Drew, I’m sorry you’re going through this. No matter what, watching the descent of a family member into lunacy is hard.
I’m a long time lurker and felt compelled to sign up and reply to this post. What you describe of your father is frighteningly similar to what has happened to my mother over the past few years. It began pre-covid with what looked like increasing eccentricity. She has been lonely so we all thought it was just as a result of too much time alone. However when covid kicked off, she went into a tailspin. Global elite paedophile rings, doctors conspiring to kill off all of the old people, government surveillance and control of the masses, trails of chemicals being sprayed from commercial planes to force climate change, quoting the Magna Carta regularly.
It all went really peer shaped last year when she went to visit my grandparents whilst she was very ill with covid. Everyone knew she had it and warned her to stay away, but she has become immeasurably stubborn so went anyway. Long story short, my grandparents caught it and my grandfather died a slow, lonely and incredibly painful death over the following month. Everyone knew what happened but, like your father, she doubled down every time anyone confronted her. She went on the attack with them, interfering with their own families, their jobs, friends etc. It is now at the stage where the whole family are afraid of her and what she might do next if challenged, and they now spout some of the same thing she does to appease her. I’m fortunate enough to live a distance away so have largely been insulated from the ‘in person’ manipulation, however it has been very difficult to watch my family turn into something of a mini-cult controlled by her.
I have looked into what drives these beliefs and have been horrified to discover the sheer scale of the madness. There are millions of people who believe in and live this life.
I’m not sure why I’m posting this on this forum; maybe an exercise in cathartacism, or maybe just to report that these cases are far from isolated. I’d be interested to hear from anyone else who has experienced similar. I‘ve often wondered if anyone went down this rabbit hole and eventually regained their sanity and told their story. Like reformed members of the Westboro Baptist Church.