Until a month ago, I didn’t pay much attention to Far Right American Christians. Then, I read The Atlantic’s “The Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows” and my blood went cold.

I’m a rationalist. I don’t get swept up in exaggerations and conspiracy theories. So if my blood runs cold…I pay attention. Buckle up, this newsletter article is longer and has more links than usual.

Skip the Booze, Choose These Chews

Everyone deserves to unwind at the end of the day. But if your relaxation routine leaves you feeling less than your best the next morning, we have a better way.

Just one of CBDistillery’s Enhanced Relief gummies delivers a precise formulation incorporating 5mg of hemp-derived, Delta-9 THC and 75mg of high-quality CBD. Choose our chews, kick back and enjoy body-melting relaxation and mental calm.

Relax risk-free with our 60-day money-back guarantee and save 25% on your first order with code RLX25.

Shop & Save 25%

According to the Pew Research Center, the number of Christians in America is dwindling. In the early 1990s, approximately 90% of U.S. adults identified as Christians but by 2020, this figure had decreased to about 64%. And NPR reported that if current trends continue, Christians could make up less than half of the U.S. population by 2070.

With their dwindling numbers, the ones who were already iffy about their faith now feel safe enough to cut ties, and so the ones remaining are more and more fundamentalist. And the Christians left standing are becoming more rabid.

In their lifetime, Christians find themselves on the path to becoming minorities. Their value system and morals, once secure in the secular world, is now on wobbly ground.

You know what they say — when you’re used to getting into the club as VIP, waiting in line like everyone else feels like punishment. And Christians are no longer VIPs.

The Christians left standing feel compelled to double down on their identity. Enter the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), which has been around since the 1960s.

For the past 60 years (!!) NAR has been pouring in the manpower, resources, and motivation to claw back into relevance.

Christian Nationalists were always a part of the American landscape and frequent guests on trashy talk shows like Geraldo and Jerry Springer, but I thought they were a rebranded Ku Klux Klan, racists who wanted to be assholes under the name of religion.

One of the best things about me getting on TikTok in 2020 was that I got a crash course on intersectionality — it’s not just racism, it’s also about class. And so many Trump supporters were obviously at the lowest rungs of American class.

Americans try to pretend we’re egalitarian, that we’re above the ridiculousness of peerage or caste systems, but let’s be real. We talk about the “American Dream” without realizing just how tightly that dream is tied to things like race and class. In fact, I’d argue that the scramble to achieve the American Dream is our caste system, our own national MLM scheme. The elites at the top want to sell us this story to keep us complacent.

The Dangers of HyperNormalisation

When we talk about how Americans will vote against their own interests, like when poor white Christians vote for Trump, we’re talking about HyperNormalisation. And we’re also talking about people like me, who ignored the red flags of Trump despite mounting evidence.

Adam Curtis speaks fast, intellectually dense ideas but he has a British accent, which seems to help understandability for some reason? But anyways, Curtis articulated a nuance of what privilege is that I haven’t really heard before: privilege is conservatism in its purest definition.

No matter how progressive my individual beliefs, I don’t want the Big Banks to fail…I want the Big Banks to be nicer. Do you want to open your banking app and see that your $50 is now worth only $0.50 due to volatility? Do you want to lose the ability to use Apple Pay? Don’t you want to know your check will cash legitimately? Because if Big Banks fail, all that goes out the fucking window.

Real and meaningful overhaul of the system is risky. And yet, we all agree the status quo is broken, it needs to go.

But then you have all these radical leftists, who say “yes, let’s get rid of the status quo…but if we do, then you have to also get rid of late stage capitalism. What happens to trash pick-up? Will Whole Foods still have the cut-up fruits? Will Netflix still run? Will the Internet still work? You bourgeoise scum, how dare you care about your comforts of life! Vive la Revolution!”

Meanwhile, NAR and these radical Christians, who we call conservatives, are actually the progressives. They don’t want the status quo. They want to progress to a new system. And now that the libertarians like Musk have jumped in, and they want to keep capitalism? “Oh yea, we’ll make radical change in how America conducts itself…AND you still get to have Black Friday sales. In fact, you’ll be able to buy even more stuff…but you won’t need to because God will make your life whole!” The copium of filling our emptiness inside with material good and doomscrolling is protected, while simultaneously promising spiritual fulfillment.

How powerful is that? I mean, who can argue against the 10 Commandments? Plus we get to keep our McMansions?

Even though I acknowledge HyperNormalisation, I am still reluctant to risk my stable life. Without realizing it, I am supporting the status quo. To be honest, the Democrats are the status quo.

I am the conservative.

✨ In the next section: How extreme are these Christians (it’s dire)? And some preliminary thoughts on what witches can actually do to survive this strange new world