As an ex-fundigelical, I think the boys get it wrong here. Perhaps the people at the top are cynical with regard to the existence of demons, but I guarantee there’s a concerning number of people in the crowd who think demons are real, and they genuinely think they’re fighting a holy war against them by opposing people that include “liberals and ‘unhuman’ communists.” I used to think demons were actually real, and average people often had demons inside them, like sleeper agents waiting to be activated.

I agree that the “demonic” rhetoric is a convenient tool to justify political violence, but many of them aren’t using demons as an excuse to do something they already want to do; they’re doing it because they genuinely think they’re saving humanity from Satan to usher in some kind of idealized 1950s utopia only for white, affluent Christians.

In their mind, they are sincerely at war with their fellow Americans, but there’s a convenient, dehumanizing layer of “demons” to make them feel better about any acts of violence or stripping of rights.

Hello, spectre of Nazism.