Trump’s America is proving to be a wild country
If you happened to have overheard your co-workers talking about a sex cult at work in the past few weeks, please keep your pants on — there is no evite headed your way. Instead, they are almost certainly discussing “Wild Wild Country,” a Netflix documentary about the unbelievable rise of a sex cult in rural Oregon during the early 1980s.
The vivid six-part series chronicles followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (later known as Osho), an Indian mystic who fled India for the peace and tranquility of America’s rural northwest. Bhagwan’s vision was to create his own utopian city of 100,000 people in the wilds of Wasco County, Oregon, but soon government officials caught on to myriad crimes being committed by his operation. He was caught attempting to flee the country.
The series tackles a number of heavy questions. But it primarily shows the extent to which humans are willing to go to protect their “tribes.” While encamped in Oregon, a number of Bhagwan’s lieutenants planned unspeakable crimes to protect him from state and federal authorities, including plotting the assassination of Charles Turner, U.S. attorney for Oregon at the time.
“My story is probably a very ordinary story,” said Jane Stork (Rajneeshi name: Ma Shanti B), who was tasked with shooting Turner — a crime she never carried out. “It shows to what lengths we’re prepared to go, we humans, to defend something that we really think is precious,” she told NBC’s Megyn Kelly. Stork said she believed Bhagwan was going to “transform humanity and the world.”
Obviously, such a free-love community is anathema to “Middle America,” and the conservatives in rural Oregon fought to have them expelled. In fact, in 2016, Donald Trump’s campaign couldn’t have invented a better enemy than a band of armed hippie immigrants.
But if anything, the Trump phenomenon is proof of what can happen when a group of otherwise intelligent people are taken in by a forceful personality who makes broad promises to better the lives of individuals who support him.
The past two years have seen Trump’s bombastic style make otherwise thoughtful people lose their minds. Vocal patriots now believe it’s barely newsworthy that a foreign power tried to interfere in an American election. Free-market conservatives now overwhelmingly believe international trade is harmful to America. Evangelical leaders think Jesus would have been just cool with a married man making his way through a gaggle of porn stars as long as he sufficiently irritated liberals.
Obviously, there are differences of degree — Trump’s operation hasn’t tried to poison innocent people or murder federal prosecutors. But there are similarities in that both “tribes” take extreme measures to protect their own leaders and beliefs. Simply following the teachings of their anointed savior is not enough — they must eviscerate others they perceive as threats. And in both cases, they are willing to relinquish control of their own morality in order to protect the reputation of a sex-crazed megalomaniac.
Obviously, there are plenty of decent Trump supporters who merely oppose liberalism’s excesses and the urge to destroy ideological opponents is strong on the left as well.
But there are some Trump supporters who will go to the mattresses to defend his dishonesty and narcissism. And it makes the unbelievable story of “Wild Wild Country” slightly more believable, after all.
Christian Schneider is a Journal Sentinel columnist.