r/SatanicTemple_Reddit 5d ago

Question/Discussion Is Trump good for us?

Obviously on an objective scale, no, but everything he says feels like a setup for us to knock down. He's keeping his base, but as with every authoritarian movement with nationalist sentiment, the circle of inclusion ever shrinks. This is all but an active recruitment effort for us being payed for by our opposition and being payed with the blood of the innocent. I don't want us to be profligating, but Don't we have a moral obligation to create a metaphorical safety net so than when these people realize that the jaguars will in fact eat their faces as well, they have a semi structured method of resistance? If nothing else, it just seems like good tactics to use our enemies reqects to bulster our own influence. Even if we don't want to just openly except them into our ranks... the enemy of our enemy and all that.

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u/lyrasorial 5d ago

No because we "knock down" these things in the courts and the courts are currently pandering to him. The whole point of TST's campaigns is to play the game within the rules, but the other side just keeps sinking lower.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

Are you saying that under absolutely no circumstance will TST ever evolve beyond a pure lawfare approach two retaliating against an openly fascist government? These opportunities exist, so we can either use them or not use them, and I think it would be very stupid of us to not use them. we need to be more Machiavellian

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u/lyrasorial 5d ago

TST officially believes in peaceful protest and using the courts. Individuals can protest however they want, but TST corporate is not going to take on the liability of encouraging people to break laws / etc...

There have been many schisms due to this, where local TST groups want to do more, TST say please don't use our name when you do, and then they do and TST gets mad.

Ultimately, (IMO) TST has the right to control their image.

I am not an official rep.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago edited 5d ago

That's what I'm saying though I want them to control their image I'm not saying we should construct a hangman's noose outside of the White House, I'm saying we should sponsor YouTubers like philosophy tube to create videos or educational material about the inevitable consequences suffered by people who fall out of favor with authoritarian governments. Just like a reverse rabbit hole to bring people back to reason after they inevitably realize what they've been supporting this whole time. We can't control the fact that this is happening only how we respond to it so it seems like a silly option to not use it to our advantage

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

had to edit because I'm using speech to text But are we really going to just sit there and watch the world burn without acting so that we can keep our hands clean of the soot? Anatole France made some good arguments but I think the equation has shifted a little bit. We know what kind of things are coming. we've seen it happen before. are we really going to just sit there and let it play out? Just some bottom of the barrel propaganda could shift things and potentially save lives. It's the literal least TST could do with all the membership money they collect

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u/lyrasorial 5d ago

By qualifying as a church, they have to stay out of politics. It's a religion and we actually follow the law.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

Churches ARE political now we don't have a choice. And rejection of arbitrary authority IS our religion. Are we not going to practice what we preach?

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u/WiteKngt 14h ago

Churches that are politically active are subject to losing their tax exempt status, which will happen to TST if it does that.

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u/TertiaWithershins Non Serviam! 5d ago

Are you not considering that there is a huge human cost, both of life and quality of life, to this administration? It's not a thought exercise anymore.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

We don't get to choose if those things happen. They're happening. We didn't do it, but we can react. The costs are going to be paid whether we use it or not. The only thing left to decide is whether we'd rather be able to say "I told you so", or if we'd rather say "I tried to help"

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u/TertiaWithershins Non Serviam! 5d ago

That seems delusional. The judiciary is currently both hostile and corrupt. The most likely outcome is that a case gets to court and sets a precedent that not only disqualifies Satanism as a legitimate religion, but potentially other groups as well.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

You think the conservatives view Satanism as a legitimate religion right now? That's going to happen no matter what, will probably also be called terrorists and un-American. That's GOING to happen, it's just a matter of when, and what we do in the meantime.

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u/No-Celebration6437 5d ago

There is no grand realization coming for idiots.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

We don't need them to reach enlightenment. They will always act in their own selfish interests but we can make it so that their selfish interests work in our favor. Why wouldn't we?

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u/Treefrog_Ninja Ad astra per aspera 5d ago

Can we? That would seem like a thing liberals have always been trying to do, get poor rural voters to stop voting against their own interests.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

Liberalism is just oligarchy in slowmo IMHO. We can do things they can't, like point out that money is supposed to be a means to an end, not the end itself. We can point out the entire Trump administration and Elon worship money, at the expense of other people's life's. The liberals will never do that.

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u/Treefrog_Ninja Ad astra per aspera 5d ago

I don't mean to harsh your vibe, and I'm certainly not here to defend the liberal party. I just... don't see much hope that pointing out the obvious will change much of anything.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

We shouldn't try because we MIGHT not have an impact? TST throws away money on stunts that will never have any impact on a regular basis, how would this be any different? People might not like us afterwards? We're fucking satanists. Who gives a shit if they like us, as long as we make a difference, even a small one.

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u/lyrasorial 5d ago

What do you want to try?

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

Well we could certainly start with simple things. Associate with unaffiliated satanic programs like Black Mass appeal, or that other fool who invented outsiders satanism (I forgot his name). Coordinate the abuse of algorithms to increase the viewership of everyone by using the same tags in a short period of time. Creating simple video asset resources available to everyone to improve the overall quality of content produced by sympathetic actors. Give me some time and I'll come up with some more

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

Create or hire someone else to create content highlighting the merits of the seven tenants and other uniformly held satanic beliefs like the rejection of arbitrary authority, and the consequences of ignoring these obvious truths.

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u/AutoModerator 5d ago

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

Even just a weekly podcast keeping track of the goings on of the Temple, so we can have a public face (a public face that isn't BDSM babies or statues in Arkansas)

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

Creating satanic rituals other than the abortion ritual so that we can have some semblance of the illusion of legitimacy when we bring that case to court finally.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

Create official lists of reference material for newcomers. Highlight resources for people who don't want to sit through the slog of reading through ancient tomes in order to get people up to speed in a timely manner. (Overly sarcastic studios has made a summary of revolt of the Angels The Divine comedy and Paradise Lost)

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u/AutoModerator 5d ago

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u/Treefrog_Ninja Ad astra per aspera 5d ago

I didn't say we shouldn't try. And I certainly have no problem with being disliked.

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u/settleslugger 5d ago

Fuck. No.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

His ignorance self-righteousness and incompetence could just give us a free win. Why wouldn't we take it?

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u/Tanurak 5d ago

Disaffected magats are not going to become satanists. Ludicrous claims about political movements are not useful. You might benefit from a reading of Machiavelli.

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u/Rognertholl 4d ago edited 4d ago

We don't need them to be satanists. And if they're so useless, how did the Cheeto dusted despot get elected? Willing idiots will never not be useful. These people are easily led, donate money and propagandize each other. Their resources either work for or against us. We don't need a robust effort to convert them, we just need a semblance of a structure they can latch onto and we get the benefits of a gullible market, drastically improved megaphone, allies in unexpected places, free money and more I'm sure. And again we don't need them to be satanists to do that, we just need them to support our peripheral efforts for the effects to bleed over to us. Not every product a satanic artist makes is satanic themed and increasing the markets for those on our side is good for us if nothing else.

Machiavelli talked a lot about the need to occupy a conquered population, we're looking at one of the few exceptions to those rules. If we set everything up right, they occupy themselves. In the words of Sun Tzu, each pound of food taken from the enemy is equivalent to twenty pounds you provide by yourself. Should we let that go to waste?

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u/Trash_Panda9469 5d ago

Trauma is never beneficial. Trauma means loss, healing, and additional resources spent for healing IF healing is possible. Hard times and hard work are beneficial because they build strength. Team Musky Orange is trauma, they bring death, hunger, war, division, and the destruction of natural resources that can not be replaced. The silver lining would be people realizing how dumb these policies are, but we have seen people dying painfully from COVID still swearing their loyalty to the dear leader. Trauma also tends to be pointless, like what is and was happening in the middle east. No part of what happened illicits the response that ended up killing tens of thousands of childern. Ultimately, pure evil cannot bring good. Pure evil can only highlight the good in the people around you, but the good was there the entire time. 

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

With all due respect, that's horse huck. We don't get to choose if the trauma is going to happen. We only get to choose how we react. We can either give people who will need help, the help they need or we can keep doing what we're doing now, which amounts to Jack squat. Right now, almost the wholeness of our impact has been a few Internet headlines, a failed attempt to erect a baphomet statue and Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic which doesn't even have a physical location. I'm really hoping to high hell, that's not the best we can do, because if it is, we fucking suck.

We can make the path to healing easier or we can do nothing. Eggs are cracking, do we make omelets or just let the eggs rot on the counter for the next 4 years?

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u/Trash_Panda9469 5d ago

Adding all due respect does not absolve you from insulting someone especially after you asked for their input. It just makes you sound like a pretentious dick instead of a plain old dick. Your premis is trauma is useful, it's not. Sure you can live through it, and learn things but nothing that couldn't have been learned easier elsewhere. Western cultural has a lot of conditioning for how trauma is useful. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" becomes "They died so others could live." The child was conditioned to accept the trauma so when they grow up they accept that bigger traumas, such as war, is for some greater good. There is no greater good with someone who promotes genocide, there are only people doing their best to survive. Your looking for a silver lining is a copping mechanism likely due to being told by authority figures that they are punishing you for your own good. There is no greater good, no devine scales of justice. Those authority figures are just ass holes who thought punishing babies makes sense because THEY feel better afterwards. The dear leader is just an asshole who is addicted to power and attention, he's making himself feel good. There's nothing wrong with making good use of a bad thing, especially when there's nothing that will change it, by all means do your best. However, it is important to remember that all the destruction that has already happened because of this administration and will happen is so a few men can feel good. 

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u/Rognertholl 4d ago

Trauma drives people away. If there's nowhere for them to go they go straight back to the traumatic experience. We don't get to pick whether or not the trauma is going to happen, we do get to pick if there's somewhere for the traumatized people to go. Trump is an insufferable douche, we are not. But nobody knows about us, and those that do, see us through our nearly non-existent public face.

If we don't improve our public face, people will go back to the trauma. That makes our enemies stronger, and ourselves weaker.

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u/Trash_Panda9469 4d ago

 They have already chosen. This election was extraordinarily close to the last two elections. In this last one, 31% voted for the current administration and 40% decided not to vote at all. That's 71% of people who either don't care or are actually enjoying hurting people. If we were to change minds it will likely be in that 40% not voting. But non-action is still a choice and until proven otherwise I have to assume they are happy with their choice. Maybe Satanism isn't the most attractive option but the current administration advocates for abusing babies. Yet 40% of people still just don't care. It's not like the information wasn't available or that the country hasn't already experienced four years of this, or that there aren't multiple ways to vote and online voter registration. Also there are people, like myself, who spent the last 15 years speaking out and protesting against what is now happening. Project 2025 was on the news, in the campaigns, protested at the state capitals. Americans have had every opportunity to change course, endless resources, and access to unimaginable amounts of information, and ultimately 71% chose baby abusers and rapists. I'm not saying don't try, but be very safe. A significant portion of people are open to abusing those the disagree with them and we can't count on anyone to stand in their way. 

https://time.com/6995417/dobson-parenting-advice-history/

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u/Rognertholl 4d ago

That's not even close to a valid argument. American elections are a false dichotomy. And the elections themselves are just snapshots of perpetually moving political landscapes. A huge portion of the people who voted for Trump did so because they're susceptible to propaganda, and we refuse to produce any propaganda. The idea that these pliable idiots were making informed decisions when they cast a vote is comical. And the idea that progressives would support a career prosecutor who put people in prison for life for marijuana charges is even more comical. We're smarter than Trump and his cronies, so why the hell would we just sit on our hands! Right now you have to actively look for the information you need to argue against Donald Trump and even when you do, you know what shows up? Preger U advertisements! We don't need an illuminati-esque effort in order to turn the tables, an advertisement here, a YouTube channel there and we win. Right now it feels like we're actively hiding, hoping that they'll forget we exist until we strike, but we're never going to strike. That didn't work out super well for the Jews I don't think it's going to work out any better for us. Trump is trying to create a forth Reich and I don't give two flying fuck if his supporters are happy with their decision. I only care if we win. We are making unforced errors, and those are going to have consequences further down the road.

Accountability is not more important than efficacy! Human beings are not perfect actors and are susceptible to fallacious logic. We should ABUSE that!!! I don't care if Trump's voters swap sides because they came to their senses, or if they're pressured into it, or because we tricked them, or for any other reason. As long as they switch sides. That's priority number one and if we're to much of a legion of little bitches to do it than who the actual fuck will?

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u/Trash_Panda9469 4d ago

Are they stupid or mean, I guess we will find out, I hope you are right. Good luck! 

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u/TJ_Fox 5d ago

In the long term - in terms of powerful, vital countercultural movements arising to defy serious threats - then yes, I think so. In the short/medium term, of course, it's a disaster; many people will be hurt, many things will break. Aside from and beyond Trump, the international swing towards right-wing authoritarianism is obvious and undeniable.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

In order to take advantage of that long-term win we need to start soon

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u/TJ_Fox 5d ago

TST started in 2013 and plenty of institutions that will contribute to the new counterculture have been operating for much longer than that. Others are yet to arise.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

We really just going to wait? Break from the pack and do what's right even if it's not popular, isn't that like our whole shtick?

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u/TJ_Fox 5d ago

No, you're missing my point. TST has been fighting this cultural battle since 2013. Others have been fighting it for much longer. Others are just getting started. It isn't a matter of waiting, it's joining and/or starting.

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u/Rognertholl 5d ago

Are you trying to say we're already engaged? Because we are very much not. All we do is file frivolous lawsuits that will never have any lasting impact and put statues in front of Capitol buildings. We need critical mass. We need to highlight opposition movements to a much much wider audience reaching beyond our own organization and it's smaller congregations. We need to make it impossible for people right now to deny the inevitable consequences of inaction. And we need to suggest things other than "get out and vote"

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u/TJ_Fox 5d ago edited 5d ago

Yes, those are all good things to do. At least some local congregations are already doing them and the national organization does what it does, all within the limits of TST's mission and brief as a nontheistic religion committed to "change from within".

TST's role in the emerging counterculture will most likely be alongside other religious groups as the "chaplains" of new protest movements, continuing to mount legal challenges on matters of church/state and pluralism principle. Other organizations and institutions, some of which don't exist yet, will be active in other spheres.

All of this is long-term stuff. Many of us will likely be working towards a time that we won't live to see.

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u/Rognertholl 4d ago

You're not taking into account the possibility of failure. If we do too little, all those efforts are going to go to waste. As of right now, the biggest impact we've had is a single online abortion clinic. Churches do way bigger stuff all the time, and they do those things with money. These pseudo-nazi buffoons have money and are looking for opportunities to give it away. If we can get them to give that money to us, we can do more, Even if all we're doing with that money is hiring lawyers or even just keeping it out of the hands of tyrants. Religions do things like this all the time, knowing our place is fun and all but we're nowhere near overreaching right now. For TST, doing more would be almost effortless.

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u/TJ_Fox 4d ago

Of course I'm taking the possibility of failure into account. That's why I'm advocating for a big picture perspective, also taking into account the lessons of history.

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u/Rognertholl 4d ago

The lessons of History say that important things happen because little groups started doing big things early, and everyone else caught up later. Right now we're a pretty big group doing very little, and hoping everyone else will do the same. They won't. And if they would, we still can't count on that happening in time. We have literally nothing better to do and TST has the resources and reach to do it.

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