In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, conservative Christian activists launched a series of prayer calls during which they gathered to beseech God to intervene and overturn the results on behalf of Donald Trump. Founded by right-wing activists Jim Garlow and Mario Bramnick, the effort continued long after the election was settled and continues to this day under the moniker of the World Prayer Network, which hosts twice weekly livestreams that have become a conduit for the promotion of wild conspiracy theories.
Following the massive blue wave midterm election that saw Republicans across the country swept out of office last week, Garlow hosted a postmortem livestream to assess the wreckage during which one of the featured speakers, former Sen. Rick Santorum, criticized voters for not being willing to "suffer" because of President Trump's policies.
"Ladies and gentlemen, [things like high gas prices] are temporal issues," Santorum said. "Do they matter? Of course they matter. You're upset because prices are high—and I don't think the president's done a particularly good job of explaining why the war in Iran was so essential to fight radical Islam—but the reality is everybody has to look at what the bigger issues are in the country."
"I understand paying a dollar more or two or three dollars more for diesel fuel has an impact on your family, but you have a responsibility to look beyond just simply what affects your pocketbook," Santorum lectured. "There may be a reason that you have to suffer financially for a higher good. Nobody likes to do it, but we all suffer. The question is: Are you suffering for something? Is it a suffering that has a purpose to it? And of course, all suffering does if you offer it up in the right way."
"I know it's not good that I have to pay more for gas, or things are tough for me, but there are higher calling issues that we are called to and those are issues that are a moral nature," he declared. "They are issues of life and they're issues of certain basic freedom, and you have an obligation to go out there and, frankly, vote primarily on those issues and of your family than the price of gasoline."
