Every day, people are buying the conspiratorial lies of QAnon, the President, and a good chunk of the enabling Republican Party. It is ruining people's.
But they don't care.
Because they've gone down the rabbit hole with them.
thetriad.thebulwark.com
But they don't care.
Because they've gone down the rabbit hole with them.
We all saw her last Wednesday when she approached the VP’s chair inside the Capitol.
At the time, I was struck by the sign she was holding, which suggested that she was a QAnon follower who had come Washington because she believed she was bringing down a cabal which ritually murders children. You could see on her left leg that she was also wearing “Make America Great Again” tights.
I wondered what her story was. Because lots of the people at the insurrection looked like the kind of people you’d expect at an insurrection.
I know: Books, covers, etc.
But still. The blonde woman inside the chamber looked nothing like most of her confederates. She looked like an elementary school teacher.
And it turns out that this was pretty close to the mark. Her name is Christine Priola. She lives in Cleveland. And up until last week, she was an occupational therapist who worked for the Cleveland school system.
But not anymore.
... Twenty-four hours later she quits her job. Says she wants to dedicate her life to fighting a global pedophile ring that involves the U.S. government. Then she’s arrested and is now facing up to 2 years in jail.
How does this happen? ...
it suggests that a big chunk of mainstream American politics has moved into the realm of extremist cults. And the object of this new cult devotion isn’t national pride or some random, charismatic figure. It’s the president of the United States and his political party.
Something is happening at a very deep level. Donald Trump, QAnon, the Republican party, and much of American Christianity—both Protestant and Catholic—have congealed into an incoherent belief system. Something that’s not quite politics, not quite religion, and not quite ideology, but rather a hybrid of the most dangerous aspects of all three.
This new belief system is unfalsifiable. It is powerful. It is virulent. It convinces normal people to take drastic actions that ruin their lives.
And because this system has the support—sometimes outright, sometimes tacit—of the Republican party, it is still in its expansion phase.
Every Republican who has played footsie with this movement—from Marco Rubio to Bob Portman to Kevin McCarthy—should look at what happened to Christine Priola and be ashamed of themselves.
This Cult Is Ruining People's Lives
How the Republican party failed Christine Priola.
thetriad.thebulwark.com
