Has the left/democratic party become a cult?

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After watching this TED talks video about (scientology-style) cults I couldn't help it see the parallels between the cults that it describes and the LGBT community as well as the left-wing and pretty much the whole Democratic party in the United States as we know it.



Is it possible that the LGBT community as well as the left when can be officially called and regarded as a Scientology-style cult?

I believe that this isn't truly a war between the left wing and the right-wing, rather it is a war between two cults. One led by Anita Aarkeesian, who leads the left (Feminist Frequency), and another one led by Alex Jones who leads the right (Info Wars).

I think it is official. I am now calling this age of which we live in the cult wars.

Ya know, you may have something there.

Maybe the democratic party has, but the democratic party hardly represents the whole left.

I hope so cuz it's starting to look like it. However I really think that this might have been because Hillary was trying to exploit the left-wing rather than you know... Democrats actually being part of the left-wing.

I just hope the LGBTQ community gets its act together and stop being so devisivee as well as those who are sick and tired of their bigotry just like I am.

I sort of think that what you are having in the US now is classic political polarization. You'll have nut jobs with cultish tendencies on either side.

I have American facebook friends on either side of the political divide, but the only person who scares me is a Trump supporter. The negativity, the bile, the frothing rage.....I mean, that's just not healthy. Sure, it's ok to dislike Hilary Clinton, but the sheer level of vitriol and shadenfreude boggles the mind.

Btw, from where I'm sitting, the US doesn't really have a Left, and not really any Conservatives either. It seems to be more a question of shades of economic liberalism. Bernie Sanders seems to me more like a classical Social Democrat, maybe that is a politial strain that will grow?

This may look like a strange or round-about response but bear with me.

I saw this video by Karen Straughan addressing atheism, as a cultural and political entity, and her sense that the most critical and defining mistake thoughtful atheists made was bringing in people who weren't actually atheists at all but rather just people who believed but didn't like what 'God' had to say. The two are not the same thing (tune in at 17:44 for the start of that):



The point being - people of this same stripe, ie. who came to wave the banner of atheism and rationality because they didn't like what God had to say, are now not at all liking what biology, genetics, etc.. have to say which smacks too much of DNA fatalism for their taste - and so they're lashing out against that particular body of knowledge in protest the same way they lashed out at God.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 17 Sep 2017, 5:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Only one of the current USA politicians acts like a cult leader, and he has been a member of several different political parties, both left and right.

I think both the Democrats and Republicans have similar "cultish" tendencies amongst some of their brethren.

I don't believe most Democrats are "leftists," nor most Republicans "rightists."

Both "leftists" and "rightists" have a broadened definition these days.

If it wasn't for Hillary, Bernie Sanders could have gotten the nomination....and I honestly think that would have been a great thing.

The left seems much more propagandized.

Actual ideas don't seem to matter.

A Democrat can say "racist" or "sexist" and millions of simple-minded Democrats follow.

It's a nice turn of phrase, may start using it, unless you want to assert copyright/moral rights over it.

I don't see the democratic party as particularly left wing (Sanders and Warren are traditional social-democratic, but their views are a minority within the party, which is much more inclined toward neoliberal "free-market" economics, multilateral trade agreements, "responsibility to protect"/military intervention and other centre-right ideals) nor that much groupthink, let alone a cult on the political Left, but I do see certain groups shouting so much they drown everyone else out. Same thing has happened on the Right, at least in my country.

I think views both sides have of each other are subject to media filter because sound-bites, polemic and emotionally charged rhetoric is what gains clicks, viewers, and shares. Social media algorithms also promote content that generates fast reactions, hence "outrage" pieces over something more considered, and 'new media' companies hire writers to create those kind of stories (the US election saw entrepreneurs take this a step further and pass-off outright fabrication as news in order to gain advertising revenue).

If there is any cult in the political sphere, it strikes me as one of self-identity and identity politics, which is taking up ever growing space. The Right wing in my country recently started a new front in the culture wars, over as dry a subject as electrical grid infrastructure design, making personal attacks against the market regulator and other industry figures, and apparently willing to throw huge sums of public money at preserving the "traditional way" despite the entire industry pointing out its unviability.

As far as LGBT(IQ...), they seem as politically diverse as anybody else, at least going by people I've met. From rusted-on conservative nationalist to revolutionary communist and everything in between.

Have you seen how the populist right hangs on every word out of Trump's mouth? He can say the most insane thing, and they'll support it without question. Anything critical of their Dear Leader is without question fake news. Sounds rather cultish to me.

It seems like two fringe elements to me. How many regular people would follow those two leaders into a cage match? More importantly, would it matter?

I dispute that part of your thesis, but I think you have a valid argument after that. I've spent a lot of thought cycles on trying to find the real fault line in American society, and I think rural vs urban looks like the strongest candidate. It seems like left vs right, but the 2016 presidential vote colored by county made me see that divide clearly. More or less every rural county went for Trump.

The population density difference that allowed HRC to win the popular vote shocked me.

If you don't use the word cult pejoratively, and examine the structure of mass delusion or belief, then I agree that those forces could provide the spark which ignites the tinder of the divide in future prospects.