Agree. But within the context of The Big Idea that is what is being implied.
I strongly disagree.
Not even close. But it isn’t surprising that the left believes he is being idolized.
Ironically, those on the right made the same claim about Obama supporters back in the day.
Interesting. I wasn’t aware of that.
With a CULT! CULT! here and a CULT! CULT! there! Here a CULT! there a CULT! everywhere a CULT! CULT!
Old McJunkies found a word… E-I-E-I-O!
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Why?
He completely changed the ideological views of the Republican party as a whole, bringing the establishment into synergy with the long running “MAGA” types who have been a thing since the 70s but noone spoke for them.
And when he changes his views on something, the base generally goes with it. He came out against a federal ban on abortion. And the base has ate it up. Who would have imagined that 20 years ago?
Looking at 20th century politicians, only Mao really had that kind of ideological pull in the CCP back in the day. He’s kind of a modern day Mao, minus the brain dead Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution stuff that left millions dead in China.
Yeah, I never watched them. I know one of them was Climate Change related.
But unlike Al Gore, he never made that his whole personality.
“The Base” is anyone who’s voting (R) or (D) no matter what. That’s it. lol
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That’s probably the majority of voters really.
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Not a cult. 
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Yeah I don’t think its really a true Cult. It’s really more like Mao in my opinion. He redefined the ideology and centralized the entire party apparatus around him and his views. He’s definitely not a traditional Republican by any means. And that’s frankly why he won. The Dems have been fumbling for a long time now, ignoring their principle bases (like blue collar white workers) and going for DEI and AGW environuts. He took advantage of that.
A traditional Republican always looked down on blue collar workers. I’m not going to claim Trump understands them, he clearly can’t based on his upbringing, but he didn’t look down on them and saw their value. Thus he stole them from the Democrats.
He’s also made good inroads into the Hispanic market and even saw some positive growth among Black Males. That’s why I don’t understand why his opponents are throwing around racist so constantly. He clearly believes in a big tent of different people.
IMO, Trump does owe a lot of his success to just how bad the Democrats have been screwing up for a generation since Bush.
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I don’t believe Trump’s views changed so much as he realized he had no chance of succeeding with a federal ban on abortion.
The abortion battle can’t be fought at the federal level. Since it wasn’t spelled out in the Constitution, it is left to the states.
A pragmatist would see that and take the win with the SCOTUS ruling overturn of Roe vs. Wade.
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Trump answers to the American people. Mao answered to no one.
Yes, a pragmatist. Which is what he is.
But the traditional social con base that used to define the party? Oh no, they were anything but pragmatic. And he’s swayed them.
That’s why I think people are going to be writing tons of books about him in the future. On a personal level, I see him as a modern Napoleon. He took some real disparate groups and pulled them together under one big tent. Napoleon did the same thing in France back in the immediate aftermath of the 1st part of the French Revolution.
Well, Mao did sort of answer to CCP dynamics. He wasn’t Stalin.
That’s why after the Great Leap forward he kind of got sidelined for a few years and retired to his mansion in Beijing and did most of his writing that later became the Little Red Book.
Then in 1966 he staged a massive comeback. Which was what the Cultural Revolution was. A really big fancy comeback onto the scene.
I’m also a pragmatist. If there were more pragmatists on both sides of the political aisle, we would no longer have gridlock in congress.
But he didn’t answer to the Chinese people.
That would be nice. But there’s some fundamental disagreements that neither side will ever compromise on. And that lack of compromise on those deeply held issues spreads into everything else, torpedoing the entire process.
And in my opinion they are 100% in the MAGA circle of the Venn diagram.
Cult of Personality is circle-A, and MAGA is B.
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Yep!