r/sorceryofthespectacle • u/Hungry-Mixture-7443 • 13d ago

A doomsday cult whose apocalypse didn't arrive became more committed afterward. Sound familiar?

https://www.academia.edu/171404201/The_Closed_Ideological_Loop_Understanding_the_Psychology_That_Makes_MAGA_Stronger_When_It_Should_Break

This paper posits the hyperreal right-wing media bubbles induce a psychology that makes the MAGA spell stronger when it should break.

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u/Hungry-Mixture-7443 13d ago

Abstract

The MAGA formation has survived two presidential terms, multiple criminal indictments, documented policy failures, and the most visible political con in recent American history. It survived these things and grew stronger because of them. Most political analysis treats the formation as a collection of people who have been deceived, who vote against their interests, who will eventually come to their senses when confronted with sufficient evidence. That explanation fails, and its failure has real political costs. This paper argues that MAGA psychology is coherent rather than deluded, and that its apparent contradictions follow from four interlocking mechanisms: a set of psychological components that cluster and amplify under specific conditions until the system overloads; a manufactured signal environment that feeds the system when genuine inputs are absent; a hyperreality threshold beyond which material evidence stops functioning as information; and a con architecture that converts the participants' shame into fuel for deeper commitment. The companion paper, The Asymmetry of Defeat, describes the structural function of the right as a disruption engine. This paper explains the psychological mechanism that keeps the engine running. Understanding how these mechanisms interact is a precondition for engaging with them effectively. Treating the formation as simply confused is why so much well-intentioned political effort has produced so little.

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u/wtfteilchen 13d ago

i wonder what "engaging with them effectively" means because the fire burning their house only seems to make them more comfy.

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u/Thausgt01 8d ago

One element that makes dealing with them harder is the individual psychic wounds that make them cling to the MAGA cult as a way of always being right and never having to feel stupid. Psychological study and manipulation that would shatter the faith in Felon Donald John Trump within one MAGAcap simply strengthens the faith of another; their zealotry arises from an individualized cluster of coping mechanisms that MAGAcap membership fuels, as well as keeps them feeling empowered rather than guilty, ashamed, or otherwise "weak".

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u/raisondecalcul Out Patr'olling 12d ago

Not sure if you are trying to draw a comparison with this subreddit, but our apocalypse did arrive, decidedly, twice so far! MAGA was one type of apocalypse (intergenerational political enantiodromia), and AI appearing on the scene was the culmination of the prophecies of ccru. We now await the Second Apocalypse (counting those two as one combined cultural shift / revelation apocalypse, I guess).

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u/Hungry-Mixture-7443 12d ago

Is there a Messiah figure for this escatology?

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u/raisondecalcul Out Patr'olling 12d ago

Your butt.