'Devil's in the details': How MAGA preachers lose a 'huge source' of power in Trump's win

Far-right evangelical doomsday preachers who hitched themselves to Donald Trump scored a huge victory last week, wrote Molly Olmstead for Slate, but "the devil is in the details" of how they use that power — and furthermore, Trump's return to power wipes out a narrative that had been a "huge source" of their organizing ability, leaving them uncertain of how to move forward. In 2020, wrote Olmstead, "When he lost, these same Christians were left facing two possibilities: Either they had not worked or prayed hard enough to fulfill God’s will, or Trump had fulfilled the prophecies only in a technical sense, by winning the election, but was being robbed of the office." This in turn led to extremist evangelicals flocking to "Stop the Steal" rallies, and it led to the end-times rhetoric from conspiracy theorists like former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who became deeply embedded in the QAnon movement. "At these gatherings, Christians who believe they can use faith to summon miracles and access supernatural gifts such as healing spoke in tongues while calling for God’s angelic forces to combat the evil propping up Trump’s enemies," she wrote.