389-398.īanner Image: “Chaos as Trump supporters storm Capitol Hill, January 6, 2021.” Photo by Marco Verch Professional Photographer on Flickr.ĭo you recognize a “new religion” or quasi religious happening in politics and politicians who use mystical techniques such as chanting of mantras in public rallies? Do you feel a new idolatry occurring? How best to prepare oneself and one’s culture to resist? See Matthew Fox, “Hitler as a Religious Figure,” in Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, pp. See Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, pp. No wonder Truth is another name for the Great Mystery, the Divine, that is so much bigger than human lies and ambitions.

Should such people be dismissed from office? People who take a public oath of office to defend the constitution and then refuse to do so even after thugs and white supremacists invade the very capitol building where they took their oath are lying.

“Post-truth” becomes the “fascist attitude toward truth.” Indeed, “fascists despised the small truths of daily existence, replacing them with loved slogans that resonated like a new religion.…Now, as then, many people confused faith in a hugely flawed leader with the truth about the world we all share. The fourth stage in untruth telling is “mis-placed faith.” An act of faith in a particular leader amidst a “drumbeat of propaganda” readily replaces facts in one’s mind. “Michigan Politics: A billboard touting God, Guns, and Donald Trump as viewed from the southbound lanes of I-75 in Saginaw County, MI.” Photo by Dan Gaken on Flickr. That way truth moves from the critical mind of judgement into a perverse use of a mystical practice, from left brain to right brain, one might say. Indeed, the president of CBS said that Donald Trump “may be bad for the nation but was great” for his corporate profits so they gave Trump hours and hours of free television time to dispense his message full of unchecked lies.Ī second dimension Snyder found in tyrannical politicians is a practice of “shamanistic incantation”-repeating the lie over and over and over like a mantra. Excited about the crowds Trump drew, and too lazy and uninterested to question the messages being sold the voters, the corporate media and their stockholders received a big return for their largesse. Did the press point this out during the campaign? Rarely. This was a warning of what was to come in his presidency. Thom Hartmann shares a clip of CBS President and CEO Les Moonves telling his shareholders, Donald Trump may be bad for the country, but he’s good for CBS! Uploaded to YouTube by T hom Hartmann Program.Ī study found that in the 2016 election 78% of Trump’s claims were not factual.

Thomas snyder on tyranny