Trump Using End Times Lingo on Indictment

Former President Donald Trump borrowed language from pop-apocalyptic Christianity to describe his Tuesday arraignment in Miami.

"NOW THAT THE 'SEAL' IS BROKEN ...," Trump began a Monday post on Truth Social.

A Grand Jury indictment is conducted in secret, or "sealed," until and if charges are brought, at which time it is unsealed. But there is a double-meaning that Trump is likely referring to with a wink and a nod to certain supporters by phrasing it as the "seal is broken."

In end times literature, opening a seal refers to the seven seals in Revelation 6. While scripture is unclear on what these represent, the breaking open of the seven seals have contributed to some great source material for end times fiction, including a Columbia Pictures film in 1988 starring Demi Moore.

This isn't the first time Trump has used apocalyptic language to describe his legal and political challenges. "This is the final battle," Trump declared at a Saturday rally in Georgia. "Final battle" is a reference to Armageddon in pop-apocalyptic literature and films. A David Horowitz book with that title was published this year and it has become a common refrain in Trump's speeches.

Other Trump supporting politicians have justified a violent response to Trump's arraignment.

“If you want to get to President Trump, you are going to have go through me, and you are going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me. And I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA," Kari Lake said Friday during her keynote speech at the Georgia Republican state convention.

These politicians are playing with fire by combining violent rhetoric with religio-apocalyptic "battle of good versus evil" language. People made to feel desperate will engage in desperate acts. We already saw this on January 6, 2021. Without some interventions, the next J6 could be worse.

Are you concerned about a friend or loved one who is being mobilized by language such as this? Let us know how we can help.

MAGA Church Conferences

Religion News Service has a profile of Turning Point USA's outreach efforts to pastors and churches.

Inside, the service was heavy on praise and worship music, much of it led by a singer in an “Uncanceled” shirt. At the altar call, Brad Baker, one of Dream City’s pastors, told the crowd he dreamed of a U.S. “built on the principles of God.”

“We’re believing that God is going to turn Arizona into a Christian state, and we will be known as a Christian state around the world — that’s our goal,” Baker said to yelps and applause.

Democracy at Risk: 2024 Elections a "Perfect Storm"

Via The Guardian:

Increasing misinformation on social media, platforms scaling back content moderation and the rise of AI are converging to create a perfect storm for the 2024 elections that some experts warn could put democracy at risk.

Political Polarization = Fewer Marriages?

Via The Atlantic:

The fact that no increase in heterogamy has occurred among the marrieds tells us that even as the possibility of finding a mate who shares one’s politics shrinks, Americans are not budging on their preference for same-politics partners.

Christian Nationalism and Leninism

Gabriel Schoenfeld pulls back the veil on Patrick Deneen’s goals in his new book.

Deneen, sounding every bit like a Leninist, writes that it will require “some number of ‘class traitors’ to act on behalf of the broad working class.” Deneen never spells out from whence these class traitors are to be recruited, but the answer is entirely clear. The “stewards and caretakers of the common good” are to be Deneen himself and likeminded thinkers, “a virtuous elite,” fellow postliberal Catholic integralists like those he lists in his acknowledgments, including Sohrab Ahmari, Gladden Pappin, Chad Pecknold, and Adrian Vermeule, whom he thanks with an appropriate martial metaphor, “I couldn’t think of a better group of comrades with whom to share a foxhole.”