Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour.
First, some background-
This is William "Wil" Fiacco. He's running as a Republican for the New York State Senate, District 53. ββββββββ
This was his profile pic back in 2022. He was a Democrat at the time.
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In 2022 he ran as a Democrat for the New York State Assembly.
For a while he seemed okay with bipartisanship.
Back then he sounded almost like an entirely different person at times.
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Evidently he couldn't get traction running as a Democrat. And was disqualified from the Democratic primary that year.
Narrator: It did not happen.
Oh, dear.
What's a would-be politician to do?
Here he is today. Haircut, cross & flag lapel pin. Check, and check.
Answer: he rebrands himself. And he does it in a really big way.
Scary Jesusβ’ fan art, check.
He's all about those Godly principles.
There was more but you get the idea.
Guest speaker for Moms for Liberty.
Perhaps his credibility as a Christianist Republican needed bolstering. Or maybe he actually believes the sh!t he says these days. Anyway, he really doesn't like Muslims-
This Doctor of Theology* despises a lot of people and is not above using hate speech. *sarcasm
But the bigotry doesn't stop there. He super-duper dislikes "Paganists", too. Like these folks-
Those people aren't Satanists. They're Wiccans.
This is how I first heard about him. From an article on The Wild Hunt about his unfounded and disgusting attack on a Correllian Tradition Wiccan.
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The Wiccans made a dignified response-
They attempted a meeting with Wil to discuss their concerns. It was very brief and didn't go well.
Wil weighed in on the abortive attempt at a discussion-
Turns out that telling people they're going to be barbecued in The Bad Place isn't a great conversation starter.
There was some pushback. And Wil the recently revamped Christianist Republican seemed to enjoy it-
He's starting to sound like MTG's long-lost twin or something. Except MTG would have had something like 700 "Angry emoticons".
He has previously mentioned that he's gay, and expressed concern for gay rights. More recently however he had this to say about the "LGBTQ community"-
Does this mean that he no longer identifies as a gay man?
Big feelings about reparations for slavery-
I'm not sure how this would work.
He has opinions on non-Christians being teachers-
Because the First Amendment is about protecting Christian dominance. (more on that later).
He strongly condemns gender affirming care for trans young people-
"We will repeal" this and "we will do" that.
He's convinced that another civil war is on the horizon-
This Twitter post was removed. His account may have been suspended or removed.
The bit about murdering liberals is missing, but his meaning comes through.
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Compare that with what he was saying in 2022-
Two years earlier he was saying much the same thing about Christianist Republicans. The very people he eventually joined.
He REALLY wants the job!!!
Based on what appears to be limited support I'm guessing the donations weren't exactly pouring in.
A year later, this-
Oh, dear.
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I've spent more time than I care to admit looking at his Facebook accounts and website. The website lists numerous sections for information regarding his views on various topics, but it appears to be a work in progress. Many sections contain no text. His Facebook accounts are more informative about the man.
Now on to our chat-
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I had questions, so I reached out to Wil on Messenger; his phone number is on his website, but I didn't especially want to hear his voice.
His views on abortion seem to be in line with the majority of Republicans.
βββββIt's interesting how he pivots from calling a teacher a Satanist who shouldn't have a job to supporting school choice.
He really, really doesn't like Muslims-
I think I know just a little bit more about paganism than he does. And Muslims are not pagans.
And here's his take on the First Amendment-
According to this Constitutional scholar*, the US was meant to be a Christian nation from Day One. *definitely sarcasm
He's still convinced about that second civil war-
The idea of Americans killing each other seems to make him salivate just a little.
And yes, he's still running for office.
For the love of all that is good, voters of New York please deal with this.
However, there are some questions he'd rather not answer.
Maybe it's just too soon to talk about it?
By the next day I had more questions. What he'd said earlier about "any faith that denies the free salvation of Christ is a false religion", followed later by claiming that the looming civil war will be "Muslims vs Christians & Jews" had me wondering just how much he has really thought about this.
He does still favor legalization of marijuana. Maybe he just needed more time to answer the rest?
The following morning this was in my inbox-
And that was the end of our discussion. At least he didn't invite me to be the main course at a barbecue in The Bad Place.
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If his Facebook and Twitter comments are anything to go by, he quite enjoys trolling. In discussions he turns quickly to religious hate and threatening hellfire and damnation on those who disagree with him. He has a habit of looking at other people's Facebook accounts, taking screenshots, and posting them on his own account with commentary about how evil they supposedly are ("Satanist", "pedophile", etm) and how they're definitely going to burn in hellfire. I used an old sockpuppet account when I contacted him; if he ever sees my real account it's possible he'd do to me what he's done to the Correllian Wiccans and certain political rivals. This man sees Satan everywhere.
I however didn't want to start a flame war; I wanted him to actually talk to me. Maybe my questions made him uncomfortable. Perhaps he was put off by my lack of a strong reaction to what he said. Anyone who was hoping for either applause or a screaming match would have lost interest when I didn't take the bait. Whatever the reason, he was done.
A statement from the "About Me" section of his website. It's one of the few sections containing text.
Apparently he's changed his mind about that-
Go outside and touch grass, Wil.
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Thank you for reading. This is an open thread, all topics are welcome.
