The dangerous cult of Donald Trump

[Zorro]

I am not the first person to point this out: There’s been a cultish quality to President Trump’s most ardent supporters. He seemed to acknowledge the phenomenon when he boasted that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose voters.

Throughout the campaign, and in personal appearances since then, Trump has harnessed the kind of emotional intensity from his base that is more typical of a religious revival meeting than a political rally, complete with ritualized communal chants (“Lock her up!”).

As we approach the one-year anniversary of Trump’s election victory, the zeal of some of his followers seems increasingly akin to a full-fledged cult.

I use the word “cult” in its pejorative sense, meaning a deeply insular social group bound together by extreme devotion to a charismatic leader. Such groups tend to exhibit a few common characteristics.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-aslan-trump-cultists-20171106-story.html

[MatthewG.]

1. Cult of Personality

Good article. I’ve described the Trump phenomenon as a cult of personality for a while now. Trump even admitted this when he boasted he could shoot people in public and not lose support.

Notable that many of his followers, in my experience, know the “cult” leader is a buffoon but derive pleasure from the annoyance that causes the Left.

[onetexan]

6. More like cult of stupidity

Never thought I'd see the day when being stupid was cool.

[Zorro]

7. Republicans celebrate ignorance

[murielm99]

2. Cult like worship of politicians,

whether on the right or the left, needs to be avoided.

Let's take care not to be guilty of this ourselves.

[dhol82]

4. Have we been guilty?

[Twitler]

3. American Horror Story: Cult

tackles the issue quite well. We are truly living in troubled times for our country.

[Mister Ed]

5. K & R. The linked opinion piece is a good read.

Worth your time.

[Dulcinea]

8. They're authoritarian personalities.

...There are various different related concepts to that of authoritarianism. These include conservatism, dogmatism, and ethnocentrism. Some focus on thinking style, others on prejudice. Most argue that this “attitudinal syndrome” rather than a personality trait, occurs for both genetic/heredity and environmental factors. At the core of the theories is the idea of a generalized susceptibility to experience anxiety and threat when confronted by ambiguity or uncertainty.

Thus for various reasons – a person’s ability and personality, their early life and current circumstances – some people feel inferior and insecure and fearful of lack of clarity. Therefore to avoid uncertainty authoritarians dislike anything or anybody that advocates complexity, innovation, novelty, risk or change. They tend to dislike conflict and decision making and subjugate their personal feelings and needs to external authorise. They obey the rules norms, conventions and more importantly insist others do too.

So conservatives and authoritarians get obsessed by ordering and controlling their internal world and external world. They like simplistic, rigid and inflexible duties, laws, morals, obligation and rules. This affects everything from their choice of art to how they vote.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201502/the-mind-the-authoritarian

[dalton99a]

9. Idiots worshiping a moron