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AMARNATH AMARASINGAM
Kenneth Alex Randolf is a fifty-six year old former lawyer living in Seattle. When Barack Obama announced his presidential aspirations in 2008, Randolf got to work on a blog that soon attracted some attention, and was later featured on CNN. The blog presented several pages of evidence - some numerological, some astrological, some Biblical - for his overall argument: Barack Obama was the Antichrist. It is not really known how many people in the United States believe this, but what remains evident is that apocalypticism - and right-wing populism more broadly - is alive and well in the United States.
One of the individuals who first put apocalypticism on the bestseller lists in the United States was a charismatic preacher named Hal Lindsey. His book, The Late Great Planet Earth, was published in 1970 and has sold over 35 million copies to date. Apocalyptic thinking entered American politics on the back of an individual deeply inspired by Lindsey's book. Ronald Reagan was so influenced by Lindsey's book, that he wanted his military leaders to fully understand its significance. With Reagan's blessing, Lindsey was invited to brief the Pentagon on the "divine implications" of their hostilities with the Soviet Union. No other president in recent history has allied apocalypticism and national security with such ease.
Speculation about the identity of the Antichrist has also been a constant presence in the United States. In the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy was suspected by some writers. After his death, a few waited for Kennedy to rise from his coffin, pointing to the Book of Revelation, which states that the Beast would survive a head wound. In the 1970s, Henry Kissinger was a suspect, as well as Ayatollah Khomeini (during the hostage crisis), Saddam Hussein (during the Gulf War), and Osama bin Laden (after 9/11). Beginning during the 2008 election cycle, the Internet began teeming with speculation about Obama. Emails circulated widely and amateur videos were posted on YouTube proclaiming strange personality and numerological resemblances between Obama and Biblical statements about the Antichrist.
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