A Political Swindle Becomes Scripture

How 2020-Election Denial Morphed into the MAGA Cult’s Sacred Lie

“Oh no, not another piece about him. I can’t bear it!” But wait. Before you hit delete, let me say that I share your disgust and exasperation with having to ceaselessly bear witness to the pathology and predatory impulses of the vilest psychological exhibitionist of our lifetime. Opening my news feed daily for the past decade has meant waking up to the open raincoat of that attention-hungry creep desperate for us to look.

Sometimes, I can only watch MSNBC for about 30 seconds before the bilious revulsion begins. Since his election, reality has felt like a lethal pathogen. I want to keep it out. But we are about to enter a period when reality and the ability to know it will be under assault like never before. If we are going to be effective warriors against MAGA post-truth and the pillage and plunder that is the aim of the coming regime, we have to tolerate keeping our eyes open. In that spirit, I have penned this take on one of the most resilient fictions of the Trumpocene. So, please bear with me. Grab a glass of wine, a beer, or a bottle of Pepto-Bismol (best not to mix them), and read on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trump’s fraudulent claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential contest have been one the most lucrative grifts of his long career in con artistry. Not only did he scoop up millions of dollars in donations, but other Republicans, like the oleaginous Ted Cruz, could raise funds by hitching their wagons to that useful fable of unearned grievance.

However, there was far more than economic profit to be extracted from what has been widely referred to as the Big Lie by fact-based journalists and scholars. It also serves key psychological functions for Trump. It helps him in his ceaseless Sisyphean struggle to see himself as a winner and offers an opportunity to dominate others, two goals that, for him, are inextricably linked.

Loyalty and the Big Lie

Trump has been famously indifferent to his appointees’ criminal backgrounds, history of treasonous behavior, or pattern of sexual predation. In fact, if they have gotten away with it as he has, it confirms they possess the kind of psychopathic cunning and ruthlessness that makes their criminal resume gold when it comes to joining the Trumpworld elite. But personal loyalty to him eclipses all other considerations.

A significant aspect of displaying loyalty is affirming what Trump wants to believe about himself—that he has always been the biggest winner. His loss in the 2020 election is the most intolerable fly in that grandiose ointment, the narcissistic wound that will not heal. So, election denial has become the most essential article of faith, a non-negotiable requirement for any appointment in the Trump administration-in-waiting.

.Trump’s 2024 victory was legitimate. However, for the former president, ever the size queen, the small margin (1.5%) by which he won has not been enough to make him a winner in his own mind. As it was the smallest popular vote margin since the 19^th Century, he had to inflate it into not just a mandate but a “massive” one. Fellow Republicans who seek to be favored in the MAGA court must describe his victory in similarly tumescent terms.

However, denying his 2020 loss and overstating his 2024 victory will not erase what he knows to be true. Likewise, surrounding himself with solicitous courtiers and groveling sycophants will not suffice. That is why Trump has promised a campaign of vengeance and history rewriting to assuage the shame that refuses to lose its death grip (an affliction my book describes in greater depth). Those who investigated and prosecuted him for acts that marked his loser status (trying to overthrow an election) must themselves be investigated and prosecuted. “They are the overthrowers; he was elected” is the incantation Trump demands his followers and associates repeat endlessly.

See Through His Eyes, Not Yours

From 1984: “How many fingers am I holding up, Winston? Four. And if the Party says that it is not four but five – then how many?”

Testimony given under oath to the January 6^th Committee established that Trump knew he had lost the 2020 election. So, all the efforts I described to establish a counter-narrative and get his base and staff to echo it will not enable him to unknow the truth. But what he can do is to get the non-true believers among Congressional Republicans and those applying to serve in his new administration to say what he wants them to say, to repudiate what they might know otherwise and declare with as much manufactured sincerity they can muster that only Trump knows what is true.

A top needs his bottoms. That surrender of self-hood is an even greater affirmation of his power than basking in the adoration of his credulous base of zealots – worshipers he has openly viewed with contempt. He is preoccupied with domination in a party that has made it the greatest of virtues. Bullying the GOP into epistemological submission by offering themselves up as megaphones for the Big Lie (MAGA-phones, if you will) helps Trump see himself as the kind of winner that an electoral victory never could.

The Scam Sanctified

Originating in Trump’s narcissism, election denial in the MAGA cult has become what evolutionary anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse calls a sacred value. Sacred values can be found in political movements and religions across all cultures and historical periods. MAGA is both a religion and a political movement. It is a faith-based politics that rejects the need for evidence and prefers Fox-promoted quasi-biblical fairy tales to objective reporting, even when it results in unprecedented libel penalties. It is also a political religion, one that views Trump as God’s chosen agent on earth.

Sacred values are conscious, explicit beliefs linked to the group and its leader, enabling members to fuse and transcend their separate identities. People in such groups are sometimes willing to die and kill for them. Whitehouse is especially interested in the role religious beliefs play in the structure and function of social groups, such as how they provide cover and legitimacy for secular rulers. Thus, sacred values have tremendous power to mobilize obedience in the service of the group or the leader who, like Trump, claims to rule by divine sanction.

Political psychologist Lilliana Mason calls such values identity-saturated beliefs. Issues like abortion, climate denial, and the Democrats’ “theft” of the 2020 election are thus viewed with a kind of theological reverence. Anyone who questions them is denounced as a heretic and sets themselves up for trolling or death threats.

Now that election denial has been sanctified as an unquestionable MAGA catechism, it may very well outlive Trump. I can imagine local bars in red counties like where I reside filling with celebrants on Freedom Fighters Day, toasting the patriotic heroes of January 6^th. Rural churches will hold annual vigils commemorating the martyrdom of Saint Ashli Babbitt, gunned down by thugs of the Deep State as she prayed outside the Capital in the company of all the other peaceful protesters of the stolen election.

Even after the naked Emperor is interred, we may hear his devoted subjects remember his resplendent finery with great fondness. Lore and wishful thinking have already become official tribal history for the GOP. If the architects of Project 2025 have their way, that will be the story all America’s school children will be told.