Mystical city where hippy locals now love TRUMP after shunning 'untrustworthy' Democrats
The so-called new age Sedona hippies are openly supporting Donald Trump at their shops and meditation centers amid a statewide shift towards conservative politics.
Framed photographs of the president are proudly displayed alongside spiritual relics, such as Buddha statues and religious placards, The Arizona Republic reports.
Some are even capitalizing on Trump's policy decisions, with one psychic having held a '10% tariff sale' on crystals in April after the president declared Liberation Day and vowed to tax most foreign goods.
Spiritualists, often perceived to be weary of politics, are publicly shunning Democrats for alleged 'mistrust' and becoming what has been dubbed 'right-wing-engaged'.
Anita Dalton, a psychic and entrepreneur who owns the city's Center For The New Age, claims Trump is the first politician in years that many spiritualists have actually identified with and believed in.
She was instantly drawn to Trump after getting a 'feeling' that even now she struggles to explain or rationalize.
'You just know when someone's speaking the truth, or at least, your truth,' Dalton said of Trump, highlighting to the newspaper how a core belief of New Age spirituality is the belief 'if it feels like truth, embrace it'.
Political discussions used to be dismissed in Sedona, with the topic having been believed to be 'spiritually counterproductive', anthropologist Susannah Crockford revealed.
Crockford, a lecturer at the University of Exeter in the UK, arrived in Sedona in 2012 to study the spiritual community the city seemingly fosters.
She claims verbal criticisms of both the Democrats and Republicans were not tolerated and considered 'spiritually damaging' to everyone around.
But the academic observed that a cultural shift started to occur during the pandemic when Covid-19, a 'disease of uncertain origins', was rampantly spreading across the globe.
The New Age spiritualists, already known to oppose government, were reportedly infuriated by instructions to stay indoors and get vaccinated as this 'explicitly went against how they believe health and immunity work', Crockford said.
Aila Arya Anam, formerly known as Paula Green, echoed Crockford's analysis, alleging that her long-held vaccine skepticism is what helped her recognize her alignment with the MAGA agenda.
Anam, now 65, studied studied biomedical research in college and spent her 30s participating in the 'earth-based, witchy' feminist Goddess movement, a spiritual and cultural movement that centers on the worship of female deities.
She claims she was left comatose as a young adult after receiving a vaccination, but did not state which immunization caused the condition.
Anam then became a proponent of 'holistic' medicine and, after becoming a parent in 1999, declined to have her daughter receive most of the recommended childhood vaccines.
The right-wing opposition towards the coronavirus vaccine helped Anam realize that similarities between GOP politics and her own beliefs, she explained.
'That's when all of a sudden I'm like, "holy c**p",' she told the newspaper. 'I'm aligning with the gun-carrying, cowboy conservative, prepper Arizona population, which I always thought were rednecked and religiously fervent, you know?'
Similarly, Dalton - who is in her 70s - says the center of her political belief is the opposition to 'corruption'.
She allegedly supported Trump and Elon Musk's efforts to reshape federal bureaucracy under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
She made several sarcastic Facebook posts criticizing Democrats and championing several DOGE initiatives, including cutting funding to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
It is somewhat unsurprising that many Sedona mystics are Trump supporters, given that most of Arizona favored the president in the last election.
Trump successfully flipped the state of Arizona last November, sweeping all seven swing states in the 2024 presidential election.
He captured 52.6 percent of votes in Arizona, compared to Kamala Harris' 46.4 percent. The state had previously been won by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Sedona is also situated in relatively conservative Yavapai County, which has voted Republican in every presidential election since 2000.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
a few seconds ago
- The Guardian
We are gen Z – and AI is our future. Will that be good or bad?
Sumaiya Motara Freelance journalist based in Preston, where she works in broadcasting and local democracy reporting An older family member recently showed me a video on Facebook. I pressed play and saw Donald Trump accusing India of violating the ceasefire agreement with Pakistan. If it weren't so out of character, I would have been fooled too. After cross-referencing the video with news sources, it became clear to me that Trump had been a victim of AI false imaging. I explained this but my family member refused to believe me, insisting that it was real because it looked real. If I hadn't been there to dissuade them, they would have forwarded it to 30 people. On another occasion, a video surfaced on my TikTok homepage. It showed male migrants climbing off a boat, vlogging their arrival in the UK. 'This dangerous journey, we survived it,' says one. 'Now to the five-star Marriott hotel.' This video racked up almost 380,000 views in one month. The 22 videos posted from 9 to 13 June on this account, named migrantvlog, showed these men thanking Labour for 'free' buffets, feeling 'blessed' after being given £2,000 e-bikes for Deliveroo deliveries and burning the union flag. Even if a man's arm didn't disappear midway through a video or a plate vanish into thin air, I could tell the content was AI-generated because of the blurred background and strange, simulation-like characters. But could the thousands of other people watching? Unfortunately, it seemed not many of them could. Racist and anti-immigration posts dominated the comment section. I worry about this blurring of fact and fiction, and I see this unchecked capability of AI as incredibly dangerous. The Online Safety Act focuses on state-sponsored disinformation. But what happens when ordinary people spread videos like wildfire, believing them to be true? Last summer's riots were fuelled by inflammatory AI visuals, with only sources such as Full Fact working to cut through the noise. I fear for less media-literate people who succumb to AI-generated falsehoods, and the heat this adds to the pan. Rukanah Mogra Leicester-based journalist working in sports media and digital communications with Harborough Town FC The first time I dared use AI in my work, it was to help with a match report. I was on a tight deadline, tired, and my opening paragraph wasn't working. I fed some notes into an AI tool, and surprisingly it suggested a headline and intro that actually clicked. It saved me time and got me unstuck – a relief when the clock was ticking. But AI isn't a magic wand. It can clean up clunky sentences and help cut down wordiness but it can't chase sources, capture atmosphere or know when a story needs to shift direction. Those instinctive calls are still up to me. What's made AI especially useful is that it feels like a judgment-free editor. As a young freelance journalist, I don't always have access to regular editorial support. Sharing an early draft with a real-life editor can feel exposing, especially when you're still finding your voice. But ChatGPT doesn't judge. It lets me experiment, refine awkward phrasing and build confidence before I hit send. That said, I'm cautious. In journalism it's easy to lean on tools that promise speed. But if AI starts shaping how stories are told – or worse, which stories are told – we risk losing the creativity, challenge and friction that make reporting meaningful. For now AI is an assistant. But it's still up to us to set the direction. Author's note: I wrote the initial draft for the above piece myself, drawing on real experiences and my personal views. Then I used ChatGPT to help tighten the flow, suggest clearer phrasing and polish the style. I prompted the AI with requests such as: 'Rewrite this in a natural, eloquent Guardian-style voice.' While AI gave me useful suggestions and saved time, the core ideas, voice and structure remain mine. Frances Briggs Manchester-based science website editor AI is powerful. It's an impressive technological advancement and I'd be burying my head in the sand if I believed otherwise. But I'm worried. I'm worried my job won't exist in five years and I'm worried about its environmental impact. Attempting to understand the actual impact of AI is difficult; the key players are keeping their statistics close to their chests. What I can see is that things are pretty bad. A recent research paper has spat out some ugly numbers. (It joins other papers that reveal a similar story.) The team considered just one case study: OpenAI's ChatGPT-4o model. Its annual energy consumption is about the same as that of 35,000 residential households. That's approximately 450,000 KWh-1. Or 325 universities. Or 50 US inpatient hospitals. That's not all. There's also the cooling of these supercomputer's super-processors. Social media is swarming with terrifying numbers about the data-processing centres that power AI, and they're not far off. It takes approximately 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water to cool ChatGPT-4o's processing units, according to the latest estimates. AI agents such as the free products Perplexity or Claude don't actually seem to be consuming that much electricity. At most, the total global energy consumed yearly by AI is still less than 1%. But at the same time, data-processing centres in Ireland consumed 22% of the total electricity used by the whole country last year, more than urban housing. For context, there are 80 data-processing centres in Ireland. At present, there are more than 6,000 data-processing centres in the US alone. With the almost exponential uptake in AI since 2018, these numbers are likely to be completely different within a year. In spite of all these scary statistics, I have to hope that things are not as worrying as they seem. Researchers are already working to meet demands as they explore more effective, economic processing units using nanoscale materials and more. And when you compare the first language-learning models from seven years ago to those created today, they have iterated well beyond their previous inefficiencies. Energy-hungry processing centres will get less greedy – experts are just trying to figure out how. Saranka Maheswaran London-based student who pursues journalism alongside her studies 'You need to get out there, meet lots of people, and date, date, date!' is the cliche I hear most often when speaking to people about being in my 20s. After a few questionable dates and lots of juicy gossip sessions with friends, a new fear emerged. What if they're using AI to message me? Overly formal responses, or conversation starters that sounded just a bit too perfect, were what first made me question messages I'd received. I am not completely against AI, and don't think opposing it entirely is going to stop its development. But I do fear for our ability to make genuine connections with people. Pre-existing insecurities about how you speak, write or present yourself make a generation with AI to hand an easy prey. It may begin with a simple prompt, asking ChatGPT to make a message sound more friendly, but it can also grow into a menacing relationship in which you become reliant on the technology and lose confidence in your own voice. The 2025 iteration of the annual Singles in America study, produced in collaboration with the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, found that one in four singles in the US have used AI in dating. Perhaps I am over cynical. But to those who are not so sure of how their personalities are coming across when dating or how they may be perceived in a message, they should have faith that if it is meant to be it will be – and if AI has a little too much say in how you communicate, you may just lose yourself. Iman Khan Final-year student at the University of Cambridge, specialising in social anthropology The advancement of AI in education has made me question the idea of any claimed impartiality or neutrality of knowledge. The age of AI brings with it the need to scrutinise any information that comes our way. This is truer than ever in our universities, where teaching and learning are increasingly assisted by AI. We cannot now isolate AI from education, but we must be ready to scrutinise the mechanisms and narratives that underpin the technology itself and shape its use. One of my first encounters with AI in education was a request to ChatGPT to suggest reading resources for my course. I had assumed that the tool would play the role of an advanced search engine. But I quickly saw how ChatGPT's tendency to hallucinate – to present false or misleading information as fact – makes it both a producer and disseminator of information, true or false. I originally saw this as only a small barrier to the great possibilities of AI, not least because I knew it would improve over time. However, it has also become increasingly clear to me that ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI chatbots contribute to the spread of false information. AI has rendered the relationship between humans and technology precarious. There is research to be done on the potential implications of AI for all the social sciences. We need to investigate how it is integrated into how we learn and how we live. I'd like to be involved in researching how we adapt to AI's role as not only a tool but as an active and contributing participant in society. Nimrah Tariq London-based graduate specialising in architecture In my first years at university, we were discouraged from utilising AI for our architecture essays and models, only using it to proofread our work. However, in my final year, it was introduced a lot more into our process for rendering and enhancing design work. Our studio tutor gave us a mini-seminar on how to create AI prompts so that we could have detailed descriptions to put into architectural websites such as Visoid. This allowed us to put any models or drawings that we created into an AI prompt, asking it to create a concept design that suited our proposal. It gave my original ideas more complexity and a wide range of designs to play around with. While this was useful during the conceptual phase of our work, if the prompts were not accurate the AI would fail to deliver, so we learned how to be more strategic. I specifically used it after rendering my work as a final touch to create seamless final images. During my first and second year, AI didn't have as much impact on the design process of my work; I mainly used existing buildings for design inspiration. However, AI introduced new forms of innovation, which accelerated the speed with which we can push the boundaries of our work. It also made the creative process more experimental, opening up a new way of designing and visualising. Now I have finished my degree, I'm intrigued to see how much more architecture can grow through using AI. Initially, I believed AI wasn't the most creative way to design; now, I see it as a tool to improve our designs. It cannot replace human creativity, but it can enhance it. Architectural practices always ask job applicants for skills in software that uses AI, and you can already see how it is being incorporated in designs and projects. It has always been important to keep up to date with the latest technological advancements in architecture – and AI has reaffirmed this. The panel was compiled by Sumaiya Motara and Saranka Maheswaran, interns on the Guardian's positive action scheme
Daily Mail
a few seconds ago
- Daily Mail
CNN's Jake Tapper caught on hot mic feuding with producer
CNN 's Jake Tapper was caught on an awkward hot mic moment demanding a producer 'get his show back' after a communication error. Tapper was reporting live from Anchorage, Alaska, following the meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Following a commercial break, the network coverage returned to fellow anchor Anderson Cooper in a New York studio, who tried to hand it back to Tapper. But an agitated Tapper, unaware back on air, was heard grumbling: 'I'm fine just give me my show back.' Cooper then cracked a smile before jokingly responding: 'Your show's back!', as a flustered Tapper started interviewing California Senator Adam Schiff. But things continued to go downhill for Tapper and Schiff told him he had 'lost' him, during questioning o9n how Ukraine factored into the talks between the two political heavyweights. 'We're having real comms problems today, I'm sorry about that. If anybody can hear me, let's throw it back to New York', Tapper said as the show returned to Cooper. Earlier on in their coverage Tapper also appeared to have been caught out again saying: 'yes, she knows I went to Big Ray's', a clothing store in Anchorage. A miffed Jake Tapper goes over a hot mic. The way Anderson says "show's back" is just 😘 — Dylan McLemore (@voiceofD) August 16, 2025 The sit down between Trump and Putin came to an end after three-hours on Friday, with no immediate ceasefire or peace deal in place to end the war in Ukraine. 'We didn't get there,' President Trump acknowledged, 'but we have a very good chance of getting there.' In an extremely uncharacteristic move, Trump allowed Putin to speak first - at what had been billed as a bilateral press conference - and then didn't answer a single question before shaking hands with Putin again and sauntering offstage. Their whole appearance before the press lasted just 12 minutes following more than three hours of private conversation. 'I'm going to start making a few phone calls and tell them what happened. But we had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to, and there are just a very few that are left,' Trump said. He added, 'Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant.' During a sit-down with Sean Hannity taped in the room the summit occurred, the Fox News host asked if the president would reveal to him what that one issue is. 'No, I'd rather not,' Trump said. 'I guess somebody is going to go public with it, they'll figure it out, but no, I don't want to do that. I want to see if we can get it done.' Trump did tell Hannity that Putin appeared open to having a trilateral summit that included Zelensky. In his opening statement, Putin flattered Trump by saying his assessment about the Ukraine war was true and that it never would have happened under Trump's watch. Putin also placed blame on former President Joe Biden for the U.S.-Russia relationship unraveling, not his February 2022 invasion of America's ally Ukraine. The Russian leader didn't back down on his claims that the Ukrainian invasion was justified. 'As I've said the situation in Ukraine has to do with frontal threats of our security,' Putin said. The Russian President has long set his sights on pushing Russia's borders to more closely resemble those of the USSR. Trump had gone into the summit saying here was a 25% chance that the summit would fail. He had also floated the idea of bringing Zelenskyy to Alaska for a subsequent, three-way meeting if things went well. It remains unclear what the next step is.
BBC News
30 minutes ago
- BBC News
Global News Podcast Trump-Putin summit on Ukraine: A Global News Podcast special
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have finished their meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, held to discuss a potential end to the war in Ukraine. It lasted less than three hours. And while the leaders said it was productive, they failed to reach a deal. In this special edition of the Global News Podcast, we bring you reaction and analysis from Anchorage and gauge the feeling in Ukraine and Russia. We also look at the true cost of the war in lives and money, and find out what's next for Washington, Moscow and Kyiv on the road to peace. The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: globalpodcast@
