One of the long-standing debates here at Outside The Beltway is whether to treat the MAGA movement as a cult. My answer to that question is a hard “No,” if we mean that, as a social and political organization, the people in red hats waiting outside a stadium to see their Dear Leader resemble the likes of the Branch Davidians, the members of Aum Shunrikyo, the Manson Family, the People’s Temple, or NXIVM. There is one key similarity: a slavish devotion to (in their minds) an infallible, semi-divine leader. Whether that person is Trump, Jim Jones, Kim Il Sung, David Koresh, or Stalin, we confusingly call that passionate credulity a “cult of personality.” However, a cult of personality is not the same thing as a cult.
Cults, as we generally conceive of them, are very inward-looking, self-contained organizations. They seek to create a pocket universe from which it is difficult to escape, in large part because the true believers do not want to leave. The outside world provides temptations, inconvenient facts, and other challenges to unwavering devotion to both the creed and the leader. (The two are symbiotic: the creed grants a charismatic aura to the leader; the leader is the authoritative source of the creed.) Therefore, the cult withdraws from the world, usually under the guise of avoiding the corruptions and disappointments that the rest of humanity create. Removed from any sources of doubt, the members are the cult are willing to ride the cult of personality all the way to destruction.
In contrast, other social forms that may include a cult of personality component are very outward-looking. Their way of dealing with doubt is to overpower and annihilate its sources, not retreat from them. That’s the natural tendency of fascist movements, since their raison d’etre is to force reality to conform with myth, remaking society in the völkisch image of a reclaimed future. Achieving this goal requires the hyper-politicization of everything, because anything that doesn’t conform to the myth is a potential challenge to its core tenets, including the cult of personality around the leader. Cultural icons such as Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce must be vilified, because they might cause even one member of MAGA to feel any doubt about Trump (or the wisdom of not getting vaccinated). Bud Light must be boycotted because, maybe, just maybe a trans person is an unthreatening human being. The re-design of a cartoon Green M&M must be pilloried because it may lead to a questioning of feminine identities and roles. Starbucks cups must be denounced because they might, in the most roundabout way possible, question the primacy of Christianity.
The assault on all of society, all at once, is a hallmark of fascist and other totalitarian-leaning movements. I’ve chosen these contemporary Kulturkampf examples because their seeming ridiculousness illustrate show ferocious and expansive their assault on any source of doubt must be. Sure, they’re easy targets, particularly for unscrupulous demagogues on Fox News, talk radio, and podcasts. However, the culture wars genuinely hit a nerve with their audience members, uniting them in their common outrage and disgust at cultural icons, amplifying the sense of being besieged, and erasing any doubts one might have about whether such things are even worth worrying about.
Fascist movements fueled by a cult of personality may very strong impulses to erase doubts. In the case of Trumpism, the person is the creed. The very thin set of tenets behind Trumpism — he understands and cares for the faithful in a way that regular politicians do not; he is fighting a global conspiracy of predatory elites; for some evangelicals, he is playing a divinely-ordained, grand-historical role — is really all about Trump. This is sentiment, not ideology. Therefore, there must be an intense effort to sustain that sentiment through constant reminders (devotional kitsch, mutual social media reinforcement, Trump apparel, rallies, etc.). Since even with all these sources of enthusiasm, faith may waver, there is an equally fervent effort to erase uncomfortable facts (January 6th wasn’t an insurrection, Trump is a highly successful businessman, etc.). This leads to the same kind of ridiculous claims that surround other people at the center of cults of personality. The QAnon belief that puts Trump in the cockpit of a secret war against a conspiracy of murderous pedophiles is about as believable as the claims that Kim Jong Il was the world’s greatest golfer, never needed to poop, and invented a cure for dwarfism. And yet, some people believe these things.
A cult of of personality is very much like an internal combustion engine. Cars, boats, and aircraft may all have engines, but they’re clearly different vehicles for getting where you want to go. Cults of personality all lead to destructive destinations, but depending on their orientation, the cataclysms happen on vastly different scales.
