very young. I mean, I accepted Christ quotation marks when I was around five. And I remember being so deathly afraid that I had done it wrong, being so deathly afraid that I was gonna die and I was gonna go to hell and I would. I would ask Christ into my life every single day. But I remember being talked to about that as young as three. I remember, like, over, like hearing political comments as young as screen. Obviously I didn't know what they meant, but they would. They would talk about like the. I would remember hearing the word senator or things like that. And I mean, my. My dad was friends with Dick Cheney. So I. I met Dick Cheney when I was 10. I had no idea who he was. You know, I was just like a kid playing in the grass. Didn't know. And so I remember. I really remember distinctly the hell indoctrination. Everything else was just kind of there. It was just always there.

[Rich]

I hope you're. I hope your dad didn't go like, bird hunting with Chaney or anything. He wasn't the guy who got shot in the face, right?

[Monty Mater]

No, no, no, he wasn't. My dad was not a hu. Had my dad been able to choose the life he wanted? So my dad was a phenomenal musician. He was an incredible singer. He played guitar. He was the most insane drummer. When I was very, very little. I remember him having a double Kit in our living room just in just insane player. And he had an opportunity when he was in college to. He was recruited to go play with the Wrecking Crew in la. The session musicians.

[Rich]

Tell everybody who that is because that,

[Monty Mater]

that the Wrecking Crew are the session musicians from la. That, I mean for, for all of the. That came out of the early 70s, you know, Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles, everybody. The Wrecking Crew came in and played for them and recorded those albums. So if you like 70s music and you have big albums, the Wrecking Crew played on those albums.

[Rich]

Everything.

[Monty Mater]

Everything. And I mean everything. Everything that was worth noting was played by them.

[Rich]

So why didn't he go?

[Monty Mater]

God, my grand. My grandfather called him up and says, good sons that serve God come back and take care of the ranch. My dad spent his whole life trying to earn the love of his grandfather, of his father that he never got. Never got it. He never got it in my grandfather's life. My. My grandfather died the day before September 11th and he. So he gave up all his dreams and went back home. But my dad hated it. My dad hated being a cowboy. He didn't hunt, he didn't. He wanted to make music and he wanted to write and he just gave it all up because that's what quote God wanted him to do.

[Rich]

This is the. That just kills me is because you can see the trauma, right? Like, you could see this guy has a dreams. I mean like blame the Wrecking Crew of the hell. Blame. That was the. One of the. I think was the drummer in that group. Like, these guys were insane and I. You could just see it. So we. We don't have a lot of time left. But I. I want to talk about how are. How do we get as many people out of this as possible? I mean, I know you say you get messages and stuff. I'm sure people search you out. But like, what's the. What's the way to. To break this fever? Not to sound like Christopher Walken or something. Cowbell fever.

[Monty Mater]

Fever.

[Rich]

But. But like how. How do we start deconstructing it there. I'll use your. Your term.

[Monty Mater]

So the. One of the beautiful things about social media is presenting information and different ideas that everyone has on their phone is a tool. It is a big one. And especially like accounts like Riches and like I think Anna Connolly is cool. People that are like very. Hey, here's the facts, here's the story. I'm going to sit here and just very calmly tell you this. I get a little riled up because I've got Preacher energy. It's ingrained. Even if people don't change their mind right away, it plants seeds. It took several instances for me in my life to really start to change. The other thing is that is connecting with people on a human level. So that comes from people like me sharing my story where it doesn't feel like I'm attacking them, but they can see themselves in my story and be like, oh, I remember, I didn't realize that was wrong. It also comes from telling these stories and sharing. Because data doesn't matter in the face of story. Narrative matters a lot more than data does. So anytime that we can share information in the form of a story, Adriana Smith is a great example of a woman being brain dead, put up into like life support and being forced to carry to term to create stories like that. Real human impact is much more impactful than throwing data and numbers out because most Americans read between an, like an eighth grade level or lower. So they don't know how to read research, they don't know how to use those numbers. It becomes too much information.

[Rich]

Right, right.

[Monty Mater]

But using story, whether that's from history or whether that's real life accounts can be very, very powerful to see human cost because many of the people, and I know it's really hard to believe and I have to remind myself because sometimes I just want to throat punch motherfuckers. But I have to remember that so many of them really truly believe they're doing the right thing. Yeah. And I'm not talking about the leaders like, like the Pete Kegsbreath and all those bullshit people. They know exactly what they're doing.

[Blonte]

They've transcended.

[Monty Mater]

They know, they know exactly what they're doing. But the lay person, like the stay at home mom of five kids truly believes that she's aligned herself with the correct things, that she truly believes that she's serving God and it's those stories like real humans that she can see herself in that that changed the tide, you know, for me. And, and I see a lot of comments on social media where someone comes out of MAGA or leaves conservatism and says, well this is what happened. And you'll see all these comments of oh, so something had to happen to you, huh? Yeah, because that's how people change. For me it was a 12 year old rape victim because until that was in front of me, I didn't even know that that happened. I didn't believe it did. I didn't know. And I'm still accountable for my behavior being in the movement and what I parroted and the things I said. But we have to somehow see ourselves in those stories for the data to matter.

[Rich]

Right. And I think that we on the side, I understand the anger, and I see this. We see this on threads where people are like, I voted for Trump three times and I made a mistake, and they get mercilessly mocked.

[Monty Mater]

Yeah.

[Rich]

And. And I get it because, like, I

[Monty Mater]

understand people being angry. I do. Because that you should have known better.

[Rich]

Right.

[Monty Mater]

But also, I. I get where they're coming from to a certain degree. Three times is tough. That's a tough time is tough.

[Rich]

But sometimes it's tough. But I guess the question is, do we shame that person and send them back, or at least not welcome them in? Right. Or do we say, look, we're like, we're on the, on the edge here from a, From a democracy perspective. I don't. I don't necessarily. I get it. And I get mad at those people, too. I don't think we can afford to shun them. I think you have to bring them because we don't have enough people.

[Monty Mater]

I think there's a balance. I think there's a balance there because the first thing that I'll say is, and I have a young girl who left MAGA and is really doing the work, and she is like, oh, my God, I can't believe that I was part of this.

[Rich]

Yeah.

[Monty Mater]

And I told her, I was like, you cannot expect or demand apologies from people that you victimized.

[Rich]

Right.

[Monty Mater]

It doesn't matter what your intentions were. You did it. It's done. Some people are never going to forgive you, and you have to live with that. You have to be okay with that, and you have to show up and do the work anyway. But what I encourage, especially white evangelicals, that's where we come in and we go onto those posts and we message those people and say, hey, I want to talk to you. I want to be here for you. I know this is really hard because we're the people that understand the movement. We're the people that understand the brainwashing and especially, like, queer people should not be holding this bucket. No, people of color should not be holding this bucket. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. That this is. I think this is specifically the work of white folks in particular. But especially if you had a religious background, then it's our job to come in and encourage those people and say, hey, you've got some work to do, but there's space for you here. How can I help you get out of it?

[Rich]

And I Should clarify. Like, I agree with you 100. I don't think I, it's very easy for me as a white straight male to be like what, you know, like I can welcome them in. I'm not the one being targeted like, like the, the, yeah, trans people, trans community, people of color, all of that. So no, you're, you're 100. Right.

[Monty Mater]

So, but I agree with your point too, of we are not really in a position to push them back into the fold.

[Blonte]

Beggars can't be choosers.

[Monty Mater]

They may not come out a second time.

[Blonte]

Yeah, that's the approach I've used. And the way I think about it too is I've witnessed all of these things. I had a religious background, but, you know, from a liberal science minded family. And so I witnessed everything secondhand third hand growing up in the community. But straight white men have never been the target. And so, and so it's a, it's a absolute privilege to be able to say, oh yeah, no, it's all trash and I'm really angry about it and I'm moving on now and, and then just wash your hands of it. So I, for me, it's, I, I can't do that. I have to say, well, I would be a lot angrier if I were the one who was personally subjected to like pain, like physical, actual pain throughout my life or having, you know, no access to money, having no access to housing without a spouse. Like all of those things would make it a lot more personal and also make me a lot more irrational in my response to the people who, who uphold those systems. And so, you know, we all, I think everyone on the, the men on this call all have so much privilege, so much power that we were just born with because we got lucky, because

[Rich]

we got a dick.

[Blonte]

Right?

[Monty Mater]

That's where some of it shows up for me is like, find myself. I'll have these much more visceral reactions around women's rights and women's subjugation. And what I seeing, I see happening with reproductive rights because I was very much taught that this was the goal, that headship voting was the goal, get rid of birth control. When my dad realized I was smart and women could be smart, his plan changed. He was like, okay, you are going to get married and have kids, but a little bit later we're going to get you into law school. This is when I was 10, we're going to get you into law school and get you on the Supreme Court so you can overturn Roe like this,

[Rich]

this, that's what he said.

[Monty Mater]

That's exactly what he said to me. I was like, no pressure, dad. You know, at 10. Yeah, yeah. I had just skipped my second grade, and they did a bunch of IQ testing on me and stuff. And when my dad got that paper in his hand, he was like, ooh, new plan.

[Blonte]

You're one of them useful women.

[Rich]

He wanted to be Amy Coney Barrett. Yeah. Oh, my God.

[Monty Mater]

So it's. So I get riled up, but it's. To Rich's point, it's because I personally was subjected in those communities by this teaching, and I know exactly what the fuck they're doing. And the goal is to make as many white women as possible pregnant and have no resources and options to leave.

[Rich]

Yeah, well. Well, how. I want to end on something hopeful, though.

[Monty Mater]

Yeah.

[Rich]

Because give me one thing, Monty, that you are. In doing all this work and all of this deconstruction, what is something that it makes you hopeful for the future?

[Monty Mater]

I truly. There is. There is. I have. I've had moments where I'm like, oh, my God, I need to find a rich European man and get the fuck out of here. I'll sign a prenup. I don't care. He'll sign a prenup, too, because I'm planning to be.

[Rich]

There you go.

[Monty Mater]

Be successful. I. For me, I truly believe, like, one of the things that this administration has made the mistake of in Christian nationalism as a whole is they got so power drunk that they dropped all the facades, they pulled the mask off. They played their cards too heavily and too quickly. There's no question now what this movement is, what this administration is, that the. Well, the masks are off, the hoods are on. Right. And so I have a lot of hope because so many people are looking this and saying, whoa. Even people that are in the movement, people that are traditional conservatives are like, I didn't know, Right? Nope. And I. And I've seen a lot of videos recently where people are like, I hate to admit it, but the liberals were right. You're welcome. I think that we are experiencing what happens with a. With a system like this, a system that is built on greed and consumption without any kind of conservation. It eats its own tail. It devours itself from the inside out. Your leaders are paranoid, they get suspicious, and it's consume, consume, consume, consume, and it collapses. And I truly, truly believe. I. I do believe that we are in for a rough period of time, but I believe that we finally see America, United States for what we've always been. We see Christian nationalism for what it's always been. We see our systems, our constitution for what they have always been, which is to preserve the power of land owning white men.

[Rich]

Yep.

[Monty Mater]

And because we see that now, I think that this whole thing, this consumption is going to bring down our systems and allow us to re establish something so much better. I think that this is the path that leads to the United States having universal health care and education. But it had to get this bad. The facade had to, had to continue and the facade had to drop before people were willing to actually take the system on. Because the system is working exactly how it's intended to.

[Rich]

Yes.

[Monty Mater]

Like, especially with things like poverty. Poverty is not a bug, it's a feature. And so now because everything is going to burn down, we get a chance to build something new.

[Blonte]

Do you think it's just Trump losing power one way or the other? Is the is going to be the catalyst as I think it is going

[Monty Mater]

to be the catalyst simply because I don't see anyone in the movement right now that has the charisma, star power stickiness that he does. Charlie Kirk did.

[Rich]

And not anymore.

[Monty Mater]

Well, we can ask Erica about that. But I don't see like J.D. vance doesn't.

[Rich]

J.D.

[Monty Mater]

vance has the riz of an uncooked potato.

[Rich]

Like he's not going to hold futon fornicator.

[Monty Mater]

I don't see anyone in the, you know, and Stephen Miller is an overgrown thumb. There's nobody that, that has that charisma to hold the movement together. It really centers and revolves on Trump, even though the brains of the operation is everybody at Heritage Foundation. So I think when he passes away and when this, I think that's really where the movement starts to dissolve. It's going to be a lot of crazy making people trying to take over the empire. But at that point Rome's gonna have fallen.

[Rich]

Yeah, well, and we're gonna end with this. But like actually yesterday or Saturday, he gave every American permission to celebrate when he dies. Because he planning my party.

[Monty Mater]

Because he script written every day is Halloween, if you believe in yourself.

[Rich]

He said when Robert Mueller died this weekend, he said good, good. He was happy that he was gone. So Donald Trump.

[Monty Mater]

But all of them.

[Rich]

All of them. And I think that disrespectfully and without lube. Yeah. The rusty sport. Oh, I bet, Monty, if we told the 15 year old you that you'd be using those words on a podcast.

[Monty Mater]

Oh, she'd be mortified. I've fallen into sin.

[Rich]

Yeah.

[Monty Mater]

Yes, I have actually. No kidding.

[Rich]

Well, Monty, thank you very much. This is such an important conversation because I think a lot of us on this side of the aisle just are, like, completely flummoxed by what we're seeing. And it's really helpful to hear.

[Monty Mater]

And I am, too. Even making the. The shift, it's still really frustrating because you see the cognitive dissonance for what it is and it's really hard to overcome.

[Rich]

But it's also great that you're, you know, you've made the transformation and you're out there and people are coming to you as somebody to, like, get guidance and leaving. So it's really, really important. So everybody go follow Monty. I think you're pretty much available everywhere, all social channels everywhere. So, Monty Mater, thank you very much for joining us. And we will be back on Thursday to talk about the new show that we're launching this week, which is Nola Haynes is Not a Spy. So Nola's going to come on and talk about the show. That'll be our third show. So everybody have a great few days and we will be back on Thursday. Bye, everybody.