Possible Trump cult triumph a terrifying vision
It’s surprising to me how few good movies have been made about cults.
Unless I cheat with zombies or with “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” which features the Charles Manson cult as peripheral characters, I’d have to go back to the Satanists of “Rosemary’s Baby” in the ‘60s to recall any cult-focused movie that I found memorable.
I suspect that will change in a generation or so, when filmmakers decide it’s safe to tackle the bizarre period of history that we’re living through right now, assuming we survive it.
Poll after poll reminds us that most Republicans still somehow support a twice-impeached unhinged con man who tried to overthrow our election and has been indicted four times and counting, not to mention found to be liable for sexual assault. I just watched all but two Republican presidential candidates on a debate stage raise their hands to say they’d support this person — whom they supposedly would like to defeat for the nomination — even if he were convicted of one of the many crimes he’s been charged with.
There literally is nothing Trump can do that will dissuade his cultists from drinking his poisoned Kool-Aid. For some of them, he is a godlike figure, immune from mortal judgment.
Should we make allowances for the way Fox and other right-wing media have liquified gullible brains with a steady diet of fake conspiracies, scandals and cultural grievances?
For the wealthy people who are convinced their personal economic self-interest is better served by Trump than any Democrat, and don’t care about anyone or anything else? For single-issue faux Christians who care only about abortion and prefer to ignore pretty much every teaching of Jesus? For bigots and misogynists whom Trump has emboldened to pursue their persecution and repression out in the open, just like in the good old days before we started worrying about the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of people who aren’t straight white Christian males? For Republican politicians who know he’s unfit for any public office but believe it’s primary election suicide to speak plainly about what Trump has done?
No. At this point, there’s no acceptable excuse.
But the rest of us had better recognize that nothing is more important than ensuring that Donald Trump isn’t our president again. No policy issue, no personal grievance, no party loyalty matters more than saving our democracy from this unthinkable disaster.
I’m convinced Trump is so widely despised that he’s unelectable in a head-to-head election. But I’m terrified that misguided people on the left or in the center will go down a third-party rabbit hole, just as they did to help elect Trump in 2016 — and George W. Bush in 2000, for that matter.
Sadly, even if Trump somehow were disqualified from running again, I have no confidence in the MAGA-dominated GOP to pick a replacement who isn’t terrible.
I watched as much as I could stand of last week’s first Republican presidential debate, and it truly was awful.
The only real surprise for me was how effective former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley was, both in eviscerating smarmy young demagogue Vivek Ramaswamy — who nonetheless registered strongly with the MAGA crowd by sounding the most Trump like — and in telling some truths about our economy, the war in Ukraine and the realities of abortion politics.
Of course, I’m prejudiced by the fact that I’m a moderate former Republican who longs for reasonable people with genuine conservative credentials to offer voters a real choice, which we need. Haley’s saneness almost certainly disqualifies her from real consideration, although she did raise her hand for the “would you support Trump” question.
Beyond that, there weren’t any real surprises. Chris Christie attacked Trump, was booed for it and otherwise was uninspiring. Ron DeSantis declined to answer anything and just shouted angry talking points, mostly untrue. Mike Pence made it clear that he defers to his interpretation of the Bible on everything. Everyone else was pretty much invisible.
There were lies galore, which made it difficult to draw real distinctions between them and the Democrats, who aren’t really clamoring to abort full-term fetuses, defund the police or open our borders to caravans of drug-dealing immigrants.
There also were dispiriting demonstrations of cowardice, as in a disinclination to acknowledge the threat of climate change — DeSantis actually shouted the question down before anyone had a chance to answer — and somewhat comically, DeSantis peeking down the line before raising his hand to join those pledging their support for even a convicted criminal Trump.
Mostly, there was a sense of grim inevitability that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee and that these people are just jockeying for cabinet positions or Fox News gigs in a country gone mad.
But hey, it will make a great movie someday. If we survive to see it.