The role of ignorance in the rise of dictatorship

Ignorance is major weapon that MAGA elites use against us and our democracy, rule of law, civil liberties, wealth and power. American voter ignorance appears to be mostly due to intentional dark free speech or demagoguery. Polling about CN (Christian nationalism) provides some data to clarify the matter. As pointed out here multiple times, the CN is a political wealth and power movement hiding in Christian dogma. The elites are theocratic and ruthlessly building federal infrastructure to establish an aggressive, bigoted Christian fundamentalist theocracy for the US after Trump is out of power. None of that is new or a secret. Despite the grave threat of CN, most Americans remain ignorant about it, many in denial.

The following AI analysis is focused on the matter.

Q: About what % of Trump voters are knowing Christian nationalist supporters and what % are his voters without understanding that American Christian nationalism is actually theocratic and rigidly fundamentalist?

A: The relationship between Trump voters and Christian nationalism reveals a complex dynamic where support exists on multiple levels of awareness and understanding, making it difficult to precisely quantify "knowing" versus "unknowing" supporters.

Quantifying Christian Nationalism Support Among Trump Voters
According to the Public Religion Research Institute's (PRRI) comprehensive 2024 American Values Atlas based on over 22,000 adults, approximately 53% of Republicans qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents (20%) or Sympathizers (33%). Given Trump's overwhelming Republican support, this suggests that roughly half of Trump voters hold Christian nationalist views to varying degrees.

The Awareness Gap: Understanding vs. Support
Research indicates a significant disconnect between support for Christian nationalist policies and understanding of the term itself:

• Limited Familiarity with the Term: More than one-third of Americans (35%) report they have never heard the term "Christian nationalism". Among those who have heard it, Americans are more than twice as likely to hold unfavorable views (44%) compared to favorable views (20%).​

• Policy Support Despite Terminology Rejection: Critically, research by Paul Djupe found that over 40% of Americans agreed that "Christian nationalism" was just "a term invented by the left to smear conservative Christians." Yet among those who dismissed it as a smear tactic, 68% simultaneously agreed that "Christian nationalism is the only idea that will save this fallen nation".

Distinguishing Christian Values from Theocratic Control
The data suggests many Trump voters support Christian influence in government without fully grasping the theocratic implications:

Broad Support for Christian Influence: Pew Research found that 45% of Americans believe the U.S. should be a "Christian nation", and about half think the Bible should have at least some influence on U.S. laws. However, this doesn't necessarily translate to support for theocracy.​

Rejection of Explicit Theocratic Measures: Even among white evangelical Protestants—the most supportive group—fewer than half support abandoning church-state separation (34%) or declaring the country officially Christian (35%). Among Republicans generally, 58% still say the government should never declare an official religion.

​
Educational and Demographic Factors
The research reveals that Christian nationalism support correlates with lower educational attainment and is "especially influential in states with greater working-class populations". This suggests that some support may stem from limited exposure to detailed discussions about the implications of theocratic governance.

Media Consumption Patterns: Two-thirds of Americans who most trust far-right media sources qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents or Sympathizers, compared to just one-quarter who don't watch TV news or trust mainstream sources. This indicates information silos may contribute to uninformed support.​

Estimated Breakdown of Trump Voter Categories

Based on the available data, a reasonable estimate of Trump voters would be:

• Approximately 15-20% are "knowing" Christian nationalist supporters who understand and explicitly support theocratic governance

• Approximately 30-35% support Christian nationalist policies without fully understanding the theocratic implications

• The remaining 45-55% support Trump for other reasons (economic, cultural, anti-establishment sentiment, etc.)

The Complexity of "Understanding"
The research reveals that many Americans hold seemingly contradictory views—supporting Christian influence in government while maintaining support for church-state separation. This suggests that the distinction between "knowing" and "unknowing" support isn't binary but exists on a spectrum of political and theological sophistication.

Core Finding: The data indicates that while roughly half of Trump voters express support for Christian nationalist ideas, the majority of this support appears to be based on an incomplete understanding of what full implementation would entail. Many supporters envision greater Christian cultural influence rather than the "close fusion of a particular expression of Christianity with social and political life" that scholars define as Christian nationalism.

This analysis indicates that Trump's coalition includes both committed theocrats and voters who support certain Christian nationalist policies without fully comprehending their anti-democratic implications—a distinction that has significant ramifications for both democratic institutions and political strategy.

If the following AI analysis is reasonably accurate, most of the ignorance is intentional from dark free speech. 

Q2: Decades of demagoguery by MAGA, MAGA predecessors and now Trump have significantly deceived and disinformed most rank and file MAGA supporters and Trump voters. Based on available data, about what % of the deceit and disinformation is attributable to knowing demagoguery or dark free speech?

A2: Quantifying Deliberate vs. Organic Disinformation

Research suggests that approximately 70-85% of Trump and MAGA-related disinformation appears to be intentional or strategically coordinated, while the remainder stems from organic belief-driven sharing without deliberate deceptive intent.

Evidence for Intentional Deception
Linguistic Analysis of Trump's False Claims: A comprehensive study by van der Zee and colleagues analyzed thousands of Trump's tweets using regression modeling designed to detect deceptive intent. Their findings showed "significant evidence of intent to deceive" underlying most of Trump's false claims, concluding that "intent to deceive is a reasonable inference from most of Trump's false tweets". The study found predictable linguistic patterns that distinguished Trump's lies from truthful statements, indicating systematic rather than accidental falsehoods.​

Strategic Use of "Common Knowledge" Lies: Research by Hahl, Kim, and Zuckerman identified Trump's use of "common-knowledge lies"—falsehoods so obvious they function as "flagrant violations of the norm of truth-telling". These aren't errors but deliberate signals to supporters that conventional norms don't apply. The authors found this represents a conscious strategy where "lying demagoguery can be perceived as bravely speaking a deep and otherwise suppressed truth".​

Coordinated Elite-Level Misinformation: A Nature Human Behavior study analyzing 3.8 million congressional tweets from 2011-2022 found systematic differences in how Republican politicians communicate. Republican members of Congress showed "clear correlation between the language pattern of belief-speaking and the linking of poorly rated sources". Critically, this pattern intensified after Trump's 2016 victory, suggesting coordinated adoption of his communication strategies.

.... more analysis .... 

Asymmetric Information Warfare
Documented Asymmetry: Research consistently finds asymmetric patterns in misinformation between political sides. The Nature study noted that "Republican politicians frequently, although not always, share low-quality information and are thus providing a cue to their partisan followers of the legitimacy of those outlets". Democratic politicians showed no correlation between belief-speaking and low-quality sources.

Testing Loyalty Through Falsehoods: Research on authoritarian regimes shows that obvious lies serve to test subordinate loyalty. James Pfiffner's analysis noted that Trump's lies "can be used to test the loyalty of subordinates or to demonstrate power". This represents conscious use of falsehoods for political control.

Analytical Conclusion
The evidence strongly suggests that the majority of MAGA and Trump-related disinformation originates from deliberate strategic communication rather than organic misinformation. The coordinated nature of false claim propagation, linguistic evidence of deceptive intent, and systematic patterns matching authoritarian propaganda techniques indicate approximately 70-85% of the disinformation represents knowing demagoguery or "dark free speech."

The remaining 15-30% likely represents organic transmission by believers who have been successfully deceived by the initial strategic campaigns, creating a cascade effect where genuine belief amplifies originally deceptive content. This creates a hybrid information environment where strategic deception exploits cognitive vulnerabilities to achieve viral organic spread among target audiences.

The whole Q&A series is at this link.

Re: MAGA's seething hate of LGBQT people

Introduction

MAGA is not shy about showing hate toward LGBQT+ people. Its enraged, hateful bigotry is right out in the open. It is reasonable, fair and balanced to accord ~95% of blame for bad government policies that target, oppress and discriminate against the community to MAGA. Specifically, sanctimonious CN (Christian nationalist) bigotry and its cruel, dogmatic authoritarian intolerance. 

But is it rational and fair to tar all of MAGA with CN's cruelty, immorality and evil? Absolutely. America's corrupt MAGA wealth and power political movement actively embraces and supports CN politics, policy and hate. We don't hear Trump or elite MAGA oligarchs complaining about the CN bigotry, cruelty or anything else immoral that oozes from America's corrupt CN wealth and power political movement. 

Yes, CN is a corrupt political wealth and power movement, not any kind of a Christian movement. The latter is a point that has been made here before -- in multiple posts. Experts see the CN movement as authoritarianism disguised as a toxic form of bigoted, theocratic Christianity. Christianity is the fig left that CN elites use to bamboozle the rank & file. CN elites hide the authoritarianism and corruption that truly drives the CN movement.

CN hate embodied in federal policy

A law firm that specializes in business immigration and customs law, Greenberg Traurig (GT), reported that on Oct. 14, 2025 the CPB (US Customs and Border Protection agency) will start accepting only “M” (Male) or “F” (Female) in the sex field of information transfer to APIS (Advance Passenger Information System). Any other designation results in an “X Response-Insufficient Information” error, requiring airlines to resubmit the passenger data with corrected information.

GT noted that these changes were implemented in response to Trump's January 2025 Executive Order 14168, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. That EO imposed enhanced validation requirements for passenger data submitted by commercial air carriers. 

As usual, MAGA tyranny is always sold as something good and other than what it actually, when it is in fact bad and something else. In this case, an honest title for Trump's EO is something like this:

Distorting Gender Reality and Imposing Biological 

Falsity on Innocent LGBQT Americans

 

Among the centimillionaires and billionaires who support Trump and MAGA, some will be LGBQT Americans. One has to wonder what they are thinking. My guess is that by far, the most likely thinking is that by sticking with Trump's and MAGA's kleptocratic dictatorship, there will probably be even more wealth and power for them than they already have. 

Q: How likely is it that most centimillionaires and billionaires who support MAGA's kleptocratic dictatorship are loyal because of the prospect of getting even more wealth and power?

(about 95% likely in my opinion)

The GAZA ceasefire: Reasonable peace, or a dictator's diktat?

A NYT news analysis (not paywalled) discusses the ceasefire in Gaza. The analysis quotes a Trump expert, Julian Zelizer (Princeton, history professor), pointing out that whatever good Trump is responsible for is offset by other things: 

“He has a long tendency — he did this in his first term — to overwhelm things that could be good political news for him, because he can’t resist either going after his perceived enemies or just doing controversial things for the sake of dividing and aggravating tensions. .... In the end, I think he believes chaos benefits him. .... I do think the bigger point is no one overwhelms his own positive news the way he can.”

Trump is framing Gaza as another of his consistent efforts to bring peace everywhere. His spokesperson criticizes the NYT for reporting about Trump's militarization of policing and local opposition to it:

“This is another fake angle from the failing New York Times. President Trump is working to end conflicts around the world, just like he is working to quell violence in cities across the country. His efforts both at home and abroad have been successful, the end of the Israel-Hamas war is underway, and cities like Washington, D.C., are thanking him for freeing up resources to bring more justice to victims and hold more criminals accountable.”

That analysis is good as far as it goes. At least the framing arguably is pro-democracy instead of the usual MSM's pro-dictator framing. That is an improvement. Good on you NYT, you are finally starting to get it, a little bit. I think.

Where the NYT analysis disappoints and fails is in ignoring Trump's motives and tactics, and the overall impact of this particular proposed agreement. Although Trump says he is a peace maker, reality says he isn't. The truth is that he is, as always, self-serving, morally bankrupt and brutal. 

Trying to avoid TL/TC/DR territory the failures in the analysis are these (TC = too complicated):

• The proposed agreement is a take-it-or-leave-it dictat [1], not a negotiated peace deal. The deal came after Trump threatened hell breaking loose if the Palestinians rejected his terms. Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk explicitly acknowledged coercion: "This is a risk, but we trusted President Trump to be the guarantor of all the commitments made. Had there been no commitment from the American president, we would never have agreed to take the risk". The terms that immediately and tangibly benefit the Palestinians are the ceasefire and humanitarian aid. If that happens, it would stop the slaughter and starving of civilians.  

• The deal negotiations completely excluded the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is the main, internationally recognized Palestinian political force. The marginalization of the PA was deliberate to exclude legitimate Palestinian representation. Hamas explicitly acknowledged that they lacked a mandate to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinians. That is a significant limit on the legitimacy of any agreement. Thus, the deal was decided almost exclusively between US and Israeli negotiators. Hamas and a few other small armed Palestinian groups made requests through intermediaries who were in indirect contact with negotiators. 

• What Hamas reportedly asked for and "got" was what circumstances would require the US and Israel to concede anyway. Specifically, the ceasefire includes (1) release of about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for remaining Israeli hostages (needed to get the Israeli hostages) , (2) 600 trucks of humanitarian aid daily (needed to avoid more condemnation for genocide), and (3) allowing displaced Gazans to return to their homes under continued Israeli military presence (needed because there's nothing else practical to do). Israel vetted the prisoner list and rejected releasing Palestinian politicians it wanted to keep in Israeli prisons. The 600 trucks of aid is the bare minimum necessary for survival.[2] 

• Other major terms of the ceasefire are so ambiguous and fully under subjective Israeli control that they are just illusions. Specifically, Israel keeps control over ~53% of Gaza after an initial troop withdrawal. Later Israel will control 40% of Gaza and eventually 15%. Israeli forces will never fully leave Gaza. There will be a continuation of occupation because Israel gets to unilaterally decide when conditions allow withdrawal of Israeli military forces. If history since 1949 is predictive, withdrawal conditions will never be met by the Palestinians. Only Israel's own choice is at play.

Q: Does this diktat ceasefire make Trump a great peace-maker, or a thug using his power and threats to force a peace settlement, presumably so that he can keep demanding his Nobel Peace Prize, which is his most likely motive? Or is this not a diktat, and is something else, e.g., brilliant diplomacy?

Footnotes:

1. The German term meaning of diktat is "dictated peace". It was arose after World War I to describe the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty was imposed without negotiation, forcing Germans to accept terms on a "take-it-or-leave-it basis". The term emphasizes the non-negotiable, harsh nature of the settlement where the loser has little or no voice in the terms. The worst possible outcome is slaughtering all remaining enemy civilians and combatants. Only the tender mercies of the victors make any significant concessions beyond not doing that floor of human possibility. 

2. At present, Palestinians are starving to death. In any ceasefire, Israel would have allowed enough food in to keep most of the population from starving to death. This can be seen as a concession forced by circumstance. And going home assumes a home remains, which will often not be the case. It will often amount to going back to a plie of rubble. 

MAGA unleashes a major attack on the 2026 elections: 2026 elections will be MAGA-subverted

In a terrifying bit of news, the AP reports that a wealthy MAGA elite has bought Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is a major supplier of voting machines. If the company becomes MAGA-corrupted, it will spell the end of free and fair elections in America. In the 2020 elections, Dominion was the focus of ferocious MAGA attacks and slanders. One of those slanders by MAGA's Fox News led to a massive settlement. On April 18, 2023, Fox agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million to settle Dominion's defamation lawsuit, just as the trial was about to begin with opening statements.

MAGA elites were infuriated by the outcome of the lawsuit. Trump expressed anger with Fox News's settlement, calling it an "insult" to his election claims. He criticized Rupert Murdoch for not defending the election fraud conspiracy theories in court, saying "The election was rigged, and Rupert Murdoch should have talked about it" and "Rupert Murdoch is wrong". 

MAGA's virulent but completely unfounded opposition to free and fair elections is made clear in Project 2025 (P25) at pages 562-563, which includes this:

Reassigning Responsibility for Prosecuting Election-Related Offenses
from the Civil Rights Division to the Criminal Division. The Attorney General in the next conservative Administration should reassign responsibility for prosecuting violations of 18 U.S. Code § 241 from the Civil Rights Division to the Criminal Division where it belongs. Otherwise, voter registration fraud and unlawful ballot correction will remain federal election offenses that are never appropriately investigated and prosecuted.

Voter fraud includes unlawful practices concerning voter registration and ballot correction. When state legislatures are silent as to procedures for absentee ballot curing or provide specific rules governing that curing, neither counties nor courts may create a cure right where one does not exist, may not modify the law on curing, and certainly cannot engage in creating consent orders with the force of law that are inconsistent with the orders of other similarly situated counties.

As one would expect from an authoritarian MAGA manifesto, P25 is flat out lying about the election integrity situation. Its statements falsely claim that "voter registration fraud and unlawful ballot correction...are never appropriately investigated and prosecuted" under Civil Rights Division oversight. But in fact, the Civil Rights Division has a clear history of prosecuting election-related crimes. The DOJ's Election Crimes Branch, which works closely with the Civil Rights Division, has successfully prosecuted numerous cases involving voter registration fraud, ballot tampering, and other election crimes. Federal courts have consistently upheld Section 241 prosecutions for election interference, including cases involving ballot stuffing, vote buying, and registration fraud.

Also, P25 is intentionally misleading. It characterizes ballot curing as potentially fraudulent "unlawful ballot correction." In reality, ballot curing is a legitimate legal process used in about 20 states to allow voters to fix technical errors, typically signature mismatches or missing signatures, on their mail-in ballots. This process does not allow voters to change their votes—it only addresses verification issues to ensure eligible votes are counted. Studies show that ballot curing reduces ballot rejection rates and improves election accuracy rather than enabling fraud.

Q: In view of the evidence summarized here, which is not all of the relevant evidence in the public record, it is reasonable to believe that MAGA will subvert the 2026 elections as claimed in this blog post?

Q: In view of all the publicly available evidence of MAGA's authoritarianism and shameless mendacity, is there good evidence to believe that this move is not part of a major attack on the integrity and validity of the 2026 midterm elections? If so, exactly what is that evidence?