The Cult of Trump

 

Within the last four years, we have seen President Donald Trump and his followers become more socially alienated from fellow American people. As a result, record-breaking voter participation was seen throughout the 2020 election. Whether we like it or not, Trump’s Presidency was the driving factor attributing to a higher voter turnout in two ways:

1. People realize the danger of a Trump second term and turnout to fight against it

2. The followers of Trump religiously vote for him in (irrational) fear of a “socialist” blue wave while craving the idea of religious indoctrination upheld within his modern Christian values.

So, what does this pro-Trump cult look like? Using the Guardian’s definition of a “cult” and the traits of cultish behavior, Trumpism checks off three of the most prominent characteristics of a cult: 1. A charismatic leader 2. Indoctrination 3. Harmful action deriving from the leader’s overarching beliefs.

1. A charismatic leader 

Donald Trump, before the 2016 election, was a businessman, owning multiple with increasingly large revenue. This characterization of Trump as a businessman and not a politician led his 2016 campaign to favor evangelicals who believed in the Prosperity gospel or “New Thought” theology. Made popular by televangelists such as Joel Olsteen and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, the idea of the prosperity gospel revolves around the idea that God wants people to have materialistic prosperity, and those who obtain this are viewed favorably by God. Therefore, Trump’s wealth is a blessing from God in which he will endow upon the nation. Trump also tried to distinguish that a vote for him is a vote for greater Christian power. We see this in his attempt to dismantle the Johnson Amendment which prohibits the church from endorsing a political candidate to keep their tax break. By trying to lessen the gap between church and state, Donald Trump not only encourages serious evangelicals to follow him but makes it seem he is of great religious authority himself. He wants people to believe he cares and implements modern Christian values into his presidency (but as we have seen over the last four years, he has not). This is a smart move. By directing his attention to white evangelicals, Trump racked in over 81% of their votes in the 2016 election, a whopping percentage greater than any other Republican president in recent history.

2. Indoctrination

As a self-declared Messianic President, Donald Trump uses harmful defamation to depict liberals as demonic forces feigning to destroy America. These Democratic “demons” want to plague the country with socialism (which he incorrectly synonymizes as Communism), allow “rapist” immigrants to come in a destroy the American economy, and disregard the power of the Constitution. Donald Trump’s extreme brainwashing of his overarching beliefs has planted seeds of resentment in the hearts of his followers and furthers the divide between the two political parties.  Over the last four years of Trump’s presidency, his name-calling, bullying, and blatant disrespect towards any disagreeing party have escalated his followers into becoming mini-versions of himself. For example, flooding the internet is the use of offensive terms such as the “China Virus” and  “Kung flu” to describe COVID-19, putting more Asian Americans in danger of prejudice for a virus they had no control over. Along with the racist wave due to COVID-19, we have seen large groups of people, prominently Trump supporters, not wearing masks nor partaking in CDC guidelines due to the failure of representation from Donald Trump, even after he was diagnosed with COVID himself. Trump’s indoctrination of false, racist and harmful beliefs has led to a divided America seen in the 2020 election results where Biden and Trump received more votes than any other president in American history. 

3. Harmful action deriving from the leader’s overarching beliefs

Besides racism regarding COVID 19, other acts of racism, homophobia, and xenophobia can be found within Trump’s America. Prejudice actions repeatedly committed by President Trump not only invite his followers to mimic his behavior but make a mockery of the Christian values he tries so hard to preserve. Here we will dissect two instances. 

1. The resurgence of xenophobic claims “come back where you came from.”

In July of 2019, Trump tweets a set of xenophobic posts regarding congresswoman Ilhan Omar regarding Somalia, the country she was born. In a glorified go back where you came from” tweet, Trump discredits her credibility by insinuating that coming from an “inferior” country, she cannot successfully fulfill her duties here as congresswoman of Minnesota. These tweets not only permit Trump’s followers to mimic these racist taunts but create fear and (valid) deep disposition within people of color against the president and his followers. 

2. Discrimination against the Transgender community

    Despite affirming employment protections for the LGBTQ+ community under Trump’s administration, transgender Americans have experienced a wave of discrimination and neglect of acceptance. Examples of such prejudice include but are not limited to: 

1.  The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s rollback of a previous rule that protected transgender people from discrimination by homeless shelters and other housing services receiving federal funds
2. The Department of Education declaring that the federal Title IX rule requires schools to ban transgender students from participating in school sports and threatening to withhold funding from Connecticut schools if they do not comply.
3. The Department of Health and Human Services canceled a plan to explicitly prohibit hospitals from discriminating against LGBTQ patients as a requirement of Medicare and Medicaid funds.
4. On October 6, 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation allowing employers and insurers to deny coverage for birth control, as long as they can cite religious reasons for doing so. In April, President Trump and Congress overturned a regulation that protected Planned Parenthood, one of the nation’s largest providers of care for transgender people, and other family planning clinics from funding discrimination by states.

    

    There is not a cult of personality surrounding President-elect Joe Biden. However,  if one would like to argue the validity of this claim, I could describe such cult as more anti-Trump if anything. People who voted for Joe Biden do not view him as a political savior, but a “kind uncle” needed in the office to dismantle the atrocity of Trump’s administration. Due to Donald Trump, people have been more involved in politics than ever before, and this by itself is not a bad thing. However, when the politician people idolize so much repeatedly harms and humiliates large groups of the American people, it becomes unacceptable. 

Moving Foward, this "cult of Trumpism" which stems from the outspoken president hopefully will come to an end following the results of the 2020 election. However, the discriminatory ideology rooted in the philosophy of "Trumpers" will take far more work than removing the racist from office. 

Hopefully, with Joe Biden as the next president of the United States, we can see some sort of moral cleansing within The White House (and personally, I want Trump banned from Twitter.)