Congratulations if you had “the antichrist” on your bingo card for 2025. You are this year’s surprise winner. Since 2016, the fever swamps of the internet have produced crackpot theories identifying Donald Trump as the antichrist, as they did eight years earlier when Barack Obama burst onto the national stage. Last year, it was TikTok and Facebook’s algorithms serving up stories about Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift teaming up to beget the antichrist. Discussion of the antichrist has now gone mainstream, with major media outlets such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal devoting space on their editorial pages to tech mogul Peter Thiel’s musings on artificial intelligence and what—or who—poses the most serious threat to humanity. Just to make sure no one misses the trend, the current season of South Park makes fun of Thiel for his purported obsession and gives viewers a cartoon Trump literally in bed with the devil.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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