The Republican Cult

by Eduardo del Buey

The Republican Cult

Last night, at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, Donald Trump held a rally reminiscent of Nazi rallies of the 1930’s, complete with racist vitriol and calls for the deaths of those who oppose him and his vision for America.

Speaker after speaker came to the podium with messages of hate, misogyny, the use of the military to persecute and arrest Trump’s political enemies, and provided a vision of a fascist dictatorship under Trump that would have made Hitler and Goebbels proud.

One speaker actually called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage in middle of the ocean. This at a major presidential rally for what was once a serious and moderate party.

The Republican Party has become an extremist right-wing cult, and now stands full square behind its leader Donald Trump and his dystopian vision of America.

However, the shift to the extreme from a traditional middle of the road conservative party to fascist cult did not begin with Trump’s announcement of his candidacy for the presidency in 2015.

It has its origins in 1973, when the Supreme Court upheld Roe vs. Wade.

This created a new political force in the country – one determined to use religion and mass communications to take over the Republican Party in pursuit of a radical shift in the country’s political culture.

Radio celebrities like Rush Limbaugh joined forces with religious leaders like Jerry Falwell and together they began the gradual takeover of the Republican Party. They used their respective pulpits party to weaponize the fears and hatred, felt by many voters who found Democrat cultural values alien to their beliefs. Their arrival gave these people a voice that has grown over the past few years.

Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich codified these policies with their “Contract with America” in 1994 that became the founding document of the new right. A core principle was that that political compromise was weakness, and that strength demanded a war on the left with its “Hollywood” cultural values and “communist” sympathies.

By 2010, the so-called Tea Party Republicans appeared in Congress. Their political aim was to garner followers from the millions of voters who felt disenfranchised by the cultural wars that began in the 1970’s and that were amplified by right-wing radio.

They manifested their opposition to the values of the sixties and seventies espoused by Democrats and took hard positions in favor of what they considered traditional values — in reality, a return to the country’s misogynist and racist past.

The result has been the emergence of two fundamentally competing political visions that hate each other. they have proven unwilling to work together for a common good. Instead, politics has become a zero-sum game in which anything goes to justify the goal of complete political victory over the enemy.

A cult aims at identifying and demonizing an enemy, marginalizing or eliminating opposing thought, and creating a war that motivates followers and generates the energy necessary to win at any cost.

Trump has achieved all three during his time in politics — at the cost of a once-great party.

The truth is bent and oftentimes thrown out the window, as do decency and honesty – replaced with anything that serves their ultimate goals.

Trump emerged in 2015 as an outrageous candidate from outside of the political mainstream who codified and legitimized the fears of millions of Americans by leveraging his celebrity and personality through a judicious use of entertainment and braggadocio.

He says what hitherto has been politically unacceptable and has made it mainstream.

He has legitimized the fears of many and given them voice. Regardless of whether the voice is honest or not, it is what it is and it has worked for almost ten years.

In an interview with The Atlantic, John Kelly, the retired marine general who was Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, said the former president fits “into the general definition of fascist” and wanted the “kind of generals Hitler had” in a series of interviews published Tuesday.

Kelly’s comments, two weeks from Election Day, were the latest in a line of warnings from former Trump White House aides about how he views the presidency and would exercise power if returned to office.

In addition to the fascist comments, Kelly — who was Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019 — told The New York Times that the former president “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”

He also confirmed to The Atlantic that Trump had said he wished his military personnel showed him the same deference Adolf Hitler’s Nazi generals showed the German dictator during World War II.

Trump has copied much out of Hitler’s playbook, a copy of whose book of speeches he kept by his bedside according to what his first wife Ivana told Vanity Fair in 1990.

Trump has melded his vast experience with media (as host of a wildly popular reality show) with his ability to manipulate people and cast himself as a messiah that would lead followers to a greater America – one in which their presumed enemies would be defeated and their fears become mainstream truths.

The ”mega-preachers” who dominate religious television in the U.S. fell into line when he entered the fray and gave him the religious credentials that catapulted him into the political arena with an aura of divine support.

These mega-preachers are also “maga”-preachers, contributing tens of millions of dollars to Republican Party coffers and bringing in the vote of mostly under-educated followers who felt victimized by traditional politics and political leaders.

Trump has often said that he loves the uneducated.

I believe that it’s because Trump knows that they are easily manipulated, and he has the smarts and media savvy with which to do it.

As a first-class con man, Trump is an expert in manipulating people, identifying the buttons he needs to push to control and motivate his marks. He uses the old Roman concept of bread and circuses to entertain his followers with conspiracy theories, theatrics, and the politics of insults that make them feel superior and provide them with a feeling of empowerment.

He has learned from Nazi propaganda techniques of the 1930’s and used 21^st century technology and social media to enhance his ability to promote himself effectively.

Trump plays to the fears of the populace.

Sound bites and insults replace sound debate, and social media amplifies disinformation to a degree where it is impossible to separate truth from lies.

Trump’s lies are believed by his followers because they resonate with the emotional needs of millions of voters who feel disenfranchised by the system.

He wages the cultural wars that his followers believe lie at the root of their misfortune and weaponizes their fear to fight real and imagined adversaries.

And, like true cultists, his followers are prepared to pardon all his faults and sins.

He is the anti-hero hero.

The majority of the powers that be in the Republican Party and the elites who back him have submitted to Trump’s will in order to win the support of Trump’s followers for their own subsequent benefits.

There is no room in the Republican Party for any opposition to Trump’s power or vision, and his masses of followers believe in his divine mission.

Those who could not abide the creation of the Republican cult have left the party and now stand four-square with Kamala Harris.

He succeeds despite all the proof in his actions and speeches of his irrationality, ignorance, and emotional instability.

None of his former cabinet secretaries nor his senior White House staff from his first term support him in this campaign. They all decry his myriad faults, with many concluding that he is a fascist, a fact confirmed by public statements that he and his minions make daily.

Where has the once mainstream Republican Party gone? The party of Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, John McCain, and others who based their politics on the constitution and respect for rule of law?

Into the dustbin of history.

Replaced by a cult motivated by fear and hatred and determined to end the once noble American experiment with democracy.

The last great Republican President Ronald Reagan always envisioned the United States as “a shining city on a hill”.

Trump’s vision of the United States in 2024, as he described in his speech on Saturday, is that of a garbage can.

Trump has lowered the bar of leadership to the lowest levels possible.

And yet, he may well win on November 5^th and lead the United States down a dark path from which it may never recover.