CameronBornAndBred wrote: ↑August 21st, 2020, 3:51 pm
Most normal people don't see what was so attractive about Jim Jones and David Koresh, but cult leaders have that skill.
dudog wrote: ↑August 21st, 2020, 4:20 pm
I get what you're saying, but only 918 drank Jones' kool-aid, and less than a tenth of that drank Koresh's. Over 40 million people (maybe over 50 or 60M) are going to be voting for Trump.
The word “cult” is appropriate. I have no expertise in explaining cult mindsets, but it strikes me as ironic that Trump supporters claim that Trump opponents are afflicted with “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” By which they mean, Trump just drives his opponents crazy. The irony is that it is Trump supporters themselves who suffer from actual “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Trump’s most avid, boisterous supporters are deranged, militant members of a Trump cult. The most extreme of the extreme are the nutty conspiracy theorists who advance the QAnon filth. That QAnon nutters now constitute a noticeable, growing segment of Trump supporters is finally discombobulating the sane Trump Republicans, a few of whom are nervously hoping Trump will distance himself from QCrazy. He won’t. I’m not certain he’ll dog-whistle to the QNutters during the convention itself, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
The Republican Party has been transformed over the last half-century, bit-by-bit laying the groundwork for Trumpism, starting with a revived intellectual conservatism in the 1950s, lying low during the Civil Rights Movement, supporting the Vietnam War, then sputtering until but flowering with Reagan, growing angrier with the Gingrich Revolution, exploding during the Obama presidency. I won’t claim that TrumpCult fully explains why ~60m will vote for Trump a second time. Various factors, some perhaps irrational and cultish, others rational if narrow-minded, cut through and link all 3 of Trump’s bases. These factors — others of you will be able to identify some I’ve missed — have arisen over the last 40 years or so.
1. Reactionary populism — a desire to return to a time of presumed greatness, when the nation was led by white men. So, nostalgia for the 1950s.
2. White nationalism — a belief that the U.S. was founded as a white Christian nation. Liberal revisionist historians have basically written white people out of our history. So, we must recapture our national-racial greatness by acknowledging that immigration of dark-skinned peoples is dangerous to white culture and racial purity. And, truth be told, slavery was actually good for black people, because it civilized them. Unfortunately, long term it was bad for white civilization, which is now stuck with a significant minority population which will never adapt to caucasian norms.
3. Anti-abortion — the view that abortion is murder. So, we should reject the near-consensus of 20 years ago that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” We must have judges who will overturn
Roe v. Wade.
4. Opposition to political correctness and identity politics. So, affirmative action deprives white men of good jobs, Democrats kow-tow to every ethnic/minority group, etc. [NB: Trump supporters do not recognize #s 1 and 2 above as their own fervent identity politics.]
5. Detestation of homosexuality — the belief that homosexuality and bisexuality are lifestyle choices rather than sexual orientations. So, gay marriage is disgusting, unnatural, an abomination unto the Lord. Christian bakers should not be forced to bake cakes for gay weddings.
6. De-regulation — the view that our free enterprise system and religious freedom are weighed down by bureaucratic regulations. So, wealthy Americans deserve massive tax reduction to make up for all the millions they’ve lost through Big Government regulations, working class Americans can’t get ahead because of small business regulations, and Christian are deprived of religious freedom because Democrats have instituted anti-Christian laws and intend to destroy Christianity.
The vast majority of Trump supporters have nurtured intense grudges in the last couple of decades. Many of our neighbors, good people who are loving, kind, competent, common-sensible, are also deeply angry. Neither Democrats nor Republican leaders in 2016 recognized this long-developing phenomenon. So, previously mainstream Republicans did not take Trump’s candidacy seriously, and Democrats did not see how perfectly Hillary Clinton symbolized the grudge-hatred welling up in tens of millions of Americans.
I’ve no idea how many years it will take to get over the vicious forces Trump has let loose. It is said that the election of 2020 echoes the election of 1864, when in the midst of our Civil War the very existence of our constitutional democratic republic was literally at stake. Ponder that ominous analogy: For many white Southerners, the Civil War has never ended. Will Trumpists prosecute — by Internet word and armed deed — this culture war for decades? Will they win? And if they lose elections, will White Nationalism became this century’s equivalent of the neo-Confederate “Lost Cause”?