TRUMPISM – THE CULT

What is Trumpism? It is anything that is good for Donald Trump. If, at the same time, it can be seen, or presented, as being good for the USA – or for the Republican Party – that is all the better, but it is not essential.

Operation Warp Speed is a good example. Trump’s enormous pressure to get a Covid-19 vaccine produced in record time was primarily an election ploy. Trump’s aim was to have the vaccine available before the election. He felt, possibly correctly, that this would make him the winner. The fact that it was not ready in time, but has resulted in something very positive for the US and the world was a bonus, but was not Trump’s primary motivation,

Likewise, moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem without any concessions from Israel in return – and bringing about the recent peace treaties between Israel and the Emirates and between Israel and Sudan – as well as the initiation of flights between Israel and Saudi Arabia – all of which eliminated the Palestinians from the process – gained Trump votes from certain elements of the American Jewish community. While these moves have brought some short-term stability to the volatile Middle East region, this has been at the expense of a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue, which seems to be essential to the ultimate survival of Israel as a Jewish state.

Trumpism’s darker side is the philosophy that anything that benefits Donald Trump is, by definition, acceptable – and I mean anything. This includes overriding the truth, the law, the norms of government, the constitution, respect for the rights of individuals and just plain human decency. It legitimizes vengeance and division. It turns the opposition into the enemy and stigmatizes empathy and cooperation. Trumpism is not a political philosophy. (In fact Trump wouldn’t know a political philosophy – or a philosophy of any sort – if he tripped over one.)

Trumpism is a cult.

That is why it is so frightening that the Republican Party is generally acknowledged to have become the Trump Party. Certainly, the majority of Republican senators and congress people  are acting far more like cult members under the influence of their leader than like members of a political party. They are scared to criticize him and – in spite of knowing that he has lost the election – and that his claims of widespread fraud and conspiracies are total fabrication, are willing to twist themselves into pretzels and sacrifice the welfare of the country they were elected to serve in deference to him.

Forty two years ago, in November 18^th 1978, The Peoples Temple Movement, a cult of American citizens in Jonestown Guyana was led by a man named Jim Jones. When Leo Ryan, an American Congressman, visited them to try to liberate the members, he was murdered at the airport as he was leaving. Realizing that his game was over, Jones  called a mass meeting of his members, and, at his bidding, over nine hundred of them drank Kool-Aid laced with cyanide and died. Since then “Drinking the Kool-Aid” has become synonymous with coming under the influence of a cult. Somehow Trump has managed to get not only the majority of the Republican senators and congress people, plus tens of millions of ordinary citizens who love America – its norms, values unity and compassion – to drink the Kool-Aid. But he, like Jim Jones, surely knows the game is over. In the past few days even Fox (sometimes known as Trump TV) has been saying that Joe Biden won the election and will take the oath of office on January 20^th 2021. This is very significant because, if Trump has lost Rupert Murdock, his followers will soon begin to learn the truth about their leader.

That is not to say that Trump will go away easily, but discredited cult leaders, even those that don’t commit mass suicide, lose their power very quickly – and, with an incoming administration made up of people who are actually experts in their fields, who tell the truth, who uphold American values and who have empathy and compassion for all Americans, perhaps America will soon become America again.