The approach of the year 2000 has already stimulated widespread discussion of apocalyptic fears and millennialist expectations. Often lost in the discussion is the important ongoing role that specific types of apocalyptic and millennialist thinking play in shaping the demonization, scapegoating, and conspiracism used by various right-wing political and social movements. A remarkable number of myths, metaphors, images, symbols, phrases, and icons in Western culture flow from Christian Biblical prophecies about apocalyptic confrontations and millennial transformation. The Bible's Book of Revelation contains warnings that the end of time is foreshadowed by a vast Satanic conspiracy involving high government officials who betray the decent and devout productive citizens, while sinful and subversive tools of the Devil gnaw away at society from below. The anticipation of a righteous struggle against evil conspiracies has become a central apocalyptic narrative in our nation's religious, secular, political, and cultural discourse.
Prophetic scripture provides the paradigm for sensational scripts.
What is entertainment for some, however, is spiritual and political reality for others. Usually it is right-wing groups that have fanned apocalyptic fears of evil conspiracies to create a powerful political weapon. The results can be devastating. Starting in the 1620s, witch hunts swept New England for a century, and fears of plots by Freemasons or Catholics swept the nation in the 1800s. This century has produced allegations of a Jewish banking cabal behind the Federal Reserve, and the anticommunist witch hunts of the McCarthy Period in the 1950s.