Do these people know how crazy they seem outside their bubble?

I guess we can be assured they don't care.

The Violent Take it by Force: the Christian Movement that is Threatening our Democracy by Matthew D. Taylor.

Once upon a time, in order to do work I hoped to do -- to build a movement of North American citizens in support to the progressive movements in Central American countries in the 1980s -- I needed to navigate an environment that included many little U.S. leftist sects and sect-lets. This sector among us was important to building a broad coalition of resistance to U.S. meddling with the aspirations of Central American peoples. In that movement, you had to be able to tell five varieties of Trotskyists and a few kinds of other Marxists apart. Why did we have to know and work with these often difficult people and forces? Because they were where friends of Central America could start -- though they could not be allowed to prevent the growth of a movement with a wider base of churches, labor unions, community groups and even politicians.

Matthew D. Taylor's description of the New Apostolic Reformation reminds me viscerally of those days. So many obscure but magnetic leaders peddling crackpot beliefs to branching veins of besotted followers! The NAR certainly has an inside track on defining Christian belief and practice for the benefit of our completely unChristian president. (Not so much so for the majority of those Americans who claim to be Christians.) Will they have staying power? Will it matter that, for all their emotionally attractive fantasies and significant institutional base, that they are completely out of touch with realities of planet earth? Will they turn on each other as mad movements usually do? We'll see. 

Taylor summarizes his subject: 

The NAR is organized around a highly networked but loosely affiliated pantheon of charismatic preachers, pastors, celebrities, nonprofit leaders, and international entrepreneurs who understand themselves to be recreating the energy and vitality of the early Christian church. They believe that the church has languished for centuries in feebleness and aimlessness, led by timid pastors and functionary priests -- until now. Now, they believe, in these momentous latter days, God has reinvigorated the church through the Holy Spirit-backed renewed leadership of apostles and prophets. They believe that Christians need to conquer the high places of influence in society and govern from the top down. Engaged in a cosmic spiritual war against the forces of darkness, they believe God has mandated them to use spiritual violence to defeat Satan and then build the Kingdom of God on earth.

It's important to Taylor that this is not just a white movement. Indeed, it's not even just an American movement.

All well and good, but I have a hard time with his assertion:

The NAR, and the broader Independent Charismatic arena in which it operates, offers a very plausible, popular, and even evangelical interpretation of Christianity.

Sure, many nice folks who mean well can read and cite bits of the Bible, but that certainly doesn't, by itself, make them either sane participants in contemporary civilization or exemplars of Christian piety. People claiming to be Christians have been running about for 2000 years; that's long enough to generate plenty of foolishness as well as occasional beauty and transcendence. Taylor provides a schema for understanding contemporary American Christianity which is interesting, but he loses me when he asks me to take his subject matter seriously as an enduring faith. 

Perhaps it is a weird symptom of a democratic society decaying into oligarchy that so many of us are ignorant enough to find solace in following pseudo-religious leaders who lead to Donald Trump. 

If you have need to decode the intricacies of the crackpot strain in contemporary Christianity, this book provides a map. It's ugly terrain, with a heavy dose of grift from the innocent and ignorant thrown in for good measure.