The horrifying shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school left Americans looking for answers. How could someone do such a terrible thing? Liberals, naturally, blamed guns and tried to exploit the tragedy for political gain. Conservatives charted a different path. Many of them blamed demons, a new talking point that has gained wide traction on the Right.
The shooter was a severely mentally ill transgender individual who dabbled with Satanic imagery in his journals and allegedly expressed interest in other occult-inspired gunmen. Dark forces could’ve invaded his mind. The shooter should’ve never been allowed to own guns due to his extreme mental illness that was expressed through his gender change. “Robin” Westman is part of a growing trend of trans mass shooters. His story doesn’t support gun control–it provides evidence that American society should no longer indulge the twisted thinking of mentally ill people and keep them away from harming others.
Many on the Right have made this case. But on social media, several conservatives have added the demon theory to the mix, suggesting we need blasphemy laws and even some kind of “demon control” to stop future mass shootings. These posts went megaviral, earning rich payouts to those who made them. They’re popular on the internet, but the general public would think you’re nuts to make them. Offline, America is increasingly secular and disinclined to look for supernatural explanations for real-world events.
The Right’s demon-blaming isn’t rooted in a sudden upsurge of spiritual belief in the public or the return of the religious right. It’s caused by developments within the New Right, along with the desire for high social media engagement. One must give the most fantastic explanation for the occurrence of events. Bringing in the devil makes things a lot more interesting than merely sticking with the concrete.
Americans are moving away from belief in the devil and demons. A 2023 Gallup poll found only 58 percent of Americans believe in the devil, which was the lowest on record. A 2021 YouGov poll found just two in five Americans believe in ghosts and demons. This aligns with the percentage of Americans identifying as Christians dropping to 63 percent. We once were a universally Christian nation. Now less than two-thirds of the country is Christian. Many self-professing Christians aren’t that devout. Only 30 percent are regular church attendees. A large number of Christians imbibe a faith that is less fire-and-brimstone and more therapeutic.
But things are different on the Right. More and more young right-wingers embrace conservative forms of Christianity. Within their social circles, it seems America is returning to the faith and is animated by a crusader zeal. They strongly believe in demons and, at times, it appears belief in these evil beings is stronger than the belief in God. Their newfound faith makes them want to turn the realm of politics into spiritual warfare, asserting that zealotry will make them victorious. Politics transforms from mundane campaigning to Diablo II quests.
This runs counter to the public opinion. The religious right is effectively dead. It can do little to muster public support for abortion bans and does nothing to stop legalized gambling. The MAGA base is much more secular than the GOP grassroots was 30 years ago. It loves vulgarity, tolerates homosexuality, and a significant number of Trump voters support keeping abortion legal. You will also notice a lot of bizarre behaviors among MAGA influencers and diehard followers, such as swinging, drug use, and other tawdry activities. MAGA is far from puritan.
This isn’t reflected online, where the consensus is to imagine a new religious right is taking over the country and it’s ready to do battle with demons. Unlike the religious right, the online Moral Majority isn’t guided by actual faith leaders. It’s led by laymen who may or may not go to church, who may or may not lead a Christian life, and who may or may not learn their theology from memes and Wikipedia.
One such character is Nicole Shanahan, the twice-divorced former running mate of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Her two husbands were Jewish and she converted to Judaism for her first marriage. After deciding to become a conservative influencer, Shanahan announced she had converted to Christianity. Her reasoning? She came to believe in demons. Her case reflects the notion that belief in demons is more important for the Online Right than belief in God.
Shortly after the Minnesota shooting, Shanahan posted an unnecessarily long essay asking whether Burning Man is demonic. She, of course, regularly attended the festival for years. But now she sees evil forces at work because it involves activities typical of any outdoor festival, such as sex, drugs, and loud music. She concludes that it is in fact demonic.
I have come to believe that Burning Man is not just an eccentric festival, but rather a powerful vehicle for deception. In fact, it may be one of the most effective tools for Satan to misdirect souls away from our Heavenly Father. When you surrender yourself to “the playa,” you do not simply embrace freedom; you also open yourself to profound distortions of what is good.
The essay got a lot of attention, garnering nearly 2000 reposts. Shanahan knows her audience.
The temptation to call everything demonic stems from the Dissenting American mindset of much of the Right. These right-wingers view the world around them as a fallen sphere. Demon posting affirms their alienation as morally righteous. Their opponents are not simply wrong–they’re evil. Tying them to demons makes this argument clearer. It reduces the grim complexity of the problems that face us to a fantastic tale of supernatural combat. Everything being demonic also reinforces the idea that those in the know are a pure remnant superior to the masses.
The Dissenting Protestants of the 17th century operated in a similar manner. They saw the demonic in things they didn’t like–from Christmas to high mass aesthetics–to strengthen their position. The Dissenting Americans of today do the same, but it’s unlikely to help sell their cause.
For most Americans, bringing up demons to explain ordinary events makes you sound like a raving lunatic. They equate this to hobos reeking of liquor, sweat, and urine, screaming at passerbys that Beelzebub is around the corner. Instead of acting as a morally powerful argument to persuade Americans that leftists are evil, demon posting just makes our side look crazy.
Popular online rhetoric rarely stays just to X. It often shapes Republican discourse. It’s within the realm of possibility that a GOP lawmaker could propose exorcists in every school to stop the next mass shooter. This idea would be celebrated online, but would be greeted with calls to institutionalize the lawmaker offline. Normal Americans don’t want to hear ad daemonium arguments when it comes to the issues that matter to them.
It’s natural for devout Christians to explain the world through their faith. But when it comes to politics, one has to understand where most people are and look for concrete explanations. Too often, the American Right prefers rhetoric that will net them high engagement on X rather than what will persuade the public to solve actual problems. Even worse, much of this rhetoric is offered as entertainment rather than an expression of true belief. Some influencers put out the demonic claims just because they think it’s what attracts an audience.
If this rhetoric just stayed online, it wouldn’t be a big deal. The problem is when it starts to influence real-world politics and our side comes off as deranged loons to the general public. From space aliens to space lasers, the online space provides a lot of fodder for this perception. The demon claims further reinforce that negative perception.
Demon posting will not go away any time soon. The internet sphere enjoys it too much. But if it starts to possess prominent politicians, we may see regular Americans tune us out.
Tucker is also doing his share to get people on the Demon noticing.
The New Right forgets why people have been moving away from Christianity. Doubling down on a Medieval version of it will not revive it.
If anything, Christianity will survive as a "heretical" sect like the Mormons, or a mere public therapy session like Evangelism.
I don't know where you get the idea that “the religious right” is dead.
On the contrary. Faith writ large is resurgent.
The Minneapolis tragedy is a poignant illustration of the horrible downside of the demise of faith.
In a moral vacuum, the inherent evil within us can emerge and manifest in horrible atrocities. We saw this in the Holocaust.
Pace’ the secular humanists and postmodernists, there is good and evil in the world because it is within us. Faith is a necessary guardrail, which we learn when we remove it.
On a less gruesome level, take AI. The tech brk asks, “Why shouldn't I eliminate all jobs?” A Catholic would never ask that question, because of a doctrinal understanding that work is “Ad majorem dei gloria”, “for the greater glory of God”, as is human life itself.
Is this literally true? Does it really matter? At the bottom of the scientific rabbit hole are simply more and more questions without answers, other than that men are mere beasts, insignificant accidental cultures that somehow arose out of an insensate universe that is one of an infinite number of omnidimensional….
Well, you get the idea. Cosmology and particle physics make Christianity look quite plausible by comparison.
So you can buy into whatever theory that arises from the mind of man that you want. You can pick the one that gives meaning and dignity to your existence, or the one that leaves you feeling worthless and enraged enough to slaughter innocent believers and yourself to boot.
I recommend the former.