Link: https://newrepublic.com/post/216642/demonic-stuff-kansas-gop-accuses-democrat-witch

“Like I said, my opponent, she didn’t even hide it,” Masterson added. “She talked—they had witch—I mean, they’re doing like witchcraft spells on TikTok so she can win the governorship. I mean, they’re like … it’s like demonic stuff that they’re doing, right? Just in your face that way.”

"I am not a witch." - Christine O’Donnell,

We aint in Kansas anymore, Toto...

Question from another part of the world: do they believe this nonsense, or do they just think their voter base believe it, or is it just a shared excuse for misogyny? I’m so lost.

She turned me into a newt!

Yes.

It's dehumanization language, make the enemy an "other".

Some are true believers, but most seem to treat it like a football game or something mentally where as long as their team or the one issue they vote (usually abortion, bigotry or guns) is satisfied they don't care about all the other performative crap.

Unfortunately, a large percentage of the Christian population in North America actually believes that witchcraft is A Real Thing that needs to be fought against tooth and nail. I was raised by people like this, who believe to this day that Harry Potter is evil because "spells" and "magic" are evil, as though they're some kind of insidious gateway to hell itself. It's madness. :)

Kansan here, Masterson probably doesn't believe it, but I also bet he's not entirely sure. There will be a small subset of voters who actually believe it because the American Heresy is strong. The vast majority of his voters/Kansans will literally never hear about this. And if they did, my guess is that most wouldn't believe it and most wouldn't change their vote if they heard about it.

Party loyalty is dumb.

When we said if you don't have dirt on your opponent then make it up we meant something like misappropriation of funds.

Masterson is a fucking blight in human form. Even this hellhole of a state deserves better.

A newt‽

This person belongs in a mental ward.

Well they weren't entirely wrong on Harry Potter... Books about spells and magic may not be evil but their author sure is 🤣

Go pray on TikTok, then. Either it's not witchcraft helping her, or your God is a farce.

Did you get better?

they voted for trump, twice… they are that stupid

I’m not sure if the speaker actually believes it. He’s a slimeball. But yeah far too many people here will. I hate what it’s gonna take to fix this, or else a millennia of darkness. ☹️

Aw shit I forgot about her.

She’d be cooler if she were.

If they voted twice, you can be pretty sure they voted thrice for that grifter.

So his opponent is practicing her Freedom of Religion. In this instance, Wicca. If he's a solid Catholic, he's free to go drink the literal blood and eat the literal flesh of Jesus (after transubstantiation) during mass. By the same token, she should be free to perform whatever spell/s she likes. That doesn't make her 'demonic'. Unless she's literally summoning demons, in which case, Masterson needs to play The Best Song in the World.

LMAO!!!!

I figured this was going to start soon. I have made friends with a Murder in my neighborhood, I am related to two accused witches one of whom was hung in Salem and I own a black cat so I expect to be named in the upcoming witch trials too.

I used to say: " They are not that stupid, they think you're that stupid."

Now I say: They aren't that stupid, they know you're that stupid.

why would you name your city have witchita then.

Hanged*. hung means something very different.

Exactly how is a 'spell' any different from a 'prayer'?

....

I got better.

To save you a click:

The state senator had seemingly drawn his conclusions from a series of playful TikTok videos posted by Holscher’s 20-year-old daughter, Maddie, who had shared clips of her and her mom brushing their teeth set to a song from the Wicked soundtrack.

“Casting a spell so my mom wins Kansas Governor except she’s so done with me,” Maddie Holscher captioned one clip from April, in which she waves her arms around her mother.

republicans believe anything social media or a news network tells them.

whats his tanning leather skin doing outside.

Gullibility isn't reserved for Republicans though. Just look at how many people were eager to believe that a Yandex datacenter being hit meant that a Russian bot farm got taken out and that it was affecting online discourse.

That’s literally their issue with it. The thinking goes, if you’re essentially praying, but not praying to god, then you must be working with the devil.

I was hung in Salem. I’m hung at home, too.

That's their Wichita line, man.

Witch honeypot.

Reminds me of Delaware Senate Candidate Christine O'Donnell needing to issue a preemptive denial back in 2010.

Until she's weighed, and found to weigh, the same as a duck, this is entirely baseless.

Christians in 2006 🤝 Trans and Palestine Activists in 2026

"JK Rowling is the Devil"

Go pray on TikTok, then.

You can't, on account of the Communist Chinese Censorship which only allows Antifa Wiccans to channel their dark arts.

Exactly!Unless she's literally summoning demons...and even then, just like Neo-charismatic movement evangelicals summoning their "Holy Ghost" which makes them speak in tongues, it'd be Freedom of Religion.!nottheonion@lemmy.world

She turned me into a newt!!!

You got better?

Yah...

God is dead and infinite scroll feeds killed him. That and Starbucks cancelling Christmas every year.

The endorsement from God is also entirely arbitrary and conditional too, of course. Tallarico might say he's a Christian, but he advocates for a world where the first become the last, and the least become the greatest. To his opponents it's the worst kind of heresy

I thought y'all believed in freedom of religion? Witch is a religion

Fr I do really hate that being pagan is so controversial in so much of the country

As an American, some do, others see it as explicit rejection of the in group/Christianity and hate it for that reason, still others just see it as a means of dehumanization that'll get the dumbfucks on their side riled up. The politicians though, most of them ain't believe in squat beyond what makes them more powerful. If the politicians believed in witchcraft that can overpower prayers you'd best believe they're secretly doing spells for their benefit.

Wtf and in the northeast no less…

Wiccan is a religion. Or animist, or Hekate follower, or Hellenist.

Even "pagan" isn't a religion, it's the absence of Christian religion from a Christian perspective. It's an Othering term.

Witch is just a title, like mailman or umpire or hot dog salesperson. If you do witch stuff, you're a witch. If you weld stuff, you're a welder.

But when a Christian does witch shit, they're a "mystic" as a loophole they invented to retcon the "evil mean pagan" stuff they tried to destroy and realized later were things they liked.