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Trump is a cult leader

By Ad astra  

Do you sometimes ask yourself how it is that President Trump is able to attract and hold such a devoted collection of admirers, some of whom insist they ‘would die for him’? Are you amazed that they come out on the streets again and again in their thousands to cheer him and rail angrily against those who decry him? Why is it so?

One plausible explanation is that Trump is the leader of a cult.

In modern English, a cult is “a social group that is defined by its unusual religious spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or by common interest in a particular personality, object or goal.” The label is usually considered pejorative.

The concept of a cult seems to fit what we are seeing among Trump’s admirers. For them, it appears that Trump can do no wrong. Not only do they embrace every word he utters, but every concept, every proposition, every ‘truth’, even when his ‘truth’ changes often and inexplicably. They are even prepared to donate to his political fund!

When he lost the recent election, yet insisted that he had won it, his followers came out on the streets in droves echoing his accusation that the election had been ‘stolen’ from him. The thieves were not identified. How they could mastermind such a complex coup involving thousands of players scattered across a vast nation of over 330 million was never explained. Yet that did not concern Trump’s followers; if Donald insisted they had stolen the election, that was enough. Did they ask how any group, no matter how brilliant, no matter how well organised, no matter how ubiquitous, no matter how influential and powerful, could exercise enough influence at any point in the electoral process to ‘steal’ an election? Evidence was absent, as is so often the case in Trump’s utterances.

 

 

Characteristically, cult followers do not question the leader, dispute the veracity of his words, or doubt the plausibility of his predictions. What he says, goes. Thus it is pointless to try to address his propositions through logical discourse using verifiable evidence.

Think about Trump and his committed followers. When did you last see them debate an issue? When did they ever propose an alternative viewpoint when their leader has already made his pronouncements?

This in not an academic discussion. It is a serious exposé of the danger of cults and the perils to which cult followers may be exposed when they unthinkingly embrace the leader’s words and beliefs.

Beware!

This article was originally published on The Political Sword

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11 comments

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  1. wam

    Trump’s septic and Australian supporters accept his words as the truth.
    From there they all drive their common facebook shared irrational fears of ‘socialists’, muslims and gun legislation. The trump speech be afraid be very afraid gives the momentum for loyalty.
    A BLM rally will marshal trump’s armed supporters with armed police in the middle. Trump could exacerbate the situation with national guards?

  2. Michael Taylor

    wam, it astounds me that Australia has so many fanatical Trump supporters. I’ve seen them on Facebook … they are feral.

    In the USA over 250,000 people have died of COVID-19, there are over 12 million cases, and an estimated 50 million people will have nothing to eat by Christmas. I can’t believe they have a president that doesn’t care. And I can’t believe how many people support him.

  3. wam

    Michael, I have family and close friends who believe he has done a fantastic job and must have been cheated to lose to that no hoper socialist crook..
    I cannot seem to explain his inept leadership or his inappropriate character even with evidence of his lies because they put me as the idiot falling for the abc lying left.
    They are still repeating the lies about whitlam for xrist’s sake that was 45 years ago and they believe the lying rodent was the best since menzies with no ^@^&@*)_( evidence and no interest in my evidence to the contrary.
    It makes me so sad that at this time of night I am often reduced to tears but they dry in the morning and I start all over again.

  4. Andrew J. Smith

    I would suggest that the ‘owned’ GOP Republican Party has become the cult and Trump is merely a sympton; Pence and/or McConnell could have been just as sub-optimal, or worse.

    Hopefully this is a temporary blip and the world can resist the imposition of malign mainstream American ‘culture’ which has promoted authoritarianism, perpetual amusement, evangelical Christianity, anti-abortion, anti-women & anti-minority conservatism, guns, military, fossil fuels, white nativism or outright bigotry and libertarian ideology (which contradicts much religious belief).

    Nancy MacLean (‘Democracy in Chains) has described the libertarian ‘ownership’ of the GOP, enabling radical right libertarian policies, as a coalition of seemingly disparate (mostly older) votes including most of the above and infected with white Christian nationalist exceptionalism.

    As observed in Oz, it’s predicated upon the ‘great replacement theory’ or eugenics with top Anglo/Irish heritage people challenged by increasing diversity; creates the fear that the ‘tipping point’, not in environmental degradation (as it is often presented) but in social demographics, will be soon reached, precluding, the conservatives from power; not if they adapt their policies to reflect changes in demographics and society.

    More locally, as a rusted on Lib Party member cousin said when challenging another cousin’s wife on her claim ‘brown people are going to outnumber white people’ he responded with, ‘what the hell is a white person?’ Question that should be asked more often…. because it suggests like Trump supporters, merely being ‘white’, Christian, nativist and/or conservative seems to merit special privileges and status in society?

  5. Consume Less

    Very very glad Pence never made it to POTUS.

  6. Terence Mills

    Trump has managed to fool some of the people that his first three years (i.e. before the COVID pandemic took hold) were the best economic and employment times ever experienced in the US.

    Like everything else issuing from the Trump White House it is nonsense based on alternative facts and outright lies and whilst analysts have pointed this out consistently, Trump followers don’t or won’t listen.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/02/07/obamas-last-three-years-of-job-growth-all-beat-trumps-best-year/?sh=4ac92e8e6ba6

  7. New England Cocky

    Hmmm ….. we saw the same effect with Watergate, the 1974 Republican spying on the Democratic National Convention.

    Similarly in Australia there was the John Howard cult where any Liarbral politician showing a miniscule of leadership potential was removed. Or, going back further, the Menzies cult kept Australia languishing in pre-WWII social attitudes until the 1972 ”It’s time” ALP Gough Whitlam revolution dragged Australia screaming in protest into the 20th century.

    Such major events require the support of Main Stream Media, in 1972 it was News Ltd (Murdoch) that supported the ALP and both Packer & Fairfax backed the Liarbrals.

  8. DrakeN

    This ‘cultism’ is the basis for our current failure to recognise the total falseness of our own religions, political tribalism, commercial advertising and for the acceptance of evident untruths in all three.
    People need something to believe in: True or false is irrelevant since most will not have the facts and information to decide for themselves.
    It is primitive behaviour which is a residual instinct from the times when a ‘pack leader’ was essential to the survival of the tribe: When the terrors of the wild environment and violent weather phenomena were explained by the existence of ‘Gods’ with human behaviours and whose chacteristics were invented by opportunist ‘elders’, shamans and ‘priests’ in order to gain control over the general population.
    In so very many ways we, as a species, are developmentally many millenia behind our technological advancements.

  9. Ross

    In 1930’s and early 1940’s Germany it was called the Fuhrer Complex.
    Politicians don’t rate high enough for it to become much of a problem here and the tall poppy syndrome is usually given to third rate people by second rate mainstream media outlets.
    Most tall poppies fall by the wayside when they are revealed as the people they truly are.

  10. DrakeN

    Like getting dumped from your seat by the voters while holding the office of Prime Minister, Ross?
    An outstanding example perhaps, but the line between success and failure politically is very feint, as with the current Federal Government which holds only a two seat advantage, gained largely as a consequence of deliberate lying, dishonesty and rorting.

  11. totaram

    “In so very many ways we, as a species, are developmentally many millennia behind our technological advancements.”

    Well said sir! And how can we catch up if at all? I fear that is not possible.

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