The day after the Supreme Court of the United States collectively told Team Trump to make like a tree and get outta here, thousands of cultists converged on Washington, DC for a “stop the steal” rally. Sucker for punishment Rod Dreher watched the whole thing and may need counselling:
…It was a Trump rally by Christians (and sympathetic Jews) designed to mimic the Biblical story of the Israelite army ritually marching around the walled city of Jericho, blowing the shofar, and watching as God demolished the city’s defenses, so the Israelites could conquer. The idea of the Jericho March is that the true believers would circle the corrupt institutions of the US Government, the ones promulgating the hoax that Trump lost the election.
I watched because I wanted to see how far the Christian Right — for the record, I am an Orthodox Christian, and a conservative — would go to conflate Trump politics and religion. Pretty far, as it turns out. Right over the cliff. You had to see it to believe it.
[…]
Next came the MyPillow king, Mike Lindell. He spoke about all the prophetic visions and dreams he had about Donald Trump. Never “I believe I had a vision” — there’s never the slightest doubt with these people. I say that as a Christian who believes God really does speak to people directly at times, that he really does send visions sometimes. But we have to be extremely careful about these claimed private revelations. Back in the 1990s, a Catholic priest I knew told me that his parish was deeply divided over claims of a member that she was having private visions. I remember him telling me how frustrated it was that so many people in his congregation had little interest in ordinary Catholic discipleship. They were suckers for spiritual fireworks, and often looked down on fellow Catholics who were skeptical, thinking them to be lacking in faith.
Anyway, Lindell told the crowd that one day, God arranged for him to meet Donald Trump at Trump Tower. Isn’t God amazing? said Lindell. Here was another theme that was constant throughout the day: that God was directing every little thing. Trump is God’s instrument. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to any of them that God’s purposes are not man’s purposes. The Old Testament tells us that God allowed his people, Israel, to fall into captivity as punishment for their sins. How do we know that God isn’t allowing something like that to happen now? How can we be certain that Trump is God’s favored?
We can’t. But don’t try telling these folks that.
Lindell also accused Fox News of being part of the conspiracy to steal the election for Biden, and Mike Flynn (I won’t dishonor the term “General” by using it here) said that, on a scale of one to ten, his confidence level that Trump will get a second term is at a ten.
After it was all over, the Proud Boys and Antifa went at it and a bunch of people got stabbed. Just another day in America, 2020.
I have no idea how much Lindell or Flynn or even Trump himself really believe the election was stolen. But most of the people who flocked to DC for this event are all in. And that got me wondering what happens when they realize they’ve been had.
Many commentators, myself included, have focused on the threat of post-inauguration violence from true believers who think they’re saving the country from Communism. (Specifically, notorious Communist radical Joe Biden.) But as Trump’s lawsuits keeping getting laughed out of court by Trump-appointed judges, it will eventually dawn on some of these people that they fell for a massive hoax.
And what do they do then? Many of them have turned their lives upside down for the cause of keeping Donald Trump in office. They’ve spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on donations and OANN subscriptions and Trumpy Bears. They’ve alienated friends and family members by ranting about it constantly. Some have even sacrificed their marriages for the cause.
There will be some people who keep believing right to the very end, even as the Flavor-Aid is being ladled out. They may target “corrupt” journalists and government officials and politicians who “stole” the Presidency from their hero.
They’ll lash out. The ones who realize just what they’ve done with their lives, for absolutely no good reason, will turn on themselves and their families out of shame.
It’s not too late to pull your loved ones back from the brink, though. ABC News (the Aussie one, not the Disney one) posted this article about people whose family members have gone down the rabbit hole, and how they can be saved before they’ve gone too far:
For friends and family, a starting point is to recognise that people hold beliefs for good reasons, according to Australian Psychological Society president Tamara Cavenett.
Conversations are best structured around gentle enquiries about how these beliefs formed and attempts to understand each other.
"[It's] not to necessarily try to change the belief outright, but introduce little pieces of doubt," Ms Cavenett said.
Confronting people too directly runs the risk of expecting them to admit their entire worldview is wrong and having them shut down the conversation, she said.
We've seen this year how some COVID-deniers in the US go so far as to angrily maintain their belief that the virus is fake right up to their dying breath.
One way to handle this is to give someone the "Golden Gate of Retreat": the space to recognise they are wrong without feeling attacked and doubling down.
"I'd also encourage family members to just consider [that] the other person doesn't have to hold all the same beliefs [as you]," Ms Cavenett said.
"It's really about whether or not the belief is interfering with their life."
It feels so good to look down upon and mock conspiracy theorists - which, um, I do all the time, including earlier in this very newsletter - but if the goal is to bring them back to reality, that’s not how you go about it. At the same time, if you indulge them too much, you may reinforce their beliefs and even get sucked in yourself.
In 2015-16, screaming at fledgling Trump supporters backfired badly, but so did treating him like any other Republican candidate. There’s a place somewhere in between these two options, and we may need many years to find it.
Bad Santa news updates: this video of a “leftist Santa” (God, I hate 2020) making a child cry by saying he won’t give a little boy a Nerf gun has gone viral, and the guy playing Santa Claus at a Connecticut mall decided to give his co-workers a decidedly unwanted gift.
These have to be the worst mall Santas ever…oh, right.
This post turned out to age very well, didn’t it. What’s both remarkable and scary is how the GOP seems to be holding on tighter than some of Trump’s fan base, even in the face of the information disclosed in the impeachment trial.
In addition to Dreher's excellent article, David French had a good piece yesterday in The Dispatch.