#2834: Joshua Feuerstein

Joshua Feuerstein is a fundie wingnut vlogger who first rose to attention for his attempts to argue for creationism (and disproving atheism), notably through various versions of design arguments; for instance, according to Feuerstein, since his 2001 Toyota Minivan is “perfectly designed” and not the product of evolution, biological organisms must be created as well. We leave it to readers to identify potential weaknesses in the argument.

 

Feuerstein is probably most familiar for his general wingnuttery, however, and in particular for his calls to violence in support of bigotry (“in order to be peaceful, you must first be capable of extreme violence. Otherwise, you’re just weak” is one of his nuggets of alleged wisdom; just think about it). As an anti-gay activist, Feuerstein for instance responded to the legalization of same-sex marriage by taking out a gun and asserting thatChristians should consider using their “Second Amendment right” to stop the government from forcing them to recognize marriage equality – as Feuerstein erroneously sees it, marriage equality is “not about equal rights” but “about reconstitutionalizing a term so that now it opens up the door for the left and the liberals to come after Christianity”. It really isn’t. (He also seems to interpret the Second Amendment as an unalienable right to shoot people whose politics he doesn’t fancy.) Similarly, he has called for his followers to “punish Planned Parenthood” and “make abortion doctors fear for their life”, called for civil war, and of course, in response to Trump’s 2024 conviction, rhetorically asked “at what point do we take up arms?”

 

Weighing in on transgender issues, Feuerstein has a piece of advice to concerned parents: Feuerstein doesn’t know “one child that was spanked … that turned out transgender.”

 

And he has predictably recruited himself as a foot soldier in the imaginary War on Christmas. His tactical operations are … counfounding (though in order to make sense of them it helps to to remember that Feuerstein is deeply paranoid and views anything or anyone that fails to actively support his political and/or religious views as a persecution of him).

 

On January 5, 2001, Feuerstein spoke at a  D.C. rally in support of Trump’s false claims of election fraud; Feuestein admitted that then-Vice President Pence wouldn’t refuse to certify the election “like the little coward, the little swamp monster, the little slimeball he is”, and accused Pence and other Republican politicians for allowing the alleged “steal” to happen, concluding that “It is time for war! And let us stop the steal!” Some people evidently took his conspiratorial nonsense seriously, though Feuerstein didn’t ultimately get in trouble for anything, it seems.

 

During Covid, Feuerstein was a significant spreader of nonsense, mostly along the lines of “you don’t have to wear the mask! You got Jesus! You don’t need the vaccine! You got Jesus!” since relying on faith alone has always worked so well in the past; he subsequently had to cancel events when he came down with Covid himself. As for vaccines, however, Feuerstein asserted that men of God with “big orange pumpkins hanging between their legs” must resist vaccine mandates instead of being “sissies” who “would have bent over and taken it from Hitler right up the backside.”

 

In the 2024 election, Feuerstein ran for the Texas House of Representatives in the 4th district, stating that he was personally recruited by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to run. If you elected him, he offered to “lead an armed civilian militia to the border.” (He failed in the primaries.)

 

Diagnosis: As mentioned, Feuerstein is deeply paranoid and views anything or anyone that fails to actively support his political and/or religious views as actively persecuting him. Unfortunately, a lot of people share his fear, anger, ignorance and paranoia; we wouldn’t really have been surprised if he had won his district in the 2024 election.