Killer Cults

No matter in what way one believes humankind came into existence, its current state shows the process was anything but perfect. Unable to grasp the rarity, the obligations of being alive, if ever so briefly, a subset of humans is ruining it, through selfishness, rancor, and intentional ignorance. Enough of them, anyway, to outweigh those who’ve managed to rise above outdated, primitive, and destructive instincts. Even in the minority (we’d like to think), they’re capable of destroying what we’ve been given. And they’re trying.

Perhaps there’s a reason – evolutionary or creationist – that there lingers among so many the need to give cultish, unquestioning devotion to authoritarian figureheads like Trump. “Drink the Kool-Aid,” after all, came from people so willing to submit to Jim Jones that they self-extinguished when asked. Small, isolated cults have always been around, often ending in mass suicide. “Heaven’s Gate” was another.

As difficult as it is to explain such people, they’ve tended to leave the rest of us mystified but unaffected. The cult of Trump, on the other hand, threatens us all. And not just one at a time, like people who fly rainbow flags or wear unwhite skin, but as a country, and, ultimately, as they deny climate change, as a species.

Surrendering to primordial instinct, genuflecting to Trump, a mendacious, solipsistic, embittered man, they’ve closed their minds to what it portends. In our lopsided democracy, they have all the power they need.

What explains the persistence of this deferential defect? Unless one believes a creator made us in his image and, therefore, must be imperfect (because we are), it argues for evolution. No evolutionist suggests it has achieved perfection; once-beneficial, now-destructive behaviors remain, to our detriment. Who knows why?

But it’s a philosophical dead end. For whatever reason, millions of Americans, and more around the world, haven’t the ability, or desire, to rise above prehistoric, reflexive fear and distrust of otherness. Having persisted for eons, that primal instinct may never disappear. In a graduation speech, Illinois Governor Pritzker put it this way: “The best way to spot an idiot: look for the person who is cruel... We survived as a species by being suspicious of things we aren’t familiar with... In order to be kind, we have to shut down that animal instinct... Empathy and compassion are evolved states of being... The kindest person in the room is often the smartest.” (The ellipsis-free version is here.)

The governor has it right, though he might have chosen otherly than “idiot;” applied to themselves, Trumpists don’t like that word. But theirs is a caveman’s worldview: fearful, paranoid, brutish. So-called Christians, in their devotion to Trump they’ve chosen cruelty over compassion. They want to erase kindness and empathy altogether, dismissing them, sneering, as “woke,” attributes to abhor. Texas, Florida, Arkansas, and, increasingly, all red states, are legislating and touting governmental cruelty. If there are conservatives who are disturbed by the trend, they’re shut out and silent. If they could be a force for returning their party to positivity, they choose or dare not.

Why so pessimistic? According to a recent poll, seventy-one percent of Trump supporters trust him for the truth more than family, friends, conservative media figures, or religious leaders. Given his tens of thousands of documented lies (not counting his business scams and failures), it fits with their disregard for his indictments and with the definition of a cult: Gullibility. Unquestioning belief. Self-abnegating obedience. Rather than sequestering in the forests of Guyana, though, or a boarded-up house in San Diego, this cult is embedded in plain sight within the Republican Party, calling the shots, setting the agenda, picking the targets of their Stone-Age thinking.

Much has been written about differences in brain functions between self-described conservatives and liberals. Gut-reactors vs. evaluators, in shorthand. No doubt, the differences would be most dramatic if the comparison specified Trump’s cultists rather than generic conservatives. Although there are stories of people successfully rescued from cults, for most it seems that, once in, there’s no escaping. Cults attract people who need to retreat from reality, who’d rather be told what to believe than make the effort required to think for themselves.

Some polls suggest cracks in the heretofore impenetrable, Foxotrumpian information-repelling wall. Among all Americans, Trump’s approval is dropping; as opposed to rising among his acolytes. Republican plutocrats appear to be taking note. Assessing the near-impossibility of a majority vote for Trump in a head-to-head election – not even in the antiquated Electoral College – and finding no one else worth purchasing, they’re surreptitiously backing third-party candidates; in particular, “No Labels,” designed specifically to pull votes from President Biden, deja-vuing Trump in through the back door.

The only way to get Republicans to rejoin our democracy, though, is a thorough trouncing of Trump at the polls. Then, maybe, they’d also stop supporting idiots (sorry) like those comprising the Freedom Caucus. The cult can easily find a new prevaricator. George Santos, perhaps?