You have to understand how disenchanted, demoralized, and propagandized white people, including white evangelicals, are in order to understand why this happened.
They adopt minority children from the 3rd world instead of America orphans for much the same reason.
Their missions are largely targeting non-white countries (albeit because mostly white countries have had some contact with the gospel).
They do this while saying "there is only one race, the human race" and professing to be "colorblind." All the while they subconsciously treat ministry to and for non-whites as more desirable or virtuous than ministry to Americans, or the actual neighbors in their own communities.
This is how Samuel was elevated, despite his obvious limitations.
@PerfInjust has pointed out that white people are their own in-group's, out-group, and they are unique in this way. White evangelicals, despite professing to be "colorblind," are not immune to this phenomena.
For obvious political reasons, we are all raised amidst a very aggressive cultural institutional conditioning to disfavor whites and favor minorities, and everyone along the political spectrum has absorbed and implemented this orthodoxy of the civic religion in one way or another, which is why conservative tokenism absolutely exists. Only recently have younger right-wing whites begun to reject this conditioning and rebel against it, to no small consternation of their containment-right counterparts.
For evangelicals the impulse to signal this virtue is even more intense because we are a marginalized group starved for institutional legitimacy. This is why we cling to every celebrity "conversion" story in an attempt to try and commandeer their platform, only to realize they weren't mature enough in the faith, or truly converted in the first place, for us to encourage them toward being a mouthpiece for the faith, oftentimes leading to them smuggling in a lot of their priors to their messaging.
It's also why so many evangelicals have an aversion to "culture warring." That thirst for institutional legitimacy from a long-marginalized out-group drives this behavior.
Hopefully this helps to make sense of the environment where the Samuel Sey saga could unfold this way.
Btw, I don't think we have seen the final chapter of this saga either.
I would like to share some thoughts on the Samuel Sey situation that have been bothering me.
I debated whether to share this at all, but with every development on Sey's case, it seems this becomes more and more relevant...
As you all know, in September of 2024, I was part of a highly politicized investigation by the Biden DOJ. They essentially alleged that the content my company, TENET, put out was Russian propaganda.
Now, despite the fact that every creator we worked with clarified that they always had complete editorial freedom, despite the fact that what Merrick Garland called "divisive" were just mainstream conservative opinions, despite no one being able to point to any actual evidence of "propaganda" that we put out, and that I was never even arrested, detained, charged, much less convicted of anything, I was still disavowed if not personally attacked by many mainstream rightwing publications and commentators. I was also fired from The Blaze, a company I had worked with for years, mere hours after Merrick Garland launched his unproven and unsupported allegations against us.
Furthermore, even now that that entire investigation is closed and we are more than two years past that episode, I am still blacklisted by almost all establishment conservative organizations. The DOJ still has yet to return my family's savings which were seized, and were not even earned from TENET.
All this because of lies from the Biden administration which were amplified by the leftist media.
Now let us contrast Samuel Sey's situation with my own.
Sey is currently being detained by ICE as part of a crackdown on illegal immigrants. A crackdown that Republicans and conservatives largely all support. His family insists that this is all due to some misunderstanding or clerical error, but the DHS has released a statement saying that Sey has been illegally present in the US for 4 years.
As someone who believes borders are important, but who has also had my fair share of hurdles with the immigration process and is skeptical of bureaucracy, I'm actually inclined to give Samuel and his family the benefit of the doubt here. I hope the situation is resolved quickly for the family, especially for the sake of the children.
This post isn't meant to attach Samuel at all, but rather, to point out the glaring difference in grace and support that Samuel and myself have been afforded.
Throughout this whole ordeal, many huge conservative names have not only offered moral support for Samuel, they've even gone so far as to share his fundraiser for legal fees. Additionally, as far as I know, none of Samuel's professional ties have been severed as a result of his detainment.
To be clear, I don't even have a problem with this. I want Samuel to be treated fairly. I believe in the prosumption of innocence.
It's just watching this all unfold, I can't help but notice how differently many leaders in the conservative movement have reacted to this specific example of legal troubles with a pundit, and I would be lying if I said my feelings weren't somewhat hurt by it.
In any case, thank you for everyone who has been supportive of me as I continue to navigate the fallout from Biden's team. It really has meant the world. And we should all be praying for Samuel and his family.