The deliverance of the administrative state: deep state conspiracism,charismatic demonology,and the post-truth politics of American Christian nationalism

ABSTRACT

This article uses discourse analysis to explore the intersection of spiritual warfare demonology and Christian nationalism among Trump-supporting neo-charismatic evangelicals. Analysing public materials produced during and after the 2016 US presidential campaign, it demonstrates how demonologies operate discursively to categorise, comprehend, and contest understandings of American identity and destiny. Situating spiritual warfare demonology in relation to narratives of ‘post-truth politics’ as the destabilisation of neoliberal consensus reality, the article explores how charismatic evangelicals position Trump’s election as a divine assault on a demoniac status quo, epitomised in the conspiratorial figure of the ‘Deep State.’ Examining demonologies of the ‘state’ and ‘border’ as joint arenas of epistemic and societal contestation, the article shows how spiritual warfare discourses seek to (re)define sociocultural notions of truth and falsity and thereby (de)legitimise specific gendered, sexualised, and racialised forms of being and belonging.     

The Spirit of Truth

This article reflects on the theme of the “spirit of truth” in a post-truth era – a time in which objective truth seems to no longer exist, any given claim can be substantiated, and it is no longer possible to tell falsehood and truth apart. Focusing on the objectivity of science, the humanity of truth, and the spirit of truth revealed by divinity, the article argues for the adoption of a humane and ecological wisdom, seeing it as a way to deal with humanity’s immense knowledge in a way that is conducive to life, to avoid optimizing humans in a “trans-human” way and making the earth uninhabitable.     

Stop talking about fake news!

Since 2016, there has been an explosion of academic work that fixes its subject matter using the terms ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’. In this paper, I argue that this terminology is not up to scratch, and that academics and journalists ought to completely stop using the terms ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’. I set out three arguments for abandonment. First, that ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ do not have stable public meanings, entailing that they are either nonsense, context-sensitive, or contested. Secondly, that these terms are unnecessary, because we already have a rich vocabulary for thinking about epistemic dysfunction. Thirdly, I observe that ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ have propagandistic uses, meaning that using these terms legitimates anti-democratic propaganda, and risks smuggling bad ideology into conversations.