I am on the fence regarding that one. Obama was the right guy for the moment in the aftermath of W. He was the anti-Iraq War guy that McCain and Hillary could not be. He did inspire a certain degree of hope and enthusiasm. But it all evaporated pretty quickly. Moreover, no one was really in his thrall. No one felt compelled to follow his will. Obama was pretty arrogant in some ways, and yet that never moved anyone to say that "whatever Obama says goes."Gadianton wrote: ↑Thu Aug 17, 2023 2:38 pmIt may be he's one of a growing body of examples of a cult of criminality. According to Peter Zeihan, Barack Obama was a cult of Personality. Trump is something a little different than we've seen before.The Rev wrote:There is a substantive difference between slimy politics as usual and an unhinged cult of personality.
A real cult of personality is a GOP platform that says, "See Trump."
No, cult of personality may have once been a good comparandum or concept to think with in past presidencies. Trump is the real deal. People in masses are prepared to go down with his sinking ship.
Kim is the next generation of a well-established ruler cult. He is like Caligula. Not the beginning of the dynasty and feeling free to do bizarre stuff that the founder never would have done. Overall, I find your comments here very thought provoking. You are touching on the fact that revolutions require a certain level of lawlessness. They benefit from the scoffing of the law, and they need to press that aggressively. As soon as Trump delayed turning over control of his businesses to his sons, I knew we were in trouble. It is not that this was against the law per se. It was the fact that at the pinnacle of power someone was flouting tradition.Putin and the Kim regime are examples of cults of personality and they are criminals, but I'm not sure they qualify for what I'm thinking about (I could be wrong here) because my impression isn't that the personality cult brought them to power or significantly keeps them in power. But even if that were true, there is still a difference.
Trump is of the same genre as Sovereign Citizens who just make up whatever, and then never surrender, especially in the context of conflicting with the law. If Trump decides that green is red and red is green, then it's a matter of convincing enough followers in the right places to agree with him and point to the grass and say, "red". Unlike gravity, being president isn't one of those truths that persist when you go to sleep at night. If Trump and Rudy can wink at the Supreme Court or a few election officials and get them to say, "oh yeah, you're right, you did win!" then at some point he might succeed at being president.
Sovereign Citizens will be arrested over and over again for the same things and they'll just repeat the same string of nonsense. "I wasn't driving, I was travelling." It appears that folks who are able to tap into the zombie mode required to join the cult have a whole lot of determination and energy to continue. Maybe at some point, the cops will see that car without plates, roll their eyes, and let it go because it's not worth the hassle.
That saying, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" is more like "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (people) to tire of the repetitive nonsense of fanatics."
When Ajax speaks, you've got to slap him down every time. That's one thing that's heartening about all the lawsuits, I think it's a little risky, but it's one way to turn their game against them, in the one limited parallel of persistence. I've heard Arizona might get in on the dogpile, I hope they do.
Law may theoretically keep everyone in check, but tradition keeps the powerful in check as long as they revere and follow it. The willingness of the powerful to flout tradition becomes the license for their followers to break the law.
