The Sierra Madre Tattler!: No Inauguration: QAnon-evangelical crossbreeding is creating America's own 'al-Qaeda' radicals
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Mod: Religious fanatics who want to satisfy their devotion to a cult leader through destructive radical acts. Or, as Donald Trump was fond of saying just a few weeks back, 'really fine people.'
QAnon-evangelical crossbreeding is creating America's own 'al-Qaeda' radicals(Raw Storylink): The Qanon conspiracy movement is cross-pollenating with evangelical Christianity, and experts on extremism are worried about an increasingly radicalized religious movement.
The cult-like conspiracy system and conservative Christianity are influencing one another and creating potentially violent fanatics under the stress of the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic fallout, and both movements are angry and bitter over former president Donald Trump's election loss -- which they believe was fraudulent, reported the Independent.
"Something disturbing has happened with evangelicals in this country where we have become prone to conspiracies and believing the worst about our enemies, where we end up placing the Republican Party and ourselves as Americans first before true Christianity," said Michigan pastor David Rice.
Rice, who leads Markey Church in Roscommon County, Michigan, said a woman complained his sermon on the U.S. Capitol riot was "too political," and followed up with a litany of conspiratorial fantasies about President Joe Biden, Antifa and Black Lives Matters that was strongly influenced by Qanon beliefs -- and the pastor tried to talk her down.
"You need to know how crazy this is," Rice told the woman. "You have been with my family and in my home and I care for you but you are dabbling in darkness. You are telling me it's giving you hope. I'm telling you as your pastor that it's evil."
Religious extremism is fundamentally at odds with democracy, especially when they're based on conspiratorial fantasies about pedophilia and satanic sacrifices.
"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," said Colin Clarke, a senior research fellow at The Soufan Center. "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?"Cult deprogrammers overwhelmed with requests to help de-radicalize pro-Trump conspiracy theorists (Raw Storylink): Many of former President Donald Trump's supporters have fallen into a web of disinformation surrounding the 2020 presidential election, as well as the infamous QAnon conspiracy theory.
NPR reports that professional exit counselors, who are brought in to help deprogram cult members, are being overwhelmed with requests for help in bringing Trump-supporting conspiracy theorists back to reality.
"I've probably got almost a hundred requests in my inbox," explains Diane Benscoter, an exit counselor who has been helping people leave cults after she herself spent years in the Unification Church cult.
Joan Donovan, who leads the study of online disinformation at the Shorenstein Centeron Media, Politics and Public Policy, similarly tells NPR that the current social media environment is a "free for all" that is producing an "unfathomable" amount of disinformation for Americans to consume.
Pat Ryan, a cult interventionist, tells NPR that QAnon is deliberately designed to draw people in by asking them leading questions and pointing them to "answers" that are actually pieces of the conspiracy theory.
Benscoter tells NPR that she knows from personal experience what draws people into political cults such as QAnon.
"It establishes this camaraderie and this feeling of righteousness and this cause for your life, and that feels very invigorating and almost addictive," she says. "You feel like you are fighting the battle for goodness, and all of a sudden you are the hero."
Mod: A lot more information can be found at both links.
BUSTED: Trump official arrested in connection to Capitol riot (Politicolink): The FBI on Thursday arrested Federico Klein, a former State Department aide, on charges related to the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, marking the first known instance of an appointee of President Donald Trump facing criminal prosecution in connection with the attempt to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's victory.
Klein worked on Trump's 2016 campaign and was then hired at the State Department. As of last summer, he was listed in a federal directory as serving as a special assistant in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and was designated as a "Schedule C" political appointee.
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Is it any wonder that the once Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln is now known merely as Qanon?