Are we seeing the rise of a cult of personality?

Yes, when speaking of the hard core ebelivers who excuse any behavior no matter how outlandish.

But for every vulgarity applauded by the base, he loses support from people who were supporters. His actions this week offended Scouts, the Military, most police, and the GOP Senate. As he attacks Congress, he will be more and more isolated.

I do feel he is finally losing ground.

I don’t think it’s a cult of personality.

Our right wing authoritarian followers don’t pay much attention to a single personality.

They are dedicated and unswerving to the feeling that they are sticking it to the liberals, minorities, and foreigners. That’s what gives them the endorphin rush, getting mad at “them”.

They don;t care who is their standard bearer and who is their worst enemy EVER! at the moment.

They have the attention spans of fleas.

George Bush Jr. was the conservative ideal. When he destroyed the economy and lost two wars, and conservatives said he was not conservative ENOUGH, and they pretended to be Independents and Tea Baggers and not Republicans for a little while.

Then during early in the 2012 primaries, Michelle Bachmann was the conservative favorite.
And then Rick Perry was the conservative favorite.
And then Herman Cain was the conservative favorite.
And then Newt Gingrich was the conservative favorite.
And then Mitt Romney was the conservative favorite and nominee.
(Illustrated here)

Conservationism cannot fail in authoritarians’ eyes. When Trump resigns (probably in the next year) they will fall in line and vow everlasting fealty to whoever FOX News and AM radio tells them to follow.

Yes, in a way there is a cult of hating him.

It’s a technique that many heads of state use, and many people seem susceptible to it. Even leaders who don’t purposely try to use this type of psychology on people, still sometimes, they get cult like followers. Even Obama, who I don’t feel purposely tried to wield blind admiration and following, has almost a cult like following by some.

Some people seem to want to worship and believe people or entities are all knowing and right. The communist leaders purposely outlaw religion and God, so they can replace God with themselves. North Korea seems to be the most successful at this from what I can tell as an outside observer.

Whether Trump specifically takes actions that promote a cult following I don’t know. Meaning, has he studied up on it? Or, is it just his natural way of conducting himself. It reminds me of men who are horrible to women, but then have women loyal to them. For many of those men they just learned their ways from their dad, it’s their normal. The dynamic is their normal. They aren’t especially clever or well read on the psychology of cults and prisoners who suffer Stockholm syndrome, yet, they are very good at creating that type of situation.

I think personality cults, particularly for politicians, are cyclical. In other words, this isn’t new, it’s recycled.

JFK had a personality cult that had grown around him, until he died, largely on the basis of being young and dynamic when Eisenhower had been old and boring.

Reagan, largely on name recognition, engendered a personality cult, which to some degree still exists.

Obama, to a lesser degree, and largely in reaction to the horrible Bush years, saw a cult grow around him, and he took advantage of that too.

So this isn’t anything all that new.

I think he’d like to develop a cult of personality with people seeing him as “an idealized, heroic, and at times worshipful image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise”. And it would appear there are some in the US who do admire him. I suspect (and fervently hope) the majority are not so idiotic and do see him for the narcissistic, psychopathic buffoon he is.

Globally I think world leaders are treading carefully and just trying to manage the situation until sanity returns. From the outside, he looks like a dangerous loose cannon, with no redeeming features. I personally am just hoping any damage he causes can be minimised.

What we are seeing is what the founders of this country feared, the attempts to concentrate power in a single individual. Trump is at war with the system of checks and balances as he doesn’t want limits on his power. He is at war with much of the media as he fears criticism. He doesn’t want to lead government but to stand apart from it and become America personified.

The trouble with this is it goes completely against the grain of how America should be and has been throughout its history. When Trump wished a protester at one of his rallies be carried out on a stretcher he showed his fascist nature. He is used to the business world where his voice is law and is not comfortable operating in a democracy where by definition there are many voices.

While the tide may be turning against Trump I feel the danger remains. Trump’s promise to ‘drain the swamp’ reflects the disillusionment many people in the country feel about politics. Big business and big money have been far too influential in a system that is meant to ensure the hopes and desires of ordinary people are reflected in government. There are problems with the American system of government but these are not beyond fixing and Trump is certainly not the answer.

I believe that, yes, what we are experiencing in the US at this time can be defined as a cult of personality. We have a person who is, among other things, extremely narcissistic, who thrives on and demands flattery and praise from all those around him; who insists on the unwavering loyalty of his followers; who worships the ground he himself walks on and who, while being devoid of observable actual leadership skills, has become completely dependent upon his charisma (and fear, but that is another story for another time) to attain and maintain power.

The media has been instrumental in his reaching this status focusing on and reporting his every word or tweet. There is reason to believe that there is validation in the old saw that any publicity, even negative, is good publicity.

Being a person of some wealth, he has been rich enough and savvy enough to hire competent staff to not just promote those products he sells or produces but to actually push himself as the main product. Whether this is by marketing design or whether this comes from a sincere and deeply held personal belief that it truly is him that is worthy is unclear and by this time has become irrelevant. It is, or rather, he is what he has convinced others he is.

In addition we have others in power who are willing to bow down to him in order to further their own agenda (the enemy of my enemy is my friend) and their observable obsequiousness has brought further strength to his developed persona and helped convince others of the righteousness of his authoritarian actions and stance.

All this, the self-aggrandizement, the media blitz, the marketing strategy and the meek subservience of those already in power has brought us to this point where we have over 30% of the population believing that he is the messiah they have been searching for all these long years.

Once you have a look at the “product”, there can be no other explanation. There can be little doubt that those dazzled by sheer superficiality are in great abundance in this country. But then again, there’s this issue of desperation. Enough desperation, and the devil himself becomes an alternative to the status quo.

No
I think it’s just the opposite.
In my opinion over reach by the Executive branch for the last 16 years, combined with a total lack of creativity in the Legislative branch, combined with a subjective and arbitrary Judicial branch have created universal disdain toward everybody in Washington.
Any praise or flattery or propaganda that anybody speaks or prints, regardless of the politician in question has sounded comically contrived to me for the last decade.
I don’t think I’m alone.

I never read the book Amusing Ourselves to Death, but the description seems to apply. Postman wrote the book based on the rise of television before the Internet, but our presence on the Web only underlines his point about politics becoming a form of entertainment.