Cult of Personality

Definition (via Merriam-Webster):

• a situation in which a public figure (such as a political leader) is deliberately presented to the people of a country as a great person who should be admired and loved
• A bitchin’ song by Living Colour from the 90’s

Let’s talk about the first one while we listen to the second:

Lots of fervor this week over the Twitter war between Trump and Joe/Mika. People are shocked, SHOCKED that the President of the United States is stooping to the level of internet troll. Not just people who are generally freaked out by the existence of President Trump, but people supposedly on his side as well.

WHY!?

This is exactly what Trump has been doing for years. He did it before the election; he did it during the election. Why would anyone think it would stop after he was elected? I’ll assume that these people assumed that the gravity of the office would have forced him to get more sophisticated. Those people are probably the ones who still don’t understand why he was elected.

Trump is a cult of personality. He ran on the idea that he is a great person; that he is a great leader and businessman, and he will lead us all out of the fires of hell and into the MAGA Promised Land. Sure, he had a couple of actual policy points, like the wall and jobs and whatever, but these could have been replaced with free healthcare for all and college and done the same thing on the Democrat side as he did on the Republican side.

People voted for Trump, not the Republican Party. Trump is a brash, rude, self centered celebrity who has no problem speaking his mind, and damn the consequences. That was true then, and it is still true now. Enough people on the right in this country were tired of politicians speaking out of both sides of their mouth, going back on campaign promises, or cowering in the face of the media to elect someone different into office. Trump knows this, and knows it is a winning strategy, so he’s keeping it up.

Of course he attacked Mika and Joe. They’ve been attacking him this whole time; they’ve just been couching their inflammatory statements about him behind slightly less rude wording. And they aren’t the only ones. There is a concerted effort by left wing media types and celebrities to disparage Trump for everything he does, including calling for his impeachment and even his assassination. Of course Trump is going to fight back, and he’s going to do it in the immature fashion he always has. That’s part of the cult of Trump. That’s what people voted for.

The Republican Party needs to take a long, hard look at itself and figure out why its constituency overwhelmingly voted for a cult of personality and not the Republican Party. I’m pretty sure I know. I’ll give you a hint: it starts with C and ends with –owering in the face of the liberal media every goddamn time they say a bad word about them, and not being able to pass their agenda even with the Presidency and a majority in the House and Senate. Figure out that riddle and maybe you’ll have a chance.