When the MAGA Bubble Burst

[Nevilledog]

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Steve Schmidt
@SteveSchmidtSES
Donald Trump's Last Election Night Party - The Atlantic. This is an amazing read. ⁦@mckaycoppins⁩ is one of my favorite writers. He has an incredible eye for detail and this is a superb account

When the MAGA Bubble Burst
At Steve Bannon’s Election Night party, bravado reigned. But reality quickly caught up with the Trumpism diehards.
theatlantic.com

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/11/trump-bannon-election-party/617020/

In the 1956 book When Prophecy Fails, three social psychologists studied a small religious sect in Chicago called “the seekers,” who believed that the world would soon be destroyed by a flood, and that a flying saucer was coming to save them. The seekers were deeply invested in the prophecy’s fulfillment—many had quit jobs and left spouses to prepare. On the appointed day, they gathered at their leader’s home to wait for deliverance. The psychologists wanted to know how the seekers would react when the world didn’t end. Would they realize they’d been duped? Denounce their former belief system? Turn on their prophet? As it turned out, no. When Armageddon failed to materialize, they simply decided that God had spared Earth from destruction because of their faith; that they had been right all along.

On Tuesday night, about 100 MAGA diehards convened on a Washington, D.C., rooftop to await an Election Night miracle. The mood inside the large, bright tent was giddy, almost fevered. Maskless revelers sipped booze and snapped celebratory selfies. A Virginia talk-radio host known as “the oracle of the deplorables” held court with a gaggle of fans. At the far end of the tent, the party’s host, former chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, sat perched behind a desk, issuing confident proclamations to his YouTube live-stream audience.

“It is not going well for the globalists,” Bannon boomed, his huge, shaggy head filling the TV screens on every wall. “It is not going well for the elites. They’re back on their heels tonight.” Donald Trump, he predicted, was on the cusp of “another amazing come-from-behind victory.”

There was reason to be skeptical. Despite the president’s early win in Florida, the race had already begun to stabilize in the waning hours of Election Day. The math was getting harder for Trump; the swing states were swinging away. For now, Bannon and his bitter-enders were safely ensconced in their rooftop bubble—but what would they do when reality crashed down on them?

For many of the president’s followers, the past four years have been one long, quasi-religious exercise in suspending disbelief. To adhere to the Church of Trumpism was to reject anything that might challenge its orthodoxies. The news was fake. The polls were fake. The investigations and scandals and fact-checks were fake. It only stood to reason that if Trump lost his bid for reelection, the defeat would be fake as well.

*snip*

[sagesnow]

1. They'll forever be blowing bubbles....

they are a lost cause.

Great article. Thanks for posting.

[csziggy]

2. So this will be their theme song?

[madaboutharry]

3. Deadenders in the Trump cult.

How very sad to see the world that way.