Kelly Monroe Kullberg, an activist behind an array of right-wing groups, has been revealed by a Snopes investigation to be at the center of a group of evangelical Christians who are “repurposing Facebook pages and PACs to build a coordinated, pro-Trump network that spreads hate and conspiracy theories.”
“A coordinated network of evangelical Christian Facebook pages publishing overtly Islamophobic, conspiratorial content paints extreme, divisive right-wing rhetoric as having broad American support but is actually tied to one individual,” Snopes reported last week.
That individual is Kullberg, who Right Wing Watch reported last year was behind a video denouncing progressive religious groups and slamming philanthropist George Soros for “killing America.” The video included an image of a wolf in sheep’s clothing over the text, “Imagine the evil of using a Christian front to de-Christianize a culture and nation.”
Reporting on Snopes’ findings, Aysha Khan of the Religion News Service noted that the network’s anti-Muslim and pro-Trump tactics “seem to mirror the playbook of Russian troll farms, with page titles purporting to originate with diverse demographic groups like ‘Blacks for Trump,’ ‘Catholics for Trump,’ ‘Teachers for Trump’ and ‘Seniors for America.’”
The Snopes revelations cast a fascinating light on a statement Kullberg made last year while she was promoting the video attacking Soros, in which she said:
Americans hate manipulation. Most now realize that the demoralization of America is not inevitable; it is being purchased. Anti-American globalists like Soros are funding a growth industry of paid anarchists and political activists to divide and weaken America, including the church.
Right Wing Watch has previously reported on Kullberg’s affinity for starting “organizations” that seem to be mostly vehicles for pushing messages into the public arena. Among them are the American Association of Evangelicals, the sponsor of the “killing America” video, and Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration, which got a boost from the Heritage Foundation for its campaign to counter the efforts of evangelicals supporting immigration reform.
While wearing her Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration hat, Kullberg took to Christian radio in 2013 to warn that allowing Muslims to immigrate to the U.S. would “lessen the value on human life” and lead to a rise in sex and human trafficking. Snopes notes that some of Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration’s content has been “promoted on white nationalist outlets such as VDARE.”
Kullberg is also a cofounder of Christians for a Sustainable Economy, designed to counter the messaging of Christians who were arguing against budget cuts to federal programs that serve the poor.
The American Association of Evangelicals—meant to provide a counter to what its founders considered the insufficiently conservative National Association of Evangelicals—was launched in 2016 with a scathing open letter attacking Soros and the “progressive political agenda that is clearly anti-Christian.” That letter, which was updated last year, also warned about a “Deep State” that “intimidates and seeks to suppress conservative, patriotic and Christian groups that disagree with the ‘Progressive’ political establishment.” The letter, updated last year, has thousands of signers, including Religious Right figures like Eric Metaxas, Jim Garlow, Jerry Boykin, and Alveda King.
