The Cult of Donald Trump
American Christian pastor and author John Pavlovitz is best known for his social and political writings from a liberal Christian perspective. Needless to say, he writes voluminously on Trump and his supporters, frequently describing the latter as cult members.
Along with the meme here, he notes: When you believe one man above Science, above our Intelligence agencies, above former CIA directors and retired generals and revered journalists—when you believe that one man above even your own eyes and ears—you are fully indoctrinated.
As is the case with many of the religious cults, there is a steady and, in this case, quickly growing stream of defectors. To a certain degree, it restores one’s faith in humanity to see those who voted for Trump in 2016 come forward and publicly admit their mistake.
I’ve watched a few videos on this, and, of course, each of these has his own individual story to tell. Some make general comments like, “I knew within a week or so that I had made a terrible mistake.” Others cite specific moments that put them over the edge:
his never-ending barrage of lies about provable issues like crowd sizes, allowing toxic chemicals to be dumped into our skies and waterways, incapacity to console grieving Americans, claims that our elections are rigged and corrupted with votes by non-citizens, “alternative facts,” disbelief in science, consistently profiting from his presidency, Mueller’s report on 10 counts of obstruction, the impeachment and the way the Senate glossed it over, bromance with Putin and other tyrants, pardoning a war criminal and other felons loyal to him, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and the Iranian peace agreement, many relationships with convicted felons, conspiring with Barr to destroy the rule of law, declaring war on black athletes and the BLM movement, locking children in cages, not releasing his tax returns, and Charlottesville (“Very fine people on both sides”).
