Religious extremists are dangerous. Demagogues have always known that and sought to harness that dark passion for their own benefit. And the exclusionary nature of any religion or cult makes it not only possible to demonize anyone outside the fold, it dignifies and elevates the procedure. It’s an us versus them proposition all the way.
So take a religious cult with an already kooky infrastructure, like the American evangelicals with their prosperity consciousness wing, dedicated to sheer economic debauchery and bastardization of anything legitimately Christian and add to that the otherworldly strangeness of the whacky QAnon doctrine, and you have a toxic and explosive mixture — as we saw January 6. So how did we get here? How did we create the American version of Al-Queda, which is what we have operating in this country, make no mistake? Some scholars of extremism and violence have a theory. The Independent:
Colin Clarke, a senior research fellow at The Soufan Center who studies extremist violence, said the upheaval wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic, the recent presidential election, and the continued prosecution of several overseas wars has created a confluence of circumstances that scholars would consider a perfect incubator for belief in conspiracy theories and apocalyptic mass delusions.
“It’s not going to get better anytime soon, unfortunately… Conspiratorial thinking is very closely associated with high-anxiety situations and endless wars, elections and national tragedies,” he said.
Moreover, Clarke said there has been a “crossover” between the QAnon systems and evangelical Christianity that is going to imbue right-wing extremism with the sort of violent fanaticism more associated with al-Qaeda or Isis.
“Religious terrorism tends to be more lethal, because people believe they’re serving a higher purpose by committing acts of violence, as opposed to secular groups or ethno-nationalists who are fighting over territory or land,” he explained. “You can’t negotiate with these people, and you especially can’t negotiate with QAnon, because how do you assuage grievances that don’t exist?”
Clarke also posited that synergies between QAnon and the American anti-abortion movement — another religiously inspired faction that dominates the GOP — could spark extremist violence in the mould of the string of bombings carried out by Eric Robert Rudolph between 1996 and 1998.
You remember Denver Riggleman, a former GOP congressman who was defeated in a primary by a far-right challenger. He says that the connections between QAnon and white evangelical Christianity have “metastasized” into something else that is both “messianic” and “apocalyptic”. He’s right. The people who took off from work and traveled to Washington, D.C. on January 6 believed that they were going to be witnessing something completely amazing take place, a realignment that was both political and religious simultaneously. They expected that again on January 20, when the TV sets were all supposed to go dark, as “the storm” broke and Joe Biden and cohorts were arrested, along with scores of other Democratic politicians, media people and Hollywood luminaries. Something similar was predicted for today, March 4. So far all is quiet, but bear in mind that Washington, D.C. has thousands of National Guard troops and the Capitol Police have requested that they stick around for another sixty days, because it’s better to be safe than sorry when dealing with the unhinged.
Riggleman also said to take a look at the parallels between Islamic radicalism and QAnon-driven radicalism in the evangelical community. “There certainly is radical Islam, but there’s now radicalism on certain evangelical sides, and I think people have been afraid to call it for what it is.” I think he’s right. I think that Americans are afraid to believe that something this nutty has taken root this deep in our country.
Broadcaster and former GOP congressman Joe Walsh talks to Trumpites all the time and he says that Trump’s vaunted base is characterized most prominently by their belief in conspiracy.
“When I ask people specifically about QAnon, it’s only a rare Trump supporter that can give me any specifics, but damn near all of them are just general conspiracists,” he added. “There’s just a huge general overlap in that most of the Republican Party base voters now are conspiracy believers… Because the base is evangelical, the base is now conspiratorial, and they are one and the same.”
Another prominent Republican, ex-GOP Chairman Michael Steele, cautioned that it’s specifically white evangelicals who’ve largely been taken in by QAnon and other mass delusions, driven at least in part by Trump’s insistence that 2020 election results were not legitimate because Black voters in urban and suburban areas played a significant role in the outcome.
Steele predicted that absent a change of course by Republicans in Congress and across the country — or intervention by law enforcement — the potential for violence from radicalized QAnon adherents and others who’ve been taken in by Trumpist election denial is very real.
“It can and likely will get very bad,” he said. “The idea that [Republicans] had better stop before someone gets killed? Well, we’re past that and they’re still engaging, so there is potentially more violence ahead… You’ve got to accept that and be honest about that because… they’re not putting that flame out… They’re finding more matches and fuel to add to it.”
Christopher Wray spoke before Congress this week on the subject of domestic terrorism. Make no mistake, there is a fundamentalist-terrorist organization in this country. It is home grown. It’s a cross breed between religious fundamentalism, conspiracy theory, paranoia about the government coming to seize one’s weapons and about the government in general, and it was all amplified and exacerbated to the point of the flashpoint on January 6 by Donald Trump claiming to have won an election that he resoundingly lost. And it isn’t being helped by the likes of Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick claiming that science is invalid and that Texans will be just fine, going back to full capacity business reopenings and no masks.
We live in very dark and dangerous times. The sad part is that more people are going to die behind delusional thinking, of their own and of their elected so-called leaders. The only remedy is to vote the liars and reality deniers out of office. Then America is going to have to get mentally well and excise this unreality from its body politic and culture.
I see a repeat of the Irish Troubles myself, lots of pointless, senseless violence that never gets any of these QNeanderthals (not a typo) closer to the actual goal. The Great White People Freakout is here and none of them know what else to do.
Damn. Part of me wishes you hadn’t raised the Irish “troubles” (The person who tossed out that descriptor deserves a spot in Dante’s 9th circle due to the vile understatement of what went on!) but part of me is glad you did. I used to sometimes point out that conflict to people who made such a big deal about the Jewish vs. Palestinian stuff as a reminder that Christians weren’t above terrible atrocities and not even with a competing version but WITHIN a single one! It usually took them down a few notches. The thing that’s both dangerous and depressing about both those conflicts is the number of times it looked like there might be a peace deal only to have someone do something to (sometimes literally) blow the thing up.
And why? Because even if the leaders didn’t expressly plan and order the incident they sure as hell tacitly encouraged it, because it was the conflict itself that made them important people! No conflict? That meant rapidly becoming a nobody. The amount of awful actions and resulting damage and suffering some people are willing to encourage to be big shot “leaders” is a terrible thing to contemplate. But it’s real and I’m afraid about to become a very big problem in our country.
Our current ‘big shots’ who are doing untold damage to our country to keep their names in the spotlight: Hawley, Cruz, MTG, Graham, anyone named tRump, R. Johnson, Gym Jordan, Abbott, DeSantis. They don’t give a good God damn about anyone but themselves and collecting more power unto themselves. They are willing to burn our country down for it without realizing that once this firestorm is unleashed, they could just as easily be victims. These people are massively stupid, craven, unable to see where this ends. Putin must be so pleased with what he’s accomplishing with all the tools at his disposal.
I wish I could comment but nothing appears, ever.
You keep bemoaning your comments not showing, but I’m seeing them. ????