Over the years, America has seen many cults. Their leaders come and go. Some notable cults are:
Charles Manson, the Manson Family
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the Oregon cult
Jim Jones, the Peoples’s Temple
Marshall Applewhite, Heaven’s Gate cult
David Koresh, the Branch Davidians
Cults have several commonalities, the more important of which are:
1. A psychopathic leader who claims unique abilities, including Godlike perfection in his decisions and exceptional knowledge of inside information.
The twenty characteristics of a psychopath are described here, according to the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised.
Cult followers often believe their leader is omniscient and omnipotent.
Yet the simulatiously believe this all-powerful man is simultaneously besieged by outsiders who either are jealous of his powers or don’t understand his truth.
2. Conformity: Dissenting opinions are actively, often angrily, discouraged.
Facts that disagree with the leader’s teachings are said to be lies and are thought to be further proof that his lies are truth.
Individuality is rejected in favor of group thought; violent group action is encouraged and often demanded.
3. Exclusive knowledge gives cult members information available only to them and not to mainstream society.
That this knowledge may be fantastical and impossible only welds it further into the belief systems of followers.
Logic and reason are rejected in favor of the leader.
4. Exploitation: Membership in the cult demands that members support the leader actively, financially, emotionally, and often sexually.
Sending one’s money or possessions to the leader is given as proof the member is worthy of membership.
5. Control: Cult leaders employ various psychological techniques to gain control over their followers.
This may include manipulating their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors through coercion, isolation from the outside world, mind-altering practices, or indoctrination methods.
6. Isolation: Cult members’ extreme views and the frustration non-members feel with those views tend to break ties with family and friends.
This isolation is self-substantiating, as the only information received by
members supports the cult’s beliefs.
Members become dependent on the cult for their worldview and their sense of belonging.
7. Resistance to criticism: Cults begin as a rejection of social norms. That is their raison d’etre.
They are built to resist criticism and data, while they accept counterfactual information.
Cults are highly acceptant of conspiracy theories, the more outrageously laughable, the better.
This acceptance of blatant disinformation — sharing the same “secret” strengthens the group’s internal bonds and controls.
From Scientific American Magazine: The dangerous consequences of the conspiratorial perspective—the idea that people or groups collude in hidden ways to produce a particular outcome—have become painfully clear.
The belief that the coronavirus pandemic is an elaborate hoax designed to prevent the reelection of Donald Trump has incited some Americans to forgo important public health recommendations, costing lives.
The gunman who shot and killed 11 people and injured six others in a Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018 justified his attack by claiming that Jewish people were stealthily supporting illegal immigrants.
In 2016 a conspiracy theory positing that high-ranking Democratic Party officials were part of a child sex ring involving several Washington, D.C.–area restaurants incited one believer to fire an assault weapon inside a pizzeria.
Donald Trump’s MAGA fits every description of a cult, in this case, a dangerous cult. After at least 50 juries and judges (from both parties) ruled there was no evidence of election fraud, Trump continued to claim he “really won.”
The MAGAs dutifully believed. They attacked Congress because Trump told them to.
Counterfacts only reinforced MAGA’s beliefs.
How then, is a cult like MAGA different from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and dozens of other group beliefs that usually fall under the term, “religion”?
- Religions have more followers and broader acceptance. Cults are smaller and less accepted by mainstream society. (Though both Judaism and Christianity were considered cults by mainstream society in their early days.)
- Religions have a long history. (MAGAs aren’t there yet.)
- Religions often have leaders, such as priests, rabbis, imams, or other clergy members. The charismatic leader is the authority. (In MAGA, the priests come from the Republican Party. They are the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the Jim Jordans, and the FOX personalities.)
- Religions have sacred texts and traditions. Cults create new beliefs directly from the mouth and mind of the leader. (After Trump claimed that pleading the 5th Amendment was for guilty people, he argued the 5th Amendment.)
- Religions might cast out non-supporters of the religion’s fundamental beliefs. Cults cast out non-supporters of the cult’s leader. (The GOP MAGAs cast out Rep. Liz Cheney, a solid right-wing conservative, for not supporting Donald Trump.)
- Within religions, a wide range of opinions about faith generally exists. Debate often is encouraged. In a cult, debate is discouraged, and there is no fundamental faith. (Those who disagree with Trump are termed “RINOs,” Republicans in name only.)
- In religions, loyalty to the long-standing tenets of the religion is expected. In cults, loyalty to the leader’s latest whims is expected. (MAGAs believe the Presidential election was “rigged,” but the downstream elections that the Republicans won were legitimate, even in the same state or county.)
To say religions are popular because they are religions is a tautology, explaining nothing.
But that is what it is. MAGA is a “startup religion,” without yet the sacred texts, traditions and morals, though it already has the millions of followers necessary to be considered a religion.
Judaism is characterized by its monotheistic belief in one God and the importance of following a moral and ethical code based on the Torah.
Christianity began with the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ who preached a message of love, compassion, and forgiveness.
Islam began with the life and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad who preached his message to the people of Mecca, calling for the worship of one God and emphasizing moral and social justice.
Hinduism developed gradually through a blend of cultural, religious, and philosophical elements, with no single religious authority or a centralized structure. Instead, it allows for individual interpretation and a multitude of paths (margas) to spiritual realization, including devotion (bhakti), knowledge (jnana), and disciplined action (karma).
Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama, who later became known as the Buddha who utlined the Four Noble Truths: Suffering (dukkha) is an inherent part of existence; suffering arises from craving and attachment; it can be overcome by extinguishing craving; and there is a path to liberation from suffering, known as the Noble Eightfold Path. The Path includes ethical conduct, mental discipline, and wisdom.
Taoism began with the sage Laozi, who encouraged individuals to emphasize humility, compassion, and going with the flow.
The various religions have one thing in common that MAGA lacks: A moral underpinning of goodness toward others, essentially forms of the Golden Rule.
This religious commonality is missing from most cults, as their focus is on the leader, for whom morality often is viewed as weakness.
Donald Trump is old for a cult leader, and it is unlikely he will have the time, temperament, or desire to instill moral virtues in his flock. His self-absorbtion makes such a transformation unlikely.
Thus, MAGA likely will die with Trump unless the GOP, which currently lacks a moral base, can find a charismatic, amoral or immoral leader to replace him.
Visualize posing this question to a current MAGA member:
“If Jesus and Trump disagreed on some point, whom would you believe and follow?”
This would pose a conundrum for Trump’s religious Christian followers because Trump is, in every way, the “un-Jesus.”
Trump expresses scorn for immigrants, blacks, gays, and the poor. He wants to wall them out of America. He calls them names. He does everything he can to make their lives a hardship.
Jesus emphasized love, forgiveness, and compassion, especially for the less fortunate among us.
“For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels.”
“The Lord watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless.”
Trump promotes his own glory, greatness, superiority, perfection, and service to him. Trump’s Golden Rule is: “Do unto me as I wish.”
Jesus emphasized selflessness, humility, service to others, and the importance of treating others with love and respect. He encouraged the real Golden Rule.
Trump focuses on his own personal success. He has been proven corrupt in his business dealings and a deceitful hypocrite, even criminal, in his personal dealings.
Jesus taught that leaders should be humble, compassionate, and loving and should focus on serving the needs of others. He spoke out against hypocrisy and corruption.
While none of us can achieve the perfection of Jesus, few of us are so diametrically opposed to everything Jesus stood for as is Trump. And none of us is so slavishly worshipped by those who claim to be followers of Jesus.
Christians and others of the right wing may have answered the question, “If Jesus and Trump disagreed on some point, whom would you believe and follow?”
Despite their professed love for Jesus, many do not seem to follow Him or his teachings.
They follow Trump with his hatred, cruelty, and bigotry.
Returning to the title question, “Will the MAGA cult become a religion?” It’s not possible to be sure. One hopes no mainstream religion ever will be based on Trump’s selfish, hedonistic, hate-mongering fascism.
But hopes are not reality. America’s current right-wing attitude toward the “tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of a teeming shore, the homeless, and tempest-tossed” is not encouraging.
Could MAGA become a religion? Not long ago, I would have said that the entire “law and order” Republican party never, never, never would countenance a violent invasion of Congress trying to overturn an election.
Times change. Morals change. And America’s religious have allowed the least moral man imaginable to put his stamp on this century and on their religion. The “religious” right is led by such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Fox News, and QAnon.
So yes, MAGA could make that transition back to the Dark Ages. God help us.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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Great post, thanks!
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To start, the real Golden Rule: I will wiilingly do unto others only those things I will willingly allow others to do unto me. That other is not a rule, it is a command. From whom I am not really sure. This “rule” is a personal statement, a promise to oneself.
And I cannot believe you missed a beautiful opportunity to discuss Scientology, which is a cult and a religion at the same time. L. Ron Hubbard is long dead, but his “legacy” lives on. I cannot guesstimate how many adherents Scientology now has, but their numbers are legion. I meet them everywhere I go.
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Yes, that is one example I considered. Christian Science is another. The line blurs.
The commonality is these organizations get a big tax break. I suggest that is one primary motivation for their creation, perhaps the major one.
I also suggest that giving religions tax-free status is a violation of the Constitution’s establishment clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Giving massive tax breaks to religions clearly constitutes “laws respecting the establishment of religion” and cannot be distinguished from laws in which the government supports religions directly and monetarily.
Even now, we see government support for Church schools, where religion is among the lessons. And with Republican rule, this support has been growing.
But that is a fight I’m not willing to engage in because it transcends logic. I don’t want to get into a fight with God or with the people who claim to speak for her.
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Moralistic therapeutic deism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralistic_therapeutic_deism#See_also
Many young people believe in several moral statutes not exclusive to any of the major world religions. It is not a new religion or theology as such, but identified as a set of commonly held spiritual beliefs. It is this combination of beliefs that they label moralistic therapeutic deism:
1. A God exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
These points of belief were compiled from interviews with approximately 3,000 teenagers.
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I suppose that’s as good as any, and better than believing in angels, devils, miracles, and such. As a husband and father, I question #3 as the central goal, but what do teenagers know.
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Teenagers twenty years ago as it comes from a book published in 2005 by a sociologist at Notre Dame.
“In his 2005 book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers co-written with Melinda Lundquist Denton, he introduced the term moralistic therapeutic deism (abbreviated MTD) to describe the common religious beliefs exhibited by American youth in a survey.[11][12][13] It has also been referred to as egonovism.[14] The book summarized the “National Study of Youth and Religion”, privately funded by the Lilly Endowment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Smith_(sociologist)#Moralistic_therapeutic_deism
The authors [Smith & Lundquist Denton] state that “a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but has rather substantially morphed into Christianity’s misbegotten stepcousin, Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” Kenda Creasy Dean, author of the 2010 book Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church. notes, “The problem does not seem to be that churches are teaching young people badly, but that we are doing an exceedingly good job of teaching youth what we really believe: namely, that Christianity is not a big deal, that God requires little, and the church is a helpful social institution filled with nice people…” She goes on to say that “if churches practice Moralistic Therapeutic Deism in the name of Christianity, then getting teenagers to church more often is not the solution (conceivably it could make things worse).
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. [Sounds like Egonovism] https://web.archive.org/web/20130403114606/http://www.revrob.com/society-topmenu-49/152-the-number-one-religion-in-the-us-may-be-egonovism-not-christianity-
“when surveys are made that collect religious data, the pollsters never drill down to find out how religious the respondent really is. As it turns out, most people who identify themselves as a particular religion may not actually adhere to the tenets of their self-proclaimed belief.”
“The term “Egonovism” comes from the latin “ego,” meaning self, and “novo” to make new, rewrite, or invent. And it fits perfectly. The individual develops their own personal religions system and borrows ideas from established religions that they’re familiar with. Many Egonovists include the Christ figure in their religion, and hence they self-identify as Christians.”
Has RMM written about the studies that show: A. There is a link between lower welfare spending and higher levels of religious participation https://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/posts/2017/04/welfare-spending-reduces-religious-participation/ B. [other side of the same coin] Better government services are linked to lower religiosity levels in states and countries https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article209279189.html
That is where this stuff gets really interesting.
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https://web.archive.org/web/20180422034621/https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article209279189.html Miami Herald’s paywall pops up fast
Could Wealth Make Religiosity Less Needed for Subjective Well-Being? A Dual-Path Effect Hypothesis of Religious Faith Versus Practice https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7396607/
STATE WELFARE SPENDING AND RELIGIOSITY – A CROSS-NATIONAL ANALYSIS https://faculty.washington.edu/tgill/Gill%20Lundsgaarde%20Welfare%20Religion.pdf
Religion and Preferences for Social Insurance http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Stasavage2005.pdf ‘In this paper we argue that religion and welfare state spending are substitute mechanisms that insure individuals against adverse life events. As a result, individuals who are religious will prefer lower levels of social insurance provision than will individuals who are secular, and countries that are more religious on average will have lower levels of welfare state spending.’
There is a whole range of literature out there on this. Alternately some of the religious now claim: “many Scandinavians, especially young adults who have grown up taking the welfare state for granted, are markedly less likely to attend to the social, material, and emotional needs of family and friends than earlier generations. As a consequence, social solidarity is down and social pathology—from drinking to crime—is up.” https://thereformedmind.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/more-welfare-less-god-and-why-it-should-matter-to-seculars-too/
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It’s been an article of faith 🙂 that poor people, sick people, and others for whom life is not precarious tend to turn to God, especially when they can get help nowhere else.
As the old saying goes, “There are no atheists in the foxhole.”
But it’s complicated. Church attendance has massive social implications, too. Also, the religious tend to have more babies, which adds to their numbers. Further, there is a question about what “being religious” really means. Is church attendance the measure? Or is it church contributions? Or is it saying, “I believe in God.”
What about public declarations vs. private thoughts? My family mostly attended because the leader of the family, my wife, felt it was the proper thing to do. Were we religious?
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Maybe Carl Sagan will be the next banned author for having said we are all made from star-stuff. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/06/22/starstuff/
In 1973 Carl Sagan published “The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective” which included the following passage:
Our Sun is a second- or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff.
Under the broader subject of Irreligion on Wikipedia one finds the following:
Metaphysical naturalism (also called ontological naturalism, philosophical naturalism and antisupernaturalism) is a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences. Methodological naturalism is a philosophical basis for science, for which metaphysical naturalism provides only one possible ontological foundation. Broadly, the corresponding theological perspective is religious naturalism or spiritual naturalism. More specifically, metaphysical naturalism rejects the supernatural concepts and explanations that are part of many religions.
According to Steven Schafersman, geologist and president of Texas Citizens for Science, metaphysical naturalism is a philosophy that proposes that: 1. Nature encompasses all that exists throughout space and time; 2. Nature (the universe or cosmos) consists only of natural elements, that is, of spatiotemporal physical substance—mass–energy. Non-physical or quasi-physical substance, such as information, ideas, values, logic, mathematics, intellect, and other emergent phenomena, either supervene upon the physical or can be reduced to a physical account; 3. Nature operates by the laws of physics and in principle, can be explained and understood by science and philosophy; and 4. the supernatural does not exist, i.e., only nature is real. Naturalism is therefore a metaphysical philosophy opposed primarily by Biblical creationism.
In Carl Sagan’s words: “The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”
“I walk around often and ask myself, ‘What is the point of it all?’ There must be something I’m missing. I wish I knew.” https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/604840/being-97/
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Oklahoma Charter School Board approves nation’s first publicly-funded religious school
In a split decision, Oklahoma City’s Catholic Archdiocese overcame a major hurdle Monday in its effort to create the nation’s first publicly funded, religious charter school. But critics say the move is unconstitutional and likely to face legal challenges.
The application from the St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Catholic Charter School to Oklahoma’s Statewide Virtual Charter School Board has been sitting on the table since early April.
While the school says it wouldn’t require students to be Catholic, it acknowledges that students will be immersed in Catholic religious tenets. Concerns also surround possible disciplinary treatment of LGBTQ+ students and unmarried pregnant students, as well as potentially discriminatory employment practices for staff.
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Trump will come again. Could be as an example of a “conspirituality”, a synthesis of New Age spirituality and conspiracy theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspirituality
Pastel QAnon is a collection of techniques and strategies that use “soft” and feminine aesthetics[3] – most notably pastel colors – that are used to attract women into the QAnon conspiracy theory, often using mainstream social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Telegram and YouTube.
Pastel QAnon social media influencers focus on aspects of the theory that tend to appeal to maternal instincts, such as the prevention of child sexual abuse and child sex trafficking, and use emotive and personable language. They are popular among wellness, yoga and New Age influencers. The term was coined by Marc-André Argentino, a researcher at Concordia University, Canada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastel_QAnon
Pastel QAnon uses feminine aesthetics, a pastel color palette, inspirational imagery, cute fonts, design language and phrases that are commonly used to market products and services aimed at women. This aesthetic includes glitter; diluted colors; handwriting fonts; illustrations and photographs of natural scenery, fashion, make up and aspirational lifestyles; and language such as spiritual and motivational quotations; in styles with which the targeted groups are familiar to make them attractive.
Becca Lewis, Stanford University researcher of online political subcultures, said:
We say you “fall down a rabbit hole”. But it’s not how the ecosystem actually works. So much of this content is being disseminated by super popular accounts with absolutely mainstream aesthetics … If you’re able to make this covetable, beautiful aesthetic and then attach these conspiracy theories to it, that normalizes the conspiracy theories in a very specific way that Instagram is particularly good for.
In MAGA they get to ‘express’ themselves while simultaneously getting ripped off without realizing it [If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.-LBJ]
The aestheticization of politics was an idea first coined by Walter Benjamin as being a key ingredient to fascist regimes. Benjamin said that fascism tends towards an aestheticization of politics, in the sense of a spectacle in which it allows the masses to express themselves without seeing their rights recognized, and without affecting the relations of ownership which the proletarian masses aim to eliminate. Benjamin said:
“Fascism attempts to organize the newly proletarianized masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life.”
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Gap Psychology
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Yes the MAGA spectacle minds the gap while letting the lessers express themselves. MAGAs don’t support social welfare policies because they all see themselves as “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”.
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Apparently, the GOP now is composed of bigots, extremists, cowards, gun nuts, and traitors. None of them has the integrity and courage to tell the truth. A pitiful end for America.
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