The Christmas Miracle that Didn’t Happen
By: Melissa Janda
Tags: Deep State, Election 2020, Conspiracy Theories, Q Anon, Trump

The Christmas Miracle that Didn’t Happen

Once again, the far-right predicted the unveiling of a “Democrat criminal cartel” that failed to materialize.

Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash

A Trump supporter praying for a Christmas Miracle sent me a YouTube video dated December 24, 2020. The video didn’t identify the speaker, nor is any information provided about the YouTube channel’s creator. Fortunately, it does not have a large following, and I will not generate additional views by posting a link here. It appears to appeal to those on the fringe.

The video claims that Trump’s impending appointment of Ezra Cohen-Watnick to the Public Interest Declassification Board is to prepare for the release of classified materials that will prove that President-elect Joe Biden is a puppet of Communist China. Oh, and Watnick is presumed to be the mysterious Q, originator of the far-right conspiracy theorist group, QAnon. The release of this information will convince Biden to concede in public disgrace and persuade Congress to vote for the alternate electors on January 6th, confirming Trump for a second term.

Other classified documents will persuade Democrats to acknowledge their participation in a massive conspiracy to rig the election. For those who confess, Trump will spare them the public humiliation of releasing the “treasonous” information included in these classified documents. For those who refuse, Trump will have the documents declassified for public consumption, and those individuals will be indicted and sent to prison.

The video complains that the corrupt media will not cover this historical event, so Trump must “seize the airwaves” via the National Emergency Broadcast System. The speaker references a Reuter’s article allegedly posted on December 24, 2020. It seems the use of “corrupt media” news stories is allowed when it suits their purposes. The report indicates that the president will send out an emergency text at 2:18 pm on Christmas Eve, unveiling a long list of deep state participants and their impending arrest, conviction, and imprisonment.

Applying steps to identify fake news indicates that the “news” in this video is a fabrication. A quick search of the Reuter’s website reveals no such article about an emergency text alert on December 24, 2020, or the entire month of December. However, the speaker directly quotes from an article written two years ago and passes it off as an article published that day. Yet, confirmation bias keeps those who follow these fringe YouTube channels from taking this simple step.

The predicted reckoning event came and went without a peep from POTUS. There was no text alert at 2:18 pm, nor at any time on the 24th or the following days. There was no bombshell news of Trump and his loyalists unveiling a deep state conspiracy attempting to turn the United States into a communist country.

These delusions of grandeur are nothing new. The far-right, particularly QAnon adherents, have been claiming for years that they are privy to secret inside information that allows them to predict this day of reckoning. In their minds, Trump is a noble defender of good in the ultimate battle of good vs. evil. Forget about his sordid past and all that’s occurred during his presidency. The Democratic Party is a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who drink their victims’ blood to maintain power.

Over time this cabal has grown to include anyone, Republican or Democrat alike, who has spoken out against Trump, failed to pledge loyalty to him, criticized the false claims of election fraud, or tried to curb Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. This cabal now not only includes the entire Democratic Party, but Republican members of Congress, Republican administration officials appointed by and later fired by Trump, the FBI, the CIA, the DOJ, the DOD, state Republican judges, Republican governors, Republican election officials, and even the conservative members of the highest court in the land who denied an election fraud suit for lack of legal standing.

This cabal also includes the “fake news media,” which was previously composed of center and left-leaning news outlets, but now encompasses right-leaning outlets like Fox News, who committed the ultimate sin of calling the election for Biden. Delegitimizing the media has sent Trump supporters fleeing to fringe news outlets like OAN, Breitbart News, and the Gateway Pundit, social media sites such as Parler, and any random YouTube poster like the one in this article.

The disinformation continues to spread, much of it coming from or amplified by a president hell-bent on staying in power. The calls for retribution from Trump and the far-right against a hypothetical evil cabal is escalating and threatening our democracy.

Those who fall victim to these unsubstantiated theories may also possess the psychological capacity to take up arms in defense of them, regardless of the cost to themselves or anyone else. A good case in point is the poorly gullible man who believed the wildly absurd QAnon Pizzagate conspiracy theory and went to liberate supposedly abducted children from a nonexistent basement of a pizza parlor and execute depraved individuals in an imaginary pedophile ring. That man, a father of young children, naively believed he was acting nobly. Now his life is ruined.

People I know and love believe in the myth of Trump and accept all he proclaims as the gospel truth. Trump supporters direct hostility and slurs at those who attempt to point out the falsehoods.

“Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.” ~ Gustave Le Bon

We are involved in a war of words. We cannot let the far-right speak for the nation and warp the minds of its citizens. Regardless of our political affiliation, it’s imperative that we not only call out fake news when we see it but explain why it is not reliable to those who’ve fallen victim to it.

We need to expose the myth of Trump and all the lies of the far-right. Many have attempted to do so — Republicans and Democrats, scientists, scholars, writers, and journalists — but the fact that 74 million people voted for Trump despite this mountain of information proves that we need to find new ways to reach them. Our democracy depends on it.