As we approach the election, things are getting weirder in Washington, DC.
Even the skies have gone crazy, featuring a colorful display of the Northern Lights seen as far south as the nation’s capital.
Though I didn’t see it. Looking for the aurora borealis, I wandered the National Mall at night searching the sky for a trace of pink. I found the darkest spot I could find but me or my iPhone couldn’t pick it up.
However, I did discover a sport I didn’t know existed: night kickball. It’s kickball for adults but with glow sticks and a light-up ball, part of a very social league for young people. There were games all over the Mall, with bouncing neon lights in the darkness making a surreal sight.
At the National Gallery of Art, they were having a party, with a DJ blasting tunes and well-dressed folks spilling out onto the street. It’s National Gallery Nights, a free after-hours program with live performances and gallery tours.
And amid this fun, a lone woman on megaphone screaming about damnation. Hearing her from afar, I thought she was part of the kickball fun. Nope. She was a lone preacher in town for the Million Women March, standing by the 20-somethings and yelling about their future in a lake of fire.
The next day, the Mall was filled with Christian extremists just like her. Not a million, and they weren’t marching, but far more than attended the recent Rally to the Save the Republic. A message of Christian hate is an easier sell than the raw-milk drinkers, QAnon fans and oddball Canadians that RFK brought to town.
And it was hate. This wasn’t the gentle Christianity of “love thy neighbor.” This was a Trump-supporting call to impose a religious dictatorship upon United States and smash Democrats, immigrants, trans people and anyone different.
Rolling by, I heard a story from a women who rescued her daughter from the school guidance counselor, after the girl had gone to her with questions about sex.
And it was weird, with the highlight of the rally being the ritual smashing of a shrine to Ashtoreth, the demonic goddess that they claim secretly runs this country.
That’s right: they built a pagan mini-temple (like Stonehenge in Spinal Tap) and then broke it apart with sledge hammers, while Christians in the audience blew shofars.
The apex of the spectacle was Jonathan Cahn (wearing has tallit as a cape) smashing a reconstructed altar to Ashtoreth, an ancient Canaanite goddess they claimed was a demonic principality dominating modern America.
They staged it w/ WWF-style hype. 7/ https://t.co/kriQ3n61bM pic.twitter.com/Wmzc7wFVn2
â Matthew D. Taylor (@TaylorMatthewD) October 13, 2024
Equating Democrats with Satanism, they believe that the election of Kamala Harris will result in Armageddon.
After seeing something like that, you might need a drink. Fortunately, a block away was Snallygaster, a huge beer fest on Pennsylvania Avenue, leading to comical scenes such as drunk bros and women in “Jesus 2024” shirts mingling on their way to the Metro.
This kind of diversity, with events for everyone, will disappear if the Christofascists take charge. There will be no public beer drinking.
Unsurprisingly, the Million Women March was choked with January 6th insurrectionists, including some from the local Freedom Corner vigil outside the DC Jail.
The embrace of apocalyptic language indicates desperation among the MAGA crowd. It’s no longer about winning the election by getting more votes; it’s about doing whatever it takes to stop a demonic takeover of America.
They’re losing and they know it. A confident movement wouldn’t be calling for divine intervention.
No matter the polls, MAGA is old and tired. You can see it at the Trump rallies, where people trickle away after hours of the orange one rambling about sharks and Hannibal Lecter – that’s why Kamala Harris’s line in the debate about crowd sizes wounded him so deeply.
I see it in the livestreams. People in the crowd (including some of the Freedom Corner chuds), film from the rallies. This isn’t the carefully-framed view presented to the mainstream media but the blurry cam from the audience, where you can see the empty seats, the small crowds and the people slowly making their way out.
Trump speaking in what looks like a high school auditorium to a rapidly thinning crowd pic.twitter.com/pyeH7qj96y
â Joe Flood (@joeflood) October 10, 2024
And it’s the same people all the time at the rallies. Watch enough of them, and you’ll recognize the same set of characters again and again – the Wall Suit guy, Blacks for Trump, the die-hards covered in MAGA merch. He’s not getting new people at his rallies. Instead, it’s a nostalgia tour for fans. That’s why he does rallies in places he’s doomed to lose, like California. It’s about building the brand and getting another payday, not winning the state.
You can see the desperation at Freedom Corner. Two years on, this nightly vigil demanding the release of January 6th prisoners has freed no one. Last year, minor celebrities like Matt Gaetz showed up; now, the vigil has dwindled to three or four livestreamers on a lonely corner next to a cemetery.
They’ve begun what I call, “The Ghost Dance of the Chuds.” Like the doomed Native American prayer ritual, they hope that if they dance hard enough, they can bring back all that they lost: white supremacy, Christian domination, women and gays in their place.
#weird goings on at #maga #cult #freedomcorner #stabbingwestward #saveyourself “Just save yourself” 1/2 ðĪŠ pic.twitter.com/tdgEgwsI8c
â B$$$ (@Bossmoney8444) October 12, 2024
The Aurora Borealis. Night kickball. A Spinal Tap-style smashing of a pagan shrine. The Ghost Dance of the Chuds.
Things in DC have gotten weird. And with the election just weeks away, it’s just going to get weirder as we accelerate toward political Armageddon.
Democracy or dictatorship. To be decided on November 5th.
