My Brief Chat With a Christianist Republican Candidate: Wil Fiacco.

First, some background-

This is William "Wil" Fiacco. He's running as a Republican for the New York State Senate, District 53. ​​​​​​​​

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In 2022 he ran as a Democrat for the New York State Assembly.

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Evidently he couldn't get traction running as a Democrat. And was disqualified from the Democratic primary that year.

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What's a would-be politician to do?

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Answer: he rebrands himself. And he does it in a really big way.

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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-

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But the bigotry doesn't stop there. He super-duper dislikes "Paganists", too. Like these folks-

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The Wiccans made a dignified response-

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Wil weighed in on the abortive attempt at a discussion-

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There was some pushback. And Wil the recently revamped Christianist Republican seemed to enjoy it-

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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"-

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Big feelings about reparations for slavery-

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He has opinions on non-Christians being teachers-

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He strongly condemns gender affirming care for trans young people-

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He's convinced that another civil war is on the horizon-

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Compare that with what he was saying in 2022-

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He REALLY wants the job!!!

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A year later, this-

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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.

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He really, really doesn't like Muslims-

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And here's his take on the First Amendment-

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He's still convinced about that second civil war-

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And yes, he's still running for office.

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       However, there are some questions he'd rather not answer.

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   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.

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The following morning this was in my inbox-

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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.

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Apparently he's changed his mind about that-

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Thank you for reading. This is an open thread, all topics are welcome.