CNN aired a “special report” yesterday about the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 and their aftermath. Even for someone who’s been following the news, the reporting and images were distressing. But for me, the program’s most chilling moment was the scene pictured here from the morning of January 6. The reporter, on the left, asks two twenty-something pro-Trump protesters, “How do you feel? Just a few hundred feet from here in two weeks, Joe Biden will be inaugurated president.”
His interview subjects respond almost in unison, “No he won’t.”
“I’m sorry, but he won’t,” the man continues. “Ask anybody here.”
Trump’s most devoted followers have been thoroughly brainwashed. They not only believe Trump won the election (a view shared by 75% of the Republican electorate, by the way), many of them actually believe he’s going to retain the presidency. It is not merely a hope, or something to be fervently wished for. It is a foregone conclusion. Some Trumpers believe the president has a secret plan for staying in office. Others no doubt believe that God will intervene. And many may be convinced that a violent uprising will put a halt to Biden’s inauguration. (I suppose none of those is exclusive of the others.)
I’m not sure which is the greatest danger: what the president’s more militant devotees might do on Inauguration Day, or how they will react when their delusion that Trump will retain the presidency has been shattered.
Had not realized this before reading your penultimate paragraph: It’s a cargo cult. Well, a millenarian belief system, in broader terms, with Trump as messiah. If I’m reading you correctly, we can take comfort in the fact that this is a minority view among Republicans. Still, the 75% who think Trump won the election may be even harder to explain.