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When Will the Trump Cult Give Up?
Basically, it’s a cult. The question is when the spell will break.
Donald Trump is an incompetent, lying self-aggrandizer who has his own political cult. As Adam Serwer put it:
“Trump is a thrice-married libertine who has never asked God for forgiveness…eagerly accepted the aid of a foreign adversary during the election…refused to even criticize Putin publicly…[has] ties to organized crime [that] are to numerous to name…‘gets bored and likes to watch TV’…spent nearly a fifth of his presidency golfing…unable to describe the basics of any of his own policies…unable to broach topics of public concern without boasting…publicly attempted to use the power of the state to attack his enemies…called Nazis ‘very fine people’…[and is] a vapid celebrity.
There is virtually no personality defect that conservatives accused Obama of possessing that Trump himself does not actually possess.”
So why do people lionize him?
People Believe He’s a Kind of Messiah
Jen Hatmaker, a writer who was formerly popular with white evangelicals, lost much of her fan base when a month before the 2016 election she publicly supported Black Lives Matter and same-sex marriage. She realized there is something she calls “the Christian Machine,” which is “systems and alliances and coded language and brand protection.” In Trump’s election, the “Christian machine malfunctioned,” and Christians elected someone who didn’t fit their usually endorsed image.
Trump supporters apparently, as Michael Gerson recently put it, “deny any role for character in politics and define any useful villainy as virtue.” In their “transgressive malevolence” and “moral ruin,” they give “exposure and greater legitimacy to once-fringe ideas, including Confederate nostalgia, white nationalism, antisemitism, replacement theory and QAnon accusations of satanic child sacrifice by liberal politicians.”
Cognitive psychology researcher Bobby Azarian wrote for Psychology Today in 2019: “Psychologists have explained quite a lot about Donald Trump’s political invincibility and the unconditional allegiance of his followers. One well-supported explanation is that the president keeps his base loyal by…
