I've gone blue in the face, it seems, trying/failing to convince anyone that the madness has at its core the CPDAJ, or Clear and Present Danger Army of Jesus. This, the actual ideological vehicle/dynamic/agenda we need/must fathom and confront—not his/their fringe surface psychological dysfunctions, or political mania symptoms. Ignore, forget, please, narcissism and Fascism. Mere distractions.
As Bill Clinton would put it: "It's the religion, stupid."
Look elsewhere. Within this substack, to begin with.
Just one bare minimum example: Karoline Leavitt's Bizarre "Spiritual Warfare" Claims - YouTube
Text excerpt from the above (The Warning with Steve Schmidt, beginning at 6:12, punctuation added): “. . . now yesterday the 27-year-old White House press secretary, a liar, a malice venomous child liar with the gleam of a zealot in her eye, married to a 61-year-old MAGA real estate developer, has decreed that there are sinister and wicked demonic forces [to wit: liberal secular humanism, the Deep State, et al—the culminating hypostatizations of a half-century long social, cultural, theological, and political evangelical revolution] opposing Donald Trump. That she is engaged in a form of spiritual warfare and that before she goes out and lies on a daily basis she told David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network—founded by a man who said that hurricanes were caused by gay people—that she prays to deliver the good news, the word of Trump, and good news for all of you good people out there in this Easter season. You can purchase for $1,000 a special blessing from the White House faith advisor, herself the person that Carolyn Lev child warrior goes to for spiritual guidance in her war against all of the demons around America. Yes, of course, i'm talking about Pastor Paula [White], that tip of the spear of good and godly intentions—pastor Paula. If you forgot . . . let me just turn it over to Pastor Paula: ‘i hear a sound of an abundance of rain, i hear a sound of victory. The Lord says it is done, the Lord says it is done, the Lord says it is done!’ And remember, before you send her $1,000 . . . your taxes, they're going up, way up. The name for it is a tariff and what it's going to bring you is misery. But there's always Pastor Paula to pray for you and America.”
Bizarre, yes. “Exotic” (Marshall Sahlins), even more so. Above all, uniquely American. Our genuine exceptionalism.
I think you’re so right that the religious dimension gets underexamined compared to the psychological or political ones. As with most conflicts that we see in the world, the problem is often ideological and theological. In this case, a belief system that views Trumpism as a form of divine mission, and MAGA like a kind of spiritual crusade....