Is it time to call Trump et al. a cult?

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Besides the celebrity aspects imported from TV - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity ... p_syndrome - which actors etc. also inadvertently end up with - there is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality "when an individual uses [social media], propaganda, or other methods to create an idealized, heroic, and at times worshipful image" - then there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult#Political_cults which seems most appropriate.

https://www.conservativereview.com/comm ... reat-again

http://fusion.net/story/308145/how-to-c ... programmer - same technique that works on Scientology etc. would work.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 ... -fans-cult

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/lates ... yranny.ece - also describes the effect.

Still researching more.

If somebody thinks that Trump can do no wrong, then, yes, I would say that the person is under the auspices of a Trump cult.

Opposing illegal immigration, "free trade", and entangled alliances are cult like beliefs now? Cult of personalities are inherent in republican democracy, Obama has one for sure and you can say the same about Trump but when you are voting for an executive to "represent" you then how can it be avoided?

You are just being whipped up into a moral panic by the media by the complicit corporate owned media, calm down.

I wasn't talking about any one person.

I was talking about somebody who LITERALLY does not think Trump can do no wrong--like he's God or something.

I don't think you're a Trump cultist. I just think you like the guy a lot.

For what it is worth kraftiekortie, I am not always directly responding to you so you don't have defend yourself every time I say something if that is not what you believe in.

We vote for candidates not for policies and as long as we do that then their will be people elected based on their personal appeal. In order to win against these forces you have beat them at the same game. What other form of government can we have tho?

Did someone say cult?

The band Living Colour in 1989 described the Trump phenomenon fairly accuratly.

It's not a cult. However I strongly feel many of his supporters are ignorant to his garbage. Many constantly say "But Hillary did this" as a response anytime people say anything bad about him. The blame shifting is very typical for Trump and his supporters, and its very sickening. Plus the media seems to be always "wrong" when it comes to Trump according to his supporters (especially ones on this site). I will admit media does take some things out of context, but they arent wrong on everything when it comes to Trump.

Trump is an ego maniac so he needs all this attention from the media. He has claimed many times to "hate the media", but if it werent for the media covering him... he would've been out of the race a long time ago. He has no political experience and is clearly a con man. A majority of his supporters hate Hillary Clinton so they latch onto Trump by default, no matter what he says or who he offends. He's made fun of a disabled reporter, parents of a dead veteran, women, Mexcians, Muslims, etc. There is no way to justify ANY of that crap, its not magically out of context because you said so. Trump changing his mind and "apologizing" for some of it, also doesn't magically fixes things. Trump needs to learn to speak better or have better speech writers, period.

I could go on and on, but people can easily search the internet for actual facts of what he's done wrong and said wrong.

The article makes good points. Trumpism does not leave any room for dissent. It shuns anything that isn't politically correct. However, I don't think Trumpism is a cult.

I don't actually think most of Trump's supporters actually care about Trump at all. The reason they're OK with Trump being such a horrible person isn't because they worship him and think he can do no wrong. They haven't been swayed to support him by the force of personality. It's not that they refuse to see the problems with him. Rather, Trump is deliberately marketing himself to politically disenfranchised people and saying what is politically correct rather than morally or factually correct. Trump didn't create the movement, the movement created Trump.

Perhaps you could argue that it's a cult with a pragmatic figurehead, rather than a cult of personality.

Walrus is closer to the truth altho his usage of the term politically correct seems a bit off, Trump is picking up where Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan left off in the 90s but neither of them were nearly as talented obviously. The issue with the establishment and money behind the Republican and Democratic parties is that they are their core elitists and advocate for their own self interests with relatively minor differences in between and not that of the vast majority of the American people so their is this massive disconnect between the leaders of these parties and their actual base.
We've been cycling thru booms and busts for long time and now their is no more boom to lend the establishment credibility in the short term, people is now waking up to the fact that our prosperity for the last 40 or so years is all smoke and mirrors which understandably makes them pretty angry. Part of the reason people like Trump is because he treats the political process in this country with the respect it honestly deserves, people want to hold the feet of these politicians and the elitist establishment to the fire for the pain they've made them feel. The people now hold these elitists in just as much contempt as they do them.

As talented? I'm not sure how much worse Pat and Ross were, but they would have needed to be pretty bad to be worse than this 'talent'. His only skill is at offending everyone, so if that's a talent most aspies must also be very talented in their worse days, except they usually inadvertently offend. But, treats it with respect? What exactly does that word mean now? There might be a massive disconnect but the only people he mostly connects to are the KKK, so if that is the way to bridge the disconnect... also, Jacoby, 'their' is possessive, you often use it when 'there' should be used...

Criticizing some minor grammar mistake? Oy vey! 'and you're the one throwing around accusations of Nazism?

Trump is obviously very talented as he is where he is despite the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent to personally destroy him over the last year+. They did the same thing Ross Perot, they did the same thing Pat Buchanan, they did the same thing to Ron Paul, what they're doing to Trump now is just an amplified version but has been largely ineffective in comparison. These people all threatened the free lunch the elitists in this country have helped themselves to, much the same as in Brexit there are a select few very rich and powerful people that control our governments for their own self interests at the expense of the working class. Trump has been able to use the media's own hysterics against them and the more desperate these attacks on Trump become the bigger the credibility gap becomes with the media and establishment politicians. This is all about their bottom line, not any genuine fear of some imagined despot or the specter of racism or whatever they try use to whip this moral panic that Hillary needs to be elected.

You are a Brit and worship a monarch and the state so understandably how my use of respect confused you as the implication about the political process was that it deserves no respect and should be burned to the ground. What do you know of America besides what you've watched in movies and have been taught to believe? He primarily connects to the KKK? Who told you this and how influential do you really think the KKK is in 2016? It's not 1916, it's 2016 and the KKK amounts to a couple hundred maybe thousand weirdo southerners that like to play dress up in the woods because their great granpappy who have no organization and probably just as many federal informants as real members. It exist mostly as boogeyman at this point, you're ignorant and are being manipulated into repeating this BS because of the media fearmongering.

Is Brexit the end of the world like your leaders tried to make it out to be or perhaps were you lied to? We're in the Mariana Trench of credibility gaps so simply put you should not believe anything you hear in the media at first take as it is always thru the lens of corporatist bias. What we're seeing is attempted character assassination, a high-tech lynching, problem is that in 2016 the supposed 'intellectual bodyguards' of the establishment not long can control the flow of information and create their own reality as now the people can communicate other views and most importantly the truth altho the powers that be are not so easily discouraged and are apt to wrestle control of the internet with the help of all the new billionaires in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley who are not portrayed as supermen much the same as Wall Street fancied themselves 'masters of the universe' but just as bad as the money manipulators these sick freaks built their empires on theft and foreign slave labor.

You really can't assume anything... just because I live in the UK doesn't mean I'm a monarchist... ironically, I'd subscribe to republicanism, but obviously not the party there (your candidate could easily see himself as king, I'm sure). And, grammar Nazis are fluffier, really... or at the very least they don't murder those who can't spell, so on that front there's not really a comparison. With regards to the media, in the UK they're against the left's candidate, so what is Murdoch doing? But really, if he's elected it's not an imagined despot. US may simply feel what it's like to have someone like Erdogan in Turkey currently (he hates the media as much). And... I thought he wanted politics burned to the ground, being anti-establishment... I'm merely a spectator.

And... whether or not the KKK has any merits in the present is debatable, but it's undeniable that they're being roused with a former 'grand wizard' (-_-) running in the senate. Maybe we'll see Dumbledore next. Also see the sheer amount of endorsements: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Donald_Tru ... uke_is..22 - he may have not wanted to associate with them in the past, but he really doesn't seem to mind especially when statistics show that is his constituency: http://www.getlittlebird.com/blog/data- ... t-accounts

Also, if *you* think you're getting 'truth'... study epistemology, so much more to deriving truth than following people on social media. Though, I'm not sure why you mention Silicon Valley when your 'MSM', I thought, were distinct organizations...

I should be sleeping

I can't assume anything but you can? That doesn't seem too fair. Lets see how David Duke does in that primary in Louisiana, I think that will be pretty illuminating as the guy has been irrelevant for like 20 years until the media decided to dig his corpse up once again. Duke is probably promoted more by the establishment media more than anyone, they think they can use him as a battering ram against Trump. Guilting people by some implied association because of that other person's support is not a legitimate argument, Trump is not responsible for them in the slightest nor is he obligated to have to apologize for it. Calling that "statistics" is a joke. I mentioned Silicon Valley as it is another corrupting influence just as Wall Street.

One cannot compare the US to Turkey, Erdogan is an obstacle but the reality is that he was democratically elected and was able to hold on to power by mobilizing his supporters ironically enough thru social media. His predecessors while not Islamists did the same things. The 1980 coup which was supported by the CIA was very brutal, they have never been a liberal democracy but rather more quasifascist and militaristic. Trump will be bound to the same restrictions that bound Obama and Bush, I imagine Trump being closer to Jesse Ventura as governor of Minnesota than what your wildest fear are. The Body didn't care for the media much either. What scares them is the lack of control the special interests have over Trump, they do not like independent thinkers one bit. These people are really dangerous, they would kill to hold on to control.

As for Corbyn, I don't think he's a corporatist but rather more of an old school socialist which the elites aren't particularly found of either. Bernie Sanders was not given a fair deal here either and I would say Corbyn is significantly to the left of Sanders still. Does your media really like the Blairites or whatever the other faction is in the Labor Party? From what I gathered, Corbyn was a less than enthusiastic Remain supporter so that is another mark against him.

Guilt by association is natural in human nature, otherwise what is the point of endorsements? It's not any establishment that made Duke run. And it's relevant stats, even if it's Twitter, since that is primarily the medium used.

And you really think he has no special interests or connections, made over seven decades? With regards to nepotism? (One only needs to look at his companies' structures. He'd appoint his offspring even if it was a cucumber.) Jesse Ventura it seems, crucially, opposes the death penalty... whereas this nominee wouldn't hesitate to kill even children it seems as long as they're in the wrong geopolitical family.

The media, especially those owned by Murdoch, deserves all the criticism it gets because its politics sways and swoons along the winds of opportunity... Corbyn was said to be lukewarm in the referendum and yet his party's members voted to remain by a larger margin than the opposite party's voters... and despite that, the same newspapers who opposed him on those grounds somehow backed May who also happens to wanted to remain, but as long as it's the right party Murdoch goes into bed with anyone...