The Trump Cult and the Albatrosses Around America’s Neck
It’s common now to remark on how the Republican Party has turned into a cult of personality for Donald Trump.
For example, a 2023 CBS poll found that “Trump’s voters hold him as a source of true information, even more so than other sources, including conservative media figures, religious leaders, and even their own friends and family.” Specifically, when asked who they feel is telling them the truth, 71% of these voters said Trump, 63% said friends and family, 56% said conservative media figures, and 42% said religious leaders.
So, this meme of cultishness has caught on, but I doubt there’s been enough reflection on whether this political development is an ominous sign of the state of liberal democracy or at least of the prospects of American society.
How can a democracy sustain itself with only a single functioning party in a two-party system? Or how meaningful could a democracy have been in the first place if the country carries on much as it has for decades, despite the public collapse of its purported mode of government? Mustn’t the deep state have been in charge all along, despite the charade of all those ballyhooed negotiations between elected representatives? And mustn’t Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin be justified in dismissing democracy as a viable alternative to autocracy, given the appalling state of the GOP?
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