re: #181 Ming5000

True. Why was Trump’s loss such a jolt for MAGAs?

Because conservatism is a religion. It is very easy to see as an atheist.

It has articles of faith which cannot be questioned or you become an apostate, an entire body of apologetics over centuries to justify its one main tenet (the deserving rise in power and influence, and those who don’t are not deserving), intellectual heavyweights who justify its tenets and prelates and preachers (Republican politicians) who repeat its assertions.

The loss by Donald Trump was the repudiation that their religious faith in conservatism was not true. To any religious person, facing up to the idea that tenets of their faith are not true causes cognitive dissonance.

Christian apologists are infamous for trying to justify rape, genocide, and slavery in the Old Testament as just, while ignoring Jesus in the New Testament saying he did not come to bring peace, but a sword; or that not one jot nor tittle of the Law would change until all was complete. To acknowledge that Jesus means to acknowledge their preaching that Jesus is about love and acceptance is wrong.

When you confuse “what you believe” with “who you are,” being shown you are utterly wrong means the death of a part of yourself.

To many that is intolerable.

Thus it is with conservatism, which can only be failed and not fail itself. Donald Trump failed to win. Therefore conservative voters must either accept that they were wrong, or they must resist the unravelling of their religious faith.

Likewise with Covid-19. Their conservative prelates (Republican politicians) from their leader on down told them that it is no worse than the flu, it will soon disappear, &c. They will die rather than give up a part of themselves. That means their faith is based in a lie.