Millenarian Totenkult

For over four decades, a significant portion of America’s working-class has endured economic stagnation, a trend that began with the Reagan administration’s alliance with the Southern Baptist Coalition in 1980. Reagan’s policies, which prioritized massive tax cuts for the wealthy, set a Republican precedent that deepened income inequality and eroded economic security for millions. This prolonged deprivation has fostered a sense of victimhood and betrayal among many Americans, particularly those who now form the core of Donald Trump’s MAGA base. Driven to desperation, this group has embraced a worldview steeped in magical thinking and apocalyptic expectation, transforming the MAGA movement into something akin to a millenarian cult. Through Trump’s messianic rhetoric and a shared belief in a coming cataclysmic renewal, the MAGA base exhibits the hallmarks of millenarianism, though its roots lie not in colonial oppression but in perceived economic and cultural disenfranchisement.

Trump’s rhetoric is saturated with apocalyptic and messianic themes, resonating deeply with his evangelical Christian supporters, who constitute roughly one-fifth of the US population. At a July 26, 2024, rally in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump urged Christians to vote, ominously suggesting that after his re-election, “you won’t have to vote anymore.” This cryptic statement, interpreted by some as a prophecy of a final election, echoes the eschatological narratives of the Book of Revelation, where a divine intervention ushers in a new Kingdom of God. Medievalist Joël Schnapp has noted that Trump’s language mirrors medieval prophecies, mobilizing biblical and end-times imagery to cast himself as a savior figure akin to King David. This rhetoric appeals to a base primed to see the world in stark, dualistic terms: a corrupt, immoral society on the brink of collapse, salvageable only through a dramatic, divinely ordained upheaval.

The MAGA movement’s millenarian character is further illuminated by its parallels to historical millenarian movements, which often arise among groups perceiving themselves as oppressed. While traditional millenarianism, like the 19th-century Ghost Dance among Native Americans, emerged from tangible colonial violence, the MAGA base’s sense of oppression stems from economic decline and cultural alienation. Decades of wage stagnation, job losses, and dwindling social safety nets—exacerbated by policies favoring the wealthy—have fueled a narrative of betrayal by elites, immigrants, and a “deep state.” This perceived victimhood has driven Trump’s supporters to view themselves as the “elect,” battling a corrupt system in a cosmic struggle. Their rhetoric, laced with violent imagery against marginalized groups, reflects the millenarian belief that a purifying conflict will precede a utopian restoration, where the faithful are rewarded in an America “made great again.”

Christian Nationalism, a key ideological pillar of the MAGA movement, amplifies this millenarian fervor through a coded language dubbed “Evangelicalese.” As outlined in Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation blueprint for the second Trump term, Christian Nationalists use phrases that appear benign to outsiders but carry radical implications within their community. This linguistic strategy, rooted in the principle of being “in the world but not of it,” allows them to mask extreme positions—like dismantling secular governance—in plain sight. By framing their agenda in biblical terms, they align their political goals with the millenarian expectation of a divine kingdom on Earth, reinforcing the movement’s apocalyptic worldview.

The MAGA base’s behavior aligns with sociologist Henri Desroche’s model of millenarianism, which describes three phases: increasing oppression of the elect, resistance against that oppression, and the arrival of a utopian age. Trump’s supporters see themselves as increasingly marginalized by a liberal elite and globalist conspiracies, justifying their resistance through rallies, online activism, and, at times, violent rhetoric. They anticipate a new era—heralded by Trump’s leadership—where America is “purified” of its corrupt elements. This belief in a predetermined victory, often tinged with supernatural overtones, fosters a dangerous disregard for conventional norms, as seen in the January 6 Capitol riot and the movement’s embrace of propaganda over reality.

The MAGA movement diverges from traditional millenarianism in its lack of a clear utopian vision. Unlike historical fascisms, which promised a pastoral golden age, contemporary far-right movements, including MAGA, offer only a nostalgic remix of the past and the sadistic pleasure of dominating “others.” The Trump administration’s propaganda—such as AI-generated images of shackled immigrants or gloating posts about deportations—caters to this impulse, framing cruelty as a necessary precursor to national renewal. Meanwhile, policies like the deliberate dysfunction of Social Security, achieved through staff cuts and “anti-fraud” measures, betray the very base that supports Trump. Remarkably, this betrayal does not erode their faith. As economic hardship deepens, MAGA supporters are likely to double down, blaming scapegoats like immigrants or the “deep state” rather than their leader, a dynamic that mirrors the inward-turning violence of cults like Jonestown.

The MAGA movement’s millenarian character is further complicated by its alignment with corporate secessionist visions, such as “freedom cities” and “seasteading,” championed by figures like Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinivasan. These high-tech fiefdoms, designed as escape pods for the ultra-wealthy, share the movement’s apocalyptic outlook, envisioning a future of scarcity and collapse. Both the corporate elite and the MAGA base imagine fortified enclaves—whether billionaire city-states or a bunker-like nation—where the elect survive while the unworthy perish. This convergence reflects a broader “end times fascism,” where existential threats like climate change and inequality are not addressed but accelerated, with the faithful awaiting a Rapture-like salvation.

Traditional millenarian movements often collapse without their prophetic leader, yet Trumpism’s decentralized structure—amplified by social media and Christian Nationalist networks—suggests it could persist or evolve into something more radical. The MAGA base’s embrace of magical thinking, fueled by economic deprivation and apocalyptic rhetoric, renders it functionally indistinguishable from a millenarian cult. As long as the underlying conditions of inequality and disillusionment persist, this movement will likely continue to thrive, reshaping America’s political landscape in its image of a coming reckoning.

Trump has cultivated a MAGA movement that mirrors the millenarian, death-obsessed ideology of the Nazi Totenkult (cult of death). This parallel, rooted in Sigmund Freud’s concept of thanatos—the death instinct—reflects a reactionary backlash against the liberalization of American culture in the 1960s and 1970s, akin to conservative Germans’ rejection of the Weimar Republic’s progressive reforms. Both movements, fueled by economic despair and cultural alienation, embrace magical thinking and anti-science policies—most notably Trump’s push for fossil fuel expansion despite its catastrophic environmental consequences—echoing the reality-denying desperation of Hitler’s Germany post-World War I.

The Nazi Totenkult, inspired by Wagnerian neo-Romanticism and volkish ideology, glorified death, ruin, and martyrdom as pathways to a purified German culture. Historian George Mosse notes that volkish thought, initially marginal, gained traction among conservatives after the Weimar Republic’s liberalization, which they viewed as a moral and cultural decay driven by industrialization and Jewish assimilation. This ideology, steeped in irrationality, rejected rationalism, science, and progress, favoring a mythic “authentic” German identity. Hitler, styling himself as an artist-Führer, wove these themes into a civil religion, using Wagner’s operas—like Der Ring des Nibelungen—to elevate death and destruction as aesthetic ideals.

Similarly, the MAGA movement emerged as older white conservatives sought to reclaim economic and cultural dominance after the feminist and gay liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Decades of economic stagnation, beginning with Reagan’s tax cuts for the wealthy, left many feeling betrayed by elites and marginalized by progressive gains. Trump’s rhetoric, laced with apocalyptic promises of national renewal, casts him as a messianic figure battling a corrupt, liberal “other.” His administration’s erasure of non-white, non-male heroes from cultural narratives and the dismantling of federal agencies under initiatives like DOGE mirror the Nazis’ efforts to rewrite history and destabilize institutions, fostering a mythic, white-centric American identity.

Freud’s thanatos illuminates both movements’ destructive impulses. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud argues that the death instinct, when turned outward, manifests as aggression and destruction, a dynamic evident in Hitler’s genocidal campaigns and Trump’s violent rhetoric against immigrants and political foes. The Totenkult’s glorification of sacrifice and ruin parallels MAGA’s embrace of policies—like unchecked fossil fuel use—that hasten ecological collapse, denying scientific evidence in favor of a magical belief in American exceptionalism. This mirrors the Nazis’ rejection of Weimar’s rationalism, as conservatives, per Margarete Kohlenbach, doubted science and progress amid economic devastation.

Both movements exhibit millenarian traits, anticipating a cataclysmic renewal. Hitler’s regime, as Rainer C. Baum argues, pursued “national suicide” through institutionalized disorder, a path MAGA risks with its anti-government fervor. Trump’s propaganda, like Hitler’s aesthetic politics, transforms destruction into a spectacle, appealing to a base craving dominance over a modernizing world. By rejecting reality for a romanticized past, both leaders channel thanatos, leading their followers toward self-destruction under the guise of salvation.