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   Neuroscientist explains how fanatical Trump followers could lead us to   
   societal collapse   
   It's okay to be a little alarmed — behind the scenes, this cult is being   
   transformed into an army of soldiers   
   By Bobby Azarian   
   Published August 6, 2021 5:30AM (EDT)   
   Trump supporters near the U.S Capitol on Jan. 06, 2021 in Washington, DC.   
   (Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images)   
   Trump supporters near the U.S Capitol on Jan. 06, 2021 in Washington, DC.   
   (Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images)   
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   This article originally appeared on Raw Story   
   rawlogo   
      
   Do not be alarmed, but consider this article a prediction and a warning.   
   Actually, it's okay to be a little alarmed, because recent events—like   
   the storming of the Capitol—are certainly cause for concern. Let's call   
   it what it is; Donald Trump has created a cult and radicalized its   
   members. QAnon also shares a large part of the responsibility, whoever   
   they are. We may not be able to see it because Trump has been banned from   
   Twitter and Q conversation cleaned from social media, but behind the   
   scenes, this cult is being transformed into an army of soldiers.   
      
   How do we know that it is as serious as I say; that this is not just more   
   fear mongering? Well, for one, people have died. Heather Heyer, a   
   counterprotester protesting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,   
   was run over by a white supremacist, and 19 others were injured. Last   
   year a man drew a hunting bow on protestors in Salt Lake City before   
   being taken out by the crowd, a chilling moment that was captured on   
   video. On the day of the Capitol riot, a pipe bomb was found a few blocks   
   from the Capitol building. In addition to these troubling events, many   
   others who will go unnamed have been the victims of hate crimes that can   
   be traced to the alt-Right, pro-Trump movement.   
      
   But the causalities have not only been on one side. Capitol rioter Ashli   
   Babbitt was fatally wounded by a cop as the mob tried to breach a door,   
   another frightening moment caught on video. The point I'm making has   
   nothing to do with whether or not the shooting was justified—though   
   saying that level of force was necessary strikes me as uncomfortably   
   close to Right-wing apologists who defend cops that shoot unarmed black   
   men. The point is that the violence is escalating, and there's every   
   reason to believe that escalation will continue. To use Newton's third   
   law as a metaphor—for every action, there is an equal and opposite   
   reaction. So, what does this mean for the future of America?   
      
   Since aggression provokes fear, and fear promotes aggression, a dangerous   
   feedback loop has been established, dividing the nation to such a degree   
   that something like civil war seems imminent. It may be a "cold civil   
   war," but there will still be violence, destruction, and death. There   
   will also be more gridlock in Washington, which makes any kind of   
   progress impossible. It is hard to calculate the suffering that could   
   have been avoided with a functional Congress, but we can be sure it is   
   substantial. And if the division gets too severe, which is where we are   
   headed, there will be a point of no return. Social chaos and economic   
   collapse will follow, the United States will lose its status as a   
   superpower, and life as we know it, will cease. If the pandemic showed us   
   anything, it is that despite how advanced we are technologically, we are   
   not protected from disaster, and our way of life can change overnight.   
      
   The good news is that this gloomy future is only inevitable should we   
   choose not to intervene. But we do have to make a conscious effort to   
   avoid catastrophe if we want any chance of being successful. I'm not   
   talking about compromising, or forgiving, or forgetting—because we should   
   do none of those things. I'm proposing something altogether new,   
   something radical to stop Right-wing radicalism. But to understand the   
   solution, and why it is necessary, we first have to get a clearer   
   understanding of the problem, and of the predictive power of science.   
   The Predictive Power of Terror Management Theory   
      
   To those skeptics who consider a civil war of sorts an unlikely scenario,   
   just ask yourself how likely any of the events mentioned above would have   
   seemed in the pre-Trump era. Imagine taking a time machine back to 2014,   
   and telling people that the reality show star Donald Trump would be our   
   next president. That alone would sound ridiculous. Now imagine telling   
   people that thousands of his supporters would storm the Capitol—many   
   armed—in hopes of overturning the 2020 election. It would sound like some   
   zany plot for an over-the-top comedy. Now imagine that after such event,   
   and after trying to get his vice president killed, Trump would still own   
   the Republican party and all of conservative media. On the surface, this   
   outcome seems so improbable that it makes one doubt our ability to   
   predict the future at all.   
      
   Despite how unlikely this general scenario might have seemed, I'm going   
   to argue that it was in fact predictable with a high degree of   
   statistical certainty, if one had the proper theoretical framework   
   through which to understand those events as they were unfolding. That   
   framework is called Terror Management Theory(TMT), and this paradigm from   
   social psychology will be our sense-making lens in a time where nothing   
   seems to make much sense.   
      
   Armed with the logic of Terror Management Theory, and an understanding of   
   the relevant neuroscience, I was able to predict the rise of Trump, the   
   white Nationalist movement that put him in office, the Q problem that led   
   to the Capitol attack, and the refusal to accept the results of the   
   election by Trump and his supporters—many months in advance. These   
   predictions will be explained later in the article. No, I am not a   
   psychic, but I did have a crystal ball called "science."   
      
   Karl Popper, the father of the philosophy of science, said the riskier   
   the prediction made by a scientific theory, the more convincing it is   
   when that prediction comes true. And you can be sure that when I was   
   making such predictions, in articles for websites like Raw Story, Daily   
   Beast, and Psychology Today, they seemed to describe highly unlikely   
   outcomes. That is, if one were getting their analyses from mainstream   
   news media and professional statisticians unfamiliar with the effects of   
   "mortality salience"—in other words, making people think about death, or   
   making them feel that there is a looming existential threat. I bring up   
   these predictions not to say "I told you so" or for bragging rights;   
   rather, it is a plea for the reader to take the predictions of the theory   
   seriously.   
      
      
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