bent on finding any shred of illusion to get Orange Crash off the hook for what he did, all for no higher purpose than, "because Cult".
Oh, that. Then that's a relief. I was afraid they actually believed this shit.
I personally think they do believe it. It doesn't really make sense to engage in behavior that can have such adverse results, such as being jailed, having a criminal record, possibly being injured or killed or labeled a subversive (or terrorist) by your government just for shits and giggles. Looking at the video of that mob some of them were
VERY angry but angry about what? Something that didn't even happen. The inability to distinguish reality from fantasy is one of the symptoms of mental illness.
It is a tough call, as we can't see inside what's left of people's minds. This is all based on a theme of self-delusion, one that projects all these comic book stories on the wall that they then pretend are real. The question comes down to, do they KNOW they're self-deluding? I believe they do. They'll never admit it but below the surface they have to know it's all a sham, the objective being to corral others into playing that same sham. A mob mentality. If the whole mob believes two plus two equals five, then it "does".
I believe Rump knows he's full of shit too, his entire world is constructed of self-delusion. When the reality doesn't work, just make up an alternate universe, one where you "won" an election you lost, one where your father was born in a very wonderful place in Germany. That poison shit comes from that guru of self-delusion, Norman Vincent Peale, who Rump and family went to worship every Sunday. This is all directly related to Rump's candid observation that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose votes. Probably the most honest statement he ever made, it's a "tribute" to the power of that self-delusion when it's effectively projected on the gullible. Here we have the objects of that projection, bending over backward to make excuses for a seditious and murderous attack on the very seat of government. Shooting somebody on Fifth Avenue/inciting a mob to storm the Capitol --- a distinction without a difference.
Cults are made of exactly this self-delusion.