Reza Aslan: "The dangerous cult of Donald Trump":

[tblue37]

snip

The authority that a cult leader exercises comes from his self-ascribed role as the one true information source for his followers. Competing ideas and facts are not just wrong; they are demonic.

Trump, of course, characterizes most media outlets as “fake news.” He calls journalists “liars” and “sick people” who are “trying to take away our history and our heritage.” In a May HuffPo/YouGov poll, a whopping 60% of Trump supporters agreed with him that the media are “the enemy” of people like them.

The cult leader is generally believed to possess special knowledge. No matter how demonstrably false his pronouncements, they become, by definition, truth for his followers. Trump has been spectacularly successful at getting his supporters to believe his blandishments rather than their own eyes. Consider the fact that in another HuffPost/YouGov poll, conducted after allegations of sexual harassment and assault surfaced against producer Harvey Weinstein, only 8% of Trump supporters believed the claims of sexual assault made against him despite the evidence of the “Access Hollywood” tape.

One of the ways a cult leader maintains his unquestioned authority is by creating a siege mentality among his followers and presenting himself as the antidote. In Trump’s view, the country is a wasteland of empty factories “scattered like tombstones” and crime-ridden cities that are more dangerous than war zones. “Our military is a disaster. Our healthcare is a horror show,” he declared during the campaign. And as Trump has often said, “I alone can fix it.”

snip

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

[BainsBane]

1. typo: Reza

[tblue37]

2. Not a typo--just a stupid "correction" by a hyperactive autocorrect,

which I have supposedly turned off on my tablet, but apparently the turn-off button doesn't actually turn the darned thing off.

The autocorrect just tried to turn "turn-off button" above (AND in THIS sentence!) into "kick-off button."

I HATE autocorrect!

AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! "Darned thing" got Auto corrected to "earned thing"!

[BainsBane]

12. Me too

It writes the most bizarre things.

[oasis]

3. Deplorable dimwits.

x 60 million.

[nocalflea]

4. "I alone can.."

Who the hell talks like that and who in their right mind believes that bullshit ?

I can't even begin to understand that mindset that doesn't reply "Yeah, right, pal, and I'm Jesus effin' Christ."

I'm tired of thinking or caring about these people.

[The Wizard]

6. Who believes it?

The weak minded and easily frightened who lack critical thinking skills are Trump's marks.
Trump successfully used Twitter to manipulate the broadcast media and convince the clueless he was their hero. There are those who lost good jobs, home, cars and families to the Reagan driven decimation of the middle class.
For years the Republican propaganda operation of Pox News and hate radio has been telling their audience that minorities and immigrants are stealing their jobs, thus making the audience a class of easily duped professional victims more than willing to vote against their own best interests. Trump seized that mental vacuity and capitalized on America's deliberate dumbing down.
How many smart, open minded people voted for the contagion known as Trump?

[Roy Rolling]

5. Take Notice DUers

1. It is useless to debate issues with Trump followers, they are addicted to being part of the peer group. Their answer to everything is, "yeah, but we are a fine group of people who believe the opposite."

2. The American Civil War started when each side demonized the other side as evil people, and it is God's will for them to kill them. They are evil.

[floWteiuQ]

7. This dufus...

and the fear and hate he spread was responsible for the dolts who hated Hilliary enough to vote for an orange a-wipe like Trump; or not vote at all.

[defacto7]

8. Reza is a good writer and an open minded philosopher.

I've read his books and watched his videos where he participated in many different religons. I respect his insight and research very much.

[Liberalagogo]

9. It's about time

People started to openly refer (in the press) to the RUMP cult as a CULT.

[tblue37]

11. Cult45. nt

[Enoki33]

10. Fox and dotard seems to have perfected the art of facts by proclamation.

[JHB]

13. My only quibble is calling it the cult of Trump...

The cult existed long before Trump, cultivated for decades by conservatives. Reagan blew their dog whistles. Pat Buchanan courted them in 1992, culminating in a speech tha Molly Ivins famously observed “probably sounded better in the original German.”

The cult got used to believing self-serving myths, demonizing scapegoats of those myths, and nursing extravagant grudges against the designated villains in those myths in the wake of Vietnam (“the press and liberals stabbed us in the back,” Dan Rather, John Kerry, hating “hippies”, with ever-expanding definition of same). Conservative “think tanks” provided intellectual cover, Newt Gingrich and his allies within and outside of government pointed the cultist’s bile at “the enemy of normal Americans” and normalized an endless witch-hunt in order to bring down their Avatars of Ultimate Evil Du Jour, Bill and Hillary Clinton. But for all the effort, Newt couldn’t deliver the head of Bill the Clinton to the Salome Caucus.

In 2008 was he cult’s supposed leaders failed to beat the new AoUEDJ, the Chicago black guy with the weird Muslim name. In 2012 they cast about for a new leader, “anybody but Mitt”, but couldn’t settle on one and lost again.

In 2016, up against unexpectedly and mind-bogglingly weak establishment opposition, Trump merely positioned himself as the messiah the cult had been craving for a generation.

It’s not the cult of Trump. It’s the Cult of Jingoism, th cult of “America, Fuck Yeah!”, the cult of “more patriotic than thou, you stinking traitor”. The cult that will swallow horseshit like it’s chocolate as long as it despises the right people.

The Cult of Despising, those who aren’t happy unless they’re despising the people they like to despise.