MSNBC anchor Joy Reid said Wednesday on her show “The ReidOut” that former President Donald Trump’s supporters had made MAGA a religion.
Reid said, “Only in America could a party have its president foment an insurrection and have people who participated in the insurrection have a shot at having national and state leadership. That is where we are in this country. The insurrection didn’t cause the Republican party to pull back.”
Author Robert Draper said, “To me, the even more disconcerting aspect of it is the mass delusion part.”
He continued, “This is the problem I think that we are confronting now, that the Republican party has tens of millions of supporters, Trump supporters for whom truth is up for grabs. And I do not honestly know how we get out from under that.”
Reid asked, “How much is QAnon? At this point I consider MAGA essentially as a religion. It’s an offshoot of far-right Evangelicalism. How much of it is religious in your view?”
Draper continued, “Right. The precepts have outlived the QAnon phenomenon, the belief that President Trump is fighting this cabal of the deep state and the liberal media that are putting children’s lives at risk, that the border is opening up and a great replacement theory is underway.”
Reid added, “Of course the Jews are responsible.”
Draper said, “And don’t forget the space lasers. It is all predated on QAnon. You are right, the concern is that for a lot of these people who believe that the stakes are existential, it’s become kind of a holy war for them. And the demonization of people on the left is not just wrong or immoral even, but in fact as evil, is commonplace among the Republican party.”
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