Chris Hedges offers an explanation. The phenomenon of the personality cult has ample precedent and it always adheres to particularly repulsive figures. As Hedges explains,
Cult leaders arise from decayed communities and societies in which people have been shorn of political, social and economic power. The disempowered, infantilized by a world they cannot control, gravitate to cult leaders who appear omnipotent and promise a return to a mythical golden age. The cult leaders vow to crush the forces, embodied in demonized groups and individuals, that are blamed for their misery. The more outrageous the cult leaders become, the more they flout law and social conventions, the more they gain in popularity. Cult leaders are immune to the norms of established society. This is their appeal. Cult leaders demand a God-like power. Those who follow them grant them this power in the hope that the cult leaders will save them. . . .Chauncey DeVega interviewed Steven Hassan, a leading expert on cults, who had this to say:
It was 40 years ago next month that a messianic preacher named Jim Jones convinced or forced more than 900 of his followers, including roughly 280 children, to die by ingesting a cyanide-laced drink. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge and address the impending crisis of ecocide and the massive mismanagement of the economy by kleptocrats, his bellicosity, his threats against Iran and China and the withdrawal from nuclear arms treaties, along with his demonization of all who oppose him, ensure our cultural and, if left unchecked, physical extinction. Cult leaders are driven, at their core, by the death instinct, the instinct to annihilate and destroy rather than nurture and create. . . . Cult leaders are narcissists. They demand obsequious fawning and total obedience. They prize loyalty above competence. They wield absolute control. They do not tolerate criticism. They are deeply insecure, a trait they attempt to cover up with bombastic grandiosity. They are amoral and emotionally and physically abusive. They see those around them as objects to be manipulated for their own empowerment, enjoyment and often sadistic entertainment. All those outside the cult are branded as forces of evil, prompting an epic battle whose natural expression is violence.
Donald Trump fits the stereotypical profile of a cult leader. His followers fit the model as well. Many of them, especially the ones that say, “He could do anything and we would still believe him, we would still follow him,” sound like people who have been indoctrinated into a totalistic mindset. Trump's strategies of fear programming, redefining reality and defining independent journalism as "fake news" mirrors a country on the verge of a totalitarian takeover.
Rebecca Nelson talked with an expert on cults back in 2016.
Like many moderates in the party, [Rick Alan] Ross, the executive director of the Cult Education Institute and a lifelong Republican, had watched Trump’s rise with mounting distaste. But Trump’s rhetoric at the RNC—“I alone can fix it”—clicked the pieces into place. “That kind of pronouncement is typical of many cult leaders, who say that ‘my way is the only way, I am the only one,’” Ross says. “That was a very defining moment.”Read the article for Ross's point-by-point analysis of the Trump cult of personality, including this:
When I called Ross, I cut right to the chase, asking, “Is Trump a cult leader?” I didn’t get more than a few words in for the next 20 minutes as he dove into the evidence: the nominee’s deep-rooted narcissism, his lack of transparency, many of his supporters’ blind, full-throttled adoration. . . .
“You just can't put that material [about Scientology] in front of a true believer and it has any effect,” [cult expert Tony]Ortega says. “And I think people are seeing the same thing with Trump. Trump creates this sort of field, this bubble, that the people inside of it are just incapable of seeing these things as those on the outside.”
That reality distortion field is in full force with Trump’s supporters. Despite his bankruptcies and spectacular business failings (Trump Vodka, anyone? No?), the notion that he’s a successful businessman who would bring the same acuity to running the country is one of the pillars of his campaign. And though nearly 80 percent of the things he says are outright lies, he manages to pin the blame on the “dishonest” and “biased” media. Many of his followers, already distrustful of mainstream news outlets, accept whatever rationalization he provides, no matter how outlandish.
I don't know how you get through to people who have drunk the KoolAid.
4 comments:
Oy vey. I decided to read the entire Chris Hedges article, and here's the problem I have with it: it's incredibly perceptive in its analysis. It's really cogent. And that makes me angry and a bit depressed.
I guess that's exactly what needs to happen! Now, how do we get tens of millions of largely un- or misinformed Americans to read this article and digest its truths? That won't happen, obviously, in our visually-driven culture. But seriously: How do we get the truth out? We're talking about intellectual and emotional revolution here, trying to light a fire under a "culture" that seems more focused on armpit odor, cosmetic surgery, manufactured red herrings like the "abortion debate" and spectator sports.
That's the part that depresses me, I guess. My willingness to be part of the solution, instead of part of the problem, angers and energizes me.
I was raised on commercials with manly men singing, "You can trust your car/to the man who wears the star/The big, bright Texaco star!"
Turns out most of what I saw on TV was bullshit. And that was back then--before non-real TV called "reality" (it's shocking how many people watch it).
A chilling line from Hedges's article is: "Cult leaders arise from decayed communities and societies in which people have been shorn of political, social and economic power."
There we are. How do we--can we--get it back, and grow it larger than it's ever been, in a world full of crazy people?
Yes, well the whole cult issue aside, a basic problem here is false consciousness. Even before Dear Leader came along white people who are struggling were being taught by the Republican Party to blame their problems on black people (who were getting the secret welfare that white people don't get), immigrants, and social elites who supposedly looked down on them (e.g. college professors); rather than the rapacious capitalists who are sucking their blood. That's why they could somehow see a (purportedly) wealthy man (who in any case inherited his wealth) as their champion against the "elites." Makes no sense but they were deceived to begin with. Dear Leader is a symptom, not a cause.
Incredibly well-said. Thank you. I am glad you've been able to articulate some of the conceptions I have about the society we're living in. Unfortunately, I agree with you ... yes indeed, they were deceived to begin with--and their self-deception allowed them to be conned.
The best the mainstream media seems to be able to do is to rev up the machinery for the next horse race. It completely fails to address the fact that their machinery is broken. So yes, the mass media are complicit in our continued self-deception.
You can't, really. You can only change the conditions that made them prey to such psychological predators. We'd all do well to re-read Hoffers The True Believer.
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