Near the intersection of 41st St. and Memorial Dr. in east Tulsa stands a plain church building made of painted concrete blocks. The building appears to be one story, and its flat roof suggests its past life as a nightclub.
Signs outside advertise enrollment for the church’s daycare. A more permanent-looking sign lists service times and the lead pastors’ names, and exclaims “YOU BELONG HERE!”. About 250 parking spots surround the building to the south and west. There is no need for landscaping, as there is no greenery surrounding this church, nor ornamentation or even any outward indication of its denomination. There is no notice that Donald Trump Jr. will soon appear there.
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Trump Jr., of course, recently played a significant role in his father’s reelection campaign, which will realize its goal Monday when Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States. Trump’s run through American politics has been a startling thing to watch.
In my lifetime I’ve seen two real political movements amass the power to sway electoral politics at national scale: the Bernie Sanders campaign and MAGA. Both have emerged as responses to neoliberalism. But the latter has proven more potent and electorally successful.
By leveraging white grievance against globalization and immigration, Trump has whipped into alignment the conservative movement, the Republican party and even much of the mainstream American corporate oligarchy on his second trip to the White House, embedding his own style as the lingua franca of the Republican mainstream along the way.
Evangelical Americans were early adopters to the MAGA coalition, though they’ve taken a backseat since Trump’s first term in office. And while Oklahoma isn’t a relevant state on the electoral map, it’s certainly a hotbed for evangelicalism: the kind of place you would look to find a church that’s gone full MAGA.
So over the summer when I saw that Trump Jr. was coming to Sheridan Church here in Tulsa, I was curious to know more about the place. Who goes there? How intertwined is its nondenominational Christian teaching with MAGA politics? What are the vibes?
So I went. And I got more than I bargained for.
Prophet & Loss
Jackson Lahmeyer is nothing if not a grinder. Before I even attended the Trump Jr. event at Sheridan Church, where Lahmeyer is the pastor, I received more than 50 emails and text messages promoting other events with visiting speakers and trying to upsell me on my $30 ticket.
Some of these marketing emails said Lahmeyer was paying close attention to political races in other states and emphasized his support for Tulsa mayoral candidate Brent VanNorman, who finished a close third in the August 2024 race.
If you’re not up on Lahmeyer, he’s been a pugnacious figure in local politics since his failed bid to challenge fellow church pastor and sitting U.S. Senator James Lankford from the right in 2022, when he emerged as deeply opposed to COVID-19 pandemic health restrictions. He is skeptical of the 2020 presidential election results.
An Oral Roberts University graduate, Lahmeyer has explicitly endorsed Christian Nationalism and founded Pastors for Trump, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that is exactly what it sounds like. Lahmeyer’s support for Trump has fused with his reactionary, end-times religious messaging to produce some nuclear-grade takes on everything from tensions between Israel and Iran to the legitimacy of Kwanzaa.
One of the marketing emails directed me to Sheridan Church’s YouTube page, where you can watch archived streams of Lahmeyer’s sermons, his guest spots on far-right streamers like Real America’s Voice and events with visiting speakers, which consist of a like-minded mix of MAGA world celebs and extremist evangelical pastors. Oklahoma State Superintendent for Education Ryan Walters made a visit over the summer.
Like Walters, Lahmeyer presents in his personal style as a conventional suburban upscale country club guy. He’s conventionally handsome and you see him wearing a lot of Travis Mathew, comfortable-looking sweaters, sometimes a classic dark blue suit if he’s trying to project the image of a political leader.
Lahmeyer’s connection to the Trump family seems perhaps stronger than just an alliance of convenience. Lara Trump, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have all made visits to Sheridan now, with Eric set to return this spring.
Trump Jr.’s appearance was originally scheduled for September 10, and one of the upsell options in that flurry of texts and emails was to watch the presidential debate between Trump and Kamala Harris that night with Trump Jr. This did not come to pass, as Trump Jr.’s appearance was rescheduled for September 19 at Sheridan, which was where I found myself on a Thursday evening with several hundred of Tulsa MAGA’s most loyal soldiers.
Doing My Own Research
The first thing I notice when I line up outside of Sheridan Church that night is the woman behind me reading InfoWars on her phone. I see a lot of men wearing jeans with blazers, none of them particularly loud in the Roger Stone style. A guy in a T-shirt that reads I Identify as Non-Bidenary is in line ahead of us. The podcast manosphere is well-represented with merchandise, not to mention a wide variety of Trump hats.
From my vantage point, I can see a Burger King, a veterinary hospital, a Japanese restaurant and a cluster of car lots. One of the blue blazer guys who looks to be in his fifties proudly shows another a text message he received from a family member apparently not particularly thrilled to learn he was about to see Trump Jr. in person. Edgelordism knows no age.
We get metal detector-wanded into the church by two Tulsa County Sheriff’s deputies. A text I received earlier in the day said that weapons and large bags wouldn’t be allowed inside the church “due to the nature of the event.” Presumably that meant no guns allowed. Lahmeyer and Trump Jr.’s fealty to the second amendment has a limit, it seems.
The thrum of a nearly packed house emanates into the lobby. A few vendors for home services are tabling outside the sanctuary, clean-cut guys in polo shirts.
I make my way inside to find a sanctuary that’s nearly full but not over capacity and choose a seat in a short row of four, next to the AV booth. “What do we do if all the VIPs are taken up?” a staffer asks one of the AV people. A band is stirring the air a bit; they sound like a stepped-on Explosions in the Sky. The air conditioning is blasting, and the very large screen behind the stage cycles through advertisements for services, one for a home builder, another for a plumber, more for church services. The room itself holds maybe 450 people. Each seat has a donation envelope on it.
The crowd is chummy, producing the atmosphere of a family reunion. There are lots of hugs and smiles. They are overwhelmingly white and older, but not all elderly. I spy a few state GOP officials and in the back, the Young Republican brigade also dressed in blue blazers.
The walls are painted black with soundproofing covering them, and an extensive arrangement of lighting renders everything onstage crystal-clear, even from the back. It has the feel of a very large YouTube streamer’s studio, which is, I suppose, what it is.
A friendly man in his late 30s or 40s picks the seat next to me, introduces himself as David and asks if I go to church here. I say I don’t and ask him what he likes about it. “They just love people here,” says David. “Straight out of the Bible.”
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We wait on the programming to start and David strikes up more conversation. He makes deliveries for an auto parts store and has been coming to Sheridan for a few months. He eventually asks me if I’m here in support of Trump. Not wanting to blow my cover as a journalist in the epicenter of local MAGA, I say yes before changing the subject. He tells me more about the church services.
Lahmeyer comes out in a deep blue suit and a red tie to open the evening with prayer, imploring God to “uproot“ elected officials who refuse to “bow down.” As the prayer wraps up, the screen behind Lahmeyer projects a billowing American flag. A singer performs the National Anthem.
Lahmeyer returns with an icebreaker, a low-effort joke about Kamala Harris arriving in heaven. It’s well-received by the audience, who applaud the punch line like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
Next the crowd stands unbidden to applaud Pastor Sharon Daugherty of Victory Church, who sings “God Bless America” as a slideshow of black-and-white photographs rolls on behind her. David cheers her on enthusiastically. The photos amount to a retrogressive pastiche, a MAGA projection of early 20th century American history. We see patriotic images: immigrants arriving by boat, school children saying the Pledge of Allegiance, suffragettes, national landmarks, the military, early Hollywood, Teddy Roosevelt, Boy Scouts, inventors and Black entrepreneurs.
Scrubbed from this narrative is any indication of the conflict roiling beneath it. It’s a vision of America without war or the Civil Rights Movement. What is it Gore Vidal said? We learn nothing, because we remember nothing?
Lahmeyer introduces Michael Seifert, the CEO of something called PublicSquare, a payments processing software company for conservatives. PublicSquare, Lahmeyer says, will save Sheridan Church tens of thousands of dollars in annual fees and, more importantly, won’t deplatform Sheridan for its Christian values.
Seifert’s presentation style weaves together evangelical preaching, MAGA politics and modern tech lingo, amounting to something like a reactionary TED talk. “The globalists want to decimate Main Street,” Seifert says, eliciting a breathless “Yes” from David next to me. The cultural references alone are enough to rile up the crowd: Bud Light (boo) Goya Foods (yay), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (boo).
A Conspiracy of Dunces
Finally, the big show starts. Lahmeyer brings out Donald Trump Jr. for a seated, podcast-style conversation that lasts about 40 minutes. The first question is about the failed assassination attempts on his father’s life, which Trump Jr. immediately characterizes as “divine intervention.”
Trump Jr.’s style is loud. He gesticulates a lot and is eager to please. He relishes the crowd’s laughter and encourages them to keep clapping when he’s introduced. It’s cringe stuff, for sure, made even worse by the fact that he’s regurgitating boilerplate MAGA talking points: There is uniparty opposition to his dad; your kids won’t learn basic math in school because they’re too busy learning about all the genders; Kamala Harris is a radical California Marxist; Killary; they treat Hunter Biden better than me; yada, yada, yada.
Trump Jr., doesn’t turn out to be much of a show. In person he comes off like a more tedious Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist whose heart isn’t in it. Unlike Jones, Trump Jr. and Lahmeyer do seem smart enough to avoid saying things that could kill their livelihoods.
Trump Jr.’s frenetic display set against Lahmeyer’s overly casual interview style produces a mostly frictionless conversation, with zero chemistry between the two men. Lahmeyer doesn’t ask follow-up questions or ask Trump Jr. to elaborate on anything in particular.
This is a sticking point that marks an interesting problem for the right as it prepares for a future without Trump. At times, Trump can be genuinely funny in ways that are original and improvisational. Neither Lahmeyer or his son share that quality. Sure, they can make a friendly crowd laugh at a timely cultural reference, but that is very different from pronouncing “BITcoins” with a peppy emphasis on the first syllable.
I realize I’m not the first person to point out tendencies of figures on the political right to project their desires and insecurities. But the telling slips here are impossible to ignore. In recounting where he was during the first assassination attempt, Trump Jr. mentions he’d gone fishing with his teenage daughter who called wanting to spend time with him, something that, by his own admission, never happens. He plays it for laughs, and it works with the crowd. Mostly, his jokes hinge on not having money, nobody returning his calls or his kids hating him.
It gets worse. For his last question, Lahmeyer asks Trump Jr. to share a story about his dad “that’s positive.” Trump Jr. stalls a beat, then proceeds to tell a story about how his grandfather once helped a family in need. It was like watching a kid whiff at a ball on a tee so hard that the bat swings around and clocks him in the head.
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The discussion ends to applause, and Lahmeyer and Trump Jr. embrace in what has to be one of the more awkward hug and handshake combos I’ve seen in some time. As Lahmeyer starts to give away signed MAGA hats, I turn to David to ask him a question that had occurred to me as Trump Jr. locked into his reactionary spiel. I notice he’s using his phone to purchase what looks like a premium account on a social media service for $24.99.
I asked if he and the other members of the church had to buy the $30 ticket to get into tonight’s event.
“Yeah we did,” he said. “You know, they said they couldn’t just give tickets away for free tonight or they’d all get taken up.”
David and I say our goodbyes. “We’d love to have you here on a Sunday sometime,” he tells me, and I slip into the crowd as it funnels out the door, a little dizzy from the phantasmagoria of contradictions, lies and outright grifting on display.
The sun’s gone down, and about a hundred people are milling around the main entrance to the church, still warm from the excitement of the spectacle. Everybody is animatedly talking to each other or fiddling with their phones. It’s just under two months until the November election, and their fortunes hang in the balance.
Turning around to take in the scene, I notice an unremarkable man standing on the flat roof above. He’s wearing a button down, an unmarked protective vest and an earpiece, his bored gaze scanning the crowd below him. The muzzle of an assault rifle hangs level with the cuffs of his jeans.
