Cults share several common characteristics. The most obvious is that a cult possesses a charismatic leader. Let's not get confused about what "charismatic" means. It doesn't mean "likeable", and certainly doesn't mean in possession of any of the traditional leadership abilities. In this context it means that the leader has great confidence, despite any evidence to the contrary, that he is always right, and has all the answers. He is somehow able to convince his followers that this true. This is manifestly true of Trump. How many times has he uttered some version of "I alone can fix it"? When pressed for a rationale for his actions, or for any basis for his plans and policies, he often answers with some variation of "because I know best". And his followers accept that answer.
One of the clearest indicators that Trumpism is a cult is how quickly his followers pivot to a new position when Trump changes his mind about something. During the 2024 campaign the most common rationale Trump voters gave for supporting him was that they thought he would be better for the economy. They pointed to low inflation during Trump's first term compared to the high inflation of the first half of Biden's term, conveniently forgetting the economic chaos during Trump's last year in his first term. Democrats, including myself, pointed out how the 2021-2022 inflation was largely due to factors outside of a president's control (with some of the causes originating during Trump's tenure). Attempts to explain this to Trump voters got no traction -- they usually just repeated their position that Biden caused inflation. But when Trump was elected and his promise of not only ending inflation (which had by this time receded to normal levels) but rolling back prices had now come due, he said that it "was hard" and that there was little a president could do to control prices. And his people barely blinked before reciting the new mantra.
Trump Cultists' acceptance of Trump's view of "the stock market". During Trump's first term the various methods of tracking stock market activity showed a steady increase in value, resulting a "record high" around every month. Trump and his followers ignored the fact that the trend simply followed the trend that had begun in the Obama administration, but claimed that this was evidence of how great the "Trump economy" was. When the trend continued into Biden's term, Trumpists generally ignored the stock market, until, following Trump's re-election, he claimed that the newest record high was due to anticipation of his soon-to-be second term. Not content to spew a little bit of nonsense, when the stock market fluctuated and lost value in the wake of his nonsensical and inconsistent tariff "policy", suddenly it was "Biden's stock market", or the stock market wasn't a reliable gauge of the strength of the economy. Now, since Trump stopped talking about tariffs and has paused just about all of them, the stock market has steadied and we're seeing record highs again. And once again, Trump is claiming the stock market as his, as are his sycophants. And none of them see the contradiction in any of these statements.
One of the few Trump positions that I agreed with was his pledge to end "forever wars". He was very much against foreign involvement when he was campaigning. During his second campaign he doubled down on this, even though "not starting any new wars" didn't prevent him using the military to bomb Syria, assassinate an Iranian general, and keep us mired in Afghanistan. With his eye on a second term he made no secret that he wanted us to end our support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, claiming that, the consummate deal maker that he was, he could end the war in 24 hours -- even before he took office. We all know that that did not happen, yet his cult seems to have no problem with that. Just as the followers of the "peace president" suddenly became concerned about an Iranian nuclear weapons program and were all for a war with Iran when just a few weeks before were against any foreign military involvement.
It's no secret that Trump desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize. It galls him that President Obama received one (although I have no idea why they gave it to him) and his constantly hinting that he should be so honored. He is always on the lookout for conflicts where he can insert himself and claim to have solved. But he failed to get a result in the Russia-Ukraine war. He failed to get a result in Israel's destruction in Gaza. He exaggerated his role in India's and Pakistan's latest saber rattling. Who knows if he had anything of substance to contribute to the paper cease fire between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- which apparently has already ceased to cease. Trump's cultists take Trump's claims at face value, even when it's obvious that it's not factual. Let's not forget that the peace loving, noninterventionist MAGA clan had no trouble morphing into cheerleaders for dropping bombs on another country in someone else's war, and accepting Trump's claim to be a peacemaker as the dust from the airstrike that he ordered had yet to settle.
One of Trump's most insidious goals was to undermine any trust in mainstream media. I won't try to claim that legacy media always gets it right or are never biased. But Trump has succeeded in convincing his cult that mainstream media is totally biased against him and prints or broadcast virtually all negatives about him. He has conveniently taken the organizations that have the experience and resources to shine a light on his words and actions out of the game. Replacing them for Trumpists are a spider web of podcasters and bloggers who are Trump cultists themselves. Any media coverage that isn't backing up whatever Trump is doing is suspect in their eyes -- and usually just assumed to be lies.
Finally there's the politicians and the billionaire class. Many of them know that Trump lies, and that his "policies" are at best the ramblings of a lunatic. The politicians also know that due to his cultish influence over his followers, he can easily end the political career of anyone who stands against him. Wealthy business owners know that cozying up to him will make them more money. Both categories know that opposing Trump has a cost that they're not willing to pay and they enable his actions.
What's ironic is that the Trumpists think that we're the cultists. They call us deluded. They call us deranged. They say opposition to Trump means we hate America.
They're willing to cheer on the flowering of authoritarianism.
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