We Need to Talk About the Apocalypse
Nearly six years after the Capitol insurrection, Christian dominionism no longer needs to break into the building: Some adherents are now inside, and they have spent the last two years preparing to purge their opponents. Shortly after designating antifa a “domestic terrorist organization” last year, the Trump administration issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NSPM-7, which directs federal law enforcement to target those with “anti-fascist” ideologies likely to engage in domestic terror—ideologies including anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, and “extremism” on gender. Deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller made it clear in July that the administration plans to use NSPM-7 to go after the scourge of people and organizations that disagree with him. “One of the hallmarks of left-wing violence and terrorism is its completely pretextual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence,” he said. “When the leftist, who does not believe in freedom, who does not believe in civil rights, who does not believe in any ordered notion of justice, protests that we are violating his rights, understand that he is lying.”
The targeting of liberals and leftists is already underway. A shooting at an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas, led to terrorism charges against what prosecutors described as a “North Texas Antifa Cell” and what was, in actuality, one person who opened fire at a protest and seven unaffiliated people who did not. The seven were found guilty, including one whose only crime was transporting leftist zines; all received sentences of between 30 and 70 years. The DOJ is currently charging 15 anti-ICE protesters in Minneapolis with conspiracy on the grounds that they, too, are affiliated with an antifa terror cell.
In August, The Wall Street Journal revealed that ICE is scraping social media platforms for posts that criticize their mission, then hiring third-party contractors to identify the posters’ personal information. Agents then track these posters down and intimidate them into silence. To summarize: A paramilitary force that abducts people off the streets and indefinitely detains them in concentration camps with no due process or recourse—an agency that, according to the Trump administration, has “absolute immunity”—is compiling lists of dissidents.
When people tell you who they are, and then show you who they are: believe them.
There is a one-panel cartoon from 2021 by @9mmballpoint that I keep in my quick-access folder so I can rapidly use it in my social media responses. A donkey in a button-down and tie with glasses and a clipboard addresses a man in a MAGA hat. “Let’s say we were to reduce the proposed spending for this bill by 15%. Hypothetically, could that be enough to earn your vote?” The MAGA voter replies, “I literally believe you rape babies to death and drink their blood to live forever.” “I see,” the donkey replies. “How about 20%?”
The Democrats have reason to be optimistic heading into the midterms, in large part because disagreements over aid to Israel and war in Iran are tearing the GOP apart. “You’re seeing this emerging, factional, ideological civil war,” Taylor said. “ Trump seems to have really, in the second term, basically thrown in with the kind of NAR faction. But that has stirred up a great deal of resentment as well.”
Yet language that links the Democrats and demons has spread far beyond the NAR—and disillusioned far-right voters are still more apt to look to the right than to the left long-term. “People who care about American democracy, who care about pluralism, who care about the rule of law—they imagine that Trump is increasingly unpopular, and therefore people are going to run to them,” Taylor said. “Democrats are also extremely unpopular. And there are other forces in American politics that people might run to instead—the Tucker Carlson and the America First crowd.”
But this battle goes beyond the midterms and the typical contours of right-left politics. We are light-years beyond politics as usual. The central political struggle of our time is not about policy or direction, but about America’s identity itself. Although our history certainly includes a heavy helping of Christian nationalism and authoritarian violence—the dominionists are not completely misguided when they lay claim to that intellectual heritage—America has been many other things, too. Ours has been a utopian project from the start: the dream of a country in which everyone is equal under the eyes of the law, where everyone can make a good living and live life on their own terms. We have never lived up to that ideal, but we have pursued it for the last 250 years with considerable success. We have a long way to go, but we’ve made tremendous progress from where we started. We must recount that legacy of success, reclaim our country from those working overtime to plunge us into a Christofascist nightmare, and rededicate ourselves to achieving the American dream.
