this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2026
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I wonder if gaslighting religion is going to work on the MAGA base, they have to go against what they were taught their whole life now, a really test of the cult loyalty.
I bet Trump is now especially unhappy that the Pope is American otherwise he would be all like "that is what happens when you choose a European/Latin american pope"
100% and I think it might have been one of the reason he was chosen. This may legit deprogram some MAGA's into leaving him like the epstine files did.
Sunk Cost!
They've been telling themselves that they're persecuted for so long, the turn to realize they are the baddies would break most people.
They will Kowtow to an all knowing and powerful God that is speaking through the divine Trump (who may or may not be the antichrist). Because that all knowing and all powerful God has chosen to place him there and respecting authority is respecting God.
That trap hasn't sprung but the fear of it brought us to white nationalist storming the Capitol. It's like a cultural poison pill that has been boiled in conspiracy theories since the eighties.
MAGA is itself a religion. They are Christian because it gives them an excuse to treat women and dark skinned people badly, not because they believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ.
If they have to choose, MAGA aligns with their beliefs more than a segment of Christianity that many Evangelicals already dislike.
A lot of people don't realise that ideology replaced religion as the source of mass movements. Ever since the rise of liberal individualism and scientific revolution, the role of religion diminished as the glue for community and source of knowledge. This is what Friedrich Nietzsche meant by "God is dead". It is not a coincidence that political movements centred on the mass mobilisation, namely socialism, communism and fascism, have sprung up around the same time.
Unfortunately, we are seeing the same thing unfolding again in our lifetime. The rise of neoliberalism, when Margaret Thatcher declared "there is no society, only individuals", is what initiated the death of community and social cohesion in recent memory. This led to plenty of lonely individuals who are easy preys for the far-right, as was the case before in Germany and Italy.
Catholicism has diminished since The Black Death, liberal individualism and the scientific revolution would have never occurred if the Catholics still owned Europe.
The plague revealed the powerlessness of the faith; in the beginning, Catholics ruled Europe and controlled people from birth to death. After, they never recovered the same authority for obvious reasons.
Jesus Christ teaches that when He comes back, He will murder everyone who doesn't bow to Him. He's kind of a dick. There's no good guy in this fight
Well, I'd argue that most of MAGA is evangelical, who tend to view Catholicism as either "fake Christianity" or a kind of quaint remnant of an older time that Protestantism fixed (and evangelicalism perfected). So most of them are already on board with the idea that the Pope is bad.
MAGA churches want to speedrun towards Armageddon. War in the Middle East is what they crave.
Yes, because they can twist it to their versions of what ever it is they believe. As long as Trump continues his war on immigration then all will be good amongst the majority of MAGA zealous.