Republicanism as Bad Religion
The “Cult” of Trump in Contemporary American Politics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.23200Keywords:
rhetoric, cult discourse, evangelicalism, Christian nationalism, anthropologyAbstract
Since Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, it has become commonplace for his opponents to refer to him as a “cult leader.” The apparent fanaticism of his supporters inspires both awe and fear in observers. His propensity to disseminate conspiracy theories and alleged encouragement of the Jan 6 insurrection pushes Trump beyond the boundaries of political norms. In this article, I trace the elements of Trump’s rhetorical and political style that led to accusations of his being some sort of charismatic “cult leader.” The analysis broadens to discuss the complex interconnections between modern Republicanism in the US and Protestant Christianity, examining how a form of nationalist morality has come to uphold their claims to power. Both opponents and supporters of Donald Trump see him in a religious frame, either as a dangerous authoritarian leader or messianic saviour. What does this tell us about the definitions and boundaries of religion and politics? And why does Donald Trump seem to trouble those boundaries?
References
Ali, Wajahat. 2021. “It’s time to put the right-wing zombie death cult on trial.” Daily Beast. https://www.thedailybeast.com/its-time-to-put-the-right-wing-zombie-death-cult-on-trial
Barker, Eileen. 2004. “Why the cults? New Religious Movements and freedom of religion or belief.” In Facilitating Freedom of Religion or Belief: A Deskbook, edited by Tore Lindholm, W. Cole Durham, and Bahia G. Tahzib-Lie, 571–594. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-5616-7_25
———. 2010. “The cult as a social problem.” In Religion and Social Problems, edited by Titus Hjelm, 198–212. New York: Routledge.
———. 2011. “Stepping out of the Ivory Tower: A sociological engagement in ‘The Cult Wars.’” Methodological Innovations Online 6(1): 18–39. https://doi.org/10.4256/mio.2010.0026
Beverley, James A. 2020. God’s Man in the White House: Donald Trump in Modern Christian Prophecy. Burlington, ON: Castle Quay Books.
Butler, Anthea. 2021. White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. https://doi.org/10.5149/northcarolina/9781469661179.001.0001
Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic. 2017. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. 3rd edition. New York: NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1ggjjn3
Du Mez, Kristin Kobes. 2021. Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. New York: W.W. Norton.
Gusterson, Hugh. 2017. “From Brexit to Trump: Anthropology and the rise of nationalist populism.” American Ethnologist 44(2): 209–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12469
Hagan, Joe. 2021. “‘So many great, educated, functional people were brainwashed’: Can Trump’s followers be deprogrammed?” Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/can-trumps-cult-of-followers-be-deprogrammed
Harding, Susan. 2001. The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691190464
Hassan, Steve. 2018. “A response to academics who say there is no undue influence in destructive cults.” Freedom of Mind Resource Center. https://freedomofmind.com/a-response-to-academics-who-say-there-is-no-undue-influence-in-destructive-cults/
———. 2019. The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Hinton, Marva. 2016. “Arizona State school board votes to replace common core.” EdWeek. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/arizona-state-school-board-votes-to-replace-common-core/2016/12
Jones, Robert P. 2016. The End of White Christian America. New York: Simon & Schuster.
———. 2021. White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Kamenetz, Anya. 2021. “A look at the groups supporting school board protesters nationwide.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/10/26/1049078199/a-look-at-the-groups-supporting-school-board-protesters-nationwide
Kelley, Dana. 2021. “Opinion: Critical race cult.” Arkansas Democrat Gazette. https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/mar/26/critical-race-cult/
McIntosh, Janet. 2020. “Introduction: The Trump era as linguistic emergency.” In Language in the Trump Era: Scandals and Emergencies, edited by Janet McIntosh and Norma Mendoza-Denton, 24–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108887410
Mendoza Denton, Norma. 2020. “We in Latin America know a messianic autocrat when we see one.” In Language in the Trump Era: Scandals and Emergencies, edited by Janet McIntosh and Norma Mendoza-Denton, 354–375. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108887410.019
Moore, Rebecca. 2018. “Godwin’s Law and Jones’ Corollary: The problem of using extremes to make predictions.” Nova Religio 22 (2): 145–54. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2018.22.2.145
Nierenberg, Amelia. 2021. “The Conservative School Board Strategy.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/us/the-conservative-school-board-strategy.html
Pilkington, Ed. 2021. “Congresswoman and Jonestown survivor Jackie Speier: ‘Trump is a political cult leader.’” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/11/jackie-speier-congresswoman-jonestown-survivor-trump-is-a-political-cult-leader
Porter, Tom. 2021. “Pelosi said the Republican Party has been hijacked by a ‘cult’ and slammed Trump’s ‘disdain for governance.’” Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/pelosi-says-gop-hijacked-by-cult-capitol-riot-2021-9
Reichert, Jenny, James T. Richardson and Rebecca Thomas. 2015. “‘Brainwashing’: Diffusion of a questionable concept in legal systems.” International Journal for the Study of New Religions 6(1): 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v6i1.22186
Rothschild, Mike. 2021. The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything. New York: Melville House.
Saunders, George. 2016. “Who are all these Trump supporters?” The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/11/george-saunders-goes-to-trump-rallies
Segers, Grace. 2021. “Adam Schiff says Republican Party has ‘become essentially a cult.’” CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/adam-schiff-republican-party-cult/
Sharlet, Jeff. 2020. “‘He’s the Chosen One to run America’: Inside the Cult Of Trump, his rallies are church and he is the gospel.” Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/inside-the-cult-of-trump-his-rallies-are-church-and-he-is-the-gospel
Slotta, James. 2019. “The annotated Donald Trump: Signs of circulation in a time of bubbles.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 29 (3): 397–416. https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12228
Snow, David A. 2023. “Cults.” The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, edited by David A. Snow, Donatella della Porta, Doug McAdam and Bert Klandermans. London: John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470674871.wbespm708
Stolee, Galen; Caton, Steve. 2018. “Twitter, Trump, and the Base: A Shift to a New Form of Presidential Talk?” Signs and Society, 6(1): 147–65. https://doi.org/10.1086/694755
Taussig, Michael T. 2017. “Trump Studies.” Cultural Anthropology. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/1046-trump-studies.
Taylor, Jessica. 2016. “Donald Trump rally in Chicago canceled amid widespread protests.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/2016/03/11/470154065/donald-trump-rally-in-chicago-canceled-amid-widespread-protests
Wallace-Wells, Benjamin. 2021. “How a Conservative activist invented the conflict over Critical Race Theory.” The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory
Walley, Christine J. 2017. “Trump’s election and the ‘white working class’: What we missed.” American Ethnologist 44(2): 231–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12473
Whitehead, Andrew, and Samuel Perry. 2020. Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190057886.001.0001
Willenbrink, Hank. 2021. “Vessel, Messiah, Warrior: Donald Trump in Evangelical Christian Narratives.” Ecumenica 14(2): 221-247. https://doi.org/10.5325/ecumenica.14.2.0221
